Critics Question The Climate Crisis Benefits of Deep Seabed  Mining Marta Montojo and Ian Urbina Sep 16 Few people have ever heard of the tiny country of Nauru. Even fewer ever think about what happens at the bottom of the world's oceans. But that may soon change. The seafloor is thought to hold trillions of dollar’s worth of  metals and this Pacific-island nation is making bold moves to get a jump on the global competition to plumb these depths.   The targets of these companies are potato-sized rocks that scientists call polymetallic nodules. Sitting on the ocean floor, these prized clusters can take more than three million years to form. They are valuable because they are rich in manganese, copper, nickel, cobalt that are claimed to be essential for electrifying transport and decarbonizing the economy amid the green technological revolution that has emerged to counter the climate crisis.  Image provided by: NOAA’s DeepCCZ project To vacuum up these treasured chunks requires industrial extraction by massive excavators. Typically 30 times the weight of regular bulldozers, these machines are lifted by cranes over the sides of ships, then dropped miles underwater where they drive along the seafloor, suctioning up the rocks, crushing them and sending a slurry of crushed nodules and seabed sediments from 4,000-6,000 meters depth through a series of pipes to the vessel above. After separating out the minerals, the processed waters, sediment and mining ‘fines’ (small particles of the ground up nodule ore)  are piped overboard, to depths as yet unclear. But a growing number of marine biologists, ocean conservationists, government regulators and environmentally-conscious companies are sounding the alarm about a variety of environmental, food security, financial, and biodiversity concerns associated with seabed mining. These critics worry whether the ships doing this mining will dump back into the sea the huge amounts of toxic-waste and sediments produced by grinding up and pumping the rocks to the surface, impacting larger fish further up the food chain such as tunas and contaminating the global seafood supply chain.  They also worry that the mining may be counterproductive in relation to climate change because it may in fact diminish the ocean floor’s distinct carbon sequestration capacity. Their concern is that in stirring up the ocean floor, the mining companies will release carbon into the environment undercutting some of the very benefits intended by switching to electric cars, wind turbines and long-life batteries.  Douglas McCauley, who is also the director of the Benioff Ocean Institute at the University of California Santa Barbara, warned against trying to counter the climate crisis with solutions that rely on a “paradigm of just ripping up a new part of the planet.” If the goal is to slow climate change, he said, it makes little sense to obliterate the deep-sea ecosystems and marine life that presently play a role in capturing and storing more carbon than all the world’s forests. If the high seas represent the last frontier on earth, then the deep seabed outside of national waters is a frontier beyond that, a realm subject to a unique regime under international law, deeming the international seabed area and its resources to be managed by an international organization called the International Seabed Authority (ISA) on behalf of humankind as whole. “But who benefits and how from this new rush to seabed mining remains unclear,” said Kristina Gjerde, high seas policy advisor for the IUCN Global Marine Program. “And what constitutes benefits to humankind is also unclear as the deep seafloor is filled with untold biodiversity, much of it vitally important to the survival of our planet.” Still, Nauru hopes to forge ahead with seabed mining. Located in Micronesia, northeast of Australia, the tiny island is among the smallest countries on the planet, with a landmass of 8 square miles and a population of around 12 thousand. By moving faster than its competition, this cash-strapped developing nation hopes to get an early edge on a potentially multi-billion dollar market even though Nauru itself is only likely to receive a small fraction of the financial benefits of seabed mining from the Canadian company it is sponsoring.  In June, Nauru took the first step in launching the industry. It announced plans to submit an application for commercial extraction on behalf of its sponsored entity “NORI” as early as 2023 to the International Seabed Authority. Such an application will be judged against whatever the deep sea mining rules are at that time — finalized or otherwise.  Over a dozen other countries, including Russia, the UK, India and China, have 15-year exploration contracts. The government of India has recently set aside $544 million to stoke private sector investments and technological research in this industry. But Nauru is taking the lead partially because its sponsored company NORI is a wholly owned subsidiary of a Canadian company that thinks it may benefit from being the first, based on its arguments that the minerals are necessary to enable the transition to a new green economy.   International interest in seabed mining has been stoked partly by new advances in robotics, computer mapping and underwater drilling -- combined with historically high but fluctuating commodities prices. Mining companies globally are said to be scouring for fresh reserves, having depleted much of the world's easy-to-access veins. The metals they seek are used in magnets, batteries, and electronic components for smartphones, wind turbines, fuel cells, hybrid cars, catalytic converters and other high-tech gadgetry. These metals are commonly found on land but some raise concerns that these may not be enough. “With dwindling resources on land, with exponential growth of demand, and a shortage in circulation (recycling), there is a need to find alternative sources of critical metals needed to allow the energy transition to zero-net carbon economies,” said Bramley Murton, a marine researcher at the UK’s National Oceanography Centre. It has been estimated that, collectively, the nodules on the bottom of the ocean contain six times as much cobalt, three times as much nickel, and four times as much of the rare-earth metal yttrium as there is on land.  Mining companies and states have set their eyes on a specific part of the sea, an area bigger than the size of continental United States that stretches from Hawaii to Mexico, neighboring Nauru’s exclusive economic zone. The ocean floor under that area, known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, is estimated to contain metals valued at between $8 trillion and $16 trillion.  Nauru has teamed up with NORI, which is owned by a Canada-based firm called The Metals Company to explore this area. “We are proud that Pacific nations have been leaders in the deep-sea minerals industry,” a statement co-authored by Nauru’s representative to the International Seabed Authority recently declared.  Scientists have conservatively estimated that each mining license will permit direct strip mining of some 8,000 square kilometers of seabed over the course of a 20 year mining license from the ISA and ‘easily’ impact a further 8,000-24,000 square kilometers of surrounding seabed life by sediment plumes generated by the mining the ocean floor. They estimate that the ‘nodule obligate species’ – the animals living on the nodules or, like deep-sea octopuses, that otherwise need the nodules to survive - will take millions of years to recover and even the animals living in the surrounding sediment may take hundreds to thousands of years to recover from the impact of mining.  Image by: Fábio Nascimento Some corporate stakeholders are voicing skepticism. In March, BMW and Volvo Group, along with Samsung and Google, pledged to abstain from sourcing deep sea minerals. In its most recent global report, the International Energy Agency, a global body that advises countries on policy, concluded that seabed mining machines, “...often cause seafloor disturbance, which could alter deep sea habitats and release pollutants...stirring up fine sediments, could also affect ecosystems, which take a long time to recover.” In June, the European Parliament also asked the executive branch of the European Union to stop financing deepsea mining technology and called for a delay in more exploration operations. UK House of Commons Environment Audit Committee in 2019 concluded that deep-sea mining would have “catastrophic impacts on the seafloor”, the International Seabed Authority benefiting from revenues from issuing mining licenses is “a clear conflict of interest” and that “the case for deep sea mining has not yet been made” One worry among seabed mining critics is that the industry’s giant suction, grinding and harvesting machines will kick up huge and suffocating clouds of sediment both along the seabed and high in the water column that block light, crowd out oxygen, produce harmful amounts of noise pollution and disperse toxins which decimate life and contaminate seafood. Such contamination could also pose a threat to the food security for developing and coastal nations whose fishing stocks and other seafloor marine life would be decimated.  “We need much more time for research to be carried out, not by mining companies, but by independent seabed ecologists,” said Kelvin Passfield, who runs the Te Ipukarea Society in the Cook Islands and is part of a group of non-profit organizations in Fiji, Vanuatu and elsewhere in the Pacific islands that are concerned about the impacts of such plumes on local fishermen and food security. Other critics see the mining as a ponzi scheme of sorts that is meant to draw venture capital investment but in fact has little real chance to make money in the long term. Matthew Gianni, co-founder of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, said that seabed mining companies are trying to peddle a false choice between having to mine cobalt and nickel on land or in the deep sea when they claim we need 100s of million of tons of these metals to build batteries for electric vehicles and other renewable energy storage technologies. “We don’t need to build batteries with either nickel or cobalt. Tesla and BYD, the world’s second largest EV manufacturer, are making cars with Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries, with little to no nickel or cobalt, which are selling unexpectedly well,” he said. “There is massive investment now being put into developing batteries that don’t use these metals at all.” Better product design, recycling and reuse of metals already in circulation, urban mining, and other ‘circular’ economy initiatives can vastly reduce the need for new sources of metals, he said. Once thought to be relatively lifeless, the deep sea is now seen by most scientists as a species-rich environment populated by creatures that thrive under conditions that seem impossibly extreme. And yet, much of its biodiversity on the seafloor is distinctly vulnerable to change because their habitat is so far removed and thus rarely disturbed.  The oceans already face a daunting list of threats, ranging from overfishing, sonar testing, oil dumping, and plastic pollution, to sea level and temperature rise, acidification, oxygen depletion, algal blooms, and ghost nets. Add to those the additional strains faced by deep-sea marine life on the seafloor: internet cables, bottom trawling, treasure hunting, oil and gas drilling, coral bleaching, the sinking of retired drilling rigs. In 2019 the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) issued its Global Assessment report which estimated that a million species are at risk of extinction, many within the next several decades unless we reverse the drivers of biodiversity loss.  One of the biggest challenges in stoking concern about this type of mining is that the seabed is so far removed -- geographically, emotionally and intellectually -- from the public that benefits from it. Most of the world’s seafloor is not even mapped but less properly or fully understood or robustly governed. Deep below the waterline it is always dark, its many of its inhabitants defy categorizations into the traditional animal-plant-mineral taxonomy.  No solution to a problem as complex as the climate crisis will come without difficult decisions and heavy costs especially as the global public tries to wean itself from fossil fuels. The hard part, though, is figuring out how to take one step forward without also moving three steps back.  Image by: Fábio Nascimento (Marta Montojo and Ian Urbina work at The Outlaw Ocean Project, a journalistic non-profit organization based in Washington DC that focuses on environmental and human rights concerns at sea.) A guest post by Marta Montojo Marta Montojo is Foreign Editor at The Outlaw Ocean Project and a regular contributor to a variety of venues including El Confidencial and Ballena Blanca.

