Friday, January 03, 2020

Common Dreams - Breaking News and Views for the Progressive Community

Two Right-Wing Democrats Join Republicans in Asking Supreme Court to Consider Overturning Roe v. Wade

"It's happening, people. This is what's at stake in 2020."
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More than 200 Republicans and two conservative Democrats filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday, asking the court to consider overturning Roe v. Wade. (Photo: Jordan Uhl/Flickr/cc)
Reproductive rights advocates on Thursday seized on an amicus brief signed by more than 200 members of Congress, including two conservative Democrats, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider overturning Roe vs. Wade as the latest example of the assault on women's freedom.
The brief was signed by 168 members of the House and 39 senators. Two House Democrats joined their Republican colleagues, led by House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) in the effort—Reps. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.).
Lipinski drew the ire of progressive Democrat Marie Newman, who is challenging him in the 2020 primary.
"His position in Congress jeopardizes the health of women in IL-03 and across the country," Newman tweeted. "My opponent does not trust women and is not fit to represent us."
The brief was filed ahead of the court's hearing on June Medical Services v. Gee, concerning a Louisiana law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital—one of numerous "TRAP" (Targeted Restrictions on Abortion Providers) laws passed in states in recent years.
Discrepancies over what constitutes an "undue burden" on patients seeking abortion care illustrate "the unworkability of the 'right to abortion' found in Roe v. Wade ... and the need for the Court to again take up the issue of whether Roe and [Planned Parenthood v. Casey] should be reconsidered and, if appropriate, overruled," the brief reads.
Alexis McGill Johnson, acting president of Planned Parenthood, said the Louisiana law and the amicus brief are both attempts to frame abortion care as unsafe.
"Asking the Supreme Court to reconsider overturning Roe is an assault on our basic rights, plain and simple," tweeted Johnson. "Abortion is safe and legal, and we're doing everything we can to keep it that way."
Pro-choice advocates condemned the brief, which some saw as the latest sign that President Donald Trump's remaking of the judicial branch poses a serious threat to Americans' right to abortion care.
A number of Democrats challenging some of the brief's signatories in 2020 pointed to the document as evidence that anti-choice candidates must be defeated in the coming elections.
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Common Dreams - Breaking News and Views for the Progressive Community

Bernie Sanders Condemns Trump for Putting US on Path to 'Another Disastrous War in the Middle East'

"Trump promised to end endless wars, but this action puts us on the path to another one," 2020 Democratic candidate said of Trump's order to assassinate top Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani.

