Major Hollywood crew strike looms as union sets deadline

Issued on: 13/10/2021 - 

Hollywood could come to a grinding halt if the 60,000 workers of the IATSE union go on strike from Monday 

MARIO TAMA GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File

Los Angeles (AFP)

Hollywood film set crews will launch their biggest strike since the 1940s next week unless studios meet their demands for better working conditions, their largest union said Wednesday in a move that could bring the multi-billion dollar industry to a halt.

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), which represents 60,000 film and TV workers from camera operators to set builders and costume designers, has been in months of talks with the top industry organization representing the likes of Disney, Warner and Netflix.

IATSE says that despite months of negotiations, Hollywood studios have ignored their demands for shorter working hours, longer breaks between shifts, and improved pay for the lowest earners.

"Without an end date, we could keep talking forever. Our members deserve to have their basic needs addressed now," said IATSE head Matthew Loeb, setting a deadline of Monday.

The studios' "pace of bargaining doesn't reflect any sense of urgency," he added.

The last strike involving Hollywood film set crew saw violent clashes outside the Warner Bros studio near Los Angeles 

VALERIE MACON AFP/File

With film and TV production attempting to ramp up again after enforced Covid shutdowns, IATSE wants stiffer penalties for productions that force members to work through lunch breaks.

It has also criticized Hollywood's failure to update the often lower salaries for crew members working on projects for streaming platforms, which today have budgets comparable to traditional Hollywood blockbusters.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers representing major studios and TV networks did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment Wednesday.

It has recently told US media it has made concessions on wages, pension and health care to IATSE.

The last major Hollywood walkout to wreak havoc on production schedules was the writers' strike in 2007 and 2008.

The so-called "below-the-line" technical workers involved in the current dispute have not laid down their cameras, makeup brushes and props since 1945.

That event, known as "Hollywood's Bloody Friday," saw violent clashes outside the Warner Bros studio near Los Angeles.

IATSE members voted by a huge margin last week to support a strike if the talks are not successful, bringing the long-running dispute to a boil.

© 2021 AFP

A Hollywood union president said its 60,000 workers will strike on Monday without a deal for improved working conditions

Francis AgustinOct. 13, 2021, 5:55 PM

FacebookLinkedInRedditTwitterEmail

Mike Miller, vice president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) speaks to members at a rally on on Sunday, Sept. 26, 2021. Myung J. Chun /Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

• IATSE said more than 60,000 entertainment workers will strike next week if negotiations aren’t final.
• Negotiations between crew members and studios have been at an impasse for several months.
• A strike could halt a range of TV and film projects – disrupting an industry already impacted by COVID.

---

The ongoing battle between Hollywood workers and the major studios is at a boiling point, and it may be about to spill over on the entire entertainment industry next week.

More than 60,000 film and television workers in the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), a crew members’ union in Hollywood, are on the brink of an industrywide strike. IATSE President Matthew Loeb tweeted on Wednesday that he intends to formally initiate a strike on Monday unless an agreement is reached between IATSE and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).

“We will continue bargaining with the producers this week in the hopes of reaching an agreement that addresses core issues, such as reasonable rest periods, meal breaks, and a living wage for those on the bottom of the wage scale,” Loeb said in the tweet.

“However, the current pace of bargaining doesn’t reflect any sense of urgency. Without an end date, we could keep talking forever. IATSE film and TV workers deserve to have their basic needs addressed NOW,” Loeb continued.

Union members have pushed for improved working conditions, like longer rest breaks and wage increases for lower-paid crafts. Many personal accounts from union members’ difficult working experiences have been pouring out on social media, reining in support from other major entertainment unions including SAG-AFTRA, the Directors Guild of America, and the Writers Guild of America, as well as notable figures in the industry.

Earlier this month, IATSE members voted to authorize a strike, with over 98% of members voting in favor for a strike. The union and producers resumed bargaining negotiations on Wednesday, according to Deadline, marking eight days since the strike authorization. The unions have been locked in multiple negotiations since July, but parties have repeatedly failed to reach a consensus on a deal.

“Despite our best efforts at the table, the pace of negotiations does not reflect the urgency of the situation,” Cathy Repola, national executive director of the Editors Guild, IATSE Local 700, said in a message to her members on Tuesday. “In the wake of the overwhelming strike authorization vote, the employers repeatedly refuse to do what it will take to achieve a fair deal. Either they don’t recognize what has changed in our industry and among our members or they don’t care. Or both.”

The strike is expected to have major implications on the entertainment industry, creating a labor shortage that could affect everything from live television shows to streaming hits to feature films. Studios are still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to disrupt production schedules and theatrical releases.

If the action goes forward on Monday, it will be only the second crew member strike in Hollywood history.

IATSE Sets Strike Date, Which Could Shut Down Film And TV Production Nationwide

BY RYAN SCOTT/OCT. 13, 2021 

Hollywood may soon come to a grinding halt if two major organizations cannot reach an agreement. The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) has officially set a strike date, meaning that if an agreement isn't settled on with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) soon, movie and TV production may all but stop entirely in the U.S. This is, to say the very least of it, a huge deal for the industry.