‘Lock him up’: Anger behind Trudeau protesters existed before Trump, experts say

Eric Stober 


"Lock him up."

© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick A lone protester heckles Liberal leader Justin Trudeau as he takes part in an interview with Global reporter Neetu Garcha in Burnaby, B.C., on Monday, Sept. 13, 2021.

No, this wasn't chanted at a rally of former U.S. president Donald Trump, but by protesters at a campaign event of Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.


While the words may be the same, experts say the anger expressed at some Liberal rallies is not necessarily directly influenced by events in the U.S., but reflect a simmering resentment that has existed even before Trump.

Carleton University political science professor Jonathan Malloy said that anger with institutions and "elites" was evident before Trump's election victory, such as the vote to approve Brexit in the U.K. in June 2016.

Read more: Liberals, Conservatives in dead heat as campaign enters final week: poll

"We're seeing this sort of anger in different countries ... this sort of angry mob that's just rebelling against traditional elites, traditional institutions," he said.

"So it's not just American, it's elsewhere."

IT BEGAN IN ALBERTA IN 1984 WITH THE NEP INTRODUCED BY
 PM TRUDEAU THE FIRST

Now, recent COVID-19 policies, such as vaccine passports, have tapped into something that was there "long before COVID," according to Malloy.

He said that anger towards elites and institutions has translated into anger towards COVID-19 policies as they are implemented by the government, and the more there is a consensus that vaccines are the route out of the pandemic, the angrier those opposed to it become.

"[Protesters] don't want to hear that there's no alternative," Malloy said. "They don't want to hear this elite consensus, that vaccines are the solution and restrictions and lockdowns were also necessary."

Malloy said the anger from protesters is largely driven by feeling left behind, that they don't belong in the new consensus and are not being listened to.

One person who is listening to them, though, is Maxime Bernier, the leader of the People's Party of Canada, which has seen growth in this election campaign compared to its results in 2019's vote.

According to an Ipsos poll of 2,001 Canadians over 18 years old done Sept. 10-13, four per cent said they would vote for the PPC if the election were held tomorrow — a significant increase over the party's standing at one per cent in the last election.

Bernier has been outspoken against vaccine passports and COVID-19 restrictions and has remained skeptical about climate change, even mocking teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg in a tweet, but Malloy said that any similarities to Trump may not be intentional.

"[Canadian actors] really love to move by instinct and play the crowd," he said. "So I'm not sure how much conscious planning there is, deliberately copying what's happening in the United States."

The PPC, though, does have a connection to the anger demonstrated towards Trudeau. Shane Marshall, the president for a London, Ont., PPC riding, has been arrested and charged with one count of assault with a weapon in connection to the gravel throwing. Marshall has since been removed from his position by the party.

Read more: Former PPC London riding president arrested for Trudeau gravel-throwing incident

While not as physical as throwing gravel, chanting "lock him up" is the type of rhetoric that vilifies the political opponent, said Alexander Reid Ross, author of Against the Fascist Creep and a lecturer at Portland State University.