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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) speaks during a campaign event at NOAH's Events Venue on December 30, 2019 in West Des Moines, Iowa. On Thursday night, Sanders denounced the assassination of a top Iranian military leader as a "dangerous escalation." (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) speaks during a campaign event at NOAH's Events Venue on December 30, 2019 in West Des Moines, Iowa. On Thursday night, Sanders denounced the assassination of a top Iranian military leader as a "dangerous escalation." (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders denounced President Donald Trump late Thursday night for giving the order to assassinate Iran's Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force—calling the move a "dangerous escalation" that brings the United States "closer to another disastrous war in the Middle East that could cost countless lives and trillions more dollars."
"War with Iran would be disastrous and wholly unnecessary. Military and diplomatic leaders have warned it could bring costs, in both blood and treasure, greater than the wars with Iraq and Afghanistan combined." —Stephen Miles, Win Without WarIn a statement responding to what other critics decried as an "explicit act of war" by the sitting U.S. president, Sanders said, "Trump promised to end endless wars, but this action puts us on the path to another one."
Sanders invoked his vote against the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2002 when he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives during the Bush administration's push for war. "I feared it would lead to greater destabilization of the country and the region," Sanders explained. "Today, 17 years later, that fear has unfortunately turned out to be true. The United States has lost approximately 4,500 brave troops, tens of thousands have been wounded, and we've spent trillions on this war."  
Sanders was hardly alone in his condemnation of what Trump has done by targeting and killing the powerful Iranian military leader—a figure many consider to be the second-most powerful person in the Iranian government behind supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sanders' rival in the 2020 Democratic primary, also railed against what she called a "reckless move" by the president—even as she deployed the widely derided "he was a bad guy, but..." construction.
Numerous anti-war voices also spoke out forcefully against the U.S. escalation against Iran by Trump.
"Tonight, Donald Trump has driven us to the brink of war with Iran—and possibly further," said Stephen Miles, executive director of Win Without War, in response to the drone attack that killed Suleimani and other Iranian military officers with him.
According to Miles, "War with Iran would be disastrous and wholly unnecessary. Military and diplomatic leaders have warned it could bring costs, in both blood and treasure, greater than the wars with Iraq and Afghanistan combined."
Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), also issued a grave warning. "The last thing the world needs is yet another disastrous American military adventure in the Middle East," said Abdi in a statement. "The assassination of IRGC Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani is a profoundly reckless move that will be viewed as an act of war in Tehran."
"Iran is a nation of 80 million innocent people," added Abdi, "most of whom do not want war and oppose the actions of their own government. Similarly, Iraq is a nation of 38 million who deserve peace after lives filled with war. And the American people have seen enough of wars in the Middle East that have no end, only new beginnings. Yet many thousands of innocents in each country will be the victims of a conflict that will be difficult to confine within any one nation's borders."
Artist, author, and progressive activist Molly Crabapple characterized what Trump has done as "idiotic, illegal lunacy."
Win Without War and other peace groups called on U.S. voters to immediately contact their members of Congress in order to avert further escalation and put a check on Trump's warmongering and illegal behavior.
Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group CodePink, tweeted: "Let's be clear Trump is not responding to Iranian aggression. TRUMP IS THE AGGRESSOR. He is the one who tore up the nuclear deal that Iran had agreed to and adhered to. TRUMP IS THE AGGRESSOR. Period."
Miles made a similar point in his statement. "Make no mistake: Donald Trump is responsible for this crisis," he said. "Trump entered office with some of the most promising inroads to peaceful relations with Iran in decades. Instead, he proceeded to fill his cabinet with warmongers, abandon the successful, multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and launch a systematic campaign of 'maximum pressure,' placing the US and Iran on a collision course to conflict. Now, he has chosen to assassinate, without congressional authorization, one of Iran's most powerful leaders."
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) joined Sen. Tom Udall in calling for their fellow members of Congress to step in and put an end to Trump's military preemption and constitutional overreach.
Other members of the U.S. Senate also chimed in.
"The president has taken a step that could very well lead to escalating warfare with Iran, and have profound consequences for American security," tweeted Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR). "The decision to go to war is given by the Constitution to Congress. The Constitution must be respected."
And Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) stated, "Trump's apparent assassination of Soleimani is a massive, deliberate, and dangerous escalation of conflict with Iran. The President just put the lives of every person in the region—U.S. service members and civilians—at immediate risk.  We need de-escalation now."
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How youth protests shaped the discussion on climate change 

Climate strikes are an example of youth becoming politicized and rejecting adult inaction 




Two strikes were held on Sept. 20 and 27, as the UN emergency climate summit took place on Sept. 23. Madelaine Picard joined both the protests happening in Prince Rupert and plans to come back as often as she can for Fridays for Future. (Jenna Cocullo / The Northern View)

THE CANADIAN PRESS
Dec. 21, 2019  OPINION


Greta Thunberg made history again this month when she was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. The 16-year-old has become the face of youth climate action, going from a lone child sitting outside the Swedish parliament building in mid-2018 to a symbol for climate strikers — young and old — around the world.


Thunberg was far from the first young person to speak up in an effort to hold the powerful accountable for their inaction on climate change, yet the recognition of her efforts come at a time when world leaders will have to decide whether — or with how much effort — they will tackle climate change. Their actions or inactions will determine how much more vocal youth will become in 2020.


Thunberg coined the hashtag #FridaysforFuture in August 2018, inspiring students globally to hold their own climate strikes. Many of them argued that adults were not doing enough to address the climate catastrophe. Today’s youth saw themselves on the generational front lines of climate change, so they walked out of their schools to demand transformative action.

The strikes spread throughout the fall and winter, and spilled over to 2019. Students in the United Kingdom joined the movement on Feb. 15, 2019 with a mass mobilization, on the heels of Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Japan and many other countries around the world. They skipped school because they felt there was no point to school without a future, and their resistance took their grievances around generational injustice directly to elected officials.
Fridays for Future now estimates that more than 9.6 million strikers in 261 countries have participated in climate strikes. And Thunberg herself has met with hundreds of communities and numerous heads of state. While Thunberg’s celebrity has paved the way for the climate strikes to scale up — her work rests on decades of climate activism that have made this year’s mobilizations possible.
Environmental justice momentum


Indigenous activists like Vanessa Gray, Nick Estes, Autumn Peltier, Kanahus Manuel and many others whose work bridges sovereignty and environmental damage have also played an important role. They have helped shift the climate movement toward the framework of climate justice, which acknowledges the intersections of colonialism, racialization, capitalism and climate change.


