goal – Radio Free

Own Goal: Throwing Spaghetti At the Desperate Wall

Abby Zimet — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 07:42:00 +0000

Flailing to distract once-loyal cultists who've turned unexpectedly unruly on the murky matter of bestie Jeffrey Epstein - "The people are revolting!" - Trump is busy shouting "Look! Over there!" about myriad other shiny objects: The "Redskins," the FBI files on MLK, his "Golden Age," star-turn at soccer, "Dollar-Tree-Versailles" Oval Office, more spray tan, less corn syrup, the deranged need to jail "Barack HUSSEIN Obama." Still, MAGA remains wary: "He’s wearing makeup on his hands, so things are just getting weird."

The people's fledgling revolt - Mel Brooks: "They stink on ice" - is reflected in news polls showing Trump's approval plummeting at least 16 points to hover around 40%. On immigration, only about 35% approve of his crackdowns; just 23% support his deportations of undocumented immigrants with no criminal record, a figure likely to drop with news his flunkies gave ICE access to the Medicaid records of nearly 80 million people in another bogus hunt for "illegals," who can't get Medicaid. More smoke and mirrors: For all their performative cruelty, Trump’s ICE raids have led to fewer deportations than under Obama and barely more than under Biden, and the whole gaudy, ghastly spectacle of disappearing hundreds of Venezuelans to CECOT ended in a swap for 10 Americans jailed, intoned Marco Rubio with no trace of irony, "without proper due process."

Americans also hate the tariffs, big ugly bill, rising prices. They're worried about health insurance, also those ankles. And now Dear Leader is calling them "losers" and "bad people" because they wanna know the story behind Jeffrey Epstein's file, which Pam Bondi just said was sitting on her desk, but then she said oops never mind, and Trump keeps saying it's all a "scam” by Dems except if it doesn't exist how could Dems have written it and they "don't understand why (he) would do this - it doesn't make sense." His former bestie Musk chimed in - "Wow, I can’t believe Epstein killed himself before realizing it was all a hoax” - and he even lost Nazi Nick Fuentes. "Fuck you," Fuentes screeched. "You're fat, you're a joke, you're stupid...This entire thing has been a scam. We're gonna look back at the MAGA movement as the biggest scam in history. The liberals were right." Yikes.

Improbably, with all the atrocities he's committed - pussy, racism, Nazis, sedition, grift, seven gazillion lies - the furor over Epstein seems to be sticking, at least for now. About 80% of Americans think the government should release all documents in the case, including 85% of Democrats and three-quarters of Independents and Republicans. Only 4% think it shouldn't. It didn't help when Bondi made a big deal about releasing "raw" video footage outside Epstein's prison cell the night he died to prove nobody offed him, only for Wired to reveal nearly three minutes were missing, sparking MAGA frenzy about a Deep State plot nicely dovetailing with QAnon's insistence Bill Clinton and other Dems lead a child porn cabal Trump will save them from - except maybe for that interview where he said, "I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with."

Since then, he's kept trying to steer his conspiracy-addicted base away from the mess even as his agitation grows. At a recent Cabinet meeting, he rambled about flags, clocks, lamps. He raved Chuck Schumer has "become a Palestinian” and the bombers that attacked Iran "went skedaddle." Asked about Epstein, he lost it: "Are you still talking (about) this creep? When we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things...It's a desecration." Then he veered to the Serious Topic of interior design. Having packed the Oval Office with so many crappy gold tchotchkes it "looks like Liberace threw up all over it," he moved to vaguely musing whether to gold-leaf or gold-paint the corners and moldings: “If you paint it, that's easy, but it won’t look good because they’ve never found a paint that looks like gold." On each side of him, Rubio and Hegseth did their deer-in-headlights routine.

But Epstein kept re-surfacing. Trump reportedly fought to kill it, but the Wall Street Journal went ahead with publishing their story about a lewd birthday card Trump sent Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003: Several lines of text framed by the outline of a naked woman, signed by a squiggly “Donald” where her pubic hair would be. "We have certain things in common, Jeffrey," he wrote ominously. "May every day be another wonderful secret." Caught, he said it was fake. He said Obama and Biden made it up. He said, "These are not my words...Also, I don't make drawings." Online, 7,000 people helpfully posted images of his often-auctioned drawings, mostly of cityscapes drawn with a heavy marker. Straight-faced, the New York Times noted, "They are not dissimilar to how The Wall Street Journal describes the birthday note he sent Mr. Epstein."

Trump did what he always does: He threatened to sue for defamation: "Thank you for your attention to this matter." Then he did. In a complaint that misstated the WSJ story and "reads like a press release," he sued WSJ publisher Dow Jones & Co., its parent company News Corp, Rupert Murdoch and others for $10 billion in damages. Then, hoping to end "this SCAM," he asked Pam Bondi to release grand jury testimony on Epstein - "a meaningless trick" because courts tend to prohibit such disclosure, and even if it went ahead he asked the court for "appropriate redactions of victim-related and other personal identifying information." Still, The Good Liars jumped in to help foster transparency by stocking the gift shop display racks at Trump Tower with post cards of the famed image of the two smiling perverts, "up to no good." Next to them, Melania gazes out, robotic.

Sensing a losing fight, Trump's deflection campaign.grew ever more bonkers. Marking the six-month anniversary of "one of the most consequential periods of any President, including ending numerous wars" (say wut?), when "one year ago our country was DEAD" (ditto), he released a cheesy, cringey, AI-generated video declaring, "Day 179 of the “Trump Golden Age." Cue fireworks and fake eagles soaring over the White House while dropping dollar bills to the song Make It Rain Reviews: "Downright embarrassing,” "Really gross," "They need to use AI because we are not seeing tangible evidence of anything good." Musk’s Nazi chatbot Grok: "Where eagles crap cash and fireworks fix everything. Reality check: Golden parachutes for billionaires while the rest dodge inflation hailstones." And, “Why don’t you make it rain Epstein files?”

— (@)

It got wilder Friday after Director of National Intelligence (sic) Tulsi Gabbard announced she's referring Obama officials to the DOJ for prosecution over allegations they “manufactured” intelligence about Russia in the 2016 election. Newly declassified documents show Obama et al "politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump"; they must be punished "for the American people to have any sense of trust in the integrity of our democratic republic." MAGA piled on. It was "a pivotal fracture in American trust," it "makes Watergate look like Amateur Hour." Stephen Goebbels was feverish: Gabbard "has exposed the startling depths of a seditious coup against the republic. The forces behind (it) will do anything to protect their grasp (on) illegitimate power. Do not underestimate their capabilities or depravities." Whew.

On her Sunday show, Maria Bartiromo brought up Gabbard’s news 18 times. Epstein: 0. Trump posted about it 17 times; inspired, he's been tirelessly flinging spaghetti at the wall to see what'll stick. He proclaimed, with carefully curated images, "STACKING UP WINS": "Ice Cream makers pledge to remove artificial colors," "Consumer prices rise less than expected." He railed against "thief" Adam Schiff. He said Coke will replace their corn syrup with sugar. (Coke said, wait what?) He posted videos of wacky stunts. (A woman grabbing a snake was fake). Against the wishes of family and colleagues, he released 200,000 pages of records of FBI surveillance of MLK Jr., under seal since 1977. King's two surviving children called it “an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing” operation “to discredit, dismantle and destroy” King and the movement he led.

Speaking of "invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing,” the fragile, petty, vengeful boy-king, feeling he hadn't gone quite far enough to offend and distract, also posted an AI compilation of fake mugshots, dubbed "The Shady Bunch, featuring Democrats - most notably "Barack Hussein Obama" - in orange prison jumpsuits. A day or so later, evidently feeling especially insecure, he went especially crass. The new AI video starts with multiple Democratic pols declaring, "No one is above the law." Then it goes to a fake scenario of FBI agents arresting Obama in the Oval Office as Trump sits, beams, gloats. It moves to Obama, jump-suited in a jail cell, all while the Village People sing YMCA. In response, at least one sick fan of this cretin urged Pam Bondi, "MAKE THIS A REALITY." Truly, you gotta wonder what malignant, hallucinatory reality these fucking creeps inhabit.

— (@)

Meanwhile, their leader keeps flouting laws and probity; in a recent lawsuit brought by watchdog group CREW for refusing to disclose spending decisions as mandated by law - regime flunkies deemed it "an unconstitutional encroachment" on their tinpot's whims - U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivana blasted the mob-boss' "extravagant and unsupported theory of presidential power" and declared, "Defendants are therefore required to stop violating the law!" Alas, arbitrary and often punitive rules still reign. Press Barbie just announced the Wall Street Journal will be banned from the press pool for an upcoming trip to Scotland for their "fake and defamatory conduct" - is fake conduct a thing? - aka committing journalism and reporting the ugly, pubic-doodling truth about the sexual predator now defiling our pimped-up Oval Office.

Still deflecting - and still racist - he also just demanded the Washington Commanders, along with Cleveland Guardians, return to their old, offensive names, Redskins and Indians, witlessly claiming, "Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen." Ever the bully, he even threatened to renege on a plan to build the Washington team a new stadium in D.C. "Indians are being treated very unfairly," he blathered. "MAKE INDIANS GREAT AGAIN (MIGA)!!" Of course Native activists called bullshit on returning to names they fought for years to remove as "a slur." "We are language keepers, land protectors, survivors of attempted genocide and part of sovereign nations," said one. "To equate Native people with cartoonish mascots (is) a gross and ongoing tactic of dehumanization...We are being used as tools for a distraction."

In another cringe move, the sports wannabe made it all about himself at the World Cup Final at New Jersey's MetLife Stadium, where Chelsea won a surprise 3-0 victory against Paris Saint-Germain. The crowd booed Trump before he crashed the postgame ceremony, lumbering onstage to hand over the trophy and then staying put as Chelsea's Captain asked, “Are you going to leave?” and FIFA head Gianni Infantino tried to pull him away to allow the team their victory photo. In the end, there he was - fat, rumpled, cluelessly claiming "I've earned a spot in the shot" - as players whooped around him. The team didn't even get the real trophy; at an earlier photo-op at the White House, Trump claimed that too. But in sports as in life, strategy is key. For hours, no official photo of "the team moment” appeared on Chelsea's website; when it finally did, Trump had been scrubbed out.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

‘The Goal Is to Put the Words “Iran” and “Nuclear” in the Same Sentence’: CounterSpin interview with Adam Johnson on media in war mode

Janine Jackson — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 20:15:54 +0000

Janine Jackson interviewed Citations Needed‘s Adam Johnson about media in war mode for the June 27, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250627Johnson.mp3

AP (via PBS, 6/26/25)

Janine Jackson: We are recording June 26 in medias res, but AP’s latest gives us enough to start:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine doubled down Thursday on how destructive the US attacks had been on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and described in detail the study and planning behind the bombing mission, but they stopped short of detailing how much the attack set back the nation’s nuclear program.

We hear also Trump saying, “I’m not happy with Israel because they have broken the ceasefire” that he, we hear, created, adding that Iran and Israel have been fighting “so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.” I can’t say that word on the radio, says the FCC, but Trump can say it because—well, you and I don’t know.

The US went to war with Iran last week without congressional, much less public, approval. But most of us only know what we know through corporate news media, and that’s a problem.

Joining us now is Adam Johnson, media analyst and co-host of the podcast Citations Needed. He’s coauthor, with In These Times contributing editor Sarah Lazare, of a couple of recent relevant pieces in In These Times. And he joins us now by phone from Illinois. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Adam Johnson.

Adam Johnson: Thank you for having me.

JJ: So we don’t know what’s going to happen with Iran. Maybe we’re not at war, that would be great, but sadly, we do know what corporate news media will do, because they’ll do what they do. We saw them pull out the playbook, scratch out Iraq, Afghanistan, Eastasia, and write in Iran; or maybe scratch down deeper to get to Iran 1953, and here we go again. It’s many things, but one thing for sure that it is is predictable.

Column (6/22/25)

AJ: So the primary thing that the news media keep doing, pundits and reporters alike, specifically Jake Tapper at CNN, which we wrote about, is they keep saying “nuclear weapons program.” And the goal, generally, is just to put the words “Iran” and “nuclear” in the same sentence, over and over and over again.

The public will largely fill in the blanks, and the media make no effort to even really point out that they, in fact, don’t have a nuclear weapon, or a nuclear weapons program, which is a really important piece of context to know, but it’s almost never mentioned. And this is according to the US intelligence’s own assessment, DNI, CIA, 19 other different intelligence agencies, all came to the same conclusion, and have since 2007.

However, pundits repeatedly say “nuclear weapons program,” but it’s not a nuclear weapons program. And there’s several instances, like I said, of Jake Tapper saying it, several people in Congress have said it. You could say maybe it’s a slip of the tongue by accident, but when basically no one else on CNN but Jake Tapper does it, it doesn’t really seem like an accident; it seems like he’s very clearly making an assertion. Now, if Jake Tapper has access to secret, proprietary intelligence that the CIA doesn’t have, maybe he should tell them?

And what we saw in the buildup to Trump’s bombing of Iran, which we now know was largely theatrical, thank God, was that the sort of ticking time bomb scenario, that he and JD Vance and others were going to the media with, was obviously, by their own admission, and by the New York Times’ own reporting, not based on any new intelligence. It was “a reassessment of old intelligence,” I believe is how the New York Times put it. There’s another name for that: It’s called ideologically motivated bullshit.

But repeatedly, the CIA, which weirdly was pushing back on this, I guess to their credit, in the Wall Street Journal and CNN, was saying, No, no, no, no. Iran’s increased enriched uranium, but it’s just a bargaining chip. It’s a way of getting the US to come to the table so they can relieve these sanctions which have crippled their economy, the only mechanism they plausibly have to do that. But they made no decision. And even if they did make a decision to build a bomb, it would take upwards of three years.

So this is the context that is completely missing or overshadowed, and there’s going to be a poll coming out. I asked one of these progressive polling groups to add it, and I don’t know when it’s going to come out, but what I’d be curious to know is, what percentage of the American public thinks that Iran currently has a nuclear weapon? I suspect it’s probably 70-some odd, 80%.

Because, again, if you say the word “nuclear” and “Iran” over and over again, people are going to have that impression. They don’t believe—why would they have a civilian program? Even though, of course, over 30 countries have a civilian nuclear program but don’t have nuclear weapons; it’s pretty common. And that is just not part of how the public interprets it.

So the public is widely misled on this issue, which, again, gives the impression of some radical cartoon “terrorist” who’s going to blow up Tel Aviv or Manhattan.

New York Times (6/28/25)

Second to that, you have a lot of the New York Times opinion section, for example, rushing to delegitimize the government, citing a very dubious poll saying 80% of Iranians want regime change, when all other polls show the number is probably closer to 40 or 50.

And, of course, how that regime change happens is very contestable; a lot of people hate Trump, but they don’t want China to come bomb us. That’s a totally different claim, right?

You had laundering of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which is a pro-Israel think tank, you had laundering of their claims that Iran is now housing the head of Al Qaeda. This is all a rehash, word for word, of Iraq War stuff.

So the New York Times was doing its part, as were some other outlets. But for the most part, the White House seems to have wanted a “cool bombing” PR thing. And then what some suspect, and I don’t know, this is just idle speculation, is that Israel was suffering more damage than people knew. And unlike bombing South Lebanon or Gaza, Iran can actually fight back, and Israel couldn’t sustain or couldn’t maintain its defense posture.

And so they basically used this as a way of getting a ceasefire that they needed anyway. But not by lack of trying on the part of the Washington Post, which actually called for Trump to keep bombing Iran in their editorial board.

FAIR.org (6/23/25)

JJ: There are so many questions that are under the table in this conversation, which is what makes me so upset with media. Media pretend they’re posing questions, and so we’re supposed to imagine that they’ve considered them deeply, but to just draw us back to basics: If the question is, “Should the US bomb Iran?” well, the answer is no, because that’s an overt violation of domestic and international law. The Constitution forbids it, the War Powers Resolution forbids it. But for corporate media, it’s like Bryce Greene just wrote for FAIR.org, the New York Times editorial board says, “America Must Not Rush Into a War Against Iran.” Of course we can do it, but let’s keep it cute, right? These are illegal actions.

AJ: They did the exact same thing in Iraq on March 2003. They published “No War With Iraq,” But if you read it, it says no war until you let the weapons inspectors do their job.

And then in the month prior, they published an editorial in February 2003, saying if Saddam Hussein doesn’t hand over his biological and chemical weapons, that the US has to use military force. Now that’s an argument for war, because of course Saddam Hussein didn’t have biological and chemical weapons.

JJ: So he can’t show them.

New York Times (6/12/25)

AJ: So, yeah, this is the scope of debate. The scope of debate is not, “Is it justified or moral? Why is Israel not a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty? Why do they not have IAEA inspectors?” There’s this kind of faux-liberal world order narrative.

And that’s why the IAEA report was so powerful. It was a 19 to 16 vote, it was almost along party lines, kind of pro-US/Israel, pro-Russia/pro-China.

And then, quickly, the head of the IAEA says, “Oh, no, no, don’t interpret this as us saying that in any way Iran has made a decision or is somehow accelerating an actual nuclear program.” But that’s not how it was interpreted. Like the New York Times, which had it as a head story the day Israel started bombing Iran, to give it this veneer of liberal rules enforcement, which is obviously absurd, because Israel is not subject to any of these rules. It has an estimated 100 to 300 nukes.

So the scope of debate in these editorials and these opinion sections is not “Do we have any legitimacy to be bombing Iran?” but, “Is bombing Iran the best way to stop them from enriching uranium?” which, again, is entirely within their rights under international law. They have a right to a civilian nuclear program, like any other country does.

JJ: And this is the implicit undergirding of corporate media’s debate, that some countries are “good,” and they can have world-destroying weapons—declared, undeclared, whatever. And some countries are, as Van Jones put it on CNN, “not normal.” Because, if we are looking for “normal,” we got Donald Trump! We got masked agents abducting people off the street…

Adam Johnson: “The scope of debate…is not ‘Do we have any legitimacy to be bombing Iran?’ but ‘Is bombing Iran the best way to stop them from enriching uranium?’”

AJ: And we have the US and Israel openly operating a mass starvation campaign through human genocide, not even euphemism. So I guess this is what normal countries do. They have a daily ritual killing of scores, sometimes hundreds of Palestinians that are desperately lining up for grains of rice and wheat. That’s what normal countries do.