"[The chant] seeks to do away with the political other, in order to assert complete control, unopposed over the political system," he said.

"It's an authoritarian solution ... that has definitely caught on among some sectors in Canada, but luckily, not as powerful as here in the United States."

Trudeau is not currently being criminally investigated on any matter, although the RCMP is examining the leader’s involvement in the SNC-Lavalin affair, for which he has been accused of influencing the judicial process regarding the company.

The Conservatives have also called on the RCMP to investigate whether Trudeau broke ethics rules over the awarding of a government contract for WE Charity, which has paid members of Trudeau's family for speaking engagements.

Ross said that resentment can grow when a political establishment has had power for a long time, and the more excluded some feel, such as with vaccine passports, the more open they can be to forms of violence.

That can be seen in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when rioters who believed the U.S. election was stolen from Trump stormed the building, resulting in five deaths.

"When those parties start to degenerate and decline, that can lead to a situation where political agents disaggregate from a conservative political engagement, and they start to enter into terrorist activity," Ross said.

While Ross agrees that such policies as a vaccine mandate should be debated, the problem is that those arguments can be "flooded with far-right supporters" that pull the argument out of a "rational context."

For Ross, vaccine protests could even bring more people into the fold.

"You can't underestimate the power of belonging in a political movement."

‘We’re no longer ‘the University of jihad’ but ‘the University of the Taliban cabinet’: inside Pakistan’s notorious madrasa

Bel Trew
Wed, 15 September 2021,

Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, northwestern Pakistan (Bel Trew)

“We are no longer to be called ‘the University of jihad’ but ‘the University of the Taliban cabinet,” chuckles the head of Darul Uloom Haqqania, arguably one of the most infamous Islamic seminaries in Pakistan.

Flanked by adoring supporters, one of whom crouches on the floor kissing his legs, Maulana Hamid Ul-Haq jokes about the nickname given by critics who have repeatedly labelled the school a hotbed of radicalisation. This is because its alumni include some of the Taliban’s most powerful and feared leaders, many of whom are on global wanted lists and are now in their new cabinet after the group swept to power in neighbouring Afghanistan last month.

Among those with close links to the school, located about 100km from the Afghan border in northwest Pakistan, was the Taliban’s founder Mullah Muhammed Omar, the one-eyed reclusive cleric-warrior who sheltered Osama bin Laden. The seminary awarded him an honorary doctorate because he brought “peace to Afghanistan and the region” Ul-Haq says.


The biggest names from the notorious Haqqani network, a US-designated terrorist group linked to the Taliban, have been taught there, including its founder, Jalaluddin Haqqani, and Khalil Haqqani, now the Taliban’s minister for refugees. The Taliban’s spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid is also a graduate.

But despite this, Ul-Haq, 54, vehemently rejects the accusations that the school is a factory for violence. The former member of parliament, who now heads up a religious political party, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-S), remains deeply proud of the Taliban connections and waxes lyrical about his meetings with Jalahuddin and his son Sirajuddin, the Taliban’s new interior minister (and a wanted militant), whom he calls “humble”, “well-mannered”, and “visionary”.

He sees the Taliban’s surge to power in Afghanistan, and the announcement of their interim cabinet, as legitimising their position even more, and calls on the west to recognise them in order to “prevent more war”.

“We don’t want to be known as the terror or warrior university. We are proud that a number of our alumni are in the Taliban cabinet,” says Ul-Haq, estimating that more than half a dozen Taliban ministers either attended the madrasa or have sent family members there.

“That means the Taliban think that these people are visionary, humane and well educated.

“They were chosen as they know the political ups and downs, they know how to deal with the world,” he adds, beaming.

America did not come to spread love and did not give flowers. They came to bomb the region, and these men – the Taliban – were defending themselves 

Maulana Hamid Ul-Haq, head of Darul Uloom Haqqania

The day Ul-Haq speaks to The Independent happens to be the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, masterminded by Osama bin Laden, which triggered the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, where Bin Laden was sheltering.

Ul-Haq condemns the horrific attacks, which killed over 2700 people in the States, but claims Osama bin Laden was not responsible for them, saying the US invasion forced the Taliban “to defend themselves”.

And so, he says, the fact that the 20th anniversary of the attacks occurred when Afghanistan was back in the hands of the Taliban, after US-led Nato troops had withdrawn, was “a kind of justice”.

“America did not come to spread love and did not give flowers. They came to bomb the region, and these men – the Taliban – were defending themselves,” he adds with force.

“Washington has made the right decision in leaving. It was spending so much money, but suffered a lot – economically, politically, and in terms of loss of life of its forces.”

Maulana Hamid Ul-Haq is proud of the connections the Haqqania seminary has with the Taliban (Bel Trew)

The world-infamous madrasa, which teaches a fundamentalist brand of Sunni Islam known as Deobandi Islam, was founded by Hamid Ul-Haq’s grandfather – an Islamic scholar called Abdul Ul-Haq – in the weeks after Pakistan won independence from the British in 1947.

Abdul Ul-Haq’s successor was his son, Sami Ul-Haq, who was known as “the father of the Taliban” – a name the family still sees as a badge of honour. Sami was assassinated by unknown gunmen in 2018.

Now, twinkling in the sunlight, the new, pink-hued, sprawling campus is home to some 2800 students, the student body now being about half the size it was at its largest.

Behind a gate manned by guards armed with Kalashnikovs, streams of men in traditional Islamic dress, with prayer rugs slung over their shoulders, pour out of the mosque after Saturday morning prayers.

In front of them, preserved behind glass windows, is a vintage 1940s car with a sign saying it was used by Abdul Ul-Haq in the 1970s as he toured the country making speeches, but also as he participated in the movement against the (persecuted) Ahmadiyya religious community – a stark reminder of the ideological leanings of the place. Human Rights Watch says the Ahmadis have been subjected to targeted killings and violence over the decades.

Another reminder, of course, is the list of graduates. Among Darul Uloom Haqqania’s most famous students was Taliban supreme leader Akhtar Mansour, who was Mullah Omar’s successor until he was killed in a 2016 US drone strike in southwest Pakistan.

The notorious Haqqani network, and its founder Jalaluddin Haqqani, took their names from the school because Jalaluddin studied there. (The Taliban deny the existence of an offshoot Haqqani network, and say Jalaluddin is a top Taliban figure.)

Nonetheless, Jalaluddin sent several of his sons here, including, reportedly (although Ul-Haq denies this), Sirajuddin, the Taliban’s new interior minister. Sirajuddin has a $10m American bounty on his head because of his alleged involvement in a 2008 attack on a hotel in Kabul, as well as for his ties to al-Qaeda.