This moment also builds on environmental justice movements. Young activists like Isra Hirsi, Cricket Cheng, Maya Menezes and others have been building movements where a racial justice lens brings the climate movement into focus.


While these leaders may not have been recognized with Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, their work has significantly reshaped the climate movement. They are helping politicize a new generation of climate activists who understand climate change not as an isolated phenomenon, but one with roots in a capitalist system that is inherently racist, colonial, sexist and ableist.
Indigenous-led resistance

This year has also seen Indigenous-led resistance to climate change and the related oil, gas, fracking, hydro and other natural resource extraction too.

Secwepemc leaders and their allies have built tiny houses to prevent the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion from being forced through unceded Secwepemc territory. In Mi’kmaqi and Wolastoqey territory, there’s been resistance to fracking. Across northern Manitoba, Cree and Nishnaabe communities are resisting hydro projects they say will devastate their communities.

In British Columbia, nations have fought the Site C dam, which threatens to flood communities, change watersheds and escalate violence against women through work camps filled with men. Inuit and Cree communities in Labrador have resisted the Muskrat Falls hydro project.

This mirrors Indigenous-led environmental action against colonial energy projects around the world, including work in Karen communities in Thailand, Indigenous peoples in Colombia, Waorani peoples in Ecuador, among Saami peoples and countless other Indigenous nations.

Rejecting adult inaction

The climate strikes are an example of youth becoming politicized, rejecting adult inaction and demanding more from governments. In the coming years, we can expect the climate movement to keep growing, become even more politicized and escalate the intensity of tactics.

When governments resist reasonable requests, decades of social movements teach us that activists escalate. We can look at the histories of the HIV/AIDS movement, the Civil Rights movement, African liberation struggles and “poor people’s movements,” which show us that when people get pushed out, they turn up the pressure.

That escalation is necessary to win substantive change. Escalation is not usually seen by the public as nice as polite entreaties, but research clearly shows that direct action leads to change.

Greta’s recognition by Time Magazine will continue to inspire more young people to join their peers in demanding bold climate action like the Green New Deal and to use the legal system as a tool by suing governments over climate inaction.

If elected officials fail to act, we can expect these young people to adopt more disruptive tactics and do the work on the ground to elect new leaders. Even if they can’t yet vote themselves, there are many ways they can- and will continue to- shape our politics and our future.