As reported by Variety, Matthew Loeb, president of IATSE, said 60,000 union members will begin a strike on October 18 at 12:01 a.m. if an agreement with the AMPTP is not met. Currently, members of the union are demanding better working conditions, and the battle has been going on for weeks, with things heating up recently when the group widely voted in favor of a possible strike. The situation is complicated, and those interested in learning more about the ins and outs would do well to click this link. The main point is, if these two huge Hollywood groups can't come to terms — and soon — the movie/TV business is effectively going to be shut down. Loeb said the following:


"The pace of bargaining doesn't reflect any sense of urgency. Without an end date, we could keep talking forever. Our members deserve to have their basic needs addressed now."

What an IATSE Strike Would Mean

The IATSE is, in essence, everyone who works on a film set that isn't a director, actor, screenwriter, producer, or teamster. That being the case, it's easy to understand why a strike would be downright catastrophic for productions. The strike was recently authorized with a stunning 98.7 percent approval from the union members, with 90 percent voter turnout.

This all ties into what was once called new media, namely streaming services, and working conditions that were considered acceptable before those companies became the dominant force in Hollywood. The union is asking for better pay, better hours, and safer working conditions. Specifically, they want a 10-hour turnaround between shifts for all workers, in addition to a 54-hour turnaround on weekends. They are also requesting an increased meal penalty, which is a way to try and get productions to actually stop for lunch.

Negotiations with AMPTP, a major group representing the largest film and TV producers in the country, have been ongoing. However, as evidenced by Loeb's comments, the urgency is not there. If a deal can't be reached in the next handful of days, we could be seeing the biggest strike in Hollywood since the writer's strike in 2008, though this has the potential to be more wide-reaching, as the IATSE is a whole lot more than just writers

Democrats cut Biden's budget to $2T

By Associated Press
October 14, 2021 

YESTERDAY'S NEWZ TOMORROW

NEW JERSEY: With the calendar slipping toward a new deadline, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is warning that "difficult decisions must be made" to trim President Joe Biden's expansive plans for reimagining the nation's social service programs and tackling climate change.

Democrats are laboring to chisel the $3.5-trillion package to about $2 trillion, a still massive proposal that would be paid for with higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

And with no votes to spare, they must somehow satisfy the party's competing moderate and progressive lawmakers needed for any deal.

It's all raising tough questions that Biden and his party are rushing to answer by the deadline for passage, October 31.

Should Biden keep the sweep of his proposals — free childcare and community college; dental, vision and hearing aid benefits for seniors — but for just a few years?

Or should the ideas be limited to a few, key health and education programs that could become more permanent? Should the climate change effort go bold — a national clean energy standard — or stick with a more immediate, if incremental, strategy?

A 'very disappointed' Pelosi and a 'frustrated' Biden confront the realities

of a less ambitious domestic agenda

Alexander Nazaryan

·Senior White House Correspondent

Tue, October 12, 2021, 

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could have been speaking for the majority of Democrats in Washington when she said on Tuesday that she was “very disappointed” that President Biden’s domestic agenda will have to be pared down because of opposition from Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

“If there are fewer dollars to spend, there are choices to be made,” Pelosi said during her weekly press conference at the U.S. Capitol. She promised that the final package would be “transformative” all the same, whatever that package ultimately looks like. The two Senate centrists have said that the president’s proposal to spend $3.5 trillion over 10 years on expanding childcare, health coverage and environmental protections is much too expensive to win their necessary support.

Manchin has indicated he’d like to see Build Back Better, as the president’s “human infrastructure” proposals are collectively known, end up costing around $2 trillion. Without any Republican support for those proposals, and with the Senate evenly divided between the two parties, the demands of Manchin and Sinema carry inordinate weight.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Now that the red pens have come out, every member of Congress with any say in the matter wants to make sure that their priorities make the final cut and aren’t trimmed too severely in the process.

“Housing. Is. Everything,” said a recent tweet from Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., the influential House Financial Services Committee chairwoman. She wants to see affordable housing remain a priority in the pared-down Build Back Better agenda.

Other progressives are making similar demands. “The Congresswoman has repeatedly said ‘no climate, no deal,’” a spokeswoman for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., wrote to Yahoo News in an email.

Some Democrats just want to see something — anything — make it into law. They fear that failure to pass either the Build Back Better bill or a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package that has some Republican support could indicate to the American people that Democrats are incapable of governing when in control of both the White House and both chambers of Congress. It is not lost on Democrats that they used precisely that argument to wrest the House from Republican control in the 2018 congressional midterms.

“The stakes are too high,” veteran Democratic pollster Celinda Lake told Yahoo News, “and the voters will not forgive Congress for doing nothing.”

Frustration has been mounting at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue as Biden, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer try to keep a fragile coalition from collapsing.

President Biden delivers remarks on the September jobs numbers in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Friday in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“Everybody is frustrated,” Biden said earlier this month. Little since then has transpired to lighten the mood.

As far as the White House is concerned, things could be a lot worse. Just weeks ago, a clash between House progressives and Senate moderates nearly led to the collapse of Biden’s entire domestic agenda, with Pelosi deciding that she didn’t have the votes to bring the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package to the floor.

Pelosi’s calculated delay has bought the White House and congressional leaders time, but it also gives competing factions on Capitol Hill an opportunity to make an intense pitch for why their priorities need to stay in the final bill.

Pelosi has said that she would like to keep most of the programs in the Build Back Better agenda, only for shorter durations. Those include an expanded child tax credit, provisions for lower drug prices, subsidized childcare and a raft of investments in lowering greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change. “Mostly we would be cutting back on years,” she said on Tuesday.