Sirajuddin is alleged to have been involved in the 2008 attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul (AFP via Getty)

Ul-Haq confirms that several other ministers studied here, including the Taliban’s minister of education, Abdul Baqi Haqqani, and the minister for refugees, Khalil Haqqani. Other ministers, including deputy prime minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a co-founder of the Taliban, sent their sons to the school or had uncles and fathers who studied there.

And so the history of the seminary is one that is very much tied to the muddy history of conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan, two countries that share a 2500km border and countless political, religious and cultural connections.

Pakistan experts told The Independent the school gained prominence in the 1980s when it was backed by western intelligence services, who paid for its activities as a useful place to cultivate the mujahideen forces fighting the Soviets next door. The same experts say it was later heavily funded by Saudi Arabia, and became tied to the Taliban when the group emerged in the early 1990s from northern Pakistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.

“I interviewed Sami Ul-Haq [Hamid’s father] several times. He boasted of his connection with Osama bin Laden at one point,” recalls prominent Pakistani journalist Zahid Hussein, who has written several books about Pakistan’s struggle with militant Islam and its relationship with Afghanistan.

“It can be called an ideological centre for the Taliban on both sides of the border.”

Ahmed Rashid, who has written several books about the Taliban, says the madrasa was also supported by Pakistan in the early 1990s as a way to combat warlords in lands immediately adjacent in neighbouring Afghanistan, who had a stranglehold on key trade routes.

At that point it became “world-famous”.

“Students would come from all over the world. It was their first introduction to jihad,” he says.

Both experts say that, despite the connections, it has never come to blows with Pakistani administrations. Its doors have never been closed, even when the government vowed to crack down on unlicensed religious schools after a 2014 massacre of over 100 schoolchildren in the nearby city of Peshawar, which was claimed by the Taliban’s Pakistan branch, Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP). (The TTP also reportedly have connections to the school.)

Instead, in 2018 the Pakistani media reported that the local government had granted the seminary over 277m rupees (around £1m), which prime minister Imran Khan said was to assure reforms in the syllabus, but critics think might have been politically motivated.

Ahead of an election that took place in the same year, Ul-Haq’s father Sami and his JUI-S party briefly entered into a pre-election alliance with the prime minister’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party in an effort to broaden his support base.

Fast-forward to 2021 and the school has taken centre-stage again.

“When the Taliban cabinet was announced I congratulated them via phone, and requested them to continue very carefully as the world is watching them,” Hamid Ul-Haq tells The Independent, in his office.

He says he warned the Taliban against the immediate application of the strictest Sharia law punishments (giving the example of lashing women), as it might be deemed by “the west” to be “a violation of human rights”.

He says he hopes the wider government, when it is announced, will be more inclusive and will have female members.

“They must be careful so the struggle should not be wasted,” he adds.

And this is the crux of the issue for neighbouring Pakistan, which has a tightrope to walk ahead as it builds ties with the Afghan Taliban administration while trying to contain a domestic terrorism problem in the form of the linked TTP.

I hope [the Afghan Taliban] will inspire a struggle for a true Islamic system here in Pakistan
Maulana Hamid Ul-Haq

Ul-Haq, who also heads up a platform of nearly 20 religious parties, was among the many hardline religious figures in Pakistan who cheered the rapid Taliban takeover of Afghanistan as a victory over western imperialism and secularism.

Shortly after the Taliban announced the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, he told his followers in a statement that the Taliban had established “unmatched peace and security in Afghanistan” and should “inspire” a similar change in Pakistan.

“Yes, I hope it will inspire a struggle for a true Islamic system here in Pakistan,” he reiterated to The Independent, while adding that the struggle should be “democratic” and “peaceful”.

“Our constitution says there will be Sharia law, and all laws will be made under Quranic law, but there are still British laws in our country.”

And so the question is what this struggle looks like in practice for Pakistan.

Senior Pakistani security sources told The Independent they were lobbying the Afghan Taliban to cut off ties, isolate, and so ultimately defang the Taliban’s Pakistan branch because of its involvement in terrorist activities. Pakistan’s foreign minister told The Independent that the Taliban had verbally assured Pakistan that they would not allow Afghanistan to be used as a staging ground for TTP (or Isis) terror attacks on Pakistani soil. This is particularly urgent after the TTP claimed a suicide bombing in the southwestern town of Quetta just two weeks ago.

Pakistan’s spy chief even flew to Kabul, where this issue was allegedly at the top of his agenda.

The Independent repeatedly pressed the Haqqania seminary on its exact relationship with the TTP, which is banned in Pakistan, but received no clear answer.

However the school, and Ul-Haq, have repeatedly denied any involvement in terrorist activity.

There are uncomfortable connections. Police investigating the 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto said her killers (thought to be members of the Pakistan Taliban) had been briefed about the plan in one of the many departments of the madrasa.

The TTP later nominated Sami Ul-Haq, Hamid’s father, to represent it in its short-lived peace talks with the government in 2014.

“There are so many people who blame us and label us as the university of terror because they are against Islam,” Ul-Haq insists.

“By labelling us as a ‘terrorist organisation’ campus, they want to scare people off us, and Islam.”

He says the school has played host to the likes of US and Afghan ambassadors, as well as Pakistan’s prime minister, while his father acted in an important mediating role between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Taliban to bring about reconciliation and peace to the region.

“Until his last breath my father played a peaceful role for the whole of humanity,” Ul-Haq insists, adding that he continues that legacy.

As another supporter sits at his feet and begins massaging his leg, Ul-Haq returns to the subject of Afghanistan. He finishes with a warning.

“The hopes of the western world and all of the world will come true now the Taliban are in power. But they must recognise the Taliban government,” he says.

“If they don’t, it means the world wants wars for another four decades.”

MPs urge Bank of England to regulate fossil fuel finance

Lucy Harley-McKeown
Thu, 16 September 2021,

Andrew Bailey was called on to take action. Photo: PA

The Bank of England's (BoE) governor Andrew Bailey was on Thursday urged to take broader action on climate change, as more than 50 cross-party MPs co-signed a letter calling for a greener financial system.

The letter, signed by MPs including former Green Party leader Caroline Lucas, Barry Gardiner and former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, urged that the bank has an "unprecedented opportunity to shape the global green finance agenda" and launched renewed calls for a rethink of regulation around how finance approaches the environment.

It recommends the BoE uses the new green mandate given to it by the Treasury to help steer billions of pounds of finance away from risky fossil fuel investments and towards green, job-creating alternatives.