Joe Curnow, Assistant Professor of Education, University of Manitoba and Anjali Helferty, PhD Candidate at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, The Canadian Press
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What Protests in Lebanon Can Tell Us About Inequality Worldwide
Confronting inequalities is not about merely bridging gaps, it requires confronting entrenched interests.
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Published on
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Protesters chant as as they demonstrate outside Lebanon's Central Bank during ongoing anti-government protests in Beirut, Lebanon November 11, 2019 (Photo: Andres Martinez Casares/Reuters)
Protesters chant as as they demonstrate outside Lebanon's Central Bank during ongoing anti-government protests in Beirut, Lebanon November 11, 2019 (Photo: Andres Martinez Casares/Reuters)
Lebanon is more than two months into the wave of protests rocking the country. Chief among the grievances driving people onto the streets are entrenched inequalities and compromised human dignity. Even given the notorious vacuum of data, Lebanon is clearly a highly unequal place where nearly a quarter of income is held by the richest 1 percent, a larger share than in, for example, South Africa and the US.
Poverty is staggering and is well recognised as the outcome of public policymaking driven by elite interests. This is why protesters no longer call for policy reform. Denouncing the deeply entrenched private interests that tie the main pillars of Lebanon's failing economy to the ruling elite, they are demanding a radical transformation of the political system.
They have evidence from the UN to back them up; the just-launched Human Development Report focuses on inequality and supports radical reforms to change the fundamentals of how our societies, economies and political systems work. It calls for confronting elite interests to stop the distribution of political power mirroring that of economic power.
Lebanon's protests are led by a young generation dissatisfied with the lack of options to work and live with dignity. They are revolted by a status quo that destines them to emigration, as the future suppliers of remittances that will balance the notorious deficit of public coffers. Like many in the Middle East, they have had to live through wars, large waves of forced displacement and undemocratic rule.
Unlike older generations, today's protesters are unwilling to compromise, unafraid to defy, and outraged by structural inequalities that they associate openly with crony capitalism, sectarianism, patriarchy, and homophobia. They have loudly made their points clear in marches, chants and graffiti. Their complete loss of confidence in government has made #no_trust one of the most trending hashtags in the past weeks.
But the most precarious populations - refugees, migrant workers, and the poorest Lebanese families - have not been able to join the predominantly middle-class protesters. Effectively disenfranchised, they have neither been able to visibly join the protests nor demonstrate their anger.
The first heavy rains of the season have flooded the streets and homes of the informal settlements where they live. Neglected for decades, these precarious neighbourhoods are overflowing with people who cannot find alternative shelters in cities ravaged by the financialisation of land.
Once considered self-help neighbourhoods in the making, on a trajectory to become legitimate parts of the city, informal urban settlements have become reservoirs of populations deemed superfluous, with no recognised entitlements.
Owing to climate change, downpours are heavier and their effects on precarious neighbourhoods are more dramatic. Roofs have crumbled, a family died and homes have overflowed. Their enforced silence means the protesters only represent the very tip of the iceberg of deprivation.
As the Human Development Report argues, income alone fails to account for the lifelong disadvantages these shadow city-dwellers face. Nationality and parental income effectively define someone's lifelong access to adequate healthcare and education - or lack thereof. Some divides cross borders; women are at a disadvantage everywhere. Beginning at birth, inequity defines the freedom and opportunities of children, adults and elders.
Confronting such inequalities is not about merely bridging gaps, it requires confronting entrenched interests. Citizens in Lebanon are denouncing today's elites using their wealth to capture government and mould policies to their will. Their claims are well-documented in scholarly works.
Economist Nisrine Salti recently connected rising poverty levels to the unfair tax system. Facundo Alvaredo, Lydia Assouad and Thomas Piketty have identified the Middle East as the most inequitable region of the world, arguing for a closer examination of fiscal injustices to determine the true extent of inequality and their roots in subverted policy-making. Unjustly levied taxes are part and parcel of the model of government denounced by protesters in Lebanon for sustaining the wealthy, their banks, and the political system at the expense of the majority.
My fellow citizens caught the world's attention by prompting a prime minister to quit. With all eyes on them, they now have the opportunity to outline an ambitious programme for reform, which would never happen if left to the whim of those at the top. I hope to see reforms that meaningfully tackle inequality for current and future generations, which provide opportunities throughout people's lives. Such a palette of interventions should include investments in higher education, quality healthcare and ensuring access to technology (and reliable electricity to power it).
Through taking to the streets, Lebanon's protesters have woken up a nation. By plotting a path of prosperity for all, they can lift it up.
Mona Fawaz
Mona Fawaz is a Professor of Urban Studies & Planning at the American University of Beirut.
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Some reflections on the old and the new mental landscape

"PSYCHOLOGISTS HAVE ONLY INTERPRETED THE WORLD, THE POINT HOWEVER IS TO CHANGE IT"    CARL MARKS 


29.12.2019 - Reikiavik - Pressenza Iceland

This post is also available in: Spanish, French, Portuguese

Some reflections on the old and the new mental landscape
(Image by David Meléndez)