That was different from what she told her Democratic colleagues on Monday, indicating in a letter that it was preferable to cut programs instead of reducing the period through which those programs would be funded. “Overwhelmingly,” that letter said, “the guidance I am receiving from Members is to do fewer things well so that we can still have a transformative impact on families in the workplace and responsibly address the climate crisis.”

If all that seems confusing, that’s because it is. Biden made listening to members of Congress a signature of his negotiating style. He has dispatched his top aides routinely to Capitol Hill to explain the particulars of his domestic agenda. Listening to lawmakers has the understandable effect of emboldening them, which may not be what the White House needs at the moment.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki at the daily briefing at the White House on Tuesday. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

“Every day there’s a reason it can all fall apart,” Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., told Yahoo News the day after Biden went to Capitol Hill in an effort to rally House Democrats. “There’s definitely bruised feelings,” the first-term congressman acknowledged before observing that “Americans don’t care about our feelings in Washington, D.C.”

Americans do seem to like the various parts of Biden’s domestic agenda; it has routinely polled at about 70 percent, as he and his allies never tire of pointing out. All the more frustrating for the White House, then, that parts of that agenda have to fall out.

Officials in the West Wing tried to put a brave face on the ongoing negotiations, even as they confront the reality of curtailed ambitions.

“I promise you, we don’t get too glum around here,” press secretary Jen Psaki said during a Tuesday briefing, “even if things look challenging.” She pointed out that even ambitions that have been curtailed are better than ones that haven’t been realized at all.

‘Wait a minute, this is wrong’ — how Israel’s Gaza attack got Menendez and others in Congress to open their eyes

BY PHILIP WEISS

MONDOWEISS

OCTOBER 13, 2021 

NEW JERSEY SENATOR ROBERT MENENDEZ


One notable political consequence of Israel’s attack on Gaza last May was the statement by Sen. Robert Menendez, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee and a staunch Israel supporter, that he was “deeply troubled” by reports Israel was killing “innocent civilians,” though Menendez endorsed Israel’s right to defend itself.

Menendez’s statement was “an act of God” that took him by surprise, but is representative of other Congress members’ growing awareness, Samer Khalaf, the president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said last Saturday.


“Menendez is one of the biggest pro Israel hawks in the Senate, period…. I’ll be honest with you, I think it was an act of God. Look, I’ve known Menendez since he was a mayor in New Jersey [late 80s Union City] and I’ve met with him on countless occasions and when he ran for Congress [in 1992] he decided to take a very Zionist track and when he ran for Senate he became even a bigger Zionist. But we consistently met with him, and that was the one area that we could not get through to him. So I don’t think it was a matter of lobbying in his case. I think this was a matter of, It was so bad what they were doing that he finally realized, Wait a minute, something is wrong here. He made that statement but at the same time he wanted to protect himself, and so it’s kind of like, what good was that statement. You made one step forward but like five steps back.

I don’t know what his motivation was. Because his statement came out of nowhere. I don’t want to be naive about it and say now he’s pro-Palestinian. He’s not. He’s pro-Zionist and he’s going to be that way. But it showed some glimmer of hope that we can maybe get some movement somewhere else from other people.

SAMER KHALAF, (L) PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN-ARAB ANTI-DISCRIMINATION COMMITTEE, AND CHRIS HABIBY, ITS LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR, AT THE ORGANIZATION’S CONFERENCE IN ANAHEIM. OCT. 9, 2021. SCREENSHOT FROM VIDEO.

Menendez was not alone, Khalaf told an audience at the ADC’s annual convention. But don’t expect conversions to the Palestinian cause.

The latest Israel aggression toward Gaza and toward the West Bank and even toward their so called Palestinian Israeli citizens opened up a lot of eyes for a lot of members of Congress. A lot of people that normally would never criticize Israel all of a sudden started saying, Wait a minute, this is wrong…

For me, I thought, that to get the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee who is pro Zionist to come out and actually question an action of Israel was a significant step. It’s not great, but it’s a step. Politics is a game of inches literally… You’re not going to flip somebody. There’s no light to turn on. There’s no magic word, no statement you’ll be ever to make to that person. ‘Oh wow! You’re right I was wrong. I now agree with you 100 percent.’ We have to take everything incrementally.

Menendez in June emphasized to a pro-Israel news site that he has not shifted his position on Israel.

Khalaf also discussed the dilemma of working with “PEP” congresspeople, Progressive Except Palestine.


“They’re well known… They’re great on issues regarding minority rights, they’re great on issues regarding women’s rights. They’re great on issues involving a whole myriad of things. But we stop at Palestine. So we have to decide individually what we do about those people. Do we say we’re going to totally ignore that person?”

A member of the audience cited one such PEP case: Rep. Katie Porter, a law professor who in 2018 became the first Democrat to win her district in Orange County, California, and last year was reeelected. The audience member said that Porter has “evaded” Arab Americans though she raised “crazy money” at fundraisers in Arab-American households, and even attended a fundraiser for Rep. Rashida Tlaib.

REP. KATIE PORTER VISITING THE CALIFORNIA/MEXICO BORDER, SEPT. 13, 2021. FROM HER FACEBOOK PAGE.

Chris Habiby, legislative director of the ADC, said he thinks it’s important to keep working with Porter because she is more open than predecessors. But he lamented that she has refused to support Rep. Betty McCollum’s landmark bill that (as Habiby said) “prohibits security assistance to Israel that goes toward harming Palestinian women and children.” Polls show a large majority of Democratic voters support it.