And, again, it’s very weird. There’s this zombie liberal “rules-based order” framing that is still going on, despite the fact that there’s an unfolding genocide that’s lost all pretense of international law. And so there’s this “Oh, the US has to be a policeman and police the world” faux-liberal framework that Trump doesn’t take seriously, Netanyahu doesn’t take seriously, but the media, especially the kind of prestige editorial pages and opinion pages, the New York Times and Washington Post, have to maintain that this is still a thing.

And, of course, people like Van Jones and Jake Tapper at CNN, this idea that there’s normal countries, there’s the goodies and then there’s the baddies. And so even though the goody countries are carrying out this almost cartoon evil, completely removing a people in whole or in part from Earth, and an actual explicit starvation campaign, not even hiding it—that’s what they’re calling it; it’s very weird.

In 2003, when they did this, there was a little more kind of post–Cold War credibility, and now there’s zero. And it’s very strange to watch the vestiges of that framework still go on, regardless of the new facts, and the fact that the majority of Americans think that there’s a genocide going on. No one outside of the Washington Post editorial board and the New York Times editorial board buys any of this shit.

JJ: Exactly. And just, finally, when you try to intervene, you find yourself making arguments at a level that you don’t accept. Like, “Well, they shouldn’t attack Iran’s nuclear capacities, nuclear facilities.” They said “nuclear weapons,” but then they can suck weapons out of it, and they know that it’s still going to be read the same way.

AJ: Yeah, it’s implied.

JJ: And then you also want to say, “Well wait, there’s no evidence of Iran having weaponry.” And then you want to say, “Well, Iran’s allowed to have nuclear weaponry.” And then you have to say, “If we acknowledged Israel’s nuclear weaponry, we wouldn’t legally be allowed to arm them.” So there’s all of these unspoken things, and yet, to silence them is the price of admission to get into “serious people conversation.” And that’s obviously why a lot of people clock out of elite media, because the price of admission is too high.

AJ: It is just not credible, to sit there and talk about international law; you have to have some kind of ostensibly high-minded liberal reason why you’re bombing a country. It’s just not credible, with what we’ve seen over the last two years. It’s very strange. And there’s a kind of think tank/media nexus that has to maintain this fiction, and watching them talk about Iran in such a way that was, again, every kind of terrorist cartoon, every “war on terror” framing, ticking time bomb…. Again, it doesn’t have to make any sense. It’s supposed to just be vaguely racist and vaguely feels true.

But the question in a lot of these panels was like, “What’s the best way to overthrow the regime?” You’d have a liberal on being like, “Well, we need to do the kind of meddling NED stuff and promote groups and this and that, and maybe even arm some ethnic minority groups, and maybe some Kurdish rebels.” And they’re openly just discussing how you overthrow a government.

It’s like, well, OK, so you see them as being illegitimate, can you just provide a list of the legitimate and illegitimate governments for us, and then we can figure out how the US is supposed to take out all the illegitimate ones? The whole thing is so casually chauvinist and casually imperial, they don’t even think about what they’re doing.

JJ: Exactly. Well, where do you see hope, as you are still contributing to media? You believe in journalism; where do you see daylight?

AJ: You know, I don’t. I think social media helps in some ways. Obviously I think it democratized how people receive news coming out of Gaza, but even that’s been manipulated. They see social media CEOs get dragged in front of Congress, and they get disciplined under the auspices of fighting polarization or hate speech or fake news, but it’s all to prevent media that doesn’t fall within that national security directive, quite explicitly.

So I don’t know. I think those algorithms are easily manipulated. I think that the ways in which, even though very few people actually read the New York Times editorial board or watch the Sunday shows, but the ways in which those ideological, agenda-setting institutions still manage to trickle down, and promote seriousness and the concept of seriousness and what is serious and what isn’t, is still very effective. And I don’t really see that changing anytime soon.

JJ: Corporate news media are so many steps removed from human understanding, but they convey so powerfully the air that this is how smart people think. And you can think differently, but that will make you marginal. And even critics are stuck at, like, “don’t drop bombs.” And it becomes this very stale, rehearsed conversation, and we already know where it leads.

And what corporate media won’t do is show the vigor and the work and the intelligence of diplomacy. Media could make peacemaking a heroic effort. Kristi Noem could cosplay as a negotiator. They could sell a different story if they wanted to, is my feeling. So I don’t feel like journalism per se is broken. I feel like it’s being mal-used.

Joy Reid (with Jamie Metzl) on CNN (6/25/25)

AJ: Yeah, I think to the extent to which they have done that, there’s been people saying, “Oh, the Obama deal was working.” And that’s true to an extent, but the Obama deal was still predicated on a totally arbitrary and unfair sanctions regime that is not applied to other countries. But it is correct that it was working, I mean, if one assumes that “working” is Iran not having enriched uranium. So there were some people saying that.

And Joy-Ann Reid I would like to highlight as someone who did a good job pushing back on a lot of the stuff on CNN. She was fired because of her reporting on Gaza at MSNBC. But she’s reappeared as a pundit on CNN to, I guess, play devil’s advocate, as it were. And she’s done a tremendous job, actually, going on CNN and punching down these idiots. That was kind of nice to see. It’s very rare, though. Who knows if they’ll ask her back after that.

But the debate is like, “how much should we sanction Iran?” on the far left end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum is “should we go for regime change and kill hundreds of thousands of people?” Instead of saying, well, OK, if we do believe in these high-minded liberal concepts of an international rules-based order, then why don’t we go back to the drawing table and come up with rules, and actually apply them equally? Come up with a system where the US allies and US client states and to a great extent the US—which of course doesn’t sign a bunch of different treaties, cluster munitions, the ICC, the International Criminal Court—why don’t we come up with an actual rules-based order, instead of just whatever the US State Department and its buddies in Tel Aviv and Riyadh think?

That would be something that would maybe be worth pursuing, but it’s not. It’s this kind of weird, zombie, fake-consistent order, where if you’re deemed as being hostile to US and Israeli and Saudi security architecture in the Middle East, you are seen as per se ontologically evil, and in urgent need of disciplining, and in urgent need of either regime change or bombing or crippling sanctions that ruin your economy.

And that’s just taken for granted. And this is not particularly liberal or very thoughtful or very worldly. It’s knee jerk. It’s chauvinist. It’s obviously oftentimes racist, and that’s what narrows the debate. There’s no sense that we should apply any of these standards to any other country.

JJ: All right then. Well, we’ll end there for now. We’ve been speaking with media analyst Adam Johnson. He’s co-host, with Nima Shirazi, of the podcast Citations Needed. His substack is called the Column, and his work on Iran and other issues, co-authored with Sarah Lazare, can be found at InTheseTimes.com. Thank you so much, Adam Johnson, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

AJ: Thank you.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

‘Their Goal Is to Equate Protests for Palestine With Support for Terrorism’: CounterSpin interview with Chip Gibbons on freeing Mahmoud Khalil

Janine Jackson — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 15:51:48 +0000

Janine Jackson interviewed Defending Rights and Dissent’s Chip Gibbons about freeing Mahmoud Khalil for the June 12, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250613Gibbons.mp3

Zeteo (6/12/25)

Janine Jackson: As we record on June 12, the official death toll in Gaza is…something that need not be of specific concern, given ample evidence that no number would, in itself, magically change the indifference of powerful bodies to the ongoing crime of murder, starvation, displacement and erasure of Palestinians by Israel, with critical US material and political support. UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said recently, without trying to compare his experience to that of Gazans, that he has started therapy to deal with his experience, just witnessing trauma on this scale.

But when people speak up about something that bipartisan US politicians and US corporate media support, that criticism becomes suspect, by which is increasingly meant criminal. So here we are with Columbia University graduate—or what Fox News calls “anti-Israel ringleader”—Mahmoud Khalil, charged with no crime, but detained since March.

Chip Gibbons is policy director at Defending Rights & Dissent, and journalist and researcher working on a new history of FBI national security surveillance. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Chip Gibbons.

Chip Gibbons: It’s always a pleasure to be back on CounterSpin.

JJ: There’s always a lot I could talk with you about, but, for today, I know that listeners with horrible news coming at them from all sides may have lost the thread on Mahmoud Khalil. What is the latest on his case, and how good is that latest news? What should we think about it?

CG: As of June 12, when we’re recording this, Mahmoud Khalil is still detained at the LaSalle Immigration Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana. It is a private immigration prison. If you go on their website, they talk about their commitment to family values, but the conditions there—you’ll be shocked to learn this—are not very good. I’m not sure what type of family values they’re talking about.

CBS (6/13/25)

Recently, a judge has ruled on a preliminary injunction that Mahmoud Khalil brought, asking that the immigration provision that [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio relies on, that gives the secretary of state the power to expel someone from the country if they pose a threat to US foreign policy, is unconstitutional as applied to [Khalil], enjoined Rubio from enforcing it against him, voiding the determination that Rubio made, as well as enjoining the Trump administration from enforcing what Khalil’s lawyers alleged, and what I think is not really just an allegation at this point, is a policy of arresting and detaining noncitizens who criticize Israel or support Palestinian rights. The judge has given the Trump administration until Friday to appeal, and has stayed his own order.

Of all the other similarly situated individuals in immigration proceedings over their pro-Palestine speech, the judges have granted them bail pending a final motion. Khalil submitted a motion for bail. It’s never been ruled on, and now the judge has issued this injunction that could potentially set him free, but has given the government until Friday to file an appeal, and it’s unclear, if the government files the appeal, if that will further stay his time in detention.

And Khalil is a father. His child was born while he was detained. He was not able to attend the birth of his child, and for an extended period he was denied a contact visit with the newborn child until a judge intervened.

And the thing we have to remember here, this is very difficult to keep track of, is that Khalil is really in two separate legal proceedings right now. He’s in an immigration removal proceeding, which takes place in immigration court, and immigration court is not part of the “Article Three”—that’s Article Three of the US Constitution—judiciary.

It is part of the Department of Justice. Immigration Judges work for Pam Bondi, the attorney general. You can appeal an immigration judge’s decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is appointed by Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and the attorney general can reverse or modify any decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals. So immigration court is basically a kangaroo court.

At the same time, he’s challenging the constitutionality of this detention, not the removal itself, but the detention as unconstitutional in federal court, with what’s called a federal habeas petition. And the habeas corpus, of course, goes back to before the Magna Carta, but it was enshrined as a basic human right in the Magna Carta, and he’s arguing his detention is unconstitutional.

And the reason for these two proceedings is that immigration courts are very limited in what they can do, beyond the sort of kangaroo court nature that I just described, where the attorney general is usually the party seeking the deportation, and the person making the decision works for the attorney general, and if the attorney general doesn’t like their decision, they can modify it. The Board of Immigration Appeals ruled during the Clinton years that once the secretary of state makes a determination that someone’s presence in the US has adverse foreign policy consequences, they can be removed from the country. There’s essentially no defense, and immigration judges cannot hear constitutional challenges or issues.

On the flip side, federal courts are barred from hearing challenges to the attorney general’s enforcement or commencement of immigration proceedings, but they are allowed to weigh challenges to detention. So Khalil and other similarly situated defendants are using the habeas remedy to challenge the constitutionality of the detention.

Guardian (3/13/25)

In Khalil’s case, it gets very complicated even further, because the government has brought two “immigration charges” against him. One is the claim that his presence poses a threat to our foreign policy. The other is that he misled immigration officials on his application by not mentioning he was part of a student group, which it’s unclear why that would affect his Green Card.

And there’s also allegations about when he did or didn’t work for the British government. He worked at the British Embassy, I think, in Lebanon, and the Trump administration is bringing that up, which I believe was disclosed on his application. And his lawyers have offered information refuting this charge, but the immigration judge has refused to hear it.

The immigration judge, by the way, not only works for the Department of Justice, she’s a former ICE employee. She’s refused to hear it on the grounds that she doesn’t need to make a decision on this, because she has the Rubio determination. And the preliminary injunction only applies, we think, to the Rubio determination, because the judge ruled in the previous ruling he was unlikely to prevail on a constitutional challenge to the misleading application charge.

So that’s sort of the convoluted legal situation we’re in. Khalil is in a removal proceeding in immigration court. He’s in a federal challenge to detention in federal court, and a federal judge has issued an injunction to enforcing the Rubio determination against him, but not the second charge, which an immigration judge has refused to rule on. Rubio’s saying it’s a sole removal basis. And that judge has also issued a stay giving the government time to appeal. So he remains detained even though his detention is likely unconstitutional, and a judge has found that he suffers irreparable harm by this detention.

JJ: I want to lift up a piece that you mentioned that we’re seeing, is that criminality, or the ability to be detained, has to do with something you do having “adverse foreign policy consequences.” I know that folks hear that and are like, “What? What do you mean? If the current administration has certain foreign policy objectives, and I disagree with them, that means if I speak out in opposition, I’m committing a crime?”

CG: So I think we have to remember, and this gets sort of pedantic, but Khalil is not charged with a crime, and the provision is not a criminal provision. It is a provision about whether or not you can be admitted into the US or removed from the US. So Khalil has not been charged with any criminal offense. They’re invoking a provision that says if your presence has adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States…

JJ: Your presence, OK.

Al Jazeera (3/23/25)

CG: …signs a piece of paper saying this is true, or it makes determination of it, you can be deported from the US. So this is not a criminal matter.

What does this provision even cover or does not cover is a really fascinating question. And the judge in the Khalil habeas case has stated that it’s unconstitutional as applied to Khalil, because no reasonable person would have notice that this provision could apply to domestic political speech or domestic speech.

He noted a number of instances when it was used in the ’90s by the Clinton administration, but they were all against people who were accused of criminal conduct in foreign countries. So you had a Saudi national who was accused of terrorism in Jordan; you had an alleged paramilitary leader from Haiti. You had a Mexican official who was accused of a number of crimes; but it was not someone who was in this country and engaged in political speech about a foreign government’s genocide, and therefore no reasonable person would have any notice that this statute could apply to their domestic speech.

JJ: I’m going to keep us short for today, although there are much, much and myriad things we could talk about, but you and I both know that once politicians take up an individual case—Julian Assange, Michael Brown, Mahmoud Khalil—we know that then news media bring out the microscopes. Is this really a good guy? How did he treat his mother? I’m seeing some parking tickets here. There might be some particulars to investigate.

There’s almost a vocational effort to make there be something specific about this person that makes it make sense that they are being targeted. And then the effect of that is to tell everyone listening, As long as you don’t do what this guy did, you’re going to be safe. Why is the Mahmoud Khalil case so important to folks who don’t even know who Mahmoud Khalil is, and don’t understand why it matters?

Chip Gibbons: “This is a case about whether or not we have a First Amendment right to criticize Israel for engaging in a genocide in Gaza, or support the human rights of the Palestinian people.”

CG: This is a case about whether or not we have a First Amendment right to criticize Israel for engaging in a genocide in Gaza, or support the human rights of the Palestinian people. The case is currently about an obscure Cold War immigration provision, and whether or not it can be used to deport a lawful, permanent resident, all of which has profound legal questions for individuals in this country who are immigrants or noncitizens. But at the end of the day, we should not believe this will remain only in the noncitizen realm.

The Heritage Foundation, who laid out a lot of the playbook about using deportations to target student activists, has made it clear their final goal is to equate all protests for Palestine with material support for terrorism. In the past, when we’ve seen immigration enforcement abuse for political policing, J. Edgar Hoover during the Palmer raids; the Los Angeles Eight, who were supporters of Palestinian rights who the Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II administrations sought to deport, both of those cases preconfigure or forbode larger attacks of civil liberties that eventually affect everyone.

Which is not to say that we shouldn’t care about the rights of noncitizens; we should care about everyone’s free-speech rights.

But if you believe this is going to stay with Green Card holders or student visa holders, the goal is to take away your right to criticize a foreign apartheid state’s genocide, with the eventual goal of taking away your right to criticize US foreign policy. And this is the vehicle for doing it. It starts today, with the visa holders and the Green Card holders, but they will come for the natural-born citizens eventually, too, if they get away with this.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Chip Gibbons of Defending Rights & Dissent. They’re online at RightsAndDissent.org. Chip Gibbons, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

CG: Thank you for having me back.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

The Trump Administration Leaned on African Countries. The Goal: Get Business for Elon Musk.

by Joshua Kaplan, Brett Murphy, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski — Thu, 15 May 2025 09:30:00 +0000

by Joshua Kaplan, Brett Murphy, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

In early February, Sharon Cromer, U.S. ambassador to Gambia, went to visit one of the country’s Cabinet ministers at his agency’s headquarters, above a partially abandoned strip mall off a dirt road. It had been two weeks since President Donald Trump took office, and Cromer had pressing business to discuss. She needed the minister to fall in line to help Elon Musk.

Starlink, Musk’s satellite internet company, had spent months trying to secure regulatory approval to sell internet access in the impoverished West African country. As head of Gambia’s communications ministry, Lamin Jabbi oversees the government’s review of Starlink’s license application. Jabbi had been slow to sign off and the company had grown impatient. Now the top U.S. government official in Gambia was in Jabbi’s office to intervene.

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency loomed over the conversation. The administration had already begun freezing foreign aid projects, and early in the meeting, Cromer, a Biden appointee, said something that rattled Gambian officials in the room. She listed the ways that the U.S. was supporting the country, according to two people present and contemporaneous notes, noting that key initiatives — like one that funds a $25 million project to improve the electrical system — were currently under review.

Jabbi’s top deputy, Hassan Jallow, told ProPublica he saw Cromer’s message as a veiled threat: If Starlink doesn’t get its license, the U.S. could cut off the desperately needed funds. “The implication was that they were connected,” Jallow said.

In recent months, senior State Department officials in both Washington and Gambia have coordinated with Starlink executives to coax, lobby and browbeat at least seven Gambian government ministers to help Musk, records and interviews show. One of those Cabinet officials told ProPublica his government is under “maximum pressure” to yield.

In mid-March, Cromer escalated the campaign by writing to Gambia’s president with an “important request.” That day, a contentious D.C. meeting between Musk employees and Jabbi had ended in an impasse. She urged the president to circumvent Jabbi and “facilitate the necessary approvals for Starlink to commence operations,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by ProPublica. Jabbi told confidantes he felt the ambassador was trying to get him fired.