The signatories warned that climate change and biodiversity loss are already jeopardising the Bank’s ability to meet its core objectives, and urged Bailey to put its new green remit into practice “in a manner commensurate with the scale and urgency of the challenges we are facing”.

“Finance has been identified as a COP26 priority by the UK so we need to get our own house in order. That starts with the Bank of England setting out clear rules to penalise fossil fuel lending and encourage the essential investment in sustainable infrastructure and green jobs," said Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion.

It argues the Bank of England’s own asset purchases are currently aligned with 3°C of warming – double the target the UK is committed via the Paris Agreement.

Emissions from projects financed by the UK banking sector are greater than those of other European countries. Barclays and HSBC alone have poured more than £185bn ($255.61bn) into fossil fuels since the signing of the Paris Agreement in November 2015, more than three times the amount it would cost to power all UK homes with offshore wind by 2030.

The letter remains open for parliamentarians to sign-on until October, when a full list of signatories will be delivered to the Bank of England.

Yahoo Finance contacted the BoE for comment.

Read more: Trillions held in the financial system 'fuels inequalities' in tackling sustainability

Earlier this month, wildlife charity WWF also called on the government to take action on the financial system, which it said is contributing to deforestation through funding companies that harm the environment. Agricultural commodities such as Brazilian beef and soy and Indonesian palm oil are among the products responsible for more than a quarter (27%) of deforestation.

It found that almost £40bn in investment and lending has gone to companies that directly produce, trade and buy these products as a primary business activity, by 303 different UK-domiciled financial institutions and funds.

UK
Mother wins ‘David and Goliath’ case with Environment Agency over landfill site


Jess Glass
Thu, 16 September 2021,

Rebecca Currie (Aaron Chown/PA) (PA Wire)

A five-year-old boy and his mother have won a “David and Goliath” legal case against the Environment Agency (EA) over a Staffordshire landfill site accused of emitting noxious gases that risk shortening her son’s life.

Lawyers for Mathew Richards argued there is a “public health emergency” in the vicinity of Walleys Quarry in Silverdale, Newcastle-under-Lyme, claiming hydrogen sulphide (H2S) emissions are affecting “hundreds and probably thousands of local people”.

At a hearing in August, the High Court in London heard that Mathew was a vulnerable child, born prematurely at 26 weeks with a chronic lung disease and needed oxygen support for 19 months.

The five-year-old’s doctor told the court that as the H2S emissions were preventing his recovery and lung development, he was at risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the future which would dramatically reduce his life expectancy.

Stop the Stink demonstrators stopping lorries coming onto the Walleys Quarry Landfill site at Silverdale (PA) (PA Wire)

On Thursday, Mr Justice Fordham made a declaration that the EA “must implement” Public Health England’s advice to reduce concentrations of hydrogen sulphide in the local area to one part per billion, less than an eighth of the level that can be smelled, by January 2022.

He said: “Based on all the evidence, about Mathew, and about the emissions, and about the implications of the emissions for Mathew, I am satisfied that there is a direct effect on Mathew’s home, family life and private life from adverse effects of severe environmental pollution.”

In her evidence, Mathew’s mother Rebecca Currie described fumes from the site as “a stomach-wrenching smell like rotten eggs”, as other residents said they suffered headaches and nosebleeds which they attributed to the smell from the quarry.

Ms Currie, who lives approximately 400 metres away from the landfill, previously said she would have been forced to move away from her home with her son if the legal action failed.

The court previously heard the EA, which is monitoring the site’s air-quality levels, had taken “very substantial steps” at the landfill site and “continues to keep matters under review”.

Public Health England’s position is that “currently any risk to long-term health is likely to be small, but a risk cannot completely be excluded if exposure were to continue at current levels”, the court heard.

This is truly a 'David and Goliath' case where a mother has faced up to the Government agency which is supposed to protect public health and yet has failed so badly to do so

Rebekah Carrier, solicitor

The judge said: “It will require pressing and ongoing action which will, in my judgment, make a very real difference so far as the air which Mathew, and his community, breathes is concerned.”

He added: “I accept it is not necessary, nor is it appropriate, for this court to say that there is a current breach by the EA of its legal obligations.

“I have made clear that I am not satisfied, on the evidence, that the EA has yet addressed its legal duties in the way that it must.

“But there is an obvious and pressing public interest imperative that it must do so, as a matter of urgency.

“It is well able to do so.”

After the judgment, Ms Currie told the PA news agency: “This decision today, it’s going to give Mathew and the community fresh air again. Not what we’ve been breathing in.

“Now I can stay in my own home because I was being forced out. Obviously I couldn’t let Mathew live there any longer if the answer hadn’t gone in his favour today.

“If you’ve got a child and you need to fight, fight. Don’t back off from it. Do what I’ve done – fight for it.”

She added that residents felt “fobbed off” by the EA despite “thousands of complaints”.

Mathew’s solicitor Rebekah Carrier said they were “delighted” with the decision after the ruling.

She said: “This is truly a ‘David and Goliath’ case where a mother has faced up to the Government agency which is supposed to protect public health and yet has failed so badly to do so.”

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “We have every sympathy with the local community, who should not have to live with the distress caused by landfill gas being released from Walleys Quarry.

“That’s why we are requiring the operator, Walleys Quarry Ltd, to take action.

“The court agreed that we are right to rely on assessments and advice from Public Health England and did not find a present breach by the Environment Agency of its legal obligations.

“We have a dedicated team working closely with our partners through a multi-agency forum to resolve the issues and to improve the situation for local people.

“We will continue to use our regulatory powers to require Walleys Quarry Ltd to bring hydrogen sulphide emissions under control.”

The EA added that it will seek to appeal some parts of the judgment.

'An army of low-paid workers': wealthy Germany's not so equal

Sophie MAKRIS
Wed, 15 September 2021

The Greens are among several parties urging a rise in the minimum wage

 (AFP/John MACDOUGALL)

Pharmaceutical dynasty heir Antonis Schwarz is a millionaire. And he wants Germany's next government to tax him more.

The 33-year-old is a founding member of "Tax Me Now!", an initiative bringing together 47 of the wealthiest names in Austria and Germany that wants to put social justice at the top of the agenda in Europe's biggest economy's election campaign.

Schwarz has given 500,000 euros ($590,780) to the ecologist Greens, offering strong backing for the party that wants to bring back wealth tax, and reform inheritance tax.

The current economic system "pushes money upwards" into the hands of a few people, he said in an interview with public broadcaster ZDF, urging fairer distribution across the population.

As Chancellor Angela Merkel prepares to leave the political scene after September 26's elections, a glance back at the socio-economic record of her 16-year reign offers a mixed picture.