“It is an issue that is important to our entire community, it is something that we are pushing hard on the Hill,” Habiby said. When the ADC met with Porter, “Her response was– interesting.” Porter said, “I agree with the effort.” But according to Habiby, she said that thinking strategically, the bill will not get enough support to become law, so she wants to address human rights aspects of “security assistance across the world.” Habiby said he has met her staff to build a coalition to address security assistance globally, “which includes Israel.”

At least Porter is thinking about it, Habiby said. “It’s not that she has disregarded it, or she doesn’t think about it… I understand frustration. I understand, we want her to be on the other side of this bill.”

Google and Amazon workers want companies to end contracts with Israeli military

"We cannot look the other way, as the products we build are used to deny Palestinians their basic rights, force Palestinians out of their homes and attack Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – actions that have prompted war crime investigations by the international criminal court."

BY MICHAEL ARRIA

MONDOWEISS

OCTOBER 13, 2021 0

AMAZON WAREHOUSE IN MARYLAND (WIKIMEDIA)

Hundreds of workers at Google and Amazon are demanding that both companies stop providing cloud services to the Israeli military.

In May Israel carried out deadly attacks on Gaza, killing almost 250 people and more than 60 children. That same week the Israeli government signed a contract with Amazon Web Services and Google for over $1 billion. That contract secured a four phase project called “Nimbus”, which will provide cloud services to the Israeli government and military.

In an open letter, published in The Guardian, nearly 400 Google and Amazon workers condemned the contract and called on the companies to sever ties with Israel.

“We cannot look the other way, as the products we build are used to deny Palestinians their basic rights, force Palestinians out of their homes and attack Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – actions that have prompted war crime investigations by the international criminal court,” reads the letter.

“We envision a future where technology brings people together and makes life better for everyone. To build that brighter future, the companies we work for need to stop contracting with any and all militarized organizations in the US and beyond. These contracts harm the communities of technology workers and users alike. While we publicly promise to uplift and assist our users, contracts such as these secretly facilitate the surveillance and targeting of those same users.”

The letter was published on the same day that Irish author Sally Rooney put out a statement embracing BDS and rejecting a request to have her latest novel translated by an Israeli publisher.

In response to the letter more than 40 human rights organizations have launched a #NoTechforApartheid campaign, highlighting the workers’ demands. “Following in the footsteps of those who fought to divest from apartheid South Africa and won, it’s our responsibility to rise up in support of Palestinian freedom,” reads the campaign’s website. “The Amazon and Google execs who signed this contract can still choose to be on the right side of history.”

Amazon, Google employees urge their companies to cut contracts with Israel

Google and Amazon employees are speaking out against their companies’ new contracts with the Israeli government and its military, known as Project Nimbus

The New Arab Staff
12 October, 2021

More than 300 Amazon and nearly 100 Google employees said they felt "morally obligated" to speak out against contracts with Israel [Getty]

In a historic campaign, Google and Amazon employees have urged their respective companies to pull out of contracts with the Israeli government and its military, which they said contributed to the "systematic discrimination" and "displacement" of Palestinians.

In a Guardian column on Tuesday, more than 300 Amazon and nearly 100 Google employees said they felt "morally obligated" to speak out against contracts with Israel, known as Project Nimbus.

The workers, who referred to themselves as "employees of conscience from diverse backgrounds", described the contracts as "[selling] dangerous technology to the Israeli military and government".

"This contract was signed the same week that the Israeli military attacked Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – killing nearly 250 people, including more than 60 children," the workers wrote.

"The technology our companies have contracted to build will make the systematic discrimination and displacement carried out by the Israeli military and government even crueller and deadlier for Palestinians," they added.

RELATED

Big tech's secretive Israeli investments are whitewashing the occupation

Voices

Muhammad Shehada

22 April, 2021

The cloud services will help Israel illegally collect data on Palestinians, the workers said, that will be used to further policies that US-based NGO Human Rights Watch says constitute crimes of apartheid.

A deal was signed between Google and Amazon with Israel in May to set up cloud-based regional data centres in Israel.

Israeli officials said the agreement will ensure continuity of service even if the tech giants come under pressure from rights campaigners to boycott the country.

The announcement came as Jewish employees of Google asked managed to review the contract and corporate donations with "institutions that support Israeli violations of Palestinian rights".

Photos reveal brutal Israeli treatment of activists, farmers during olive harvest

Activists and local farmers said Palestinian activist Mohammed al-Khatib was violently beaten, kicked, and punched in the face by Israeli soldiers before he was thrown on the ground and dragged across the rugged terrain before he was stepped on, and eventually blindfolded and taken into custody.

BY YUMNA PATEL

MONDOWEISS

OCTOBER 13, 2021 0

ISRAELI SOLDIERS PREVENTING ACCESS FOR LOCALS AND ACTIVISTS FROM OLIVE GROVES DURING HARVEST SEASON IN SALFIT, THE WEST BANK ON OCT. 11, 2021. PALESTINIAN LAND ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF THE TOWN OF SALFIT WAS ANNEXED IN THE LAST YEAR TO A NEW JEWISH OUTPOST ALTHOUGH PALESTINIANS HOLD LAND DEEDS FOR THE LAND. DURING AN ATTEMPT TO BREAK THE WHITE LINE ZONING A CLOSED MILITARY ZONE IN THE GROVES, THE ARMY USED STUN GRENADES AND ARRESTED THREE ACTIVISTS. (PHOTO BY MATAN GOLAN/SIPA USA)


A photo of an armed Israeli soldier, surrounded by dozens of his fellow soldiers, standing on the back of a Palestinian man as he lie face down in the ground went viral on Palestinian social media this week.