Lamin Jabbi, first image, head of Gambia’s communications ministry, and Sharon Cromer, U.S. ambassador to Gambia (Via the Facebook pages of Gambia’s Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, and the U.S. Embassy in Banjul, Gambia)

The saga in Gambia is the starkest known example of the Trump administration wielding the U.S. government’s foreign policy apparatus to advance the business interests of Musk, a top Trump adviser and the world’s richest man.

Since Trump’s inauguration, the State Department has intervened on behalf of Starlink in Gambia and at least four other developing nations, previously unreported records and interviews show.

As the Trump administration has gutted foreign aid, U.S. diplomats have pressed governments to fast-track licenses for Starlink and arranged conversations between company employees and foreign leaders. In cables, U.S. officials have said that for their foreign counterparts, helping Starlink is a chance to prove their commitment to good relations with the U.S.

In one country last month, the U.S. embassy bragged that Starlink’s license was approved despite concerns it wasn’t abiding by rules that its competitors had to follow.

“If this was done by another country, we absolutely would call this corruption,” said Kristofer Harrison, who served as a high-level State Department official in the George W. Bush administration. “Because it is corruption.”

Helping U.S. businesses has long been part of the State Department’s mission, but former ambassadors said they sought to do this by making the positive case for the benefits of U.S. investment. When seeking deals for U.S. companies, they said they took care to avoid the appearance of conflicts or leaving the impression that punitive measures were on the table.

Ten current and former State Department officials said the recent drive was an alarming departure from standard diplomatic practice — because of both the tactics used and the person who would benefit most from them. “I honestly didn’t think we were capable of doing this,” one official told ProPublica. “That is bad on every level.” Kenneth Fairfax, a retired career diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan, said the global push for Musk “could lead to the impression that the U.S. is engaging in a form of crony capitalism.”

The Washington Post previously reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has instructed U.S. diplomats to help Starlink so it can beat its Chinese and Russian competitors. Multiple countries, including India, have sped up license approvals for Starlink to try to build goodwill in tariff negotiations with the Trump administration, the Post reported.

ProPublica’s reporting provides a detailed picture of what that push has looked like in practice. After Gambia’s ambassador to the U.S. declined an interview about Starlink — a topic seen as highly sensitive given Musk’s position — ProPublica reporters traveled to the capital, Banjul, to piece together the events. This account is based on internal State Department documents and interviews with dozens of current and former officials from both countries, most of whom requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.

In response to detailed questions, the State Department issued a statement celebrating Starlink. “Starlink is an America-made product that has been a game changer in helping remote areas around the world gain internet connectivity,” a spokesperson wrote. “Any patriotic American should want to see an American company’s success on the global stage, especially over compromised Chinese competitors.” Cromer and Starlink did not respond to requests for comment, nor did the office of the president of Gambia. Jabbi made Jallow available to discuss the situation.

During the Biden administration, State Department officials worked with Starlink to help the company navigate bureaucracies abroad. But the agency’s approach appears to have become significantly more aggressive and expansive since Trump’s return to power, according to internal records and current and former government officials.

Foreign leaders are acutely aware of Musk’s unprecedented position in the government, which he has used to help rewrite U.S. foreign policy. After Musk spent at least $288 million on the 2024 election, Trump gave the billionaire a powerful post in the White House. In mere months, Musk’s team has directed the firing of thousands of federal workers, canceled billions of dollars in programs and dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, which supported humanitarian projects around the world. African nations have been particularly hard-hit by the cuts.

At the same time, Musk continues to run Starlink and the rest of his corporate empire. In past administrations, government ethics lawyers carefully vetted potential conflicts of interest. Though Trump once said that “we won’t let him get near” conflicts, the White House has also suggested Musk is responsible for policing himself. The billionaire has waved away criticisms of the arrangement, saying “I’ll recuse myself” if conflicts arise. “My companies are suffering because I’m in the government,” Musk said.

In a statement, the White House said Musk has nothing to do with deals involving Starlink and that every administration official follows ethical guidelines. “For the umpteenth time, President Trump will not tolerate any conflicts of interest,” spokesperson Harrison Fields said in an email.

Executives at Starlink have seized the moment to expand. An April State Department cable to D.C. obtained by ProPublica quoted a Starlink employee describing the company’s approach to securing a license in Djibouti, a key U.S. ally in Africa that hosts an American military base: “We’re pushing from the top and the bottom to ram this through.”

The headquarters of Gambia’s Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, a Cabinet agency headed by Lamin Jabbi (Brett Murphy/ProPublica)

Musk entered the White House at a pivotal moment for Starlink. When the service launched in 2020, it had a novel approach to internet access. Rather than relying on underground cables or cell towers like traditional telecom companies, Starlink uses low-orbiting satellites that let it provide fast internet in places its competitors had struggled to reach. Expectations for the startup were sky high. Bullish Morgan Stanley analysts predicted that by 2040, Starlink would have up to 364 million subscribers worldwide — more than the current population of the U.S.

Starlink quickly became a central pillar of Musk’s fortune. His stake in Starlink’s parent company, SpaceX, is estimated to be worth about $150 billion of his roughly $400 billion net worth.

Although the company says its user base has grown to over 5 million people, it remains a bit player compared to the largest internet providers. And the satellite internet market is set to become more competitive as well-funded companies launch services modeled on Starlink. Jeff Bezos’ Project Kuiper, a unit of Amazon, has said it expects to start serving customers later this year. Satellite upstarts headquartered in Europe and China aren’t far behind either.

“They want to get as far and as fast as they can before Amazon Kuiper gets online,” said Chris Quilty, a veteran space industry analyst.

In internal cables, State Department officials have said they are eager to help Musk get ahead of foreign satellite companies. Securing licenses in the next 18 months is critical for Starlink due to the growing competition, one cable said last month. Senior diplomats have written that they hope to give Musk’s company a “first-mover advantage.”

Africa represents a lucrative prize. Much of the continent lacks reliable internet. Success in Africa could mean dominating a market with the fastest-growing population on earth.

A technician mounts a Starlink satellite dish on a house in Niamey, Niger. (Boureima Hama/AFP/Getty Images)

As of last November, Starlink had reportedly launched in 15 of Africa’s 54 countries, but it was beginning to spark a backlash. Last year, Cameroon and Namibia cracked down on Musk’s company for allegedly operating in their countries illegally. In South Africa — where Starlink has so far failed to get a license — Musk exacerbated tensions by publicly accusing the government of anti-white racism. Since Trump won the election, at least five African countries have granted licenses to Starlink: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho and Chad.

Now Musk’s campaign of cuts has given him leverage inside the State Department. A Trump administration memo that leaked to the press last month proposed closing six embassies in Africa.

The Gambian embassy was on the list of proposed cuts.

An 8-year-old democracy, Gambia’s 2.7 million residents live on a sliver of land once used as a hub in the transatlantic slave trade. For two decades until 2017, the nation was ruled by a despot who had his opponents assassinated and plundered public funds to buy himself luxuries like a Rolls-Royce collection and a private zoo. When the dictator was ousted, the economy was in tatters. Today Gambia is one of the poorest countries in the world, with about half the country living on less than $4 a day.

In this fragile environment, the telecom industry that Jabbi oversees is vitally important to Gambian authorities. According to the government, the sector provides at least 20% of the country’s tax revenue. Ads for the country’s multiple internet providers are ubiquitous, painted onto dozens of public works — parks, police booths, schools.

It’s unclear why Starlink’s efforts in Gambia, a tiny market, have been so intense.

Banjul, the capital of Gambia, during New Year’s celebrations (Muhamadou Bittaye/AFP/Getty Images)

Cromer’s efforts on behalf of the company started under the Biden administration, as she documented last December in a cable sent back to Washington. Last spring, Starlink began the process of securing necessary approvals from a local utilities regulator and the Gambian communications agency. The utilities regulator wanted Starlink to pay an $85,000 license fee, which the company felt was too expensive. Cromer spoke to local officials, who then “pressured” the regulator to remove “this unnecessary barrier to entry,” the ambassador wrote.

Gambian supporters of Starlink felt that its product would be a boon for consumers and for economic growth in the country, where internet service remains unreliable and slow. “The ripple effects could be extraordinary,” Cromer said in the December cable, contending it could enable telehealth and improve education.

Opponents argued that local internet providers were one of Gambia’s few stable sources of jobs and infrastructure investments. If Starlink killed off its competition and then jacked up its prices — in Nigeria, the company announced last year it would suddenly double its fees — authorities could have little leverage to manage the fallout. When Musk refused to turn on Starlink in part of Ukraine during the war there, it heightened concerns about handing control of internet access to the mercurial billionaire, industry analysts said. One Musk tweet about foreign regulators’ ability to police his company caught the attention of Gambian critics: “They can shake their fist at the sky,” Musk said in 2021.

The ultimate authority for granting Starlink a license lies with Jabbi, an attorney who spent years in the local telecom sector. Gambian telecom companies that don’t want competition from Musk see Jabbi as an ally.

Jallow, Jabbi’s top deputy, told ProPublica that the ministry is not opposed to Starlink operating in Gambia. But he said Jabbi is doing due diligence to ensure laws and regulations are being followed before opening up the country to a consequential change.

After Trump’s inauguration, Jabbi’s position pitted him against not only Starlink but also the U.S. government. In the weeks after the February meeting where Cromer reminded Jabbi about the tenuous state of American funding to his country, the ambassador told other diplomats that getting Starlink approved was a high priority, according to a Western official familiar with her comments.

The stance surprised some of Cromer’s peers. Cromer had spent her career at USAID before President Joe Biden appointed her as ambassador. Her tenure in Gambia often focused on human rights and democracy building.

In March, when Jabbi and Jallow traveled to D.C. to attend a World Bank summit, the State Department helped arrange a series of meetings for them. The first, on March 19, was with Starlink representatives including Ben MacWilliams, a former U.S. diplomat who leads the company’s expansion efforts in Africa. The second was with U.S. government officials at the State Department’s headquarters.

The meeting with the company quickly became contentious. Huddled in a conference room at the World Bank, MacWilliams accused Jabbi of standing in the way of his nation’s progress and harming ordinary Gambians, according to Jallow, who was in the meeting, and four others briefed on the event. “We want our license now,” Jallow recalled MacWilliams saying. “Why are you delaying it?”

The conversation ended in a stalemate. In the hours that followed, Starlink and the U.S. government’s campaign intensified in a way that underscored the degree of coordination between the two parties. The company told Jabbi it would cancel his scheduled D.C. meeting with State Department officials because “there was no more need,” Jallow said.

The State Department meeting never happened. Instead, 4,000 miles away in Gambia’s capital, Cromer would try an even more aggressive approach.

That same day, Cromer had already met with Gambia’s equivalent of a commerce secretary to lobby him to help pave the way for Starlink. Then she was informed about the disappointing meeting Starlink had had in D.C., according to State Department records. By day’s end, Cromer had sent a letter to the nation’s president.

“I am writing to seek your support to allow Starlink to operate in The Gambia,” the letter opened. Over three pages, the ambassador described her concerns about Jabbi’s agency and listed the ways that Gambians could benefit from Starlink. She also said the company had satisfied conditions set by Jabbi’s predecessor.

“I respectfully urge you to facilitate the necessary approvals for Starlink to commence operations in The Gambia,” Cromer concluded. “I look forward to your favorable response.”

In the weeks since, Jabbi has refused to budge. The U.S. government’s efforts have continued. In late April, Gambia’s attorney general met in D.C. with senior State Department officials, according to a person familiar with the matter, where they again discussed the Starlink issue.

Diplomats were troubled by how the pressure campaign could hurt America’s image overseas. “This is not Iran or a rogue African state run by a dictator — this is a democracy, a natural ally,” said another senior Western diplomat in the region, noting that Gambia is “a prime partner of the West” in United Nations votes. “You beat up the smallest and the best boy in the class.”

Gambia is not the only country being leaned on. Since Trump took office, embassies around the world have sent a flurry of cables to D.C. documenting their meetings with Starlink executives and their efforts to cajole developing countries into helping Musk’s business. The cables all describe a problem similar to what happened in Gambia: The company has struggled to win a license from local regulators. In some countries, ambassadors reported, their work appears to be yielding results. (The embassies and their host countries did not respond to requests for comment.)

The U.S. embassy in Cameroon wrote that the country could prove its commitment to Trump’s agenda by letting Starlink expand its presence there. In the same missive, embassy officials discussed the impact of U.S. aid cuts and deportations and cited a humanitarian official who was reckoning with America’s shifting foreign policy: “They may not be happy with what they see, but they are trying to adapt as best they can.”

In Lesotho, where embassy officials had spent weeks trying to help Starlink get a license, the company finalized a deal after Trump imposed 50% tariffs on the tiny landlocked country. Lesotho officials told embassy staff they hoped the license would help in their urgent push to reduce the levies, according to Mother Jones. A major multinational company complained that Starlink was getting preferential treatment, embassy documents obtained by ProPublica show, since Musk’s firm had been exempted from requirements its competitors still had to follow.

In cables sent from the U.S. embassy in Djibouti this spring, State Department officials recounted their meetings with the company and pledged to continue working with “Starlink in identifying government officials and facilitating discussions.”

In Bangladesh, U.S. diplomats pressed Starlink’s case “early and often” with local officials, partnered with Starlink to “build an educational strategy” for their counterparts and helped arrange a conversation between Musk and the nation’s head of state, according to a recent cable. The embassy’s work started under Biden but bore fruit only after Trump took office.

Their efforts resulted in Bangladesh approving Starlink’s request to do business in the country, the top U.S. diplomat there said last month, a sign-off that Musk’s company had sought for years.

Do you have information about Elon Musk’s businesses or the Trump administration? Josh Kaplan can be reached by email at joshua.kaplan@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 734-834-9383. Brett Murphy can be reached at 508-523-5195 or by email at brett.murphy@propublica.org.

Anna Maria Barry-Jester contributed reporting.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Joshua Kaplan, Brett Murphy, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski.

Why special measures to boost Fiji women’s political representation remain a distant goal

APR editor — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 13:30:03 +0000

RNZ Pacific

Despite calls from women’s groups urging the government to implement policies to address the underrepresentation of women in politics, the introduction of temporary special measures (TSM) to increase women’s political representation in Fiji remains a distant goal.

This week, leader of the Social Democratic Liberal Party (Sodelpa), Cabinet Minister Aseri Radrodro, and opposition MP Ketal Lal expressed their objection to reserving 30 percent of parliamentary seats for women.

Radrodro, who is also Education Minister, told The Fiji Times that Fijian women were “capable of holding their ground without needing a crutch like TSM to give them a leg up”.

READ MORE: Pacific women in Parliament

Lal called the special allocation of seats for women in Parliament “tokenistic” and beneficial to “a few selected individuals”, as part of submissions to the Fiji Law Reform Commission and the Electoral Commission of Fiji, which are undertaking a comprehensive review and reform of the Fiji’s electoral framework.

Their sentiment is shared by Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, who said at a Pacific Technical Cooperation Session of the Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in Suva earlier this month, that “putting in women for the sake of mere numbers” is “tokenistic”.

Rabuka said it devalued “the dignity of women at the highest level of national governance.”

“This specific issue makes me wonder at times. As the percentage of women in population is approximately the same as for men, why are women not securing the votes of women? Or more precisely, why aren’t women voting for women?” he said.

Doubled down
The Prime Minister doubled down on his position on the issue when The Fiji Times asked him if it was the right time for Fiji to legislate mandatory seats for women in Parliament as the issue was gaining traction.

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka . . . “Why aren’t women voting for women?” Image: Fiji Parliament

“There is no need to legislate it. We do not have a compulsory voting legislation, nor do we yet need a quota-based system.

However, Rabuka’s Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Deputy Speaker Lenora Qereqeretabua holds a different view.

Qereqeretabua, from the National Federation Party, said in January that Parliament needed to look like the people that it represented.

“Women make up half of the world’s population, and yet we are still fighting to ensure that their voices and experiences are not only heard but valued in the spaces where decisions are made,” she told participants at the Exploring Temporary Special Measures for Inclusive Governance in Fiji forum.

She said Fiji needed more women in positions of power.

“Not because women are empirically better leaders, because leadership is not determined by gender, but because it is essential for democracy that our representatives reflect the communities that they serve.”

Lenora Qereqeretabua on the floor of Parliament . . . “It is essential for democracy that our representatives reflect the communities that they serve.” Image: Fiji Parliament

‘Shameless’ lag
Another member of Rabuka’s coalition government, one of the deputy prime ministers in and a former Sodelpa leader, Viliame Gavoka said in March 2022 that Fiji had “continued to shamelessly lag behind in protecting and promoting women’s rights and their peacebuilding expertise”.

He pledged at the time that if Sodelpa was voted into government, it would “ensure to break barriers and accelerate progress, including setting specific targets and timelines to achieve gender balance in all branches of government and at all levels through temporary special measures such as quotas . . . ”

However, since coming into power in December 2022, Gavoka has not made any advance on his promise, and his party leader Radrodro has made his views known on the issue.

Fiji women’s rights groups say temporary special measures may need to be implemented in the short-term to advance women’s equality. Image: RNZ Pacific/Sally Round

Fijian women’s rights and advocacy groups say that introducing special measures for women is neither discriminatory nor a breach of the 2013 Constitution.

In a joint statement in October last year, six non-government organisations called on the government to enforce provisions for temporary special measures for women in political party representation and ensure that reserved seats are secured for women in all town and city councils and its committees.

“Nationally, it is unacceptable that after three national elections under new electoral laws, there has been a drastic decline in women’s representation from contesting national elections to being elected to parliament,” they said.

“It is clear from our history that cultural, social, economic and political factors have often stood in the way of women’s political empowerment.”

Short-term need
They said temporary special measures may need to be implemented in the short-term to advance women’s equality.

“The term ‘temporary special measures’ is used to describe affirmative action policies and strategies to promote equality and empower women.

“If we are to move towards a society where half the population is reflected in all leadership spaces and opportunities, we must be gender responsive in the approaches we take to achieve gender equality.”

The Fijian Parliament currently has only five (out of 55) women in the House — four in government and one in opposition. In the previous parliamentary term (2018-2022), there were 10 women directly elected to Parliament.

According to the Fiji Country Gender Assessment report, 81 percent of Fijians believe that women are underrepresented in the government, and 72 percent of Fijians believe greater representation of women would be beneficial for the country.

However, the report found that time and energy burden of familial, volunteer responsibilities, patriarchal norms, and power relations as key barriers to women’s participation in the workplace and public life.

Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) board member Akanisi Nabalarua believes that despite having strong laws and policies on paper, the implementation is lacking.

Lip service
Nabalarua said successive Fijian governments had often paid lip service to gender equality while failing to make intentional and meaningful progress in women’s representation in decision making spaces, reports fijivillage.com.

Labour Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry said Rabuka’s dismissal of the women’s rights groups’ plea was premature.

Chaudhry, a former prime minister who was deposed in a coup in 2000, said Rabuka should have waited for the Law Reform Commission’s report “before deciding so conclusively on the matter”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

‘The goal is to outlaw protest’: Todd Wolfson on Trump’s attacks on universities

The Real News Network — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 21:04:59 +0000

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by The Real News Network.

[Norman Finkelstein] Israel’s Goal in Gaza

info@alternativeradio.org — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 21:00:29 +0000

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said "Conditions for Palestinians in Gaza are appalling and apocalyptic. What we are seeing may well amount to the gravest international crimes." Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, said, "We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly." Prominent Israeli scholars such as Omer Bartov, Raz Segal, Ilan Pappe, Lee Mordechai and Amos Goldberg, have all said Israel's actions in Gaza amount to genocide. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Jewish Voice for Peace, and other organizations have also reached the same conclusion. Apart from the U.S., Canada, and a few European countries Israel is largely isolated internationally. Arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant have been issued by the International Criminal Court. Israel's goal in Gaza has been made explicitly clear by Netanyahu on down: eliminate the Palestinians. Recorded at the University of Wisconsin.

This content originally appeared on AlternativeRadio and was authored by info@alternativeradio.org.

Indonesia joins BRICS: What now for West Papuan goal of independence?

APR editor — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 10:21:22 +0000

ANALYSIS: By Ali Mirin

Indonesia officially joined the BRICS — Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa — consortium last week marking a significant milestone in its foreign relations.

In a statement released a day later on January 7, the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that this membership reflected Indonesia’s dedication to strengthening multilateral cooperation and its growing influence in global politics.

The ministry highlighted that joining BRICS aligned with Indonesia’s independent and proactive foreign policy, which seeks to maintain balanced relations with major powers while prioritising national interests.

This pivotal move showcases Jakarta’s efforts to enhance its international presence as an emerging power within a select group of global influencers.

Traditionally, Indonesia has embraced a non-aligned stance while bolstering its military and economic strength through collaborations with both Western and Eastern nations, including the United States, China, and Russia.

By joining BRICS, Indonesia clearly signals a shift from its non-aligned status, aligning itself with a coalition of emerging powers poised to challenge and redefine the existing global geopolitical landscape dominated by a Western neoliberal order led by the United States.

Indonesia joining boosts BRICS membership to 10 countres — Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates — but there are also partnerships.

Supporters of a multipolar world, championed by China, Russia, and their allies, may view Indonesia’s entry into BRICS as a significant victory.

In contrast, advocates of the US-led unipolar world, often referred to as the “rules-based international order” are likely to see Indonesia’s decision as a regrettable shift that could trigger retaliatory actions from the United States.

The future will determine how Indonesia balances its relations with these two superpowers. However, there is considerable concern about the potential fallout for Indonesia from its long-standing US allies.

The future will determine how Indonesia balances its relations with these two superpowers, China and the US. However, there is considerable concern about the potential fallout for Indonesia from its long-standing US allies. Image: NHK TV News screenshot APR

The smaller Pacific Island nations, which Indonesia has been endeavouring to win over in a bid to thwart support for West Papuan independence, may also become entangled in the crosshairs of geostrategic rivalries, and their response to Indonesia’s membership in the BRICS alliance will prove critical for the fate of West Papua.

Critical questions
The crucial questions facing the Pacific Islanders are perhaps related to their loyalties: are they aligning themselves with Beijing or Washington, and in what ways could their decisions influence the delicate balance of power in the ongoing competition between great powers, ultimately altering the Melanesian destiny of the Papuan people?

For the Papuans, Indonesia’s membership in BRICS or any other global or regional forums is irrelevant as long as the illegal occupation of their land continues driving them toward “extinction”.

For the Papuans, Indonesia’s membership in BRICS or any other global or regional forums is irrelevant as long as the illegal occupation of their land continues driving them toward “extinction”. Image: NHK News screenshot APR

The pressing question for Papuans is which force will ultimately dismantle Indonesia’s unlawful hold on their sovereignty.

Will Indonesia’s BRICS alliance open new paths for Papuan liberation fighters to re-engage with the West in ways not seen since the Cold War? Or does this membership indicate a deeper entrenchment of Papuans’ fate within China’s influence — making it almost impossible for any dream of Papuans’ independence?

While forecasting future with certainty is difficult on these questions, these critical critical questions need to be considered in this new complex geopolitical landscape, as the ultimate fate of West Papua is what is truly at stake here.

Strengthening Indonesia’s claims over West Papuan sovereignty
Indonesia’s membership in BRICS may signify a great victory for those advocating for a multipolar world, challenging the hegemony of Western powers led by the United States.

This membership could augment Indonesia’s capacity to frame the West Papuan issue as an internal matter among BRICS members within the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs.

Such backing could provide Jakarta with a cushion of diplomatic protection against international censure, particularly from Western nations regarding its policies in West Papua.

The growing BRICS world . . . can Papuans and their global solidarity networks reinvent themselves while nurturing the fragile hope of restoring West Papua’s sovereignty? Map: Russia Pivots to Asia

However, it is also crucial to note that for more than six decades, despite the Western world priding itself on being a champion of freedom and human rights, no nation has been permitted to voice concern or hold Indonesia accountable for the atrocities committed against Indigenous Papuans.

The pressing question to consider is what or who silences the 193 member states of the UN from intervening to save the Papuans from potential eradication at the hands of Indonesia.

Is it the United States and its allies, or is it China, Russia, and their allies — or the United Nations itself?

Indonesia’s double standard and hypocrisy
Indonesia’s support for Palestine bolsters its image as a defender of international law and human rights in global platforms like the UN and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

This commitment was notably highlighted at the BRICS Summit in October 2024, where Indonesia reaffirmed its dedication to Palestinian self-determination and called for global action to address the ongoing conflict in line with international law and UN resolutions, reflecting its constitutional duty to oppose colonialism.

Nonetheless, Indonesia’s self-image as a “saviour for the Palestinians” presents a rather ignoble facade being promoted in the international diplomatic arena, as the Indonesian government engages in precisely the same behaviours it condemns Israel over in Palestine.

Military engagement and regional diplomacy
Moreover, Indonesia’s interaction with Pacific nations serves to perpetuate a façade of double standards — on one hand, it endeavours to portray itself as a burgeoning power and a champion of moral causes concerning security issues, human rights, climate change, and development; while on the other, it distracts the communities and nations of Oceania — particularly Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, which have long supported the West Papua independence movement — from holding Indonesia accountable for its transgressions against their fellow Pacific Islanders in West Papua.

On October 10, 2024, Brigadier-General Mohamad Nafis of the Indonesian Defence Ministry unveiled a strategic initiative intended to assert sovereignty claims over West Papua. This plan aims to foster stability across the Pacific through enhanced defence cooperation and safeguarding of territorial integrity.

The efforts to expand influence are characterised by joint military exercises, defence partnerships, and assistance programmes, all crafted to address common challenges such as terrorism, piracy, and natural disasters.

However, most critically, Indonesia’s engagement with Pacific Island nations aims to undermine the regional solidarity surrounding West Papua’s right to self-determination.

This involvement encapsulates infrastructure initiatives, defence training, and financial diplomacy, nurturing goodwill while aligning the interests of Pacific nations with Indonesia’s geopolitical aspirations.

Indonesia has formally joined the BRICS group, a bloc of emerging economies featuring Russia, China and others that is viewed as a counterweight to the West https://t.co/WArU5O2PfT pic.twitter.com/IQKmPOJqlS

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) January 7, 2025

Military occupation in West Papua
As Indonesia strives to galvanise international support for its territorial integrity, the military presence in West Papua has intensified significantly, instilling widespread fear among local Papuan communities due to heightened deployments, surveillance, and restrictions.

Indonesian forces have been mobilised to secure economically strategic regions, including the Grasberg mine, which holds some of the world’s largest gold and copper reserves.

These operations have resulted in the displacement of Indigenous communities and substantial environmental degradation.

As of December 2024, approximately 83,295 individuals had been internally displaced in West Papua due to armed conflicts between Indonesian security forces and the West Papua Liberation Army (TPNPB).

Recent reports detail new instances of displacement in the Tambrauw and Pegunungan Bintang regencies following clashes between the TPNPB and security forces. Villagers have evacuated their homes in fear of further military incursions and confrontations, leaving many in psychological distress.

The significant increase in Indonesia’s military presence in West Papua has coincided with demographic shifts that jeopardise the survival of Indigenous Papuans.

Government transmigration policies and large-scale agricultural initiatives, such as the food estate project in Merauke, have marginalised Indigenous communities.

These programmes, aimed at ensuring national food security, result in land expropriation and cultural erosion, threatening traditional Papuan lifestyles and identities.

For more than 63 years, Indonesia has occupied West Papua, subjecting Indigenous communities to systemic marginalisation and brink of extinction. Traditional languages, oral histories, and cultural values face obliteration under Indonesia’s colonial occupation.

A glimmer of hope for West Papua
Despite these formidable challenges, solidarity movements within the Pacific and global communities persist in their advocacy for West Papua’s self-determination.

These groups, united by a shared sense of humanity and justice, work tirelessly to maintain hope for West Papua’s liberation. Even so, Indonesia’s diplomatic engagement with Pacific nations, characterised by eloquent rhetoric and military alliances, represents a calculated endeavour to extinguish this fragile hope for Papuan liberation.

Indonesia’s membership in BRICS will either amplify this tiny hope of salvation within the grand vision of a new world re-engineered by Beijing’s BRICS and its allies or will it conceal West Papua’s independence dream on a path that is even harder and more impossible to achieve than the one they have been on for 60 years under the US-led unipolar world system.

Most significantly, it might present a new opportunity for Papuan liberation fighters to reengage with the new re-ordering global superpowers– a chance that has eluded them for more than 60 years.

From the 1920s to the 1960s, the tumult of the First and Second World Wars, coupled with the ensuing cries for decolonisation from nations subjugated by Western powers and Cold War tensions, forged the very existence of the nation known as “Indonesia.”

It seems that this turbulent world of uncertainty is upon us, reshaping a new global landscape replete with new alliances and adversaries, harbouring conflicting visions of a new world. Indonesia’s decision to join BRICS in 2025 is a clear testament to this.

The pressing question remains whether this membership will ultimately precipitate Indonesia’s disintegration as the US-led unipolar world intervenes in its domestic affairs or catalyse its growth and strength.

Regardless of the consequences, the fundamental existential question for the Papuans is whether they, along with their global solidarity networks, can reinvent themselves while nurturing the fragile hope of restoring West Papua’s sovereignty in a world rife with change and uncertainty?

Ali Mirin is a West Papuan academic and writer from the Kimyal tribe of the highlands bordering the Star mountain region of Papua New Guinea. He lives in Australia and contributes articles to Asia Pacific Report.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Biden Administration Announces Strengthened 2035 Emissions Reduction Goal, Science Shows More Needed in Years Ahead

Newswire Editor — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 14:45:41 +0000

Today, the Biden administration announced its updated target for reducing U.S. global warming emissions 61-66% below 2005 levels by 2035 under the Paris Agreement. The Paris climate agreement—adopted in 2015 by nearly every country—sets crucial science-informed temperature goals to limit catastrophic climate change. Under the agreement, countries are obligated to submit updated nationally determined contribution pledges (NDCs) for 2035 by next year. The updated U.S. NDC also explicitly calls out the need for all nations party to the Paris Agreement to contribute to efforts to transition away from fossil fuels.

The United States had previously pledged to reduce its emissions 50-52% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade, however current policies remain insufficient to achieve that goal, and more will be required of U.S. policymakers in the years ahead. This marks one of the final announcements from the Biden administration and comes one month before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

Below is a statement by Dr. Rachel Cleetus, the policy director and lead economist for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). She has been attending the U.N.’s international climate talks (COPs) and has partnered with the international community on climate and energy policies for about 20 years.

“The strengthened U.S. NDC announced today by the Biden administration underscores that working together to collectively address climate change is in the best interest of the United States and the world. Cutting fossil fuel pollution sharply and building a thriving economy powered by clean energy is good for national prosperity and people’s health and pocketbooks. It’s encouraging to see the NDC also call for measures to address the full breadth and scope of heat-trapping emissions, including potent methane, across the economy.

“While falling short of what the science requires, the updated U.S. NDC provides an important benchmark to propel further climate action by cities, states, Tribal nations, and businesses in the years ahead. As the world’s largest historical emitter of heat-trapping gases, it’s both fair and necessary for the United States to achieve and substantially strengthen this foundational goal in the future.

“The science is clear: limiting deadly and costly climate impacts necessitates that all major emitting countries quickly strengthen their emission reduction pledges. Much work remains to be done by world leaders and policymakers, especially if President-elect Trump—who seems hellbent on dismantling widely popular clean energy policies and boosting fossil fuel company profits—once again exits the Paris climate agreement. Today marks one of many important milestones on the path toward keeping the goals of the Paris Agreement within reach for the betterment of current and future generations.”

To speak with Dr. Cleetus or another UCS expert, please contact UCS Climate and Energy Media Manager Ashley Siefert Nunes.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The Chinese gov has publicly stated its goal to gain ideological control over Hong Kong universities

Human Rights Watch — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 14:14:15 +0000

This content originally appeared on Human Rights Watch and was authored by Human Rights Watch.

Their Goal Is Total Ethnic Cleansing: Mustafa Barghouti on Israel’s Expulsion Order for Gaza City

Democracy Now! — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 14:29:23 +0000

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Their Goal Is Total Ethnic Cleansing: Mustafa Barghouti on Israel’s Expulsion Order for Gaza City

Democracy Now! — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 12:30:47 +0000

A panel of United Nations independent experts has accused Israel of engaging in a campaign of starvation and genocide in Gaza as the effects of the famine are being felt across Gaza. Palestinian physician and activist Mustafa Barghouti says “what we see today is a purposeful act of starvation” and that the real intention of the Israeli government has never changed. “Their main goal is the total ethnic cleansing of all of Gaza people and all of the Gaza Strip.” Barghouti joins us from Washington, D.C., on his first U.S. visit in more than a decade.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Better late than never: Wealthy nations finally meet $100 billion climate aid goal

Naveena Sadasivam — Fri, 31 May 2024 08:15:00 +0000

International climate negotiations have long been haunted by a broken promise. In the wake of collapsed negotiations at the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009, wealthy nations, led by the United States, pledged to provide developing countries with $100 billion in climate-related aid annually by 2020. The money was meant in part to ease tensions between the rich countries that had contributed the most to climate change historically and the poorer nations that disproportionately suffer the effects of a warming planet. But rich countries fell short of the target in both 2020 and 2021, deepening mistrust and stymying progress during the annual United Nations climate conferences, which are known by the abbreviation COP.

A new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, confirms what the international organization began to suspect just before last year’s COP28: that wealthy nations finally surpassed the $100 billion goal in 2022. And while they were two years late delivering on their promise, rich countries partially compensated for their earlier shortfalls, contributing nearly $116 billion in climate aid to developing countries in 2022, according to the latest data available. That additional funding helps fill the roughly $27 billion gap resulting from rich countries’ failure to meet the $100 billion threshold in each of the two years prior.

“If you underachieved in the first two years, overachieving in the rest of the period is a good way to make up for that, to make amends,” said Joe Thwaites, a climate finance expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a U.S.-based environmental nonprofit.

Even $100 billion, however, is far lower than the developing world’s estimated need. United Nations-backed research projects that developing countries (excluding China) will need an eye-popping $2.4 trillion per year by 2030 to transition away from fossil fuels and adapt to climate change.

Israel’s Ultimate Goal? To Make Gaza Unfit for Human Habitation, Says Analyst Mouin Rabbani

Democracy Now! — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 15:14:44 +0000

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Israel’s Ultimate Goal Is to Make Gaza Unfit for Human Habitation: Middle East Analyst Mouin Rabbani

Democracy Now! — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 12:21:51 +0000

President Biden called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies in Gaza a “mistake” and urged Israel to call for a temporary ceasefire to allow in more aid in a televised interview on Tuesday. While Israel has pledged to open new aid crossings, the U.N. said on Tuesday that there has been “no significant change in the volume of humanitarian supplies entering Gaza,” and the Biden administration has not actually changed its policies or withheld any arms transfers to Israel. “Words are cheap, and statements are a dime a dozen,” says Middle East analyst Mouin Rabbani, who explains Israel can safely ignore statements if policy remains unchanged. “What really matters is not what these people say, but what they do.” Rabbani also speaks about the United Nations considering Palestinian statehood, ongoing negotiations over a Gaza ceasefire, and Israel attacking the Iranian Consulate in Syria.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Wildfires in Chile Challenge Its Goal to be Carbon Neutral by 2050

Vins — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 22:21:30 +0000

“Las preguntas que deja el fuego” (“The questions that the fire leaves”), by Ismaela Magliotto Quevedo and Benjamin Carvajal Ponce Chile, two environmental civil engineers, published February 5, 2024, highlights the devastation and implications of the Chile wildfires of February 2024. The 2023 and 2024 forest fires in Chile have…

The post Wildfires in Chile Challenge Its Goal to be Carbon Neutral by 2050 appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Vins.

Assange’s ‘reprieve’ is another lie, hiding the real goal of keeping him endlessly locked up

Jonathan Cook — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 22:16:41 +0000

The interminable and abhorrent saga of Julian Assange’s incarceration for the crime of journalism continues. And once again, the headline news is a lie, one designed both to buy our passivity and to buy more time for the British and US establishments to keep the Wikileaks founder permanently disappeared from view.

The Guardian – which has a mammoth, undeclared conflict of interest in its coverage of the extradition proceedings against Assange (you can read about that here and here) – headlined the ruling by the UK High Court today as a “temporary reprieve” for Assange. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Five years on, Assange is still caged in Belmarsh high-security prison, convicted of absolutely nothing.

Five years on, he still faces a trial in the US on ludicrous charges under a century-old, draconian piece of legislation called the Espionage Act. Assange is not a US citizen and none of the charges relate to anything he did in the US.