By Petur Gudjonsson
A little while ago we wrote about a new mental landscape appearing in Chile. And we said that this positive phenomenon will happen everywhere, within a few years.
There are protests all over the planet but they do not seem to be manifestations of this new landscape –that may or may not last in Chile.
So, it is reasonable to ask, how will we know whether we are in the new landscape or in the old one? If we are in it, what can we do to make sure it continues? And if we are not in it, is there anything we can do to accelerate the process?
The old and the new landscape have different origins and the direction to which they are heading is also not at all the same.
The old landscape is based on the fear of losing everything, of disappearing or the fear of death. All the things that we desire, that we value in the old landscape are all just compensations for the fear of disappearing, the fear of death.
You could say that the old landscape is, among other things, like a conglomerate of different beliefs and every belief has at its roots, the fear of disappearing.
Many and varied compensations arise in our attempts to get out of the grips of this fear. Some do it through power, others having all kinds of securities, be that objects, friends, associations and of course the family. It is also clear where this landscape is going: it is going to a future that ends in death.
Independently of whether that is actually so or not, that is what people feel, so they try to avoid having this fear at all costs.
The origin of the new landscape is completely different. It is another plane, another dimension. When it appears, like it did in Chile, it appears to come from nowhere. So, it is hard to say if its origin is coming from the past or the future, probably from both or neither one.
It pushes us to become aware of who we are and where are we going. In reality we are all going towards having a completely open future, or immortality, if you like, because that’s the only way we can lose the fear that controls the old landscape.
We are also going towards being truly humans, not just being nice and doing things for each other but also feeling like we are a part of this one body that is called humanity. We don’t feel that today and maybe not tomorrow, but we are moving in that direction.
The new landscape also has to do with a new level of consciousness. We’ve been for a long time on a fairly low level, somewhat of a slumber-like state. There are great potentials within the consciousness, just waiting to be explored and put into use. Thus each individual can be more alert, perhaps even awake.
So, the first indicator of knowing the distinction between the two landscapes is being aware of where the process comes from and where it is going.
Then we can also examine different behaviours that we have. The old landscape tends to be loaded with centripetal or egotistical tendencies and have an abundance of internal violence which expresses itself in different forms of external violence.
The new landscape is characterised by the relationships people have with each other, like is happening now in Chile. There is kindness there, they listen to each other, they enjoy each other’s company, and they are not forcing things. As a matter of fact they are helping each other. And there is a general feeling of lightness and joy.
One could also recognise one landscape from the other by what objects we feel attached to. For example, some people feel it is important to have a relation with the famous and powerful. Well, that belongs to the old landscape. In the new one that interest is unlikely to be there.
Most of the things that we feel are extremely important today, like money and prestige have created the cult of Mammon where money is a much higher value than the human being. This religion of Mammon belongs of course to the old landscape.
In this aspect the younger generation somehow has the advantage of not being as taken by the objects of the old landscape. For example, they don’t believe in politics. On the other hand they, like others, don’t know where they are going or even where all this change came from.
In Chile, the system seemed quite strong, that is, the old landscape was dominant and there were no apparent indicators of something new and strong appearing.
Yet, appear it did with all the positive things that the new landscape has brought forth.
For those of us outside of Chile it is most likely very difficult to imagine that in the next few years the waves of change will hit our shores.
And, just like in Chile, we will all at some point experience being in this gentle, strong wave that will engulf all of us.
Are there ways of strengthening the manifestation of this landscape?
Or some say, what should we do if we are in the middle of the manifestation of the new landscape?
(The following are suggestions for the rest of us who will experience the new landscape. They may or may not be useful for our friends in Chile who are already going through this wonderful process.)
To begin with, we should be aware of the process, where it comes from and where it is going. That should give us an indication of what to do.
People in Chile probably feel that what set off the process was that people suddenly had enough of the neoliberal system and that they said enough is enough. That seems a very reasonable conclusion but it doesn’t explain the spontaneity, the setting off a process without coordination, the endurance in spite of hardships and the exceptional positive and kind human climate.
We might therefore consider that it was a stronger force that set it off, something that is inside and around all of us, another dimension. Something that we have at times experienced when we suddenly felt part of everything.
It might also be useful to start seeing ourselves not as men or women or belonging to a certain group or nationality but just as humans.
There’s nothing wrong with having a good relationship with either a politician or someone who’s famous, etc. But to think that that’s going to make any difference is an illusion, a waste of time and energy. Perhaps one needs these politicians to open certain doors. That’s fine but they are not going to open doors to a new landscape, that’s not what they do.
It is very reasonable and understandable that when being in the new landscape and eyeing the possibility of a human future, like now in Chile, that most of our discussions would revolve around the components of that new and exciting future. Like, for example, education, health, and being able to earn a decent living. Also, discussing what kind of society we want, what kind of common rules or constitution we want.
That is great, but perhaps it would be useful that we also dedicate more time to the “real” thing, what we really are, what is our mission here. Spend some time on uprooting the fear and illuminating the future. If we don’t do that then the old fear comes back, with its compensations, with a modified, yet the same old landscape.
What if we are not there yet, in the dawning of this new liberating landscape? What should we do?
Basically more or less the same, except also trying to have an experience of this new landscape.
How do we do that? Undoubtedly there are many ways of doing that. One is an exercise that we presented in the latter part of a previous article here in Pressenza
Also we can try not to get fooled by the apparent strength of the system, because the system is just in people’s minds, it is not in its buildings.
If people don’t believe any longer in the system, then it will crumple, simple as that.
This change towards this new landscape will happen everywhere and if there are people in each place, all over the Planet, that understand this new beautiful process we can look forward to finally becoming humans.
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Fear overs child labour could leave bitter taste for Ferrerro/Rocher and Nutella fans

