Maude Charron shares weightlifting gold with Canadian denied triumph in 2012
Zack Smart 5 hrs ago

© Vincenzo Pinto/Getty Images Maude Charron of Rimouski, Que., poses with her Olympic gold medal after winning the women's 64-kilogram weightlifting competition at Tokyo 2020 on Tuesday.

Canada's newly crowned Olympic champion Maude Charron got mentally prepared to compete on the biggest stage by telling herself it was just another day at the office.

"I told myself all week that it's just a regular competition, do what you know best," Charron said told CBC Sports the day after she powered her way to Canada's first Olympic gold medal in weightlifting since Christine Girard did it in London in 2012.

One day later, the magnitude of the accomplishment is starting to sink in for the Rimouski, Que., native.

"All the media, the calling, knowing my hometown is going crazy, I'm coming to realize what's happened," Charron said.

Charron's moment atop the podium was one of triumph for the 28-year-old, in marked contrast to the experience Girard had nine years earlier. Girard, from Rouyn-Noranda, Que., was originally awarded the bronze, but it was later discovered that Maiya Maneza of Kazakhstan and Russia's Svetlana Tsarukaeva, who finished first and second, respectively, both tested positive for banned substances.

Girard was eventually elevated to the gold, but not until six years later in 2018. There was no anthem or flag-raising for her.

"Her story is devastating," Charron said. "There's a lot of funding coming with the Olympic gold medal, sponsorships, attention to that sport, young kids watching and finding interest in trying that sport. She was kind of robbed of this, and Canada too, so I think we were due to have this."

Following in Girard's footsteps, Charron captured gold on the Olympic stage and brought a sense of justice to the national team in a moment that was significant on multiple levels.

"Christine Girard for me is an idol. She was the one giving me my first gold medal at the national championship, and I'm always impressed by her," said Charron, just the fourth Canadian to win a weightlifting medal. "There's a little bit of her in that gold medal, for sure."

Charron won her 64 kg weight class by finishing with a 236 kg total, lifting 105 kg in the snatch and 131 kg in the clean and jerk. She let out a cry of joy as she received the judge's signal.

© Vincenzo Pinto/Getty Images Charron triumphs in her final clean and jerk attempt.
Inspiring a new generation of female athletes

The women's weightlifting competition only made its Olympic debut at the Sydney Games in 2000, but Charron, who won a gold medal at the Pan American championships in April, has the potential to inspire a new generation of female weightlifters with her list of accolades.

"I hope I will encourage young girls to believe in themselves and believe in their bodies, the woman body, the woman image, muscles and being bulky," Charron said.

"I was ashamed of my body when I was a teenager, but as of today I'm just so glad about what my body can do. I hope that it will motivate girls to try to lift weights and train and be grateful about their body that was given to them."

As Canada's latest female Olympic medallist in Tokyo, Charron is part of a group who are showing young girls across the country that dreams can become reality.

Dealing with weightlifting's uncertain Olympic future

With the 2024 Paris Games approaching, Charron has the potential to become the first Canadian weightlifter to win back-to-back Olympic medals since Girard, who won bronze in her Olympic debut in Beijing.

But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said there is a risk that weightlifting could be dropped from the Olympic program for Paris, citing a failure by the International Weightlifting Federation to improve anti-doping efforts.

"There are so many things we can't control in that case. We don't know yet if weightlifting will be on the Paris program because of the doping scandals, so I don't know what will happen in Paris," Charron said. "For now, I'm just going day by day. We'll see what the IOC decides about the weightlifting future."

© Vincenzo Pinto/Getty Images Charron reacts after securing her lead with her final lift.
Training during a global pandemic

Charron's path to gold was filled with obstacles that made the winning moment even more gratifying, as she overcame training challenges and found a way to get ready for a postponed Olympics during a pandemic.

But Charron was thankful to be home with the people she loved. She made a makeshift training facility in her dad's garage to get around gyms being closed in Quebec because of COVID restrictions, a place where she could prepare and stay motivated.

"I was glad to be at home with my family, my dog, my friends. I couldn't really see them, but my dad made some space in his garage so I took my equipment and put it in his garage. We had to insulate it for the winter because it was very cold," Charron said with a laugh.

"I found ways and it paid off."

Unique path to Olympics

Charron started the sport of weightlifting in 2015 at the relatively late age of 22, and she's had a unique journey to the Olympic throne. She was a gymnast as a kid, attended the Quebec Circus School as a teenager, and has also competed in CrossFit.

After realizing she wouldn't reach her Olympic dream as a gymnast, she had to find another route to reach her destination. And for Charron, the ultimate goal was just to get there.

"As a young girl in gymnastics everyone dreamed about going to the Olympics, so I dreamed about going to the Olympics. I realized that I didn't have the level to go there in Gymnastics, but I just found another way to get here," Charron said.

"I never really dreamed about winning a medal here; I just wanted to get here."

Tokyo 2020 is the first time Canada has had four female weightlifters competing. Fellow Olympic newcomers Rachel Leblanc-Bazinet, Kristel Ngarlem and Tali Darsigny are also part of the national team competing in Tokyo.

Leblanc-Bazinet finished 12th in the 55 kg event, while Darsigny placed ninth in the 59 kg event. Ngarlem is set to compete on Aug. 1 in her 76 kg weight class, and Canada's lone male weightlifter at the Games, Boady Santavy, competes on July 31 in the 96 kg event.

Girard's first Olympic medal in 2008 was Canada's first weightlifting medal at the Games in 24 years, following Jacques Demers' silver at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. The only other Canadian weightlifter to reach the Olympic podium is Gerry Gratton, who won silver in 1952.