Five years on, the English judiciary is still rubber-stamping his show trial – a warning to others not to expose state crimes, as Assange did in publishing details of British and US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Five years on, judges in London are still turning a blind eye to Assange’s sustained psychological torture, as the former United Nations legal expert Nils Melzer has documented.

The word “reprieve” is there – just as the judges’ headline ruling that some of the grounds of his appeal have been “granted” – to conceal the fact that he is prisoner to an endless legal charade every bit as much as he is a prisoner in a Belmarsh cell.

In fact, today’s ruling is yet further evidence that Assange is being denied due process and his most basic legal rights – as he has been for a decade or more.

In the ruling, the court strips him of any substantive grounds of appeal, precisely so there will be no hearing in which the public gets to learn more about the various British and US crimes he exposed, for which he is being kept in jail. He is thereby denied a public-interest defence against extradition. Or in the court’s terminology, his “application to adduce fresh evidence is refused”.

Even more significantly, Assange is specifically stripped of the right to appeal on the very legal grounds that should guarantee him an appeal, and should have ensured he was never subjected to a show trial in the first place. His extradition would clearly violate the prohibition in the Extradition Treaty between the UK and the US against extradition on political grounds.

Nonetheless, in their wisdom, the judges rule that Washington’s vendetta against Assange for exposing its crimes is not driven by political considerations. Nor apparently was there a political factor to the CIA’s efforts to kidnap and assassinate him after he was granted political asylum by Ecuador, precisely to protect him from the US administration’s wrath.

What the court “grants” instead are three technical grounds of appeal – although in the small print, that “granted” is actually subverted to “adjourned”. The “reprieve” celebrated by the media – supposedly a victory for British justice – actually pulls the legal rug from under Assange.

Each of those grounds of appeal can be reversed – that is, rejected – if Washington submits “assurances” to the court, however worthless they may end up being in practice. In which case, Assange is on a flight to the US and effectively disappeared into one of its domestic black sites.

Those three pending grounds of appeal on which the court seeks reassurance are that extradition will not:

deny Assange his basic free speech rights;
discriminate against him on the basis of his nationality, as a non-US citizen;
or place him under threat of the death penalty in the US penal system.

The judiciary’s latest bending over backwards to accommodate Washington’s intention to keep Assange permanently locked out of view follows years of perverse legal proceedings in which the US has repeatedly been allowed to change the charges it is levelling against Assange at short notice to wrong-foot his legal team. It also follows years in which the US has had a chance to make clear its intention to provide Assange with a fair trial but has refused to do so.

Washington’s true intentions are already more than clear: the US spied on Assange’s every move while he was under the protection of the Ecuadorian embassy, violating his lawyer-client privilege; and the CIA plotted to kidnap and assassinate him.

Both are grounds that alone should have seen the case thrown out.

But there is nothing normal – or legal – about the proceedings against Assange. The case has always been about buying time. To disappear Assange from public view. To vilify him. To smash the revolutionary publishing platform he founded to help whistleblowers expose state crimes. To send a message to other journalists that the US can reach them wherever they live should they try to hold Washington to account for its criminality.

And worst of all, to provide a final solution for the nuisance Assange had become for the global superpower by trapping him in an endless process of incarceration and trial that, if it is allowed to drag on long enough, will most likely kill him.

Today’s ruling is most certainly not a “reprieve”. It is simply another stage in a protracted, faux-legal process designed to provide constant justifications for keeping Assange behind bars, and never-ending postponements of judgment day, when either Assange is set free or the British and US justice systems are exposed as hand servants of brutish, naked power.

The post Assange’s ‘reprieve’ is another lie, hiding the real goal of keeping him endlessly locked up first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

Israel’s Ultimate Goal Is Ethnic Cleansing: Dr. Mustafa Barghouti on Growing Famine, Al-Shifa Attack

Democracy Now! — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 14:51:29 +0000

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Israel’s Ultimate Goal Is Ethnic Cleansing: Dr. Mustafa Barghouti on Growing Famine, Al-Shifa Attack

Democracy Now! — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 12:14:12 +0000

A new U.N.-backed report has found that famine is imminent in northern Gaza with nearly a third of Gaza’s population experiencing the highest levels of catastrophic hunger. This comes as Israel launches another major raid at Al-Shifa Hospital, where tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have taken shelter since the start of the conflict. In the south, daily bombing continues while the Israeli government threatens a full-scale ground invasion on the border city of Rafah. “The world should impose sanctions on Israel,” says the Palestinian National Initiative’s Mustafa Barghouti, who joins us from the occupied West Bank. Barghouti responds to Israel’s latest military actions and claims, gives an update on the status of ceasefire negotiations, addresses conditions in Israeli prisons and more. “It’s a massacre. It’s a huge genocide,” he says. “The ultimate goal of Israel is ethnic cleansing.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

What Is Israel’s Goal in Lebanon? Increasing Cross-Border Attacks Risk Expanding the Gaza War

Democracy Now! — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 12:10:54 +0000

Israel is expanding its attacks in Lebanon for the third day in a row, with Israeli warplanes striking deep in the country amid growing concern about a regional escalation, and Hamas ally Hezbollah launching a barrage of over 100 rockets at Israel in response. Tens of thousands of residents of northern Israel and southern Lebanon have fled their homes as attacks rise. Israel expects “the Americans will come in and help them … knock down Hezbollah’s power,” says Rami Khouri, a Palestinian American journalist and senior public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut. “This is not something that we should celebrate,” adds Khouri, who also discusses the historical context of decades of conflict in the Arab region, and Hezbollah’s role in Lebanese politics.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

China sets 5% growth goal, toughens talk on Taiwan | Radio Free Asia (RFA)

Radio Free Asia — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 18:25:47 +0000

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

Russia’s ultimate goal? Eliminating Ukraine as a state, says historian Ilya Budraitskis

Democracy Now! — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 18:17:43 +0000

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

‘Our goal is to stop the genocide’: Houthi spokesman meets The Grayzone

The Grayzone — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 21:26:24 +0000

This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.

A ‘Genocidal Maniac’: What is Netanyahu’s Ultimate Goal in the Middle East?

Ramzy Baroud — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 06:59:31 +0000

This article was written shortly before Israel assassinated the Deputy Head of Hamas Political Bureau Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut on January 2. The assassination is a further illustration of the Israeli government’s desire to escape the consequences of its disastrous war in Gaza, by igniting a regional conflict.

The clashes between Hezbollah and Israel are the closest to an actual war that the Lebanon-Israel border has seen since the war of 2006, which resulted in a rushed Israeli retreat, if not outright defeat.

We often refer to the ongoing conflict between Lebanon and Israel as ‘controlled’ clashes, simply because both sides are keen not to instigate or engage in an all-out war.

Obviously, Hezbollah wants to preserve Lebanese lives and civilian infrastructure, which would surely be seriously damaged, if not destroyed, should Israel decide to launch a war.

But Israel, too, understands that this is a different Hezbollah than that of the 1980s, 2000 and even 2006.

Compared to Israel’s behavior in the war of 2006, the Israeli response to Hezbollah’s military action – compelled by its solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza – is greatly tamed.

For example, the 2006 war was presumably provoked by a Hezbollah attack on Israeli soldiers, which killed three. (Hezbollah says that the soldiers violated Lebanese sovereignty, as the Israeli army has indeed done numerous times before and since then.)

That single event led to a major war that wreaked havoc on Lebanon, but also resulted in the retreat and defeat of the Israeli army.

Imagine what Israel would have done by the standards of the 2006 war if Hezbollah had killed and wounded hundreds of Israeli soldiers, bombed scores of military bases, installations and even settlements, as it has done, on a daily basis, since early October.

A Different Hezbollah

Despite numerous threats, Israel is yet to go to war with the main objective of pushing Hezbollah forces past the Litani River, thus supposedly securing the border Jewish settlements. But why the hesitation?

First, Hezbollah fighters are much stronger than before.

For years, Hezbollah has fought in traditional warfare settings, namely in Syria, thus producing a generation of battle-hardened fighters and commanders, who are no longer bound to the rules of guerilla warfare, as was the case in the past.

Second, Hezbollah’s missile capabilities have exponentially grown since 2006, not only in terms of numbers – up to 150,000 according to some estimates – but also in terms of precision, explosive capabilities and range.

Moreover, Hezbollah has excelled in the development of its own rockets and missiles, which include the powerful Burkan, a short-range rocket, which can carry a heavy warhead, between 100 to 500 kilograms. This makes Hezbollah, in some ways, self-sufficient in terms of weapons, if not munitions.

Third, Hezbollah’s sophisticated Radwan Elite Units and an elaborate tunnel system that goes deep inside northern Israel, would force Israel to contend with a whole different military reality than that of the last war, should a major military conflict break out.

Fourth, the Israeli army itself is in tatters, demoralized, greatly exhausted and weakened by ongoing daily losses on the Gaza front. It is hardly in a state of preparedness to fight a long and more difficult war against a better prepared enemy.

That in mind, one must not take such comments as that of Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant too seriously when he says that his country is fighting a war on seven different fronts. In actuality, the Israeli army is still fighting a single war in Gaza, a difficult war that it is not winning.

Provoking Iran

To distract from its Gaza losses, and its inability to launch a major war against Lebanon, Tel Aviv wants to drag Tehran into the war.

But why would Israel escalate against the strongest of its enemies in the region, if it is not able to beat the smaller ones?

The short answer is that, by engaging Iran directly, Israel would force the US into a major regional war.

We all remember the seemingly odd decision by the Biden Administration to dispatch an aircraft carrier to the Israeli shores of the Mediterranean, immediately after the start of the Gaza war on October 7. (The Gerald R. Ford was ultimately withdrawn on December 31)

Washington wanted to send a message to Iran that an attack on Israel would be considered an attack on the United States. But when it became clear that Iran had no interest in an actual war, Washington realized, or must have realized, that the danger of a regional war does not stem from Tehran, but from Tel Aviv itself.

That is when official US intelligence and political estimates began telling us, and repeatedly so, that Iran had nothing to do with the Hamas military operation of October 7, and that Iran was not interested in war.

The target audience for that message was Israel and its US-western allies who have been angling for a US-Iran war for years. Biden’s lack of interest in war, of course, has little to do with his propensity for peace, and everything to do with the lack of any serious geostrategic objectives in the Middle East now, his administration’s disastrous failure in Ukraine and the rapid depletion of armaments and munitions.

Israel persisted, however. It continued to accuse Iran of being the orchestrator of the Hamas attack, and the main ‘existential threat’ to the ‘Jewish state’. In Israel’s understanding, the collective action of Hamas and other Palestinian Resistance groups, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Ansarallah in Yemen and the Islamic Resistance of Iraq, are all fragments of a larger Iranian scheme to destroy Israel.

To defeat that imaginary threat, Israel carried out numerous acts of provocations against Iran, focused mostly on the bombing of Iran’s military positions in Syria, leading to the assassination of a top Iranian commander, General Sayyed Ravi Mousavi, near Damascus on December 25.

Biden the Enabler

For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a US-Iran war would constitute a lifeline for a desperate politician who fully, and rightly, understands, that a no-victory in Gaza would equal a defeat for the Israeli army. Such a defeat would not only be a disgraceful end for Netanyahu’s political career, but also an end of a long-sustained myth that Israel, and the US, can impose their political will on the Middle East through military superiority and firepower.

The Biden Administration must be fully aware of Netanyahu’s intentions, that of dragging the region into the abyss of possibly one of the most devastating wars in recent memory.

Reported disagreements and, in fact, a rift between Biden and Netanyahu are not related to a US moral objection to the Israeli genocide in Gaza, but to a real American fear that another Middle Eastern war could precipitate the breaking down of US power in the energy-rich region – in fact, beyond.

Thus, the current standstill: Washington’s inability to free itself from its blind commitment to Israel and its violent Zionist ideology, and Netanyahu’s inability to distinguish between the goal of sustaining his personal career and that of destroying the whole of the Middle East.

Unable to place US interests above those of Israel, Biden continues to feed the Israeli military machine, which is mostly used to kill Palestinian civilians in Gaza. This is allowing Netanyahu to champion a perpetual war in Gaza, while working to expand the conflict so that it reaches Beirut, Tehran and other regional capitals.

Needless to say, Netanyahu, described by US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib as a ‘genocidal maniac’, must be restrained. If not, the Israeli genocide in Gaza will multiply into other genocides throughout the Middle East.

The post A ‘Genocidal Maniac’: What is Netanyahu’s Ultimate Goal in the Middle East? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ramzy Baroud.

Netanyahu’s Goal for Gaza: “Thin” Population “to a Minimum”

Ryan Grim — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 19:39:42 +0000

This article was originally published as a newsletter from Ryan Grim. Sign up to get the next one in your inbox.

On this week’s episode of Deconstructed, I spoke with “Breaking Points” co-host Krystal Ball about my new book, “The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution.” You can listen to it on whichever podcast platform you use, and the video has been posted on Krystal’s channel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tasked his top adviser, Ron Dermer, the minister of strategic affairs, with designing plans to “thin” the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip “to a minimum,” according to a bombshell new report in an Israeli newspaper founded by the late Republican billionaire Sheldon Adelson.

The outlet, Israel Hayom, is considered to be something of an official organ for Netanyahu. It reported that the plan has two main elements: The first would use the pressure of the war and humanitarian crisis to persuade Egypt to allow refugees to flow to other Arab countries, and the second would open up sea routes so that Israel “allows a mass escape to European and African countries.” Dermer, who is originally from Miami, is a Netanyahu confidante and was previously Israeli ambassador to the United States, and enjoys close relations with many members of Congress.

The plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians faces some internal resistance from less hard-line members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, according to Israel Hayom.

Israel Today and other Israeli media are also reporting on a plan being pushed with Congress that would condition aid to Arab nations on their willingness to accept Palestinian refugees. The plan even proposes specific numbers of refugees for each country: Egypt would take one million Palestinians, half a million would go to Turkey, and a quarter million each would go to Yemen and Iraq.

The reporting relies heavily on the passive voice, declining to say who put the proposal together: “The proposal was shown to key figures in the House and Senate from both parties. Longtime lawmaker, Rep. Joe Wilson, has even expressed open support for it while others who were privy to the details of the text have so far kept a low profile, saying that publicly coming out in favor of the program could derail it.”

To underscore how absurd the refugee resettlement plan is, the de facto Houthi government in Yemen claimed an attack today on a U.S. ship as well as commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

Back on October 20, in a little-noticed message to Congress, the White House asked for $3.495 billion that would be used for refugees from both Ukraine and Gaza, referencing “potential needs of Gazans fleeing to neighboring countries.”

“This crisis could well result in displacement across border and higher regional humanitarian needs, and funding may be used to meet evolving programming requirements outside of Gaza,” the letter from the White House Office of Management and Budget reads. The letter came two days after Jordan and Egypt warned they would not open their borders to a mass exodus of Palestinians, arguing that past history shows they would never be able to return.

Join The Conversation

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Ryan Grim.

Palestinian Leader Mustafa Barghouti Says Israel’s Goal Is Ethnic Cleansing & Annexation of Gaza

Democracy Now! — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:15:41 +0000

As the death toll in Gaza nears 3,800 from two weeks of Israeli aerial bombardment, we go to the occupied West Bank to speak with Dr. Mustafa Barghouti. “With the passage of each minute, more Palestinians are killed,” says Barghouti, general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative. Barghouti has been a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council since 2006 and is also a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization Central Council. He discusses Biden’s visit to Israel, the “clearly Israeli” strike on Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, Israel’s plans to annex Gaza, and the collapsed civilian society there, where residents have no access to clean water, no hospital beds for critical medical care and no safe haven. “The game is clear: They want to ethnically cleanse, completely, the Gaza Strip.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

China to reach renewable power goal 5 years early, report says

By Subel Rai Bhandari for RFA — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 09:23:17 +0000

The boom in renewable power projects in China will likely help the country reach its 2030 target five years early, boosting the effort to limit global carbon emissions far faster than expected, a new study said.

China is on track to double its solar and wind power capacity and shatter Beijing’s ambitious 2030 target of 1,200 gigawatts (GW) five years ahead of schedule if all prospective projects are successfully built and commissioned, said the Global Energy Monitor (GEM) report, released on Thursday.

Solar panel installations alone are growing at a pace that would increase global capacity by 85% and wind power by nearly 50% by 2025, said GEM, a San Francisco-based non-governmental organization that tracks energy projects worldwide.

China has approximately 379 GW of large utility-scale solar and 371 GW of wind capacity projects that have been announced or are in the pre-construction and construction phases. They will likely be finished by 2025, adding roughly the same amount of currently installed operating capacity.

The report projected that China would likely achieve the provincial targets of approximately 1,371 GW for wind and solar, which is higher than the 1,200 GW President Xi Jinping announced his government would install by 2030.

A solar panel installation is seen in Ruicheng County in central China's Shanxi Province, Nov. 27, 2019. Credit: AP

“This new data provides unrivaled granularity about China’s jaw-dropping surge in solar and wind capacity,” said Dorothy Mei, project manager at Global Energy Monitor.

“As we closely monitor the implementation of prospective projects, this detailed information becomes indispensable in navigating the country’s energy landscape.”

Half global renewable capacity in China

China has emerged as the frontrunner in global renewable energy, leveraging a blend of incentives and regulatory policies to host approximately 50% of the world’s operational wind and solar capacity.

The report said the ambitious renewable push has been geographically widespread, with every province and most counties developing large-scale solar and wind power.

China’s operating scale solar capacity has reached 228 GW, more than the rest of the world combined.

This map shows prospective large utility-scale solar capacity in China. Credit: Global Energy Monitor.

According to the report, China’s northern and northwest provinces have the largest number of solar projects. Shanxi, Xinjiang, and Hebei are the top three regions with the highest utility-scale solar capacity.

Meanwhile, China’s combined onshore and offshore wind capacity has doubled since 2017, surpassing 310 GW, with the highest concentration of projects in the northern and northwestern regions, including Inner Mongolia, Hebei, and Xinjiang.

China’s offshore wind capacity, which accounts for just 10% of its total wind capacity, is more than Europe’s offshore operating capacity.

This map shows prospective wind farm capacity in China. Credit: Global Energy Monitor.