29.12.2019 - Pressenza London

This post is also available in: Italian

Fear overs child labour could leave bitter taste for Ferrerro/Rocher and Nutella fans

Hazelnuts used by the company Ferrero to produce Nutella and Ferrero-Rocher may have been picked by children, a crowdsourced investigation by WeMove Europe has found. Ferrero buys around a third of all of hazelnuts in Turkey, a country which provides 70 percent of the world’s hazelnuts supplies [1].
In response, WeMove Europe, a citizen’s campaigning group, has ​launched an online petition [2] to tell Ferrero – the famous producer of the Nutella spread and of Ferrero-Rocher – to end child labour and support a fair price for hazelnuts in Turkey so that workers get a living wage income.
Ferrero told the Guardian that they acknowledge the problem of child labour in Turkey’s agricultural sector and they are “determined to prevent and eliminate child labour all along our supply chains.”
​“Christmas shoppers don’t want to be caught up in child labor problems,” said Giulio Carini, a senior campaigner from WeMove Europe. “They want farmers to get a fair price for their hazelnuts, workers to get a living wage income, and children to be happy, not be used for cheap labour.”
, and captured video footage that shows children as young as 11 working on hazelnut farms across Turkey.
Two hazelnut farmers in Turkey in the video say they hire children​ and claim their hazelnuts end up with Ferrero with one adding: “99 percent of the hazelnuts in the area
are bought by Ferrero” and “as far as I can see “everybody has child labour.” A merchant that buys from one of the farmers confirmed in writing that they sell to Ferrero.
The hazelnuts in Nutella, Kinder Bueno, and Ferrero-Rocher helped make the ​billionaire Giovanni Ferrero the richest man in Italy as of March 2019, but for workers and children in Turkey who have to pick them, the crop represents misery. [3] An 11 year old girl in the video Hazelnuts used by the company Ferrero to produce Nutella and Ferrero-Rocher may have been
picked by children, a crowdsourced investigation by WeMove Europe has found. Ferrero buys around a third of all of hazelnuts in Turkey, a country which provides 70 percent of the world’s hazelnut supply. [1]
The Italian confectionary company is struggling to shake off these accusations that the
hazelnuts in its Ferrero Rocher chocolates and Nutella chocolate spread, expected to be
consumed in their millions this Christmas, are tainted with child labour.​
As part of the investigation conducted this summer, the Center for Child Rights in Turkey working in collaboration with WeMove Europe travelled to more than 10 cities in the Black Sea Region​ says: ‘’We walk to the field at 6.30am and […] we work until 6pm. We have two breaks. This is the second time I have come to work here.’’
“​The root of the problem is the price Ferrero pays for its hazelnuts. Our campaign asks Ferrero to support a fair price for hazelnuts in Turkey, ensure workers get a living wage income and eliminate child labour throughout its supply chain​.​ While children and their parents earn between 6 to 15 euros a day, Ferrero’s executive director, Giovanni Ferrero has a net worth of close to 20 billion euros​”, says Giulio Carini, senior campaigner at WeMove Europe.
F​armers interviewed said that Ferrero could put an end to all forms of child labour in Ferrero’s supply chain if they really want, as long as they pay a fair price for hazelnuts.
Ends/ Contact
Notes to editors
WeMove Europe is a citizens’ movement, with over 900,000 members, campaigning for a better Europe; for a European Union committed to social and economic justice, environmental
[1]​ ​https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-49741675
[2] Link to WeMove Europe’s petition:​ ​https://act.wemove.eu/campaigns/ferrero-child-labour-uk
[3] http://www.ansa.it/english/news/business/2019/03/05/giovanni-ferrero-richest-man-in-italy_b1d2 4d05-1d6d-4d12-b669-8fbc46fc7bd5.html​; ​ ​https://www.forbes.com/profile/giovanni-ferrero/
For further information please contact Giulio Carini, Senior Campaigner at WeMove Europe on
+39 3485333846 or at giulio@wemove.eu. Backup contact for arranging interviews: Andrew
Davies on +31 6 22271598
Link to Guardian article:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/dec/20/are-ferrero-rocher-chocolates-tainted-by-child-labour
sustainability and citizen-led democracy. We are people from all walks of life, who call Europe our home – ​whether we were born in Europe or elsewhere​