Freedom-flavoured silver medal for Iranian-born judoka competing for Mongolia

Issued on: 28/07/2021

Iranian-born judoka Saeid Mollaei won the silver medal for Mongolia at the Tokyo Olympic Games on July 27, 2021. © Franck Fife, AFP

Text by: Stéphanie TROUILLARD

Saeid Mollaei, an Iranian-born judoka now competing for Mongolia, has won the silver medal for his sport at the Tokyo Games. Mollaei left his country and became a naturalised Mongolian citizen after Iran effectively prohibited him from facing an Israeli opponent in 2019.

Saeid Mollaei had dreamt of gold, but still sported a big smile when he was awarded his silver medal on Tuesday at the Tokyo Games. The Iranian-born and naturalised Mongolian judoka was narrowly defeated in the 81kg final by Japan’s star Takanori Nagase, but claimed victory over his own destiny.

Mollaei was world champion in 2018 when he competed for Iran. But during 2019 Judo World Championships held in Tokyo's very same Budokan Hall where the Games are currently taking place, he was ordered by the Iranian Olympic committee to lose in the semi-finals against the Belgian Matthias Casse, to avoid facing Israeli judoka Sagi Muki in the final.

An Iranian embassy employee approached Mollaei in the warm-up hall before the fight and told him security forces were at his parents’ house, according to a Deutsche Welle report.

“You’re supposed to be brave in life. But a thousand questions went through my head. What will happen to me or my family? So I listened to the order,” Mollaei was quoted by DW. He narrowly lost to Casse, and Muki ended up winning the final.

Mollaei subsequently congratulated the Israeli jodoka on his Instagram feed, raising the hackles of Iranian authorities.

‘A new life’

Mollaei left Iran for Germany and fought for the refugee team before becoming a Mongolian national.

In February 2021, he fought in Israel and met Muki, who called him his “brother”.

“I left everything behind me and started a new life,” Mollaei said after his narrow defeat to Nagase in Tokyo.

“I’m with a great team of athletes. The Mongols are nice, very warm and I’m very happy to have won this medal for Mongolia and the Mongol people.”

Muki, with whom Mollaei trained for two months in Israel before the Games, also reacted after the medal. “I’m super happy for Saeid,” he told Israeli reporters at a news conference Tuesday. “I know what he’s gone through, and how much he wanted it. He’s a very close friend of mine, and I’m so happy that he succeeded in achieving his dream. He deserves it — his journey is incredibly inspiring.

So inspiring, in fact, that MGM/UA Television and Israel’s Tadmor Entertainment are preparing a television series based on the lives of the two world champions, Muki announced on his Instagram account.

Iran does not recognise Israel and its athletes usually refuse to face Israeli opponents, either by forfeiting the match or simply not participating.

One of the most famous cases was current Iranian judo federation president Arash Miresmaeili, a two-time judo world champion who showed up overweight for his bout against an Israeli at the 2004 Olympics in Athens and was disqualified.

During the Tokyo Games, the Algerian judoka Fethi Nourine withdrew in order to avoid facing an Israeli opponent, explaining his decision was due to his support for “the Palestinian cause”. He was first scheduled to face Sudan's Mohamed Abdalrasool on Monday in the first round, before fighting Israeli Tohar Butbul in the next round. He has since been suspended by the International Judo Federation and his accreditation has been withdrawn.

This article was translated and adapted from the original in French.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Fiji’s sevens triumph is symbolic of their ‘work together, love one another’ spirit


The sunshine of successive Olympic golds will spread far and wide throughout a Pacific island community ravaged by Covid

The sevens gold winners Fiji celebrate on the podium after retaining the title they won at Rio, for only the small Pacific nation’s second Olympic medal. Photograph: Jeon Heon-Kyun/EPA

Ben Ryan

Wed 28 Jul 2021 

Igot asked on Twitter why the Fijian players always cry when the national anthem is played. It’s true - most of the time that happens and sometimes it’s so emotionally overwhelming it derails the performance if not kept in check. The initial reaction was to say: “Well it’s obvious isn’t it?” But, that would assume the wider public know about what it really means to all Fijians.

On Wednesday the beautiful nation of Fiji won only its second Olympic gold medal, both in the country’s national sport, rugby sevens. There are now 25 Fijians from those two teams who have won a gold medal and now become a signpost to what is possible.


Fiji stun All Blacks in rugby sevens final to win Olympic gold again

They have smashed the glass ceilings that so often exist in developing countries. Babies born now and in the future will be named Jerry after the team’s captain, Jerry Tuwai – the only survivor of the Rio 2016 winning team and now Fiji’s only double gold medallist. Depending on their local fanbase, others in the squad will have domestic pets and taxis given their moniker. No doubt, civil honours and other awards will follow too. Bridges, schools and roads – they will all have the sunshine of this victory on Wednesday shone on to them and named in its honour and to remember their deeds.

Why? Pride in the team, in the nation. Belonging. The team all come from the people. When I say that, I mean they often have worked or work and certainly live among them. Nearly everyone will have met or know someone who is related to all those who played. No six degrees of separation here – just like the team this week as they play as one, connections everywhere

Most of the population also have very little, so they share and care for each other. Village life and the tribal system has been affected by modern living but the old Fijian phrase of “vei lomani” – work together; love one another – still shines brightly across the Pacific archipelago. In 2016 the captain, Osea Kolinisau, used to take it in turns with his siblings to go to school because they couldn’t afford the bus fare for them all.

Tuwai learnt how to play rugby on a traffic roundabout and used to sell fish on the side of the street to make ends meet for his family. Copper mines, sugar cane fields, farms and hotel resorts – the team have their origin stories wrapped up in those places. One of the team was homeless and unemployed when he made his debut in 2016. He is now an Olympic champion.

Yes, some of the players have gone or are going overseas to play professionally and their income will rocket. It will also – nearly always and nearly all of it – be sent home to the family and the village. Even when they have more, they still share, they still work together. The main island, Viti Levu, where more than 70% of the 1 million population live and the other 300-plus islands that make up the nation, will also be in sevens heaven right now.