Under her watch, Germany has regained its spot as Europe's economic engine, today fully rehabilitated from the "sick man of Europe" image that plagued it in the 1990s and early 2000s.

From 1995 to 2001, Germany grew on average 1.6 percent a year, almost a whole percentage point lower than the rest of the EU at the time, as it absorbed the costs for reunification, and in 2003 it suffered a recession.

But its fortunes turned around, and a yawning gap in well-being between east and west has narrowed, even if differences still persist.

GDP per head in the ex-communist east outside Berlin, under 40 percent of the German average in 1990, was closer to 75 percent in 2021, according to a report by the economy ministry.

But the relative prosperity belies other inequalities that have only worsened in the coronavirus pandemic.

Just one percent of the country's population controls 35 percent of its wealth, according to a study published in 2020 by the German economics institute DIW.

- Deep-rooted poverty -

With the pandemic heaping unprecedented economic turmoil on the population, calls have grown for a fairer redistribution of wealth in the country.

Besides the Greens, both the poll-topping Social Democrats and the far-left Linke party are in favour of a return of the wealth tax, struck out of the statute books in 1997, or a reform of inheritance tax.

In comparison, Merkel's conservatives have opposed raising taxes.

And both the SPD and Greens want to up the minimum wage to 12 euros, up from the current 9.60 euros, a remedy in their view to another flaw of the German economic miracle: relatively low pay and precarious employment.

When she came into office, Merkel inherited a set of sweeping reforms aimed at making work more flexible, known as the Hartz laws, from her predecessor social democrat Gerhard Schroeder.

The reductions in the length of unemployment benefits and the new conditions attached to them pushed thousands of jobless towards a system of generally poorly paid "mini-jobs".

The number of people in these jobs increased by 43 percent between 2003 and 2019, up to 7.6 million workers in an active population of 42 million.

But they were taking home little wages.

- Hospital on strike -

Before the pandemic, around one in six or 15.8 percent of people in Germany lived at risk of poverty -- a measure defined as a monthly pay of under 1,040 euros, according to a recent study coordinated by the federal statistics agency Destatis. The figure was just under 11 percent in the 1990s.

Among the most vulnerable, the percentage "consistently" faced with the threat of poverty has doubled since 1998.

The success of the Merkel years was built on "an enormous shadow army of low-paid workers", said sociologist Oliver Nachtwey.

"Almost 20 percent of employees in this country are in this category. If you add part-time jobs to the four million full-time posts, Germany has one of the largest low-paid sectors in the OECD with around eight million people," he said in an interview with Spiegel weekly.

With a monthly gross salary of 1,850 euros, Suheyla, who does not wish to give her last name, does not think of herself as a "poor worker".

And yet, as a nurse at one of the biggest hospitals in Berlin, raising two children, she says she has difficulty "getting to the end of the month".

Suheyla has, along with colleagues, since the beginning of December been striking for better pay and working conditions.

smk-sea/hmn/cw

Can non-native trees help save Germany's dying forests?

As global heating intensifies, the risk that we may lose our forests altogether has never been greater. Indian-born forester Somidh Saha is on a mission to save Germany's dying forests.


Somidh Saha says we need to rethink forestry because even young trees are dying now

"I love my job very much," says Somidh Saha with a shy smile, as he makes his way across a forest glade towards a group of towering spruce trees. He stands in silence for a bit as he takes in the damage. The setting is Hardtwald Forest, just north of the southwestern German city of Karlsruhe.

"These trees here are dying from the top, which means they are under stress from drought. Once over half the tree's canopy is dead, it reaches a point of no return."

The 40-year-old runs his hand along the bark of a skeletal looking spruce tree whose bark is riddled with countless pin-sized holes left by bark beetles. He gently peels off a little bit of dead bark. He shows respect for the tree — even in death. Somidh Saha's name is well chosen: In Sanskrit, Somidh means wood of sacred tree species.
The call of the forest

Born in Assam, India, near the Eastern Himalayas, Saha lived in Bhutan until the age of 10.

"Growing up in Bhutan, I lived in a small house in a river valley full of lush green forest. So every morning I would actually see deer coming into our garden. It was a beautiful time."

After leaving Bhutan — a country that is sparsely populated and has about 70% forest cover — he moved to a rather treeless and crowded setting: the sprawling Indian metropolis of Kolkata. Even outside the city, he says, it was hard for him to find any trees.

In contrast to Germany, "the forests in India near the cities were all converted to villages or agricultural land," he says.


Listen to audio28:02 How can we save our dying forests?

So Saha lost sight of trees for a while. His parents had hoped he would become a doctor. And given how calmly and concisely he explains the cataclysmic impact climate change is having on our forests, he would have made a good one.

But drawn by nature, he got a degree in biology with a focus on zoology instead. Then one day he took part in an academic event in Jim Corbett National Park in northern India — a large forest area that was mainly established for the protection of the Bengal tiger. The trip was to change his life.

"I rediscovered my love for the forest. I completely changed my discipline and started to study forestry because I realized without the forest, we won't have any wild animals."

Saha was back in his element studying forestry in India — a field that was established there by German foresters who were hired by the British Empire.

"And that's the reason why I came to Germany to study forestry because forestry started in this country."

The impact of climate change

The health of Germany's forests has further deteriorated since Somidh Saha first arrived in Germany in 2008. Today about 80% of Germany's trees are unhealthy compared to some 70% back then.

"I was on holiday in the Black Forest this summer, and I was shocked by how many trees were dying there," said Saha, who after earning a doctorate degree in forestry at Freiburg University is now heading the forestry research project "Sylvanus" at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). The aim is to develop strategies to restore forests and make them more resilient to climate change impacts.

Trees weakened by drought can't produce enough sap to fight off the bark beetle

Forest dieback is intensifying because climate-change-induced droughts are becoming more frequent and more severe, rendering trees more susceptible to attacks from insects such as the bark beetle.

"What is very unusual for forest dieback in the last few years is that young trees are dying now, too," Saha says.

One-third of Germany is covered by forests (11 million hectares, 42,470 square miiles). That is more wooded area than in any other country in the European Union. Somidh Saha is worried that if the droughts and forest dieback continue, large areas could go up in flames.

"I am very concerned that with increasing droughts our region could one day become like California or Australia. And then we will have a very big problem in this cultural landscape, where villages are interlinked with the forest."

And the prospects are even bleaker in the long term if we don't act now, he says.

"It's about our survival. If climate change is happening the way it's happening now, the forests will gradually become scrubland forests and then will gradually be converted to desert."