The photo was taken in the midst of a brutal Israeli crackdown on activists as they attempted to escort a group of Palestinian farmers to their land in order to harvest their olive trees in the al-Ras area west of Salfit, in the northern occupied West Bank.

Activists and local farmers who were at the scene told Mondoweiss that the man in the photo, Palestinian activist Mohammed al-Khatib, was violently beaten, kicked, and punched in the face by Israeli soldiers before he was thrown on the ground and dragged across the rugged terrain before he was stepped on, and eventually blindfolded and taken into custody.

“The soldiers attacked us all in an extremely aggressive manner,” Munther Amira, a Palestinian activist with the Popular Resistance Committee in the West Bank, who was at the scene on Monday, told Mondoweiss.

“We tried to reason with them and tell them we were just trying to help the farmers reach their land so they could pick the olives, but they refused,” Amira said.

According to Amira, al-Khatib was one of several activists who attempted to move past the soldiers and arrive at the olive groves nearby. When he did that, the soldiers attacked.

“They started attacking people everywhere, throwing tear gas, and beating anyone who tried to move closer to the olive groves,” he recounted, noting that two Israeli activists were also detained in the process, and a Palestinian journalist was also beaten.

“The photos speak for themselves, and tell you everything you need to know,” Amira said, adding that when he and other activists tried to step in and help al-Khatib, they were also beaten and pushed around.


By Wednesday afternoon, al-Khatib and the other activists had been released, but the farmers from Salfit had still not been able to access their land.

“This is all part of the intimidation tactics of the occupation, to prevent the farmers from going back to the area and harvesting their olives,” Amira said. “But we will not abandon the farmers, because this is Palestinian land, and belongs to us.”

“The olive harvest season is a blessed time for Palestinians. But for the settlers and soldiers it is a time of destruction, blood and violence.”

Settlers in, Palestinians out

For generations the people of Salfit have enjoyed al-Ras, a mountainous area on the western outskirts of the city, for its rolling olive groves, and views of the Mediterranean coastline just beyond the wall.

Dr. Dheeb Shtayyeh, a university professor and farmer from Salfit, told Mondoweiss that he and his family have been using the land at al-Ras for generations.

“I used to come here with my father as a boy and pick olives with him,” Shtayyeh said. “And when I got older, I started to bring my children here to play, and would come with my family here for picnics year round.”

Shtayyeh’s family is one of a dozen Palestinian families who own land on al-Ras, but have been unable to access their land since December 2020, when an Israeli settler showed up and established an illegal outpost on the mountaintop.

“All of a sudden, whenever we would try to go to al-Ras, soldiers would show up and kick us out,” he said. “The moment the settler would see us, he would call the soldiers, and they would be there within minutes, telling us it was a closed military zone, and we were not allowed to be there.”

PALESTINIAN ACTIVISTS RAISE THE FLAGS OF NATIONS THAT OPPOSE ILLEGAL SETTLEMENTS AT THE NEWLY ERECTED CAMP DUBBED THE UNITED NATIONS CAMP, NEAR THE ISRAELI SETTLEMENT OF ARIEL, WEST OF WEST BANK TOWN OF SALFIT ON SEPTEMBER 20, 2021. (PHOTO: STRINGER/APA IMAGES)

Over the past year, Shtayyeh, along with dozens of other families from Salfit and activists around the West Bank have been staging weekly demonstrations and peaceful actions in protest of the establishment of the outpost on their land.

He says they are nearly always met with tear gas and violence on part of the Israeli military, which maintains a now permanent presence in the area to protect the outpost.

In July, Israeli forces violently suppressed one of the protests with tear gas, causing some of the olive trees to catch fire.

“That is when we really started to worry about the trees, especially because the harvest is coming up,” he said.

Once the olive harvest began in October, as it does every year, Shtayyeh and his fellow farmers’ fears were confirmed when they attempted to reach their groves in order to pick their olives, but were swiftly turned around by the soldiers, who said they “needed permission” to be in that area and to harvest the olives.

“We have the papers that are more than 200 years old, proving that this land belongs to us and belonged to our grandfathers,” Shtayyeh remarked. “So why would we need permission from the occupation to pick our olives?”

Following the brutal attack on the activists and farmers on Monday, Shtayyeh said that the families are fearful of what will become of this year’s harvest, which many of the families rely on financially for the coming year.

“This is the first time in generations that we have not been able to harvest our olives,” he said. “We wait all year for the harvest. We not only depend on it for our lives, but also for our culture, and to teach our children about our heritage.”

Despite his fears, Shtayyeh said that he doesn’t plan on giving up or abandoning his land.

“We will never give up this land, no matter the cost,” he said. “They prevent us from accessing our land, they attack us with all their weapons and power, they arrest us, and kill us, but we will not give up.”

“I used to bring my son here every year to pick olives with me, but now I bring him to the protests, so he can learn and understand that this is our land, and that we will never give it up.”