Growing up on the islands, you never really know what’s in store for you, so you stay in the present and it means in moments of celebration such as this – you really live them. Covid is ravaging Fiji and the health service is close to melting point. It is causing political unrest too and so the sevens triumph will give hope, will ease those tensions and will lift a million spirits.

Napolioni Bolaca and Asaeli Tuivuaka celebrate after beating New Zealand in the sevens final to claim gold in Tokyo. Photograph: Dan Mullan/Getty Images

Upbringing, culture and history all get thrown into the tanoa bowl when explaining just why there are so many world-class Fijian rugby players. In fact, after sugar, it is rugby players that is the nation’s second biggest export. The talent is there but the money isn’t.

I mostly kept my counsel when I heard other nations complaining of their funding levels and support, but I wanted to tell them there is another way. Fiji do things simply. They show in sevens that togetherness and a common purpose is more important than any funding. That vision is shared by the people and it means that in moments such as this that pressure elevates all they do.

So, when I sat in front of my laptop watching the Olympic final unfold – as Fiji edged towards victory against New Zealand – it filled me with hope, with love and with an overriding feeling that when it is at its best, sport really can change lives.



Ben Ryan was Fiji’s coach when they won their first Olympics gold medal at Rio 2016.

TOKYO OLYMPICS OUT GAMES

The Tokyo Games are shaping up as a watershed for LGBTQ Olympians. 

A wave of rainbow-coloured pride, openness and acceptance is sweeping through Olympic pools, skateparks, halls and fields.

The website Outsports.com has been tallying the number of publicly out gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and non-binary Olympians in Tokyo. The list is now up to 168. That's three times more than at the last Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

 When Olympic diver Tom Daley announced in 2013 that he was dating a man and “couldn't be happier,” his coming out was an act of courage that, with its rarity, also exposed how the top echelons of sport weren't seen as a safe space by the vast majority of LGBTQ athletes.

Back then, the number of gay Olympians who felt able and willing to speak openly about their private lives could be counted on a few hands. There'd been just two dozen openly gay Olympians among the more than 10,000 who competed at the 2012 London Games, a reflection of how unrepresentative and anachronistic top-tier sports were just a decade ago and, to a large extent, still are.

Whereas LGBTQ invisibility used to make Olympic sports seem out of step with the times, the Games in Tokyo are starting to better reflect human diversity.

“It's about time that everyone was able to be who they are and celebrated for it,” said U.S. skateboarder Alexis Sablone, one of at least five openly LGBTQ athletes in that sport making its Olympic debut in Tokyo.

“It's really cool,” Sablone said. “What I hope that means is that even outside of sports, kids are raised not just under the assumption that they are heterosexual."

Carl Hester becomes latest gay Team GB athlete to win Olympic medal

JOSH MILTON JULY 28, 2021

Carl Hester has become the second Britain to score a medal at the Tokyo Olympics. (Julian Finney/Getty Images)


Carl Hester has become the latest Team Great Britain athlete to win a medal at the Toyko Olympic Summer Games after picking up bronze in team dressage.

Hester, 54, was one of the only openly gay Olympians competing for Team GB in 2012 when he helped his equestrian team strike gold at the London Olympics – now he’s one of 13.


Together with his two teammates Lottie Fry and Charlotte Dujardin, as well as horse En Vogue, Hester delivered a sublime performance on Tuesday (27 July) to earn third place in dressage, a stylised form of riding that can be traced back to calvary riders in classical Greece.
Carl Hester thanks ‘incredible team and horses’ after winning Olympic bronze

In the opening round of the competition, Hester scored a thumping 2577.5 to thrust Team GB to second place.

After Fry and Dujardin strolled onto the Baji Koen equestrian park they clinched third with a sturdy 7727, being topped by the Americans (7747) and the Germans (8178) to grab silver and gold respectively.

“An incredible day yesterday taking the Bronze medal,” Hester tweeted.

“So proud of the team and the horses. It’s been such a memorable experience so far.

“This afternoon we did press and TV interviews ahead of the freestyle tonight. Crossed fingers.”

Hester joins other openly queer Brits such as Tom Daley who have had made it big in this year’s Olympic games. Daley picked up his first-ever gold medal during Monday’s men’s synchronised 10 metres platform.

But Hester isn’t the only queer man throwing their hat – or should we say riding tack – into the ring as gay Dutch couple Edward Gal and Hans Peter Minderhoud competed side-by-side during the team dressage, winning fifth place.

The couple, who have been together for more than a decade, celebrated dressage as an inclusive game that feels far removed from the many sports that are, at times, snarled by homophobia, such as football.

“There has always been a level playing field for all genders,” Minderhoud said of dressage, according to OutSports.

“I think it is still one of very few sports where men and women compete together, have no advantage and as such blend happily.”

SEXIST, AGEIST, RACIST, A REPUBLICAN
Texas official calls Simone Biles ‘childish, selfish’ for Olympics team withdrawal


BY TJ MACIAS
JULY 28, 2021 

Simone Biles, of the United States, waits to perform on the vault during the artistic gymnastics women’s final at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, July 27, 2021, in Tokyo. The American gymnastics superstar has withdrawn the all-around competition to focus on her mental well-being. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) GREGORY BULL AP

U.S. gymnast Simone Biles received global support after she announced Tuesday that she was withdrawing herself from the Olympics gymnastics team final due to mental health reasons.

But not everyone was empathetic toward Biles, who was a heavy favorite to take home multiple gold medals in the Tokyo Olympics.

One in particular is a government official from her home state of Texas who voiced his displeasure on Twitter.

Aaron Reitz, a deputy attorney general (not an elected position), quote-tweeted a video of former U.S. Olympian Kerri Strug and her famous landing after performing on the vault in the 1996 games with an injured her ankle.