The Sahara Desert used to be a lush forest region before it was slowly transformed by natural climate change, but "this transformation can happen very rapidly with anthropogenic climate change," he says

Watch video26:06The Expanding Desert - Climate Change in Romania

The key to saving the forests

Saha and his team have surveyed over 3,000 trees and found that some non-native tree species are coping far better than the native ones when it comes to drought and pests. The widespread monoculture evergreen forests that Germany planted after World War II to secure timber supply are particularly hard hit.

"If we had planted mixed forest 50, 60 years ago, we would not see this huge level of mortality." This is because if you just have one tree species, a tree-specific pest, such as the bark beetle, can wipe out the entire forest if it is weakened. In mixed forests, there will always be trees that are less affected or spared completely.

"Our forests must become more diverse," Saha says.

But some critics warn that planting more drought-resistant foreign trees could have an unforeseen impact on biodiversity.

"I am not in favor of a direct introduction of a foreign species. Rather, we need a proper screening of that tree species because we have to avoid that this species becomes invasive."

Spruce monocultures are among the worst affected by forest dieback in Germany

The problem is that climate change is happening so fast that there isn't sufficient time to screen a tree species thoroughly for all unwanted side effects. That is why Saha and his colleagues have been examining non-native American red oak trees planted in Karlsruhe's castle gardens some 150 years ago.

"The American red oak is more drought-resistant than many of the native species we have here," says Saha. However, in the course of their research, he and his team discovered that there is one particular species of bat that is avoiding the tree. It's not exactly clear why, but given that nine bat species live in the area, this impact on biodiversity can be considered minor, says Saha.

"There's always a tradeoff between biodiversity conservation and adaptive forest management," he concedes. However, replanting native species where even the young trees are dying is a waste of money and resources. Saha is convinced that if Germany's forests are to survive, they will need to become more diverse and the red oak tree is a very promising species to add to the mix.

"We mustn't forget that forests are not only for timber production or biodiversity conservation. They are also a place for healing. And if they are gone, then we will have a psychological problem in the future."

You can listen to Somidh Saha in the latest episode of DW's On the Green Fence podcast, here or wherever you get your podcasts.

Afghanistan: Pakistan braces for more 'Islamization' after Taliban victory

In the late 1990s, Pakistan saw a surge in religious extremism when the Taliban came to power in neighboring Afghanistan. Would it be any different this time around?



Experts say that Taliban triumph in Afghanistan would give a boost to fundamentalist forces in Pakistan

The Taliban's capture of Kabul in 1996 gave impetus to Islamist militant groups across the world, but the country that was most affected by the rise of fundamentalism in Afghanistan was its neighbor, Pakistan.

Not only did the victory of the "students" (the Taliban in Arabic) embolden extremist and militant groups in Pakistan, some people in the South Asian country also saw it as a "divine" sign.

Fed up with the country's mainstream political parties, who had failed to deliver to the common people, the demand for Shariah law and a Taliban-style government had started echoing across Pakistan.

Political Islam, thus, gained tremendous strength in the Muslim-majority country, and the hardline Wahabi version of Islam became even more popular due to the rise of the Taliban.

As the country's military establishment was backing the Islamists at the time, experts said the surge in support in Pakistan for the Taliban was a natural outcome of state policies.

Twenty years after the US and allied forces toppled the Taliban regime, the fundamentalist group is back in power in Afghanistan. Analysts say that Pakistan is bound to be affected by the Taliban triumph.

Deja vu?

When the militant group first came to power in Afghanistan, Pakistan saw a sudden spike in jihadist outfits and religious seminaries. Sectarian clashes also increased sharply in the country, with militant Sunni organizations targeting members of the Shiite sect and other minority groups.

"Pakistani authorities and Sunni extremist groups are still backing the Taliban, which could fuel sectarian tensions in the country," Ahsan Raza, a Lahore-based political analyst, told DW.

Watch video02:02 One month of Taliban rule in Afghanistan

Raza says these tensions could escalate in the coming weeks. "The success of their 'ideological brothers' in Afghanistan has given them a boost," referring to Pakistani Islamist groups.

The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and the subsequent Taliban takeover of the country has also reinvigorated the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TPP), a group banned by Islamabad due to its violent attacks on civilians and security forces.

Islamabad has urged the Afghan Taliban to ensure that the TTP does not use Afghan soil to launch attacks inside Pakistan. Despite the Taliban's assurance, the TTP has already intensified its attacks on Pakistani troops.

Analyst Said Alam Mehsud said that he believes terrorist attacks are likely to increase not only in northwestern areas of Pakistan but across the country.
Renewed demand for Shariah imposition

Religious groups are demanding the imposition of Shariah law in Pakistan more vigorously than before.

In the late 1990s, religious parties took to the streets to force former premier Nawaz Sharif to introduce more Islamic laws. Experts say that extremist parties could launch a similar campaign to further Islamize the country.

Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a former parliamentarian and leader of the religious Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, told DW the victory of the Afghan Taliban would have a positive impact on Pakistan and the region. "The demand for the imposition of Shariah would gain momentum," he said, adding that the country was created to uphold Islamic values.

"There is no harm if Shariah is imposed here as well," he added.

Kishwar Zehra, a Pakistani legislator, told DW that some religious groups, spurred by the Taliban triumph, have already started campaigning against liberal groups and women activists.

"I think they have the power to pressure Prime Minister Imran Khan's government into passing retrogressive laws," she added.


Watch video05:56 Pakistani society needs to confront victim blaming, says Amnesty's Rimmel Mohydin

Pakistan's 'pro-Taliban' government

Khan's center-right government is already facing criticism for cozying up to religious extremists and introducing regressive legislation in parliament.

Khan, who has long supported the Taliban, has been severely criticized for his "misogynistic" views. In June, he faced backlash following comments that appear to put the blame for sexual abuse on women.

"If a woman is wearing very few clothes, it will have an impact on the men, unless they are robots," Khan said during an interview for news website Axios, aired by US broadcaster HBO. He proceeded to say that this was "common sense."

Khan had made the comments roughly two months after a similar controversy. During a question and answer briefing with the public, Khan had said that the rise in sexual violence in Pakistan was due to the lack of "pardah," the practice of veiling, in the country.

"The civil society is opposing the 'Talibanization' of Pakistan, but unfortunately the state is supporting them. It could result in increased suppression of journalists and NGOs," Asad Butt, vice chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told DW.

Pakistan: Media regulation bill proposes jail term for journalists

Critics say a plan to consolidate media regulatory agencies will further shrink press freedom in the country. Journalists and opposition parties have decried the law as "draconian" and unconstitutional.