UK

PRIVATIZED WATER COMPANIES
Thames Water boss brands performance ‘unacceptable’ during river quality inquiry

LUKE O'REILLY, PA

13 October 2021, 10:25 am

Thames Waters’ chief executive has branded her own company’s performance as “unacceptable” while taking questions from the river water quality inquiry.

The Environmental Committee (EAC) on Wednesday quizzed bosses from five of the largest water and sewerage companies in England on the issue of river contamination.

It comes following the committee’s inquiry into water quality in rivers, which heard reports of water companies discharging raw sewage into rivers in England more than 400,000 times last year.

The Thames has been badly impacted by wastewater, with millions of tonnes of raw sewage entering the river each year.

Engineers at the back of a boring machine excavating a section of the Thames Tideway Tunnel in London.

Under questioning from EAC chairman Philip Dunne MP, Thames Water chief executive Sarah Bentley admitted that her company’s performance is “unacceptable”.

“Thames (Water’s) performance is unacceptable, our customers find it unacceptable to contact us.

“Our ageing infrastructure, whether that’s on the water side with leakage, or on the sewage network in terms of the capacity we are treating, needs addressing.”

Ms Bentley said that Thames Water has a “broad range” of performance metrics that “need to change”.

“Since I joined 12 months ago I have been accelerating the money that we have got during this regulatory period”, she said.

“When I started I went out, I listened to our customers, I listened to environmental groups and members of this House, and of this committee, and it is clear that we have a broad range of performance metrics that we need to change”.

Ms Bentley also revealed that the new Thames Tideway Tunnel would not be able to eliminate the problem of rainwater spills into the Thames.

The 16-mile long tunnel is projected to cost £4.2bn and is set to be completed by 2025.

“Currently, when we get inundated with rain, up to 39 million tonnes of rainwater, which then gets contaminated with sewage, is discharged into the tidal Thames, which is clearly unacceptable”, she said.

“The Thames Tideway tunnel will eliminate the vast majority of that.

“Clearly, with extreme weather events, that are increasing, we need to look at that before it comes into operation in the next two and a half years.

“But when the original analysis was done 15 years ago, we would have needed a tunnel twice as big.”

Members of Surfers Against Sewage and Thames 21 clean the banks of the river Thames, near Battersea Bridge in south west London, as part of the Surfers Against Sewage 20th anniversary Beach Clean Tour, which has visited 20 major UK beaches and waterside locations (Dominic Lipinski/PA)More

She told the committee that, at its widest, the Thames Tideway tunnel is as wide as three double-decker buses.

“It would need to be twice as big to reduce it down to zero spills”, she said.

“It’s designed to take it from 39 million tonnes down to two and a half million tonnes.”

She said her company was spending £1.2bn over the next five years on improving its overall network to treat sewage and rain.

Ms Bentley said she understood why Thames Water’s customers find spills into the water unacceptable and said that her company’s position is also that they are unacceptable.

“I can understand why people are genuinely upset and concerned about the quality of the rivers and the situation with sewage discharge into those rivers,” she said.

“A number of my colleagues have suggested making sure that we transparently share information about when those spills are occurring.

“More importantly, what I have heard in the year that I have been running Thames is that our customers just find spills unacceptable, and we find them unacceptable and I’m really committed to finding out how we can eliminate storm discharges so that people can swim confidently in the river.”

Previously the EAC heard that just 14% of English rivers are currently rated an ecological status of ‘Good’, and that not one river in the country is rated ‘Good’ on its chemical status.

In a statement the EAC said that one of the main sources for this is sewage discharge from the water industry.

UK

Electric freight trains mothballed due to soaring energy prices

NEIL LANCEFIELD, PA TRANSPORT CORRESPONDENT

13 October 2021


Rail freight operators have stopped using electric trains and switched to diesel locomotives due to soaring energy prices.

Firms cannot absorb the three-fold increase in the cost of electricity, according to trade body Rail Freight Group (RFG).

The decision to mothball electric freight trains, which result in lower CO2 emissions than diesel models, was made less than three weeks before the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow.

RFC said in a statement: “The current significant increase in the wholesale cost of electricity for haulage means that some operators have had to take the regrettable decision to temporarily move back to diesel locomotives.

“A 200% increase in electricity costs for each train cannot be absorbed by the operators, or customers, and so necessary action is being taken to ensure that trains can continue to operate delivering vital goods across the country.

“Our members are assuring us that this is a temporary measure and will be kept under constant review.”

The statement added that road freight emits 76% less CO2 than road freight “even with use of diesel locomotives”.

GB Railfreight, one of four major freight operators on Britain’s railways, told magazine International Railway Journal it had taken the “difficult decision” to replace their electric services with diesel locomotives “in order to maintain a cost-effective solution for transporting essential goods and supplies around the UK”.

Industry body the Rail Delivery Group said some train operators “may need to take short-term action to afford their bills”, but many firms join forces to buy electricity in bulk to protect themselves from sudden price rises.

The maximum price of approximately 80% of the total electricity used to power trains in Britain is fixed until around April 2024.

Office of Rail and Road figures show 422 kilotonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions were made by diesel locomotives in the year to March 2021.

Amazon could owe delivery drivers as much as £140m

Online retail giant Amazon may owe drivers as much as £140.0m, according to law firm Leigh Day.

Amazon drivers who deliver via the firm's "delivery service partners" category are classed as self-employed and, as a result, are not entitled to basic employee rights like paid holidays and minimum wage as they do not have an employment contract.