“Whenever you get in a high stress situation, you kind of freak out,” Biles said after Team USA took silver in the event with the Russia Olympic Committee winning gold. “I have to focus on my mental health and not jeopardize my health and well-being.”

On Wednesday, Biles removed herself from Thursday’s individual all-around competition.

Strug was among those embracing Biles for her decision.

“Sending love to you @Simone_Biles,” Strug tweeted out along with a goat emoji meaning “greatest of all time.”

Biles said that she was going through “the twisties” during practice, which contributed to her withdrawing from the team event. While the word may sound innocent enough, getting them as a gymnast could be life threatening, the Washington Post reported.


“You’re upside down in midair and your brain feels disconnected from your body,” the Post described. “Your limbs that usually control how much you spin have stopped listening, and you feel lost. You hope all the years you’ve spent in this sport will guide your body to a safe landing position.”

Biles explained that she caught a case of the “twisties” after pushing off the vaulting table on Tuesday.

“I had no idea where I was in the air,” Biles said. “I could have hurt myself.”

The Houston native has won a combined 30 Olympic and World Championship medals, making her the most decorated American gymnast and considered one of the greatest and most iconic gymnasts of all time.

Reitz ran for a District seat in the Texas House of Representatives in 2020 and lost.

NATIONAL
Gymnast Simone Biles scratched from Olympics team final due to ‘medical issue’
JULY 27, 2021 4:48 AM





TJ MACIAS

TJ Macías is a Real-Time national sports reporter for McClatchy based out of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Formerly, TJ covered the Dallas Mavericks and Texas Rangers beat for numerous media outlets including 24/7 Sports and Mavs Maven (Sports Illustrated).

Simone Biles and the rise of the ‘great refusal’

Black public figures from Simone Biles to Naomi Osaka are helping us put one simple word at the top of our vocabulary: no

‘Some might wrongly view this refusal as a symptom of millennial dysfunction and entitlement.’ Photograph: Jamie Squire/Getty Images

Casey Gerald
Wed 28 Jul 2021 19.08 BST

I can hardly do a proper cartwheel, so I’m hesitant to opine on Simone Biles’s decision to withdraw from the Tokyo Olympics this week, telling the press and the world: “I have to focus on my mental health.” I can’t stay silent, though, because I know she’s not alone.

As a former college football player, I can imagine the psychological price Olympians pay to squeeze every ounce of greatness into a tiny window of life. As a Black man raised by a cadre of women, I can imagine the tax Black women pay because of our national commitment to “trust” them, which really just means “let them do all the work.” Or, in the case of Simone Biles, “let her put the whole country on her back”.

Faced with these burdens, however, Biles did not simply quit. She refused. With her bold act she stepped into a beautiful, radical, often overlooked tradition, what I call the Black Art of Escape. That tradition is how I believe we, Black people, have managed to live in a country that’s made to destroy us. We’ve been told a great deal about our people’s strategies of resistance and protest. The great Olympic example of this, of course, is Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s black-gloved Black Power salute on the medal stand at the 1968 Games in Mexico City. We’ve been told about our people’s strategies of respectability and exceptionalism, perhaps embodied best by the icon Jesse Owens, who became the first American to win four track and field gold medals at a single Olympics, a feat he accomplished while Adolf Hitler looked on.

Biles’s decision harkens to a third way Black people have survived this country: flight.

Throughout the diaspora, tales of flying Africans were shared to give hope to the enslaved, hope that no matter how their slavers treated them, no matter how their country treated them, they had a freedom on the inside that the world had not given, and the world could not take away. This folkloric tradition inspired Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, in which Guitar tells Milkman: “Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”

For years we have watched Simone Biles soar through the air, across the mat, on balance beams and vaults. She’s twisted her body in ways that defy gravity, defy human comprehension. Her genius has made her the most decorated American gymnast in history, even as she’s competed with broken bones, not to mention the unconscionable abuse she endured at the hands of the former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar.

Yet, despite her many other accomplishments, I believe Biles’s decision to forgo her chance at another medal in Tokyo will stand as her greatest achievement of all. That Biles, perhaps the greatest gymnast ever, on the biggest stage of all, chose herself over yet another accomplishment, gives hope to a generation of Black Americans, famous and not, that we too might refuse the terms of success our country has offered us. Now, some might say she betrayed her teammates. Betrayed her country. I say: good for her. I think back to EM Forster’s great essay What I Believe, in which he writes: “I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” If it takes guts to betray one’s country and choose one’s friend, how much more courage is required to truly choose oneself, when the whole world thinks they need you – when your team, your family, thinks they need you? But as a therapist once wisely told me: you can’t give what you don’t have.

America has always asked Black people to give everything we’ve got and then give what we don’t have. And if we did not give it, it was taken wilfully – plundered, as Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote.

Biles’s courageous decision echoes the actions of other Black public figures, from Naomi Osaka to Leon Bridges, who are refusing to sacrifice their sanity, their peace, for another gold medal or another platinum record. They are helping us all build a new muscle, helping us put one simple word at the top of our vocabulary: no.

Some might wrongly view this refusal as a symptom of millennial dysfunction and entitlement. The truth is that many of us came of age against the backdrop of 9/11 and the pyrrhic “war on terror”. We entered the workforce in the midst of the Great Recession. We cast our first votes for a Black president, only to then witness a reign of terror against Black people, young and old, at the hands of the state. (Not to mention the traumatic four years under our last president, who dispatched troops to brutalize peaceful protests for Black lives.) We are tired. We are sad. As the brilliant musician and producer Terrace Martin, perhaps best known for his work with Kendrick Lamar, told me recently: “I don’t know anybody sleeping well.”

I’m reminded of that great scene in the film Network, when the unstable newscaster convinces viewers all over the country to rush to their windows and scream out into the street: “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this any more!” Might Biles’s act of deep and brave self-love spark the largest wave of refusal in the history of this country? I believe it’s possible.