On Sunday, China successfully commenced operations of the Tibetan plateau’s largest hybrid solar-hydro power plant, Kela, which can generate 2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually, equivalent to the energy consumption of over 700,000 households.

Currently boasting a capacity of 20 GW, the plant is projected to expand and achieve approximately 50 GW capacity by 2030.

In the past, China has said that its greenhouse gas emissions will peak in 2030 before slowing down to reach net zero by 2060.

“Ramping up wind and solar capacity plays an essential role in China’s carbon emissions from the power sector,” Mei told Radio Free Asia.

“When China reaches its emissions peak will essentially depend on how soon the growth of clean energy can start to outpace the increase in total energy demand, which could happen in the next few years given the current solar and wind boom.”

China’s reliance on coal continues

Among the top 10 power sector emitters, China led the world by three times more than the U.S., the second-biggest carbon dioxide emitter, with fossil fuel power plants generating two-thirds of China’s electricity in 2022.

In April, another energy research organization Ember said in a report that China produced the most CO2 emissions of any power sector in the world in 2022, accounting for 38% of total global emissions from electricity generation.

Mei said that while China had made significant progress in renewable energy deployment, it continued to heavily rely on coal for power generation “due to its reliability and consistent electricity supply.”

“The power supply model being adopted at the renewables bases in the northwest deserts still largely relies on new coal power plants to provide a steady, reliable flow of electricity through the long-distance direct current transmission lines to end users,” Mei said.

In 2022, China alone accounted for 53% of the world’s coal-fired electricity generation, showing a dramatic revival in appetite for new coal power projects.

A View of the Wujing coal-electricity power station is seen across the Huangpu River in the Minhang district of Shanghai on August 22, 2022. Credit: Hector Retamal/AFP

Recent record heatwaves and drought have also renewed focus on China’s energy security concerns, as factories had to be shut down due to power shortages, forcing authorities to increase reliance on coal.

Last year, Beijing approved the highest new coal capacity in eight years. It continues this year, with environmental group Greenpeace saying in April that China had approved at least 20.45 GW of new coal capacity in the first three months of 2023, according to official approval documents.

“As electricity demand during extreme weather events increases, China must resist turning to coal and should instead prioritize more optimal solutions to manage the variability of demand and clean power supply,” Mei said.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Subel Rai Bhandari for RFA.

Blinken: No US goal for China but peace

Alex Willemyns for RFA — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 17:53:00 +0000

There’s no “finish line” for U.S. foreign policy toward China besides maintaining peace, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday, even if Beijing and Moscow seek to build an “illiberal” world order.

The comments came less than two weeks after Blinken made a visit to Beijing that U.S. officials described as an effort only to reopen talks with their Chinese counterparts, and which delivered little more.

Speaking at an event at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Blinken said in the near-term and “maybe even in the lifetimes of most people in this room” there is no “clear finish line” for the United States when it comes to Beijing except to maintain peaceful relations.

“The bottom line is this: China’s not going away, and we’re not going away,” Blinken said. “We have to find a way to … coexist peacefully.”

He added that the “post-Cold War era” where “commerce ultimately geopolitical competition” was now over and that there is a “profound competition undeeway right now to shape what comes next.”

“We want to make sure that in that competition, we're in a position of strength where we are able to shape what comes next,” Blinken said, adding that the alternative would be a new “illiberal” world order where a few world powers dictate terms to countries around them.

Taiwan at heart of dispute

Asked by CFR President Richard Haass, who hosted the event, about his comments last year that Beijing had decided that the decades-old status quo on Taiwan was no longer tenable, Blinken doubled down.

He pointed to recent Chinese military operations and exercises, “economic coercion exerted against Taiwan, and for that matter exerted against countries that have relationships with Taiwan,” and efforts to exclude Taiwan from institutions like the World Health Organization.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, 19, 2023. (Leah Millis/Pool/Reuters)

“All of this is a stirring of the pot. That is antithetical to the preservation of the status quo,” Blinken said.

The United States, by contrast, always communicates “our determination to maintain the status quo,” he said, because that’s what most of the world wants in the Taiwan Strait.

He noted that “50% of commercial traffic and trade goes through that strait every single day” and 70% of the world’s microchips are made on the self-governing island that Chinese President Xi Jinping last year vowed to “reunite” with the mainland using force if necessary.

“On Taiwan, if there were to be a crisis as a result of actions that either side takes that takes that offline, you've got potentially a global economic crisis,” he said. “It's one of the reasons – maybe the main reason – that country after country is going to both of us and saying we expect the responsible management of this issue to be sustained.”

But Blinken also said that any geopolitical competition with China did not mean that the United States wanted to curb its economic growth.

“It’s not in our interest to do that,” he said.

Mixed messages

Blinken’s trip to Beijing earlier this month initially appeared to ease tensions between Washington and Beijing after nearly a year of rising discord that began with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August trip to Taiwan and peaked with the February spy balloon incident.

However, U.S. President Joe Biden angered Beijing just days later when he used a campaign event ahead of the 2024 election to call Xi a “dictator” who was “embarrassed” by the alleged Chinese spy balloon and by China’s current “real economic difficulties.”

Blinken defended Biden by saying he always spoke “candidly” and for all Americans, even as China’s foreign ministry protested the remarks.

Speaking at another campaign event in Chevy Chase, Maryland, on Tuesday night, Biden questioned “China being this great power” that will be able to rewrite the international order in its favor.

He said its efforts to do so had by contrast united “the rest of the world” against it, and he again alluded to the country’s economic difficulties.

“China has enormous problems — enormous problems,” Biden said. “I'm not going to get into it right now. But the idea that they are going to be able to do things that they thought they could do is not accurate.”

Taiwan's Southern armored brigade demonstrates combat skills during a live-fire army exercise in Pingtung County, southern Taiwan, Sept. 6, 2022. (Sam Yeh/AFP)

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Wednesday said she had not seen Biden’s remarks and appeared circumspect.

“When it comes to having problems, I suppose all countries, the U.S. included, face challenges,” Mao said, adding that China’s government was confident it was tackling issues facing the country.

“Meanwhile, we hope the U.S. will concentrate on solving its own problems and play a constructive role in making the world stable and prosperous.”

Talk it out

At a separate event on the South China Sea dispute at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said he was encouraged about U.S.-China ties in the wake of Blinken’s trip.

He said he was only disappointed that Beijing was still denying military-to-military communications with the United States on the apparent basis that “somehow that will embolden the United States.”

“I'm a diplomat, so this should come as no surprise, I believe in diplomacy,” he said. “I believe in talking to people. I believe in keeping those channels of communication open at all times, and so we were gratified that through the secretary's visit, I think we've reestablished and reopened those senior level channels of communication.”

“In the coming weeks, you're likely to see more senior level exchanges,” Kritenbrink said, reiterating that he wished that would be extended to the military sphere. “Two militaries the size and capability of the U.S. and China, we always need to be talking to one another.”

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alex Willemyns for RFA.

With 1.5°C Goal ‘Currently Not Plausible,’ Study Calls for Focus on Deep Social Change

Julia Conley — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 19:55:24 +0000

Scientists at the University of Hamburg in Germany argued Wednesday that meeting the 2015 Paris climate agreement's goal of limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C is "currently not plausible"—but warned that despairing over climate "tipping points" risks taking attention away from "the best hope for shaping a positive climate future... the ability of society to make fundamental changes."

The Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook assessed the planetary impacts of several "physical processes that are frequently discussed as tipping points." These include the melting of sea ice in the Arctic and glaciers at the North and South Poles; the weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the system of ocean currents that carries warm water upward into the North Atlantic; and "dieback" in the Amazon rainforest, in which rising temperatures would dry out trees and eventually change the forest landscape into a savanna, releasing billions of tons of stored carbon.

Those scenarios "are serious developments," said researchers at the university, but the melting of ice "will have very little influence on the global temperature until 2050." The weakening of AMOC and Amazon dieback will have a "moderately" greater influence on global temperatures.

"Human agency has a large potential to shape the way climate futures will evolve."

"By extrapolating current trends," reads the study, "permafrost thaw and Amazon Forest dieback are expected to release somewhat more than one year's worth of today's anthropogenic CO2 emissions between now and 2050. Thus, the contributions of these two processes to the remaining carbon budget are small. Since both will only moderately affect the global surface temperature, we deduce that they also only moderately inhibit the plausibility of attaining the Paris agreement temperature goals."

Such tipping points "could drastically change the conditions for life on Earth," but for experts, progressive politicians, and campaigners who share the goal of limiting planetary warming to 1.5°C—or as close to that as possible—"they're largely irrelevant," said Jochem Marotzke, a study co-author and professor at the university's Cluster of Excellence "Climate, Climatic Change, and Society" (CLICCS).

In other words, The Hillexplained, "Keeping global warming below 1.5°C—the goal set in the Paris agreement—is implausible for social reasons, not technical ones."

The researchers also examined 10 "drivers of social change" including media, United Nations climate policies, transnational initiatives, climate regulations, climate litigation, knowledge production, consumption patterns, corporate responses, fossil fuel divestment, and climate and social movements like the global Fridays for Future movement and Extinction Rebellion.

\u201cTo analyze the scenario, we assess 10 social drivers and 6 physical processes using our integrated CLICCS Plausibility Assessment Framework.\u201d
— CEN Uni Hamburg (@CEN Uni Hamburg) 1675248518

With fossil fuel companies continuing to make long-term investments in oil and gas extraction even as they announce pledges to reach net-zero carbon emissions, and rampant consumption of carbon-intensive goods showing no sign of slowing down, the study says, corporate responses and consumption patterns "continue to undermine the pathways to decarbonization, let alone deep decarbonization."

A number of social drivers including social movements, climate regulations, and fossil fuel divestment were found to currently "support decarbonization, but not deep decarbonization by 2050," which is needed to attain the 1.5°C goal.

"There are promising reforms underway, especially at the E.U. level," reads the report, adding that "general and ongoing public interest in and focus on climate policies" is an "enabling condition" that could help strengthen global movements and ramp up pressure on policymakers.

The researchers' assessment of the 10 social drivers demonstrates "that human agency has a large potential to shape the way climate futures will evolve," tweeted CLICCS. "However, human agency is strongly shaped by injustices and social inequalities, which inhibit social dynamics toward deep decarbonization by 2050."

The study identified how human actions can help shift the current trajectory "toward deep decarbonization," including:

The election of governments committed to climate action in countries including Australia, Brazil, Chile, Germany, and the U.S.;
More engagement and influence of individuals and organizations with strong and independent climate science journalism, to help support societal mobilization for climate action; and
Proactive communication from everyone interested in a more productive public debate on climate action based on social consensus.

"In order to be equipped for a warmer world, we have to anticipate changes, get the affected parties on board, and take advantage of local knowledge," said Anita Engels of the Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability at University of Hamburg. "Instead of just reacting, we need to begin an active transformation here and now."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

Ron DeSantis’ Attack on African American Studies Is Part of His Larger Goal: To Destroy Public Education

Becky Pringle — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 15:55:24 +0000

As a Black girl growing up in Philadelphia, I was fortunate that my late father, a history teacher, taught my sisters and me (and his students) about the important role our enslaved ancestors and other Black people have played in the struggle and progress that has made America what it is today. All of the educators I know understand that an accurate, well-rounded and inclusive education – one where every student sees themselves and others – fosters joy in learning and a deep understanding of the beauty and complexity of our full American story.

Most of us believe that all children, no matter where they live or how much money their parents make, deserve an honest and accurate public education. They want an education that teaches critical thinking and how to learn from mistakes to make a better future. By supporting culturally responsive education that includes students’ diverse history, cultures, families and communities, we enable students to see themselves in what they learn, to have strong relationships with each other and their educators, and to understand the world in which they live.

This is what public education is about.

Blocking AP African American Studies

So, you can’t blame the majority of us who oppose the chilling attack on our youth and our educators by some governors and elected officials. These are politicians who seek to divide parents and educators in order to deny our students their right to resources and their ability to be reflected and respected at school.

Giving us clarity:DeSantis blocks an AP African American studies course – and reveals his true colors

The latest example of this disturbing trend is the recent action by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to block a new Advanced Placement African American Studies course from being taught to high school students. For DeSantis, blocking AP African American Studies is a part of a cheap, cynical and dangerous political ploy to drive division and chaos into public education debates.

He seeks to distract communities from his real agenda, which is to first whitewash and then dumb down public education as an excuse to privatize it. His ultimate goal? The destruction of public education, the very foundation of our democracy.

It won’t work. Parents, students, educators, and yes, voters, will continue to reject these efforts to distract us from their failures to provide students with what they need to thrive.

And there are real consequences, not only to the strength of our democracy but also to our students.

The right to learn about others

During my visit to Florida, I listened to Elijah, Juliette and Victoria answer the question, “How does this ban impact you?” Their cogent, eloquent and passionate answers reminded me how amazing our students are. They understand.

As two Black students and one white student, describing the loss of opportunity to learn about themselves and each other, they reflected what is the best of America. Our beautiful diversity. Our unwavering determination. Our constant striving to be better. To be free to learn. And grow. Together.

These brilliant students know the importance of the right to see themselves mirrored in the images and information they receive in school. They talked about the right to learn about others so they can be the critical thinkers and collaborative problem solvers we need them to be.

Ubiquitous slur:DeSantis and GOP fight 'woke' because hating a word is easier than hating people

Preparing students with more knowledge, not less, is essential for an America that prides itself in having a free marketplace of ideas. This is why it is outrageous to see DeSantis and some other elected officials working to substitute their personal political ideology for well-developed, educator-led curricula. Gov. DeSantis is neither an educator nor a historian.

Consider the message the Florida Department of Education is sending to students when it says an AP African American history class “significantly lacks educational value.” State officials are telling all students, of all races, that African American history has no value and should play no part in their education. The message to all Florida students is damaging and dangerous.

We must learn about our nation's sins

My father taught me the importance of learning about the sins of slavery, the evils of Jim Crow, the impact that structural racism has had on our country’s ability to live up to its highest ideals. Learning about both the progress and setbacks, the cultures and experiences of the gorgeous mosaic of people in our diverse nation that are a part of the story of America is a necessary part of our continued journey toward “We the People.”

'History' more recent than you think:Pam's experience at my 1960s white school is the history we need to teach. Not ignore.

Educators have known this all along: A well-rounded education that is culturally responsive and racially inclusive benefits all students – white, Black, brown, Asian American and Pacific Islander, LGBTQ – and is the most effective pedagogical approach.

Students who participate in ethnic studies and have access to a curriculum that honors their cultural assets and provides them with the tools to critique inequality are more engaged and perform better academically. A full and honest curriculum facilitates the core goals of public education: promoting democracy by preparing children for citizenship and cultivating a workforce that can compete in the global marketplace.

I am so very proud of the people who have dedicated their lives to educating the students of America – the educators who through pedagogically sound, age-appropriate curricula and teaching standards help students understand our collective past, spark curiosity and critical thinking, and prepare all students to meet the challenges of our multicultural present and future.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Becky Pringle.

30×30 is conservation’s flashy new goal. Now countries need to figure out what it actually means.

Blanca Begert — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 11:45:00 +0000

Last month, right before the holidays, nearly 200 countries announced a breakthrough deal to protect Earth’s plants and animals. Of the 22 targets established at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP15, one stood out: an agreement to conserve 30 percent of land and seas by the year 2030.

The goal, commonly known as 30×30, has been around for a few years, slowly gaining traction in environmental circles since it was first proposed in the journal Science Advances in 2019. It draws inspiration from research by famed biologist E.O. Wilson that at least half the planet needs to be conserved in some way to protect 80 percent of species. The formal adoption of 30×30 by nearly all of the world’s governments at COP15 turned it into the official guiding star for the global conservation movement, with some leaders comparing it to the Paris Agreement in terms of significance.

Now, with negotiators at home and a new year underway, countries face the monumental task of figuring out what one of the most ambitious goals in conservation history actually means, in practice.

One of the toughest questions yet to be answered is: What exactly counts towards the 30 percent? Can certain conservation-minded agricultural methods that protect soil and promote a diversity of crops be included, or do only strictly protected areas like national parks count? To what degree will Indigenous territories be considered conserved land? And how will areas that connect fragments and contain the rarest, most species-rich ecosystems be prioritized under the goal? The final language in last month’s global agreement was vague on many of these topics.

“Underneath that [30×30] number is a huge amount of complexity,” said Claire Kremen, a conservation biology professor at the University of British Columbia who researches how to reconcile biodiversity conservation with agriculture. “It all depends on where and how you do this protection and there hasn’t been a lot of clarity on these points.”

The United States, while not technically part of last month’s global pact (the Senate since 1993 has refused to join the biodiversity convention), has been wrestling with these same questions independently. President Biden committed to the 30×30 goal within U.S. borders via executive order during his first week in office. And many states have also committed to the target, including California, Maine, New York, Hawaii, and New Mexico.

Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve is a national park in northern Alaska. Sean Tevebaugh, National Park Service

Just as negotiators at COP15 struggled to come to an agreement about what types of ecosystems and actions should count towards the global goal, the U.S. government has yet to define what “conserved” land and sea means under 30×30.

Currently, the U.S. has a variety of different protected area designations that are regulated in different ways. Most federal land, which makes up 27 percent of the country, is managed under some form of conservation, be it national parks and wilderness areas or, more commonly, a “mixed-use” mandate that allows for what the government determines to be sustainable levels of extractive activities like forestry and grazing. Add state parks and private land under conservation easements to the mix, and we’ve easily already met the 30 percent target, says Forrest Fleischman, a professor of environmental policy and forest governance at the University of Minnesota.

But most 30×30 advocates don’t think that all those lands should count towards the target, whose main goal is to protect biodiversity. While the U.S. Geological Survey’s Protected Area Database considers more than 31 percent of the country’s land under some form of protection, only 13 percent has strict mandates for biodiversity protection that don’t allow for any extractive activity.

“There’s habitat value to be found in all sorts of lands,” said Helen O’Shea, an expert on land-use and conservation issues at the Natural Resources Defense Council, “but the 30×30 effort is about creating a system that’s protected and ecologically representative. A connected system that’s going to link up areas that are solely being looked at for conservation purposes.”

For others, however, the answer isn’t as simple as just increasing the amount of land under strict protection. “If the goal is to move another 17 percent of the U.S. into something equivalent to a national forest or wilderness area, that seems unrealistic,” said Fleischman, who is part of group of experts working to understand the social implications of 30×30, funded by the Science for Nature and People Partnership.