Leigh Day asserts that a minimum of 3,000 drivers are affected, and may very well be entitled to roughly of £10,500 in compensation for each year they have delivered for Amazon.

The law firm stated the drivers' work has been dictated by Amazon and believes they should be afforded more rights than they presently hold, leading it to launch a group claim on behalf of two delivery drivers as it looks for more to join the legal action.

Kate Robinson, a solicitor at the firm, said: "Amazon is short-changing drivers making deliveries on their behalf. This is disgraceful behaviour from a company that makes billions of pounds a year.

"For drivers, earning at least national minimum wage, getting holiday pay, and being under a proper employment contract could be life-changing."

Leigh Day previously represented over 2,000 Uber drivers in a landmark case against the rideshare firm, which it won.

Space, agriculture and Canadian climate change: a homecoming discussion

LONG READ

Elizabeth Howell October 6, 2021 

This map shows Earth’s average global temperature from 2013 to 2017, as compared to a baseline average from 1951 to 1980, according to an analysis by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Yellows, oranges, and reds show regions warmer than the baseline. Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.

The role of space in helping combat climate change, along with in-situ examinations of plant response to global warming, came to the fore during a recent talk by Western University.

The one-hour livestreamed event was meant to highlight research with impact at Western, and took place during the virtual edition of the university’s homecoming Sept. 25. The featured speakers were:

Earth science professor Gordon “Oz” Osinski, interim director of the Institute for Earth and Space Exploration and director the Canadian Lunar Research Network;

Biology professor Danielle Way, associate professor and director of the Biotron Experimental Climate Change Research Centre.

Gordon Osinski: The Importance of Space

Osinski opened his talk by showing pictures of the International Space Station, the Apollo moon landings and research by the Hubble Space Telescope as common reference points as to how the public thinks of space. For him, however, he sees space as an interwoven network of different research points connecting aspects such as the ocean, the air and space – with space being “a natural progression of exploring our own planet.”

Osinski is well-known for running geology expeditions in the Canadian Arctic, often with the participation of Canadian Space Agency astronauts who are embarking on training related to future lunar surface missions, as Canada is a participant in NASA’s Artemis program that seeks to put people on the moon by 2024, if technological and funding progress allows. In preparing for these expeditions, Osinski read a lot of Arctic and Antarctic expedition literature to get into the mindset of the explorers who moved through these regions in the past century.

“We are still exploring, and trying to get to the poles of this planet,” he said. But in a century, he said, the technology has changed as we were moving into the air in the early 1900s, and now access to space is broadening. He cited the all-civilian Inspiration4 mission aboard a SpaceX spacecraft that just flew in September as one example. Next year, Canadian investor Mark Pathy will fly on the all-private Axiom Space mission that will visit the ISS, he added.

“These are totally, totally different times, where space is really opening up for non-governmental astronauts,” Osinski said. “One of the things I’m most excited about, [because] I am a geologist, we’re going to go back to the moon and hopefully it’s actually to go there to stay this time and perhaps eventually set up research stations – like we have in Antarctica – and keep learning about the moon.”

Osinski highlighted Artemis II as a seminal moment for Canada, as one of our government astronauts will be on board and circle around the moon with the crew – the first time any human has done so since 1972. Showing the iconic “Earthrise” image taken by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders during an orbital mission in 1968, Osinski said he is looking forward to a new version of that, “hopefully taken by a Canadian astronaut.”

A few weeks ago, Osinski travelled to northern Labrador, at the Mistastin Lake impact crater, with CSA astronaut Joshua Kutryk and NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick. He characterized the crater as “an excellent analogue for the moon” and said he is looking forward to examining the samples they collected. For the two astronauts, both trained fighter pilots, Osinski said such experience shows them the value of collecting samples and allows them to start training on geology at a very early stage, before even being assigned to a mission.

While space sounds separated from Earth, Osinski argued the value in exploring is allowing spacefarers and satellites to look downward at our planet, particularly in monitoring changes on Earth such as global warming. He cited Canada’s Radarsat series of satellites as leading the effort in allowing our country to look at its own changes from orbit, to help with disaster relief and to assist with managing agriculture.

“The title of this talk was something that I borrowed from this outreach initiative that we lead here at Western, called Space Matters. In this unit, we’re trying to bring home how really space in particular today pervades all aspects of our everyday life, and the importance of satellites,” he said.

Big questions that space will help to answer, he said in concluding, include the prevalence of life – including icy moons at Jupiter and Saturn and the ongoing sample return effort at Mars – and how to ensure long-term human survival, which likely involves the “need to get off this planet.” In Canada, he said space is an innovation driver, particularly through technologies such as the Canadarm series of robotic arms that have brought about advances in robotic surgery.

“We have a new economy, it’s perhaps surprising to think about that, but space is a new economy. The fact that you can buy a ticket now to fly into space means that we have an economy there,” Osinski said. He also noted that he would be glad to sign up for a few days in space, although a long-duration mission to Mars would not be as appealing.

Danielle Way: Plant resilience to global warming

Way opened her talk by citing the overwhelming evidence that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are increasing due to fossil fuel burning and through land use change, such as deforestation. Accurate carbon dioxide measurements only arose starting in the late 1950s, she noted, and showed numbers from Hawaii where the air is “quite pristine, relatively speaking.”