We are, I believe, witnessing the beginning of a great refusal, when a generation of Black Americans decide to, in the words of Maxine Waters, reclaim our time. Simone Biles, famous for what she does in the air, has shown the way by standing her ground.

Casey Gerald is the author of There Will Be No Miracles Here

Bolsonaro’s 1,000km Amazon railway will cause climate chaos. It must be stopped

This project would rapidly deforest large areas of the Amazon, which would wreak havoc on the planet

‘Today, almost 15% of the Amazon rainforest has already been deforested. When this number reaches 20%, the entire Amazonian system will collapse.’ 

Photograph: Léo Corrêa/AP

David Miranda
THE GUARDIAN

Wed 28 Jul 2021 

Despite increasing global concern, Jair Bolsonaro is determined to expand his exploitation of Brazil’s crucial natural resources. His latest project, one of the most destructive yet, would rapidly deforest large areas of the Amazon.

Bolsonaro’s plan? To construct a 1,000km railway system extending right into the heart of the Amazon rainforest – with trains passing within 500 metres of 726 official environmentally protected areas. The new railway, called Ferrogrão, would also entail construction within 10km of another 18 priority conservation areas established by the ministry of the environment.

The pretext for Bolsonaro’s environment-destroying plan is a problem that, while real, could be easily addressed through far less harmful measures. Currently, soybeans and other grains grown in the Brazilian midwest must travel a considerable distance – 2,000km – to reach seaports in the states of São Paulo and Paraná. The proposed railway would reduce transport costs and increase the competitiveness of these products in the international or national market by roughly 8%.
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This underscores a key point of tension between Brazil and the international community. One reason the Amazon, a massive carbon bank, is so crucial to global climate policy is that countries in the global north became rich by exploiting their own natural resources, including through massive deforestation. Now that western European and North American countries are economically developed, they demand that Brazilians not do what they did: exploit our environmental resources so that we, too, can thrive economically. Many Brazilians, understandably, resent the hypocrisy.

It is true that Ferrogrão, like so many of Bolsonaro’s projects, will result in serious environmental harm to the Amazon and thus the world. Yet it is not enough for western governments and environmental NGOs to lecture Brazil; they should compensate us for the economic costs of the environmental protection we must undertake on the whole planet’s behalf.

According to research by the Climate Policy Initiative and PUC-Rio, a Brazilian university, constructing Ferrogrão won’t just consume massive amounts of land; it will also encourage development on land around the railway. Under Bolsonaro’s current plan, this construction project will result in up to 2,043 sq meters of deforestation – about 285,000 soccer fields – which will increase carbon emissions by 75m tonnes. There are economic costs, too: according to World Bank projections, each tonne of emission costs US$25 – so Brazil would lose at least $1.9bn with this project. And that forecast is conservative.

Since Bolsonaro was inaugurated in 2019, deforestation has been the centerpiece of his environmental policies. In 2019, deforestation grew 85%, a record high in the past five years. In 2020 the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), a federal agency relentlessly attacked by Bolsonaro, recorded new increases of 9.5% in devastated areas. And INPE has announced that deforestation rate in April was the worst for that month in the past six years.

Opponents of Ferrogrão may have the law on their side. By altering the territorial limits of the Jamanxim National Park, the project may violate the Brazilian constitution. My political party, the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), brought a constitutional challenge before the federal supreme court, which has temporarily suspended Ferrogrão pending further proceedings. Brazilian law also requires prior approval of the project by the federal audit court. Brazilian civil society and indigenous groups have mobilized against judicial approval.

Bolsonaro’s plan has completely excluded the indigenous tribes most affected. That is not only unethical but an added opportunity to induce a court to stop the project: an agreement signed by Brazil requires indigenous tribes be consulted on public policies that affect their lives and territories. This hasn’t happened.

Brazilian law also requires that environmental impact studies be prepared for any significant new project. The environmental impact study for Ferrogrão found that it would have a disastrous impact on the lives of indigenous peoples and on the environment. Environmental harms include interference in environmental protection areas, disturbance of fauna (the affected region includes at least 14 species at risk of extinction), fragmentation of habitats, destruction of native flora and contamination of water. The railroad would also increase the flow of cargo across the Xingu Indigenous Park, disrupting the lives of the Kayaopós people.

Standard environmental mitigation projects might be able to reduce some of these harms. But that is unimaginable in the current Brazilian political context: the Bolsonaro government has proved countless times its indifference to environmental issues and contempt for indigenous peoples. Bolsonaro governs according to the agribusiness interests that played a crucial role in financing his 2018 campaign and will no doubt help determine the success of his 2022 re-election bid.

Ironically, the titans of agribusiness should want to preserve forests. The rain that falls over the midwest of the country, up to the La Plata basin, is in part a product of the Amazon. Roughly 390 billion trees constantly pump water from the Atlantic into the atmosphere, creating so-called “flying rivers”. This moisture flows to the Andes, then forms rain, which supplies Brazil’s main hydrographic basins. Fewer trees mean less rain, and therefore less productivity and profit for agriculture.

Given the international interest in protecting the Amazon, it is not enough that only Brazilians fight the construction of Ferrogrão. Following a letter we sent US senator Bernie Sanders, members of the Progressive International are arriving in Brazil on 15 August. The Amazon forest affects the whole world’s climate. Brazil has the largest tropical forest in the world, and its trees constitute one of the largest carbon banks. The more deforestation that is permitted, the more carbon dioxide goes back into the atmosphere. And we know well the consequences: climate chaos.

Like the global climate itself, the Amazon is on the brink of disaster. The immensity of the Amazon rainforest – 5.5m sq kilometers, 1m sq kilometers larger than the total area of the European Union – makes it easy to believe that it is too large to be meaningfully harmed. But the same “flying rivers” that rain across South America also sustain the forest itself.