The proposed agency will issue guidelines on national security issues and monitor media entities

As Pakistan's President Arif Alvi addressed the parliament on Monday, hundreds of Pakistani journalists converged outside to demonstrate against a proposed law that they say would undermine press freedom in the South Asian country.

Under the proposed legislation, the government aims to converge several media regulatory bodies in Pakistan and expand the scope of regulation for digital media, while envisaging the establishment of a new regulatory body called the Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA). Media advocates have vehemently opposed the government move, labeling it as yet another attempt to gag freedom of the press.

"The proposed law is draconian in scope and devastating in its impact on the constitutional principles," Shahzada Zulfiqar, the president of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), told DW.

After Monday's sit-in, the PFUJ vowed to hold similar protests in other major Pakistani cities against the proposed law.

"This is censorship by another name," said Zulfiqar.

Political parties and civil society groups have also joined the journalists' protest.

"Some people don't want journalists to think freely," said Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Zardari. "We should not yield to them."

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhary told DW: "We are trying to engage with the protesting journalists and allow them to submit proposed changes if they have reservations [about the law]. We will not forcefully pass the law and will go through the legislative process with the consensus of all stakeholders, including opposition parties."

Watch video06:45Absar Alam: 'State of press freedom completely rotten in Pakistan'

What exactly would the proposed law do?

The controversial law proposes placing all media including print, broadcast and social media under the jurisdiction of one regulatory agency, the Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA). The agency would replace multiple media regulatory bodies in Pakistan.

"The proposal ignores the fact that each media has distinctive characteristics that cannot be governed under one authority," said PFUJ chief Zulfiqar.

The body would be headed by a serving bureaucrat of the federal government, while its board of eight people would include four government officials and four media stakeholders.

It would not only issue guidelines on covering national security issues but also issue no-objection certificates (NOCs) for film production and screenings.

It would additionally monitor broadcast media and register print media entities.

But Pakistan already has limited press freedom due to a vague definition of issues relating to national security.

A secretive process

The bill, which was kept secret until it was leaked to the media, also suggests that the authority should determine media workers' wages and resolve wage disputes.

"The government has kept the final draft of the PMDA law and the entire drafting process secret, raising further apprehensions among the media and civil society groups," Patricia Gossman, Associate Asia Director of Human Rights Watch, told DW.

The proposal also envisaged special tribunals operating under the authority, while its decision could be challenged only at the Supreme Court of Pakistan. The tribunals will have the power to hand down punishments of up to three years in jail and fines of up to 25 million Pakistani rupees (€124,181, $146,848) to content producers for violating the new provisions. Fake news and hate speech labels are also often used vaguely in Pakistan to silence dissent.

Watch video03:46 Asad Ali Toor: Khan government 'worst for media in Pakistan's history'

"The proposed PDMA is a completely unneeded piece of legislation that will give the government new tools to control and manipulate the media," Steven Butler of the Committee to Protect Journalists told DW.

"This comes in an environment where the media is already under tremendous pressure from authorities to keep critical reporting off the air and out of newspapers."
Can the bill pass through parliament?

Legal experts believe the bill is likely to be passed by the National Assembly. However, the ruling coalition lacks the required strength in the upper house of parliament.

The government could, however, call for a joint sitting of parliament to get the bill passed through a majority of the combined membership of both houses.

Regardless of how the bill is made into law, its constitutionality is likely to be challenged by media and rights groups as well as opposition political parties, senior legal expert Osama Malik told DW.

"The opposition does not have the strength to stop this bill through legislative means, but political means such as street protests are available to it."

"The opposition will jointly oppose this black law," Zardari of the Pakistan People's Party told journalists, adding that they would fight the law through all available means even if it passed.

Censorship on the rise

Pakistan's censorship drive has gathered pace under Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has sought to placate powerful conservative and religious constituencies. In July, Khan was featured on the red list of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), along with several other heads of state who massively clamped down on press freedom.

Watch video04:29 Pakistan: Why RSF deems PM Khan a 'press freedom predator'

"Press freedom is certainly shrinking under Imran Khan. Journalists have lost a record number of jobs, critical investigative magazines like the Herald and Newsline have shut down, despite surviving dictatorships, and critics' voices have been removed from TV," Usama Khilji, a digital rights activist, told DW.

Journalists and bloggers have complained of intimidation tactics including kidnappings, beatings, and even killings.

In Islamabad alone, over the last six months, around 30 incidents of violence against journalists were reported, but not a single culprit was arrested, Press Freedom Action Committee chairman Afzal Butt told DW.

In recent years, the space for dissent has shrunk even further, with the government announcing a crackdown on social networks and traditional media houses that critics say has resulted in widespread self-censorship.

"The media regulatory framework in Pakistan does need to be amended. With journalists under relentless attack for doing their jobs, the government needs to stop trying to control reporters and instead start protecting media freedom," said Gossman of Human Rights Watch.

Thai lawmakers vote on law against torture, disappearances

Issued on: 16/09/2021 -

The UN says there have been more than 80 forced disappearances involving Thais since 1980

 Lillian SUWANRUMPHA AFP/File

Bangkok (AFP)

Thai lawmakers on Thursday gave initial approval to a law against torture and forced disappearances, after years of delay and criticism from rights groups.

Activists have long accused authorities of state-sanctioned abductions and torture, and the UN says there have been more than 80 disappearances since 1980.

The kingdom's criminal code does not currently recognise the offences, but rogue state officials convicted under the new legislation will face long prison terms.

On Thursday, the draft law passed a first reading in parliament, though it is not clear when lawmakers will take it up again, or when it will finally come into effect.

"This is considered as an initial success after we waited for a year and a half for the draft bill," opposition Move Forward Party MP Rangsiman Rome told local media.

"Torture and disappearance cases have become an important issue, which the parliament has agreed to push forward."

The legislation has been long in coming -- the cabinet approved the changes in 2016 and bills languished for years on the parliamentary agenda.

Nine Thai citizens have disappeared in neighbouring countries since a military coup in 2014, including two whose bodies were dumped in the Mekong River after they were abducted in Laos in 2018.

Last year prominent Thai activist Wanchalearm Satsaksit was dragged off the street in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh and has not been seen since.

Thursday's vote came weeks after police brutality was thrust into the headlines with the leaking of video showing a drug suspect being suffocated with plastic bags during police interrogation.

Thailand signed a UN convention on enforced disappearances in 2012 but has yet to ratify the treaty.

In its 2021 annual report, Human Rights Watch said Thai authorities "engage in practices that facilitate torture and enforced disappearances, such as the use of secret detention by anti-narcotics units, and secret military detention of national security suspects".

© 2021 AFP