When the 30×30 goal was first announced in the U.S., it received significant pushback from ranching communities and private landowners, who were concerned about impacts to rural economies like grazing and logging. Many also argued that certain productive land uses, especially when planned with biodiversity in mind, are compatible with conservation of species and ecosystems. While the white spotted owl can’t live in logged forests of the Pacific Northwest, for example, open grazing helps to maintain prairie habitats. Some grassland birds also thrive in the early successional forests that grow after timber harvest.

“It’s a very complicated, site-specific issue,” said Tom Cors, director of U.S. government relations for The Nature Conservancy. “Some places might have adequate ‘protection,’ but they need more management,” he added, referencing the need to conduct more prescribed burning to support ecosystem function in Western forests.

Mixed variety cover crops on a farm near St. John, Washington protect and enrich the soil. VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Globally, the most significant critique of the 30×30 initiative has come from Indigenous peoples, who warn that the protected area conservation model has allowed governments and nonprofit groups to seize control of natural resources and, in many cases, violently remove Indigenous peoples from their lands, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Nepal to Peru. Tribes in the U.S. that have historically been excluded from conservation planning, decision-making, and funding wanted to make sure the country’s 30×30 goal didn’t repeat these patterns.

In an effort to address those concerns, the Biden administration framed its 30×30 pledge as a “collaborative and inclusive approach to conservation,” with topline goals of honoring tribal sovereignty, supporting the priorities of tribal nations, respecting private property rights, and supporting the voluntary efforts of landowners, all with science as a guide. A May 2021 report from the Department of the Interior emphasized the concept of “conservation” rather than “protection,” “recognizing that many uses of our lands and waters, including of working lands, can be consistent with the long-term health and sustainability of natural systems.”

An interagency working group is trying to account for different types of land uses while building the American Conservation and Stewardship Atlas, a tool to represent the amount and types of lands and waters that are currently conserved or restored. Part of the group’s mandate is to figure out how contributions from farmers, ranchers, and forest owners, as well as the conservation strategies of Tribal Nations, will count toward the 30×30 goal. A December 2021 progress report did not include a number for how much land and water is currently managed for conservation; in an email to Grist, a Department of the Interior, or DOI, spokesperson had no updates on the Atlas timeline.

Beyond “what actions count,” land managers are also thinking about “which lands and waters should be protected?” towards the 30-percent target. Biodiversity tends to be concentrated in certain areas and ecosystem types, so where land protection happens is important. In its comments on the Atlas, The Nature Conservancy recommended distributing conserved areas among 68 ecoregions of the U.S. — the Central Appalachians, Northern tallgrass prairie, and California central coast, for example — and protecting 30 percent of each.

In the U.S., it’s private lands that contain most of the country’s biodiversity; these also play a role in connecting protected areas, which conservation groups have emphasized as an important priority for the Atlas, as habitat connectivity has been shown to be critical for species’ survival. In addition, the Biden administration wants the tool to promote equity, increasing access to nature in historically marginalized communities, often in urban areas. Yet as the DOI itself notes, “there is no single metric — including a percentage target — that could fully measure progress toward the fulfillment of those interrelated goals [of doing better for people, for fish and wildlife, and for the planet].”

The 30×30 target established at the U.N. biodiversity conference is global, meaning that countries can sign onto it without necessarily committing to conserve 30-percent of land and waters within their borders. Still, many countries have issued their own 30×30 commitments, including Canada, Australia, Costa Rica, and France. The United Kingdom has been criticized for claiming to protect 28 percent of its land when the included national parks and “areas of outstanding natural beauty” fail to address poor farming practices, pollution, and invasive species. In July, Colombia announced that it had already met the target for land and sea.

The final agreement reached at COP15 nodded to the inclusion of working lands and the importance of protecting ecologically-representative and high-biodiversity habitats, without setting clear guidelines. It “recognized and respected” the rights of Indigenous peoples, who steward 80% of the world’s biodiversity on their lands, without establishing their territories as a specific category of conserved area, leaving them vulnerable to human rights violations.

For Fleischman, having a “political slogan” without a clear meaning isn’t necessarily helpful for achieving biodiversity and environmental justice goals. “Advocates say, ‘Look beyond the numeric spatial target at the language which is about finding ways to pursue conservation at a whole landscape level while taking into account social equity issues such as [urban] parks,’” he said. “But if that’s the case, what is the point of saying ‘30 x 30’? ‘Healthy nature everywhere’ might be a better goal.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline 30×30 is conservation’s flashy new goal. Now countries need to figure out what it actually means. on Jan 9, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Blanca Begert.

The Real Goal of Fed Policy: Breaking Inflation, the Middle Class or the Bubble Economy?

Ellen Brown — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 06:02:31 +0000

“There is no sense that inflation is coming down,” said Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at a November 2 press conference, — this despite eight months of aggressive interest rate hikes and “quantitative tightening.” On November 30, the stock market rallied when he said smaller interest rate increases are likely ahead and could start in December. But rates will More

The post The Real Goal of Fed Policy: Breaking Inflation, the Middle Class or the Bubble Economy? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ellen Brown.

Biden’s LNG Export Goal ‘Would Spell Climate Disaster,’ Analysis Warns

Julia Conley — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 16:47:00 +0000

As the United Nations released its latest report showing that the continued failure of wealthy countries to immediately transition away from fossil fuels will cause catastrophic global heating, a new analysis warned the White House to scrap its plans to export billions of cubic meters of fracked gas to Europe annually until 2030.

The proposal, which the Biden administration claims "is consistent with our shared net-zero goals," would generate fossil fuel emissions equivalent to 400 million metric tons of carbon each year, according to the analysis by Food & Water Watch, which warned the plan "would spell climate disaster."

"Scaling up renewables to this level would avoid over 500 million metric tons of fossil fuels, no matter if it is replaced with solar or wind. The choice is clear."

"One year of emissions from 50 billion cubic meters (BCM) of [liquefied natural gas] LNG would be equivalent to yearly emissions from 100 coal plants," reads the group's report, titled LNG: The U.S. and E.U.'s Deal for Disaster.

LNG, which is created by cooling fracked gas to create a clear, colorless liquid, has been touted by the oil industry "as the climate-friendly alternative to Russian gas, but problems arise quickly, as a standard methane leakage rate from U.S.-sourced LNG has not been measured," Food & Water Watch adds.

The U.S. is already the world's biggest exporter of LNG, with exports averaging 0.32 BCM per day in the first half of this year. More than 70% of U.S. exports went to Europe this year, and while the Biden administration's plan has promised an extra 15 BCM of LNG to Europe this year, the current pace "will triple" that pledge, according to the report.

"The White House vision for delivering gas to Europe will serve to deliver climate chaos across the globe, at a moment when we simply cannot build new fossil fuel facilities at all," said Food & Water Watch research director Amanda Starbuck. "The White House must work with political leaders across the globe to find a safer alternative than doubling down on dirty gas."

The U.N. report released Wednesday estimated that planetary heating could reach 2.9°C by the end of the century if policymakers do not shift away from fossil fuel extraction promptly—a level of heating which could threaten hundreds of millions of people with sea level rise.

Food & Water Watch also detailed the immediate harm the Biden administration will be doing to communities near fracking sites in the U.S. if it moves ahead with the LNG exports plan.

"Communities plagued by fracking experience well documented and severe environmental impacts, which fall disproportionately on frontline populations that include rural, lower-income communities and communities of color," the group's report reads. "Those living near fracking sites are at increased risk of contracting cancer and a host of other medical disorders, with pregnant women and children at even greater risk."

UN countries adopt ‘aspirational’ net-zero goal for aviation

Jake Bittle — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 10:45:00 +0000

Nearly 200 countries pledged to cut carbon emissions from commercial aviation on Friday, marking the global community’s most ambitious pledge to regulate international air travel’s contributions to climate change.

The International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency known by the abbreviation ICAO that represents 193 member states, announced the new goal at the conclusion of its triennial summit in Montreal, Canada. The result of almost a decade of negotiations, the non-binding target that the agency called a “long-term aspirational goal” asks countries to reach net-zero emissions from cross-border air travel by 2050.

The pledge fills a major hole left by the 2015 climate summit that resulted in the Paris Agreement, where signatory countries pledged to reduce emissions within their own borders but stopped short of tackling emissions created by cross-border travel. In remarks at the ICAO assembly last week, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg called the deal “a compromise but also a strong commitment.”

Some climate experts were less enthusiastic.

“This is not aviation’s Paris Agreement moment,” said Jo Dardenne, the aviation director at the Belgian nonprofit Transportation & Environment, in a press release. “Let’s not pretend that a non-binding goal will get aviation down to zero [emissions].”

Air travel accounts for between 2 and 3 percent of all global carbon emissions, and it’s trending in the wrong direction. Worldwide air traffic almost doubled between 2010 and 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic causing only the briefest dent in industry growth. Aviation emissions are driven primarily by a small group of frequent flyers in developed countries — around 1 percent of all travelers account for around half of commercial aviation’s carbon emissions — but most future air traffic growth is expected to come from the developing world, where flying demand will likely skyrocket over the coming decades as incomes rise.

This lopsided dynamic has heavily influenced the yearslong negotiations over ICAO standards. Wealthy countries like Europe and the United States, which account for the vast majority of historical aviation emissions and have the most capital to fund a green transition, have pushed for the steepest reductions in carbon emissions. Developing countries like India, meanwhile, have sought a longer glide path toward net zero, since their aviation sectors are just now getting off the ground. These countries have also pushed developed nations for financial support as they transition toward sustainable aviation. The non-binding 2050 target represented a compromise between those two positions; previous agreements had only promised “carbon-neutral growth” from 2020 onward.

Decarbonizing aviation without compromising expectations for modern air travel is one of renewable energy’s thorniest technical problems. Many hopes are pinned on “sustainable aviation fuel,” a catchall term for alternative fuels that are less polluting than standard jet diesel. Major airline companies like JetBlue and Delta have pumped millions of dollars into developing such fuels from cooking oil and food waste over the past few years, and governments are seeking to subsidize them as well: The Inflation Reduction Act recently signed into law by President Joe Biden, for instance, contains tax credits for manufacturing such fuels.

Unfortunately, sustainable fuels are currently more than twice as expensive as conventional fuel; other solutions that would run passenger planes on batteries or hydrogen remain technologically and financially prohibitive. Airlines can also achieve marginal emissions reductions by buying more efficient airplanes and designing more efficient flight paths.

In the absence of big emissions cuts, the aviation industry has historically relied on carbon offsets to bolster its green bona fides. In addition to adopting the net-zero target, the ICAO also adopted new standards for its carbon offsetting scheme, which is known as CORSIA. The scheme requires participating countries to offset all international aviation emissions above a certain threshold by purchasing a carbon credit — paying to protect a forest that sequesters carbon, for instance, or subsidizing the cost of a new wind farm. CORSIA is the closest thing the ICAO has endorsed to a carbon tax on air travel, and it has long been seen as a key way to mitigate climate pollution within the aviation sector, in part because its standards for what counts as a legitimate offset are more stringent than many private-sector standards.

The ICAO has been developing the CORSIA standards since 2016, but the pandemic threw the rollout into disarray, as emissions from air travel plummeted and then rebounded. At the talks in Montreal, the most ambitious countries argued that each signatory nation should be limited to 70 percent of its 2019 aviation emissions, meaning if it were to emit above that threshold in future years it would have to purchase offsets corresponding to the excess emissions. Many developing countries countered that this limit would be far more onerous for them than it would be for the European nations arguing for the stricter standard, both because their aviation sectors are on track to experience much more growth in years to come and because they have less money with which to buy offsets. These countries argued that 100 percent of 2019 emissions should be the new threshold. Yet again, the final result was a compromise between the two proposals: If countries exceed 85 percent of their 2019 aviation emissions, they will have to buy offsets for every excess ton of emissions. The new standards will remain in effect through 2035.

The question lurking behind the pledge is whether sustainable fuels and offsets are enough to bring down emissions, or whether tackling climate change will require the world to fly less. The ICAO standards don’t include any direct attempts to reduce air travel, but climate activists like Greta Thunberg have sought to discourage the residents of wealthy countries from flying when it isn’t necessary. Thunberg rose to prominence on the heels of a movement known as flygskam, or “flight shame,” and she herself famously sailed across the Atlantic rather than fly transcontinental. A recent report from the International Council on Clean Transportation, meanwhile, suggested imposing a global tax on frequent flyers.

Sailboats aside, there are almost no effective transportation substitutes for long-haul flights across the Atlantic Ocean, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t easy ways to reduce air travel. At least before the pandemic, the largest share of long-haul flights were business trips, but the rise of Zoom and remote work may render some of those trips unnecessary. The most wasteful flights from an emissions perspective, meanwhile, are short-haul flights that cover distances of less than a thousand miles. Taking one of these flights is often worse for the climate than driving to your destination — let alone opting for a low-carbon substitute like a train or bus.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline UN countries adopt ‘aspirational’ net-zero goal for aviation on Oct 12, 2022.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Jake Bittle.

As Student Debt Fight Continues, Progressives Eye Another Goal: Tuition-Free College

Jake Johnson — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 09:14:34 +0000

After scoring a major but partial victory in the yearslong fight to eliminate the crushing burden of student debt, progressive lawmakers and campaigners stressed the importance of a deeply interconnected goal as they work toward total debt cancellation: Making public colleges and universities tuition-free for all.

While President Joe Biden's plan to wipe $10,000 off the student loan balances of most federal borrowers includes reforms that will make debt repayment more manageable going forward—as well as new rules aimed at cracking down on institutions that drown vulnerable students in debt—it will do little to alter an absurd and massively unjust system that allows colleges to drive up costs at will.

"We also need to make college tuition-free so debt is not accumulated moving forward."

"Much like the medical system, higher education is badly in need of price regulation," writes The American Prospect's Ryan Cooper. "For decades now, the government has been shoveling subsidies into colleges and universities, and (with a few exceptions) they have responded by jacking their prices through the roof. Biden can't do this by himself, of course, but it's long since time for the government to start demanding a better deal for itself—and American students."

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) helped elevate and mainstream the solution of tuition-free public colleges and universities, which he frequently noted are a mainstay of several major countries and used to be commonplace in the United States.

But public college and university tuition and fees have surged in recent decades, making it necessary for students from lower-income families to take on often obscene levels of debt to pursue a higher education. The average federal student loan debt balance is $37,113—and with private loan debt included, that figure jumps to nearly $41,000.

"The average public university student borrows $30,030 to attain a bachelor's degree," notes the Education Data Initiative.

Estimates of what it would cost the federal government to make public colleges and universities tuition-free—thus removing the primary reason for student loan debt—vary, with some analysts putting the cost at around $80 billion a year.

That sum, a mere fraction of the Pentagon's yearly budget, is easily affordable. As economist David Deming has noted, "the federal government spent $91 billion on policies that subsidized college attendance" in 2016.

"That is more than the $79 billion in total tuition and fee revenue for public institutions," Deming observed. "At least some of the $91 billion could be shifted into making public institutions tuition-free."

"In short," he added, "at least some—and perhaps all—of the cost of universal tuition-free public higher education could be defrayed by redeploying money that the government is already spending."

Alternatively, Sanders and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) have proposed financing a plan for tuition-free public colleges and universities by taxing Wall Street speculation.

"If the United States is going to effectively compete in the global economy, we need the best-educated workforce in the world, and that means making public colleges and universities tuition-free as many other major countries currently do—and that includes trade schools and minority-serving institutions as well," Sanders said in a statement Wednesday.

"In the year 2022, in the wealthiest country on Earth," the senator continued, "everyone in America who wants a higher education should be able to get that education without going into debt."

The Goal of COVID Billionaires

Allen Forrest — Sun, 17 Jul 2022 16:38:02 +0000

The post The Goal of COVID Billionaires first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Allen Forrest.

The AFL-CIO’s Official New Goal: Continued Decline

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 14:41:00 +0000

The union federation's new organizing plan aims low. Very low.

This content originally appeared on In These Times and was authored by Hamilton Nolan.

Fossil Fuel ‘Addiction’ Is Sabotaging Every Sustainable Development Goal: Report

Jake Johnson — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 09:19:41 +0000

A first-of-its-kind report published Wednesday warns that the continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels worldwide—particularly in the rich countries most responsible for planet-warming carbon emissions—is imperiling every single sustainable development goal adopted by United Nations member states in 2015.

The 17 SDGs are far-reaching, ranging from ending global poverty to eliminating hunger to combating the climate emergency, and achieving them by 2030 would require ambitious and coordinated action on a global scale.

"Fossil fuel addiction poisons every earnest attempt we make to tackle the sustainable development and climate agendas."

But world leaders' persistent commitment to fossil fuels, which the new report dubs an "addiction," is rendering such action impossible by "amplifying the impacts of climate change and placing the health and stability of both natural and human systems at risk."

"Fossil fuel addiction poisons every earnest attempt we make to tackle the sustainable development and climate agendas," said Tzeporah Berman, chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. "Despite a robust pile of evidence that fossil fuels are core to our problems, governments are not moving and international cooperation is lacking."

Authored by researchers at the University of Sussex on behalf of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative and other civil society organizations, the report makes use of more than 400 academic articles and advocacy group reports to closely examine for the first time the threat that fossil fuels pose to each of the SDGs.

By 2030, the report notes, the climate crisis could push 122 million more people into extreme poverty worldwide by intensifying extreme weather events, which often cause mass destruction and displacement. Yet globally, "governments spend three times more money on fuel subsidies than the annual amount needed to eradicate poverty," the researchers observe.

Fossil fuels are also undermining global efforts to combat hunger, which has spiked during the coronavirus pandemic.

"Increases in global temperatures, shifting rainfall patterns, extreme weather events, and elevated surface carbon dioxide concentrations from burning fossil fuels will reduce the yields of key crops," the report states. "Fossil fuel production, and fossil fuel corporations' carbon offset schemes, are pulling vast amounts of land away from productive uses, such as agriculture."

And on down the list. Promoting good health and well-being, guaranteeing quality education for all, achieving gender equality, ensuring clean water and sanitation, transitioning to renewable energy, and securing lasting peace are all tasks that a fossil fuel-dependent status quo has made unachievable, the new report warns.