 Today, almost 15% of the Amazon rainforest has already been deforested. When this number reaches 20%, the entire Amazonian system will collapse, with a direct impact on the entire planet. There will be no return.


David Miranda is a member of the Brazilian congress for the Socialism and Liberty party and a Guardian US columnist

‘We will return’: the battle to save an ancient Palestinian village from demolition

Activists say Lifta, abandoned during the 1948 war, must be preserved in the face of Israeli construction plans


Israel’s land authority released plans for the tender for Lifta’s redevelopment on Jerusalem Day, and many Palestinians saw the move as political. Photograph: Stefanie Glinski/The Guardian

by Stefanie Glinski in Jerusalem
THE GUARDIAN
Wed 28 Jul 2021 

The ancient Palestinian village of Lifta sits on a quiet hillside minutes from Jerusalem’s bustling modern centre. Abandoned when its residents fled during the 1948 war, it has been left unchanged – frozen in time – ever since.

Today, however, its overgrown domed stone houses with arched windows, built during the early Ottoman Empire and resting on even older ruins dating back to the Iron Age, are at risk of being demolished to make way for a luxurious resort of villas, hotels and shops.

Lifta was abandoned when its residents fled during the 1948 war. Photograph: Stefanie Glinski/The Guardian

In a joint Israeli-Palestinian initiative, activists are bracing for a legal battle to try to save the village, which stands as a reminder of the 1948 expulsions of Palestinians from West Jerusalem.

Israel’s land authority announced in May that it planned to issue a tender for Lifta’s redevelopment and bidding is expected to open on Thursday.

A court prevented a similar initiative in 2012, when it ruled that a detailed survey of the site’s history and archaeology must take place before any potential construction work could start.

Plans for the tender were released on Jerusalem Day, a holiday commemorating the establishment of Israeli control over the Old City. Many Palestinians, who believe any new development would erase the area’s history, saw the move as political, and Lifta quickly became a flashpoint.

One of the 77 buildings still standing in Lifta after the destruction of more than 200. Photograph: Stefanie Glinski/The Guardia

Currently on Unesco’s tentative list, meaning it could become a world heritage site, the fate of the village has even divided Israeli authorities, because it has long been a place of escape for thousands of Jerusalem residents.

“We weren’t informed about the publication of this tender and didn’t approve it. The mayor of Jerusalem asked all the relevant authorities to reconsider the construction plan,” a Jerusalem municipality spokesperson said.

The land authority said it had published tenders for housing, employment and tourism “in accordance with the availability of land and the statutory approval of the plans”. Though unusual, it is legally able to proceed with the tender without the municipality’s approval.

Religious books scattered on the floor in one of Lifta’s houses. Former residents say people have previously gathered there for religious studies. Photograph: Stefanie Glinski/The Guardian

As part of its push for development, the land authority commissioned the antiquities authority, an independent government body, to carry out a full survey of the area. The survey was completed in 2016 but was not publicly released until this May.

“On that survey, you can’t develop Lifta,” said the Palestinian-British architect Antoine Raffoul. “The village’s natural spring is even mentioned in the Bible and a settlement existed in the area as early as the Iron Age. It has developed over thousands of years and deserves preservation. This is a cultural war we’re fighting.”

People living in Jerusalem have described Lifta as an open-air museum, with 77 buildings still standing.
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At its height, it was home to more than 2,500 people, had orchards, several olive presses, two coffee houses, a mosque and a winepress.

More than 200 buildings have been destroyed since 1948. Most of those who lived there fled to neighbouring Jordan or other Palestinian cities in the West Bank.

Yacoub Odeh, an 81-year-old who grew up in Lifta, sits outside what was once the village’s mosque. Photograph: Stefanie Glinski/The Guardian

“Villagers used to gather near the spring in the evenings, telling stories, drinking coffee, even dancing together. We shared happiness and, when one of the villagers died, we also shared sadness. The village was alive,” said Yacoub Odeh, an 81-year-old former resident who was born in Lifta.

“This is painful for me. When we were evicted, people scattered in all directions. We lost track of each other, of our community,” he said as he stood quietly near the ruins of what was once his family home.

Odeh, who lives in a suburb of Jerusalem, said he hoped his village might be turned into a heritage site instead. He visits several times a week, driving up the hill in his battered car.

Daphna Golan-Agnon, a Hebrew University human rights professor and Lifta activist, said the antiquities authority’s survey – which has taken archaeology, history, architecture, wildlife and ecology into account – showed clearly that Lifta can be preserved.

“It’s amazing that after more than 70 years of abandonment, the village is still standing so beautifully, even with many of the houses’ roofs destroyed. We ask for the buildings to be stabilised and are willing to help fundraise if cost is an issue.”

Children swim in Lifta’s spring. Photograph: Stefanie Glinski/The Guardian

Today, the ancient site is mostly used as a recreational park by Jews and Palestinians alike, with children swimming in the pool of the spring, older women picking cactus fruit and teenagers smoking cigarettes in the shade of trees.

Tamar Maor, 92, was one of the village’s few Jewish residents in 1948. She describes the relationships between “the Arab families” and her own as “excellent”.

“I remember the day we left,” she said. “Three or four men in khaki knocked on our door and told my mother we had to leave. They also knocked on our Arab neighbour’s door. We cried and hugged and cried more, but promised each other we’d return. We all left the next day.”

Maor’s family went back temporarily but found most houses damaged, their Arab friends gone and their village no longer liveable.

Lifta is known for its domed stone houses with arched windows, built during the early Ottoman empire. Photograph: Stefanie Glinski/The Guardian

Decades later, and shortly before the tender’s release, many of Lifta’s houses have a small Palestinian flag painted inside their doorframes and a single statement, or wish, inscribed below in Arabic: “We will return.”