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HANDS OFF IRAN MEMES







SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=IRAN

 SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2006/09/us-war-on-capitalism-in-iran.html
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Common Dreams - Breaking News and Views for the Progressive Community

A New Year and a New Trump Foreign Policy Blunder in Iraq

03.01.2020 - Iraq - Codepink
A New Year and a New Trump Foreign Policy Blunder in Iraq
US Embassy in Iraq under siege (Image by CC)

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies
It’s a new year, and the U.S. has found a new enemy—an Iraqi militia called Kata’ib Hezbollah. How tragically predictable was that? So who or what is Kata’ib Hezbollah? Why are U.S. forces attacking it? And where will this lead?
Kata’ib Hezbollah is one of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) that were recruited to fight the Islamic State after the Iraqi armed forces collapsed and Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, fell to IS in June 2014. The first six PMUs were formed by five Shiite militias that all received support from Iran, plus Muqtada al-Sadr’s Iraqi nationalist Peace Company, the reincarnation of his anti-occupation Mahdi Army militia, which he had previously disarmed in 2008 under an agreement with the Iraqi government.
Kata’ib Hezbollah was one of those five original Shiite militias and it existed long before the fight against IS. It was a small Shiite group founded before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and was part of the Iraqi Resistance throughout the U.S. occupation. In 2011, it reportedly had 1,000 fighters, who were paid $300 to $500 per month, probably mainly funded by Iran. It fought fiercely until the last U.S. occupation forces were withdrawn in December 2011, and claimed responsibility for a rocket attack that killed 5 U.S. soldiers in Baghdad in June 2011. Since forming a PMU in 2014, its leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, has been the overall military commander of the PMUs, reporting directly to the National Security Adviser in the Prime Minister’s office.
In the fight against IS, the PMUs proliferated quickly. Most political parties in Iraq responded to a fatwa by Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani to form and join these units by forming their own. At the peak of the war with IS, the PMUs comprised about 60 brigades with hundreds of thousands of Shia fighters, and even included up to 40,000 Sunni Iraqis.
In the context of the war against the Islamic State, the U.S. and Iran have both provided  a great deal of military support to the PMU and other Iraqi forces, and the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga have also received support from Iran. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif in New York in September 2014 to discuss the crisis, and U.S. Ambassador Stuart Jones said in December 2014, “Let’s face it, Iran is an important neighbor to Iraq. There has to be cooperation between Iran and Iraq. The Iranians are talking to the Iraqi security forces and we’re talking to Iraqi security forces… We’re relying on them to do the deconfliction.”
U.S. officials and corporate media are falsely painting Kata’ib Hezbollah and the PMUs as independent, renegade Iranian-backed militias in Iraq but they are really an official part of the Iraq security forces. As a statement from the Iraqi prime minister’s office made clear, the U.S. airstrikes were an “American attack on the Iraqi armed forces.”  And these were not just any Iraqi military forces, but forces that have borne the brunt of some of the fiercest fighting against the Islamic State.
Open hostility between U.S. forces and Kata’ib Hezbollah began six months ago, when the U.S. allowed Israel to use U.S. bases in Iraq and/or Syria to launch drone strikes against Kata’ib Hezbollah and other PMU forces in Iraq. There are conflicting reports on exactly where the Israeli drones were launched from, but the U.S. had effective control of Iraqi airspace and was clearly complicit in the drone strikes. This led to a campaign by Shia cleric/politician Muqtada al-Sadr and other anti-occupation parties and politicians in the Iraqi National Assembly to once again call for the expulsion of U.S. forces from Iraq, as they successfully did in 2011, and the U.S. was forced to accept new restrictions on its use of Iraqi airspace.
Then, at the end of October, U.S. bases and the Green Zone in Baghdad came under a new wave of rocket and mortar attacks. While previous attacks were blamed on the Islamic State, the U.S. blamed the new round of attacks on Kata’ib Hezbollah. After a sharp increase in rocket attacks on U.S. bases in December, including one that killed a U.S. military contractor on December 27, the Trump administration launched air strikes on December 29 that killed 25 members of Kata’ib Hezbollah and wounded 55. Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi called the strikes a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and declared three national days of mourning for the Iraqi troops that U.S. forces killed.