"By 2030, humanity needs to have halved global emissions, while at the same time achieving all 17 SDGs," said report co-author Freddie Daley, a research associate at the University of Sussex. "This is an impossible endeavor without concerted global efforts to constrain and phase out fossil fuel production in a fast, fair, and equitable manner, with the wealthy nations that continue to benefit from fossil-fueled economic growth leading the way."

"This research lays out the incompatibility of sustainable development and fossil fuels—and what is at stake if we fail to address unchecked fossil fuel expansion," Daley added.

To dramatically change course and put the world on a path toward achieving sustainable development objectives, the report recommends an entirely new international framework, such as a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty with "binding commitments that constrain fossil fuel production globally."

Such a treaty, the researchers suggest, should include three prongs:

Non-proliferation. End new exploration and production by issuing a worldwide moratorium on the extraction of new fossil fuel reserves.
Equitable Phase Down. Commit countries to phase down production in existing projects, in line with equity and the 1.5°C global temperature goal.
Accelerate a Fair Transition. Provide finance and technological assistance to aid those most dependent on fossil fuel production to climate change to diversify their economies and move away from fossil fuels, scale up access to renewable energy and ensure a just transition for all.

"Every day that we burn fossil fuels is one more day that we're undermining these goals for a sustainable, livable planet," Jean Su, the director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.

"The first step to fighting the extinction of countless species and the scourge of global poverty is to turn off the spigot of dangerous fossil fuels," Su added. "That's the only way we can build a just, peaceful future that protects the dignity of humanity and all life on Earth."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.

‘Disastrous for press freedom’: What Russia’s goal of an isolated internet means for journalists

Alicia Ceccanese — Mon, 23 May 2022 17:30:50 +0000

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine presents a danger not only for reporters operating in the war zone. The campaign could also pose a broader threat to press freedoms and other civil liberties if it brings the Kremlin closer to its dream of creating a domestically controlled internet.

Russia’s internet regulator, Rozkomnadzor, has long been able to compel internet service providers to block content or reroute traffic. In 2019, the “sovereign internet” bill took state control a step further by empowering authorities to sever Russian internet infrastructure from the global internet during an emergency or security threat.

Concerns about a fractured internet ecosystem, or “splinternet,” have only grown since the invasion. Russia has banned Twitter, Facebook, and more than a dozen independent media organizations. Meanwhile, after U.S.-based software firms and internet carriers started pulling out of Russia, CPJ and other civil society groups warned that restricting access could backfire by isolating the Russian people and journalists. That helped prompt a U.S. government order allowing telecom companies to operate in Russia despite sanctions.

Russia is now seeking to export its state-controlled version of the internet on the global stage, promoting its own candidate to lead the United Nations International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the agency responsible for information and communication technology. That could shift control of internet operations away from the U.S.-based non-profit, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which coordinates the internet’s naming system and develops policy on the internet’s unique identifiers.

Russia is not alone in pursuing domestic internet control. China’s Great Firewall is perhaps the best known, while Iran’s National Information Network (the “Halal Network”), North Korea’s national intranet, and Cambodia’s forthcoming National Internet Gateway all seek the same end, with slightly different means.

CPJ emailed Rozkomnadzor’s press office for comment on Russia’s intentions regarding its plans for a sovereign internet and the ITU candidacy, but did not receive a response.

CPJ spoke with Justin Sherman, a nonresident fellow at U.S.-based think tank the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative, by phone about the splinternet and its implications for the future of the internet and press freedom. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Justin Sherman, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative. (Photo: Atlantic Council)

What is the splinternet?

When the internet first started spreading around the world, most countries welcomed it. They wanted the interconnection, the open flow of online goods, research, and information. The splinternet is emerging in response to that globalization. Over the past two decades, a number of countries have wanted to control that flow of data, and so have worked to isolate and repress their online environment.

The internet is splintering in different ways. In some countries, if you pull up the internet, you’re going to be viewing an entirely different thing than you are in the rest of the world. In China, for example, you’re seeing a heavily censored version of what everyone else sees on the internet. You can’t pull up foreign news websites. Your email application might not work well. And the state is imposing tons of censorship on the internet in its country. Another example is what the Russian government is doing, pushing to actually be able to cut off their internet from the globe.

How is the cutting off the internet different than what China is doing?

Russia is not nearly [able to cut itself off from the internet] yet. China, largely speaking, is fine with just content censorship. Their state control goes all the way down to the wires and cables. But their main focus is making sure that you can’t access state critical information, that you can’t access foreign news websites. The Russian government wants to go all the way down to the deepest levels and actually cut off the entire internet in Russia from the rest of the world with the flip of the switch. It’s going far below that content level and actually trying to isolate the infrastructure and the architecture.

How has the Ukraine conflict hastened a potential splinternet?

The Russian government, since its illegal war in Ukraine, has engaged in an unprecedented crackdown on the internet. Domestically, they have targeted journalists. They have targeted dissidents. They have targeted ordinary citizens who asked questions about the war. They have targeted foreign technology and internet companies. On the flip side, many Western internet companies have restricted Russian access to their services or pulled out of Russia altogether. Some of this is sanctions compliance. Some of this is convenient PR, where they can say, “We’re doing a good thing.” They can say to Western governments, “We do support Democratic values.” The problem is, if you’re making a decision like pulling internet services from a country based on PR, you’re not actually considering the impacts on press freedom and on civil liberties in that country. There are a lot of Western internet companies pulling out of Russia and causing severe damage to journalists and dissidents in civil society.

If Russia were to self-isolate, does that have any effect on the overall framework that governs the internet or on structures like security certificates and IP addresses?

For several reasons, yes. One is Russia isolating its internet completely would set a very dangerous precedent and example for other countries. We already see lots of countries that are former Soviet republics copying Moscow’s internet control model. The Russian government, when it talks about an isolated internet, talks about its own protocols, about controlling Russian internet domains. Recent events like the Ukrainian government asking ICANN to discontinue service to .ru addresses, which ICANN promptly declined, plays into the Kremlin’s paranoia, this belief that Russia needs to be isolated because other countries are attacking us online.

What’s the worst-case scenario if a Russian “hermit internet” were to emerge?

The worst case is the Russian government is able to isolate its internet. You would have diminished global insight into what’s happening in Russia, including human rights and press abuses. Civil society groups and actors from journalists to dissidents in Russia would have a harder time accessing free information. And because so many companies pulled out of Russia or are blocked, more and more Russians are going to turn to domestic Russian internet platforms. And the reality is that something like [Russian social media network] VK is far more censored and surveilled by the Russian government than literally any platform the West is providing for Russia. There’s a reason a lot of Russian journalists are active on things like Twitter and Facebook and are not necessarily going on VK and blasting these articles exposing corruption.

Are there particular countries that are more apt to adopt a hermit internet approach?

The Iranian government is partly there. There is access to the global internet in Iran, though it’s heavily filtered. And there is also a domestic internet, the National Information Network, that’s been around about a decade now and hosts mostly state-approved domestic content. The government tries to get people to use this domestic internet by making it cheaper and faster than accessing global content.

But Russia stands out in really wanting to deeply and fundamentally isolate its domestic internet. Not every country wants to go to that depth, because you get extraordinary economic benefits from global internet connectivity. But you have plenty of countries who will take pieces of what Russia and Iran are doing. And you might have other states who are run by authoritarian regimes, who are extremely paranoid and security focused, and who don’t care as much about the economic benefits of the internet because they are under such heavy sanctions by foreign countries.

Are there other implications for press freedom should a hermit internet emerge, inside or outside of Russia?

Journalists in Russia are going to have a far harder time to do reporting and get that reporting out to other citizens, because more people will be using domestic platforms that the state has infiltrated, or will not have access to foreign platforms and websites. On the external side, it’s harder for journalists globally to get information into Russia on things that are going on, not just in Russia, but around the world.

More internet isolation in Russia would be disastrous for press freedom. It was already extremely dangerous to be an independent journalist in Russia. That environment has gotten much worse in recent weeks, with many long-time Russian analysts talking about totalitarianism. It’s going to be harder for those journalists to do their jobs independently and safely if they lose more access to online platforms and services.

Does the threat of a splinternet impact the importance of the ITU candidacy?

The Russian government has been disturbingly successful in the last three or four years in getting repressive internet proposals passed in the U.N. In December 2019, you had the Russian government get a bunch of countries who historically supported a free, open internet, like India, to sign onto a proposal with China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea. The war on Ukraine has changed that. In recent weeks, Russian delegates have been kicked out of internet working groups, and there is much less interest in places like the ITU to allow the Russian government any sort of leadership role. That said, they’re continuing to push for it, and there are plenty of countries, including those they are targeting with propaganda, who support the war in Ukraine.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Alicia Ceccanese.

US Secretary of Defense Admits the Real Strategic Goal in Ukraine: Quagmire for Russia

John Burroughs — Tue, 26 Apr 2022 09:53:56 +0000

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin provided a revealing and disturbing glimpse into a darker element of US policy at a press conference held April 25 at the Poland/Ukraine border. The press event followed a trip to Kiev by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Austin.

The US government must not be guided by any notion that a quagmire in Ukraine would drain Russian resources, diminish Russian influence and power globally, and possibly lead to regime change.

Austin was asked how he defines "America's goals for success" in Ukraine. He first said that the US wants to see "Ukraine remain a sovereign country, a democratic country, able to protect its sovereign territory." But then he added: "We want to see Russia weakened to the degree it cannot do the kind things that it has done in invading Ukraine." I had feared that geopolitical strategizing is affecting the US approach, but this is the first public indication of that I have seen.

It cannot be said too strongly: The US government must not be guided by any notion that a quagmire in Ukraine would drain Russian resources, diminish Russian influence and power globally, and possibly lead to regime change. The United States instead should do all within its power to help bring the war to a close rapidly in order to limit suffering; to eliminate risks that the conflict will widen and escalate, possibly to nuclear war; and to limit the negative global economic and food security repercussions.

A broader reason for determined efforts to end the war is the need to work toward restoring a relationship with Russia enabling cooperation on nuclear arms control and disarmament, climate protection, public health, and other vital matters of global concern.

US energy in helping bring the war to a close is also appropriate in view of the political responsibility of the United States, together with NATO, since the late 1990s in helping to create the conditions for a crisis. Actions having this effect included precipitously withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2003, subsequently establishing missile defense facilities in Romania and Poland, and opening the door to Ukraine's membership in NATO in 2008.

In a recent paper, End the War, Stop the War Crimes, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy outlines already widely discussed elements of an approach to ending the war. In brief, Russia and Ukraine should quickly agree to a cease-fire to enable negotiation of a settlement.

Negotiations should then aim to end the war immediately and to resolve the overarching disputes concerning governance of the Donbas region and the status of Crimea. A long-term consultative mechanism could be put in place to resolve time-intensive or recurring issues and to help maintain peace and human security. Ukraine appears ready to forswear any possibility of joining NATO, so long as some form of guaranteed neutrality can be established, but seeks to join the European Union. The overall aim should be the preservation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity in accordance with the UN Charter.

In addition to any role they can play, behind the scenes or not, in bringing about a cease-fire and negotiating a settlement, the United States and other states must be ready to lift war-related sanctions and to accept and support some form of neutrality for Ukraine should Ukraine choose that.

Russia's war on Ukraine is already causing appalling suffering and devastation. It is playing with fire—even nuclear fire—to allow the war to go on indefinitely and potentially to widen and escalate, at least partly with the aim of weakening Russia. The right course is to making ending the war on acceptable, if not perfect, terms the highest priority.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by John Burroughs.

The world’s most ambitious climate goal is essentially out of reach

Shannon Osaka — Fri, 08 Apr 2022 10:45:00 +0000

When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the consortium of scientists responsible for summarizing the world’s climate knowledge and releasing it in roughly decadal, 3,000-plus-page installments — published its latest report on Monday, the findings were just as grim as usual. The report warned that greenhouse gas emissions are now higher than at any point in human history and continue to grow, despite countries’ weak efforts at diplomacy. Every year, nations spew 59 gigatons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. For the world to have even a sliver of a chance to meet its goals under the Paris Agreement, the scientists warned, emissions must peak no later than 2025 and then enter a precipitously steep decline.

But hidden on page 25 of the “Summary for Policymakers” was an even grimmer note: That even in the IPCC’s most optimistic models, the chances of holding global warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) — compared to the pre-industrial average — is only around 38 percent. In short, even if countries were to defy their history of delay and act heroically quickly to boost clean energy, the odds are that it won’t be enough. For all intents and purposes, the 1.5-degree threshold has already passed. We just don’t know it yet.

“The real message of the IPCC report is that 1.5 is now essentially a meaningless goal,” said David Victor, a professor of public policy at the University of California, San Diego and a former lead author for the IPCC. “And I think that’s been true for a long time.”

So how did the world end up with a 1.5-degree target in the first place? And if it’s now meaningless — why is everyone still talking about it?

The 1.5 degree goal was added into the Paris Agreement as a kind of afterthought. When nations gathered in France in 2015, they initially were aiming to keep global temperatures “well below 2 degrees Celsius.” But a group of nations led by the Republic of the Marshall Islands — a low-lying island nation at risk of being swallowed up by sea-level rise if the world warms by 2 degrees — formed a “High Ambition Coalition” which sought to enshrine a lower, more ambitious temperature target. Eventually, all 196 nations agreed: They would hold temperatures well below 2 degrees and “pursue efforts” to hold them to below 1.5 degrees. Even then, it was an aspirational goal: One writer referred to it as both “necessary and inaccessible.”

But three years later, the IPCC released a special report on the new target. Contrary to popular belief, it didn’t identify 1.5 degrees C as a magical threshold of warming, beyond which climate impacts would get much worse; but it did demonstrate, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a world with 2 degrees of warming would be hotter, drier, and deadlier than one with 1.5 degrees. That extra half-degree, the report said, would mean the demise of coral reefs around the world, the end of many small-island nations, and millions more people exposed to extreme heat.

A climate activist with the Fridays for Future movement protests at the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in November 2021. AP Photo / Alberto Pezzali

The report galvanized the world. It sparked Greta Thunberg’s school strike and the Britain-based protest movement known as the Extinction Rebellion. “1.5 to stay alive” — a motto first adopted by the Marshall Islands — became a regular refrain at climate protests and international negotiations alike.

In 2018, when the special report was released, holding warming to 1.5 degrees C — without any of what scientists delicately call “overshoot” — was barely possible. Today, after four more years of essentially constant emissions, the chances are slim to none. (As of 2020, the planet had already warmed by 1.2 degrees.)

“It doesn’t contradict the laws of chemistry and physics to get to 1.5 degrees,” said Oliver Geden, a lead author for the IPCC and a senior fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “It just contradicts everything we know about how the world works.”

But even as the target fades into impossibility, scientists, journalists, and policymakers continue to treat it as a real, albeit shrinking, prospect. “‘It’s now or never’: World’s top climate scientists issue ultimatum on critical temperature limit” read one CNBC headline shortly after the new IPCC report was released. As 1.5 degrees has gotten less plausible, scientists and modelers — at the request of policymakers — have found new ways to keep it alive: creating models that involve removing more and more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, or projecting “overshoot” scenarios in which the world reaches 1.6, 1.7, or even 1.8 degrees of warming only to dip back down later.

Why does 1.5 degrees continue to attract so much fervor? Diplomatically, Victor said, the goal still retains “massive support.” Policymakers don’t want to admit defeat — and because the goal is global, the responsibility for reaching it doesn’t fall on any one particular country. If John Kerry, Biden’s chief international climate negotiator, were to announce that the goal should be abandoned, he would be skewered by small-island nations and developed nations alike. “Nobody can blink first,” Victor added.

Zeke Hausfather, a senior fellow at the Oakland-based Breakthrough Institute and the climate research lead at the payments company Stripe, adds that “there’s a lot of inertia in the system” around 1.5. “People don’t want to rain on the parade of everyone by saying that we don’t have a chance to achieve these most ambitious goals,” he added.

A section of bike path covered in ocean water during the “King Tide” event — made worse by sea-level rise — in Mill Valley, California, in January. JOSH EDELSON / AFP via Getty Images

All this doesn’t mean that the 1.5-degree goal has been — or will be — useless. Far from it. It has galvanized climate activism and pushed countries to ratchet up their still-feeble climate plans. The ambitiousness of the goal has likely moved the Overton window, or the metaphorical window of what policies are considered acceptable to support. Now, previously impossible policies — like phasing out the use of natural gas or halting the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure — seem not only possible but necessary.

Luckily for humanity, 1.5 degrees was never the end-all be-all of climate policy. Every tenth of a degree matters; every hundredth of a degree matters. Limiting warming to 1.6 degrees will be better than 1.7, which will be better than 1.8, which will in turn be much better than 2 degrees. Temperature goals are always arbitrary constructions, designed to give urgency and structure to the messy, complex, and socially difficult work of decarbonizing.

The IPCC now predicts that the world will pass 1.5 degrees in the early 2030s (depending on our emissions and a few other climate factors, it could happen even earlier). When that happens, there may be confusion, frustration, and despair. Small-island states will be teetering on the brink of destruction; heat waves in the Middle East and Africa will be lasting and intense. But the definitive loss of this target won’t mean that all is lost: It will just mean that, then as now, we need to cut emissions as quickly as possible.

“Somebody asked me, ‘What does it mean it’s “now or never”?’” Geden said. He paused. “When is the ‘now’ over?”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The world’s most ambitious climate goal is essentially out of reach on Apr 8, 2022.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Shannon Osaka.

Gender equality in climate action talks, a key goal: UN Women

Ali Khaffane, UN Geneva — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 21:05:31 +0000

Women and girls are 14 times more likely than men to be killed or injured as a result of climate crises and natural disasters, so it’s high time their voices carry more weight in climate negotiations.

That’s the straightforward message from UN Women, which has launched a new strategic plan to increase women’s political participation and leadership on climate change and environmental sustainability.

In honour of International Women’s Day which was celebrated all this week, UN News’s Ali Khaffane caught up with Adriana Quinones, Director of UN Women’s liaison office in Geneva, to explain the agency’s approach.

This content originally appeared on UN News and was authored by Ali Khaffane, UN Geneva.

‘Shocking’: Report Warns US Likely to Miss Modest Vaccine Donation Goal

Jake Johnson — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 09:38:27 +0000

"The Biden administration is not on track to meet its commitment of donating 1.2 billion vaccine doses this year. The White House quietly dropped the timeline in its new pandemic plan."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.

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