Here in Jerusalem, we Palestinians are still fighting for our homes


The world has looked away, but in Sheikh Jarrah the effort to dispossess us has not slowed down

A member of Israeli security forces aims a stun grenade gun at (PEACEFUL)Palestinian protesters in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem on 17 July. 

Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

Mohammed El-Kurd

OPINION

THE GUARDIAN

Wed 28 Jul 2021 

A few months ago, the world’s attention was on Sheikh Jarrah, my neighbourhood in occupied Jerusalem. For decades, Israeli settlers, backed by their state, have been trying to displace us from our homes and colonise our neighbourhood. The UN called these forcible expulsions a war crime. I call this theft – because it is.


Palestinians protest for fifth day in West Bank after death of activist

In May, our efforts to resist this takeover received a surge of solidarity from Palestinians across Jerusalem and further afield, in what became known as the Unity Uprising. Palestinians were subjected to Israeli violence across the eastern part of Jerusalem – not only in Sheikh Jarrah, but outside the Damascus gate (itself a focus of protests), and in and around the al-Aqsa mosque – which escalated into attacks on besieged Gaza. Palestinians mobilised and resisted, and around the world people demonstrated in support of the Palestinian right to liberation and decolonisation. But after the ceasefire, the world’s attention has moved away. The reality for Palestinians, however, has not changed

In Sheikh Jarrah, the effort to dispossess us has not slowed down. Our neighbourhood has been under a blockade for three months, maintained by Israeli forces, with continuing restrictions intended to suffocate the lives of the hundreds of Palestinians who live here. And yet, meanwhile, armed Jewish settlers, who have already occupied some of our homes, roam freely on the streets. On any given night, a dozen gun-wielding fanatics patrol my street with arrogant impunity. They are protected – even supported – by the troops blockading our community.

For those of us living in Sheikh Jarrah, the evidence of this partnership between settlers and the state is abundant and overwhelming. Consider the events of two days last month. On 21 June, Israeli police came into the neighbourhood after a settler pepper-sprayed four schoolgirls on the street. But when they arrived, the officers ignored the girls and arrested two Palestinian boys. Of course, they did not arrest the settler – but they did threaten to arrest my brother for filming the detention of the two boys.

Later the same day, dozens of armed settlers gathered in a home that was seized in 2009 from the Ghawi family, sparking a night of violence that once again saw militarised police joining in attacks on Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah. At one end of Othman Bin Affan street, Israeli occupation forces beat Palestinians with batons; at the other end, settlers threw rocks and chased protesting teenagers with pepper spray. Journalists who arrived on the scene were also targeted. Some young Palestinians attempted to disrupt this repression, launching fireworks at settlers. Before the end of the night, a number of Palestinian homes – including ours – were invaded by Israeli forces.

The next morning, as I collected about 10 stun grenade fragments from the street, my neighbour stopped me to show me dozens more spent munitions. His children had displayed them on their outdoor table, like a collection of macabre souvenirs. The same day, a member of the Israeli Knesset, Bezalel Smotrich, barged into my family’s house, along with Tzahi Mamo, the director of Nahalat Shimon International – a private company, registered in the US, that is working to seize our neighbourhood and cleanse it of Palestinians. Nahalat Shimon International files lawsuits relying on racist Israeli legislation, fabricated documents and settler judges to expel Palestinians from their homes and hand over the properties to settlers. When lawmakers show up on my doorstep to call for me to be stripped of my home, what Palestinians have been saying for decades is confirmed: the settlers and the state mirror one another.

I am tired of reporting the same brutality every day, of thinking of new ways to describe the obvious. The situation in Sheikh Jarrah is not hard to understand: it is a perfect illustration of settler colonialism, a microcosm of the reality for Palestinians across 73 years of Zionist rule. This vocabulary is not theoretical. It is evident in the attempts to throw us out of our homes so that settlers can occupy them – with the backing of the regime, whose forces and policies provide violent support for the transfer of one population to install another.

I do not care whom this terminology offends. Colonial is the correct way of referring to a state whose forces collude in the violence of settlers; whose government works with settler organisations; whose judicial system uses expansionist laws to claim our homes; whose nation-state law enshrines “Jewish settlement” as a “national value … to encourage and promote”. The appetite for Palestinian lands – without Palestinians – has not abated for over seven decades. I know because I live it.

On 2 August, the Israeli supreme court, whose jurisdiction over the eastern part of Jerusalem defies international law, is set to decide whether it will allow the appeal of my family and three others – a last legal obstacle before we can be expelled. There have been postponements before. Palestinians are accustomed to this kind of stalling; it tests our stamina. But we are as stubborn as anyone else faced with the prospect of losing their home – their life, their memories – to those using force, intimidation and biased laws.

In the face of this cruelty, and despite teargas and skunk water, we are resisting. We cannot allow them to steal our homes once more, and we refuse to continue living in refugee camps while colonisers live in our houses. We cannot let them throw more of us on to the streets. We are tired of being turned into a refugee population, neighbourhood after neighbourhood, one home at a time.

I have no faith in the Israeli judicial system; it is a part of the settler-colonial state, built by settlers for settlers. Nor do I expect any of the international governments who have been deeply complicit in Israel’s colonial enterprise to intervene on our behalf. But I do have faith in those people around the world who protest and pressure their governments to end what is essentially unconditional support for Israeli policies.

Impunity and war crimes will not be stopped by statements of condemnation and raised eyebrows. We Palestinians have repeatedly articulated what kind of transformative political measures must be taken – such as civil society boycotts and state-level sanctions. The problem is not ignorance, it is inaction.