The U.S. attacks also led to massive protests that besieged the U.S. Embassy and former U.S. occupation headquarters in the Green Zone in Baghdad. U.S. forces at the embassy reportedly used tear gas and stun grenades against the protesters, leaving 62 militiamen and civilians wounded. After the siege, the Trump administration announced that it would send more troops to the Middle East. Approximately 750 troops are expected to be sent as a result of the embassy attack and another 3,000 could be deployed in the next few days.
The U.S. retaliation was bound to inflame tensions with the Iraqi government and increase popular pressure to close U.S. bases in Iraq. In fact, if Kata’ib Hezbollah is indeed responsible for the rocket and mortar attacks, this is probably exactly the chain of events they intended to provoke. Incensed at the Trump administration’s blatant disregard for Iraqi sovereignty and worried about Iraq being dragged into a U.S. proxy war with Iran that will spiral out of control, a broad swath of Iraqi political leaders are now calling for a withdrawal of U.S. troops.
The U.S. military presence in Iraq was reestablished in 2014 as part of the campaign against the Islamic State, but that campaign has wound down substantially since the near destruction and reoccupation of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, in 2017. The number of attacks and terrorist incidents linked to the Islamic State in Iraq has declined steadily since then, from 239 in March 2018 to 51 in November 2019, according to Iraq researcher Joel Wing. Wing’s data makes it clear that IS is a vastly diminished force in Iraq.
The real crisis facing Iraq is not a growing IS but the massive public protests, starting in October, that have exposed the dysfunction of the Iraqi government itself. Months of street protests have forced Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi to submit his resignation–he is now simply acting as a caretaker pending new elections. Severe repression by government forces left over 400 protesters dead, but this has only fuelled even greater public outrage.
These demonstrations are not just directed against individual Iraqi politicians or against Iranian influence in Iraq but against the entire post-2003 political regime established by the U.S. occupation. Protesters blame the government’s  sectarianism, its corruption and the enduring foreign influence of both Iran and the U.S. for the failure to invest Iraq’s oil wealth in rebuilding Iraq and improving the lives of a new generation of young Iraqis.
The recent attack on Kata’ib Hezbollah has actually worked in favor of Iran, turning Iraqi public opinion and Iraqi leaders more solidly against the U.S. military presence. So why has the U.S. jeopardized what influence it still has in Iraq by launching airstrikes against Iraqi forces? And why is the U.S. maintaining a reported 5,200 U.S. troops in Iraq, at Al-Asad airbase in Anbar province and smaller bases across Iraq? It already has nearly 70,000 troops in other countries in the region, not least 13,000 in neighboring Kuwait, its largest permanent foreign base after Germany, Japan and South Korea.
While the Pentagon continues to insist that the U.S. troop presence is solely to help Iraq fight ISIS, Trump himself has defined its mission as “also to watch over Iran.” He told that to U.S. servicemen in Iraq in a December 2018 Christmas visit and reiterated it in a February 2019 CBS interview. Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi has made clear that the U.S. does not have permission to use Iraq as a base from which to confront Iran. Such a mission would be patently illegal under Iraq’s 2005 constitution, drafted with the help of the United States, which forbids using the country’s territory to harm its neighbors.
Under the 2008 Strategic Framework Agreement between the U.S. and Iraq, U.S. forces may only remain in Iraq at the “request and invitation” of the Iraqi government. If that invitation is withdrawn, they must leave, as they were forced to do in 2011. The U.S. presence in Iraq is now almost universally unpopular, especially in the wake of U.S. attacks on the very Iraqi armed forces they are supposedly there to support.
Trump’s effort to blame Iran for this crisis is simply a ploy to divert attention from his own bungled policy. In reality, the blame for the present crisis should be placed squarely on the doorstep of the White House itself. The Trump administration’s reckless decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and revert to the U.S. policy of threats and sanctions that never worked before is backfiring as badly as the rest of the world predicted it would, and Trump has only himself to blame for it – and maybe John Bolton.
So will 2020 be the year when Donald Trump is finally forced to fulfill his endless promises to bring U.S. troops home from at least one of its endless wars and military occupations?  Or will Trump’s penchant for doubling down on brutal and counterproductive policies only lead us deeper into his pet quagmire of ever-escalating conflict with Iran, with the U.S.’s beleaguered forces in Iraq as pawns in yet another unwinnable war?
We hope that 2020 will be the year when the American public finally looks at the fateful choice between war and peace with 20/20 vision, and that we will start severely punishing Trump and every other U.S. politician who opts for threats over diplomacy, coercion over cooperation and war over peace.
Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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