Mohammed El-Kurd is a Palestinian writer and poet from Jerusalem

VW’s dilemma in Xinjiang shows how the west is headed for an ethical car crash

Europe and the US are economically dependent on China now – and ‘change through trade’ is no longer on the cards

‘Volkswagen has got itself stuck between the rock of Xi Jinping and the hard place of an increasingly outraged western public opinion.’ The Volkswagen production line in Urumqi, China, in 2013. Photograph: VCG/Getty Images

Timothy Garton Ash

THE GUARDIAN
Wed 28 Jul 2021 

On YouTube, you can watch a video clip of Volkswagen’s chief executive, Herbert Diess, denying that he knows what’s going on in Xinjiang. When the BBC correspondent helpfully spells it out – so-called reeducation camps for one million Uyghurs – Diess says: “I’m not aware of that.” Either he was being culpably ignorant about a region where Volkswagen has a factory, or he was lying.

This was in the spring of 2019, and a company spokesperson soon declared that Diess was “of course aware” of the situation in Xinjiang. The case is particularly sensitive because Volkswagen was originally set up by the Nazis, and its use of forced labour during the Third Reich has been scrupulously documented by German historians.
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It is interesting to compare Diess’s response with a statement made earlier this year, by the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day. “As a community, we are always extremely reluctant to consider comparisons with the Holocaust,” Marie van der Zyl wrote in a letter to the British prime minister. But, she went on, there are similarities between what is reported to be happening in China and what happened in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. The violations of the human rights of the Uyghurs are “shaping up to be the most serious outrage of our time”, said Van der Zyl.

Volkswagen is significant in another way, too. It is an example of a western company that has become so dependent on the Chinese market that it can hardly do without it. China accounts for more than 40% of Volkswagen’s global car sales. Whatever the exact calculations that led Volkswagen to open its relatively small plant in Xinjiang in 2013, it seems clear that to close it down now would negatively impact its whole relationship with the Chinese regime, on which its business in the country depends. The company has got itself stuck between the rock of Xi Jinping and the hard place of an increasingly outraged western public opinion. The result could be a moral car crash.

Behind this leading western company that is too dependent on China is a leading western country that is at risk of becoming too dependent on China. Under Angela Merkel, China has risen to be Germany’s largest single trading partner. Her likely successor, Armin Laschet, the Christian Democratic Union candidate for chancellor, currently heads a federal state, North Rhine-Westphalia, which has a large stake in economic relations with the east Asian dictatorship. Every week, many giant container trains pull into the city of Duisburg, which is often billed as the western land terminus of Beijing’s belt and road initiative. Despite pressure on Berlin from the Biden administration in Washington, everything Laschet has said so far in the German election campaign suggests the continuation of a soft, business-first China policy. Without a change in Germany’s policy, there will be no coherent European China policy.

To be clear: this is not just about Germany. Coca-Cola also has a factory in Xinjiang. Wall Street firms are piling into Chinese markets wherever they can. British bankers, lawyers and estate agents have for years been falling over themselves to service Russian oligarchs, Chinese apparatchiks and Central Asian tyrants. France would love a larger slice of the action.

In the original cold war, the west was never economically dependent on the east (then meaning the Soviet bloc). On the contrary, in the later years of the east-west conflict, several east European states became heavily indebted to the west. That hastened their downfall. In this new cold war – or hot peace, if you would rather – the west is already economically dependent on the east (now meaning China). In the 2000s, it was still just possible to believe in the possibility of Wandel durch Handel (change through trade). But when the German economics minister, Peter Altmaier, said last year: “I still believe that change can be achieved through trade,” it sounded like the platitude of a bygone era. In the past decade, China has done more trade, become more repressive and exercised more leverage over the west. So who has changed whom?

Although it is a dangerous illusion to believe that economic interdependence necessarily prevents international conflict, we certainly do not want a world of competitive autarkies. Western democracies do, however, need to ensure that they are not strategically dependent on China. We had a taste of such dependency in the early months of the Covid pandemic, when we discovered just how much of our personal protection equipment came from China. If Huawei were to dominate our 5G networks, that would be a deep strategic vulnerability.

Western businesses must also accept the ultimate primacy of politics in a democracy. In the German Ostpolitik of the 1970s and 1980s, German trade and investment in the Soviet bloc served the country’s larger foreign policy goals. In Germany’s recent China policy, by contrast, the commercial tail has wagged the political dog.

As individual investors and consumers, we should include a broader concern about violations of human rights in ESG (environmental, social and governance) criteria for assessing companies. The German parliament recently passed an admirable supply chain act, which requires German companies to monitor human rights standards wherever they produce. It will be fascinating to see how Volkswagen responds.

Last year, the chief executive of Volkswagen Group China, Stephan Wöllenstein, said he was aware of the “allegations” in relation to Xinjiang (what a great leap forward in executive knowledge!), but that no forced labour is used in their factory or its local supply chains. Diess repeated this assertion in an interview earlier this year, claiming: “Neither we nor our suppliers employ forced labourers.”

As it happens, I drive a Volkswagen. It’s a perfectly good car, but I need to change it soon for one with a climate-friendly electric engine, and there are plenty of other good makes. I am realistic. I don’t expect the boss of Volkswagen to speak out like some fiery human rights advocate. In Europe, jobs, prosperity and the sustainability of our social model depend on those earnings from abroad.

But the next time a Volkswagen executive is asked about the Chinese camps by one of those troublesome journalists, he or she could at least say something like this: “As a citizen, I am deeply concerned whenever I hear credible reports of human rights violations in areas where we do business. I hope our government, and all democratic governments, will continue to speak up in defence of human rights everywhere. As a company, especially having in mind the early history of Volkswagen, our specific duty is to ensure that no violations of human rights are to be found in our supply chain.” And then a group of reporters experienced in Chinese affairs should be invited to visit the Volkswagen factory in Xinjiang, talk to its employees and look in detail at its supply chain. History and conscience demand nothing less.



Timothy Garton Ash is a Guardian columnist