In 1976, when Way was born, carbon dioxide was at about 330 parts per million and today’s figure 45 years later (2021) is around 420 parts per million, she noted. On the longer scale, carbon dioxide is 50 percent greater than it was before the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th century at which fossil fuels were burned at a large scale.

Greenhouse gas emissions have already increased global temperatures by about one degree Celsius, and the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change is trying to keep that warming below 2 degrees or 2.5 degrees Celsius. “We’re already in a future warmer world,” she warned. “If we continue on the types of trajectory that we’re on, then this is what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts for the end of the century – the fact that globally, we would have warming of sort of three to four degrees Celsius.”

Such warming disproportionately affects places in high latitudes, including in the Canadian Arctic – where certain areas could be 11 degrees to 12 degrees warmer by the end of the century, she said. This in turn would affect the distribution and productivity of plant species, which is Way’s focus. She showed a figure with the distribution of aspen, a common boreal tree species. With current projections of global warming, aspen is expected to go as far north as the Arctic Ocean.

What is less well-known among the public, however, is that plants also affect the climate. Plants take up carbon dioxide and emit carbon dioxide, which students are often taught in elementary or high school. She showed a simplified version of the global carbon cycle, taking into account this plant process.

“Plants every year absorb 123 billion tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere; it’s by far the biggest drawdown, and the biggest absorption, of carbon that you get on a global scale – and this is just land plants,” she said. “Half of that is then remitted by plants back into the atmosphere. Animals and microbes and soil processes – just like us – breathing out also emit about another 60 billion tons of carbon every year on the planet. These numbers roughly balance out normally.”

However, the dynamic changes as humans emit carbon through industrial processes and land use change, she said. “That means that you’re accumulating in this scenario, about seven billion tons of carbon every year in the atmosphere. That’s that rising CO2 [carbon dioxide] that we just talked about. But the implication is also that if you move into a warmer, drier climate in the future, plants might not absorb as much carbon.”

In other words, she said, if plants are unable to absorb as much carbon, climate change may happen more rapidly due to global inequities in carbon absorption and production. “Understanding how plants absorb carbon and these sorts of processes – how much they grow, how much they can sequester – is really important for actually predicting where we’re going with our climate,” she added.

Way then featured her team’s research concerning climate change and how northern forests respond to future climates. They compare plants grown at current carbon dioxide levels, and future carbon dioxide levels. They also combine conditions with temperature changes, to see how the plants change, if they absorb more carbon and how well they survive.

Some of the group’s major findings include:
Studies of two major species of black spruce – the most common tree in the North American boreal forest – along with Tamarack, a deciduous tree, show that in warmer conditions they have less nitrogen available to absorb carbon dioxide. “In other words, as you warm the environment of the plant, the ability to fix CO2 – to continue to take CO2 out of the atmosphere – is suppressed,” she said.
Tamarack, however, can keep its absorption levels of CO2 the same up to a point by opening its stomata (tissue openings) a little wider. This process allows this species to “offset and minimize the effect of this suppression of the biochemistry inside their leaves,” she said. Black spruce does not demonstrate as much resilience, in comparison.
Accordingly, by the year 2060, the warming trend in the Canadian Arctic may produce a shift to deciduous forests and away from boreal forests. “You might also expect to see a transition from a boreal forest that’s dominated by spruce and pine trees and evergreen conifers into a forest that’s more dominated by things like birch and poplar,” Way noted. “That has enormous implications for the sort of the ecosystem processes, and what that environment is going to look like and how it’s going to function.”

Way’s group is also involved in a major Minnesota-based experiment called Spruce, run by the U.S. Department of Energy, studying spruce and Tamarack trees in both current and future carbon dioxide conditions, experiencing warming anywhere between zero and nine degrees Western. The results from Spruce are very similar to what Western is finding at its own facilities, she said.

While Canadians often think global warming “would not be so bad”, she noted that the warming temperatures are expected to have an adverse effect on both our forests and on the crop species that we rely on for food security. To meet food security needs as a planet by 2050, food production will have to increase by 70 percent in part to accommodate a growing population and in part because more people will move out of poverty and shift to meat-based diets. “That challenge has to be met in the face of climate change,” she warned.

Western is also examining how to identify lines of crops, like wheat, that would be resilient to future climates – growing such crops at the university’s facilities in similar conditions to the trees mentioned earlier. Plants in high carbon dioxide conditions (such as wheat, rice, or maize) tend to see a suppression of micronutrients such as zinc or iron, along with less protein. “This is really a problem when you’re thinking about the nutritional status of the global population,” she said, especially because plants tend to produce extra sugar in these conditions, which dilutes nutrients.

Way said developing the land in the future will be “a really big challenge”, even though places like Southern Ontario have soils with an extraordinary ability to grow food. As food production moves north, many of those lands are quite rocky and with poorer soils. “So you’re not actually going to be able to grow food on them,” she said. And at this time, genetic modifications to plants are in such an early stage that the results cannot be widely replicated or used, she added.

About Elizabeth Howell

Is SpaceQ's Associate Editor as well as a business and science reporter, researcher and consultant. She recently received her Ph.D. from the University of North Dakota and is com

Chile opposition moves to impeach president over Pandora leaks

President Sebastian Pinera rejcts Pandora Papers report linking him to controversial 2010 sale of a mining company.

Chile's President Sebastian Pinera's second term, which began in 2018,

 is set to end next March [File: Ivan Alvarado/Reuters]
13 Oct 2021

Opposition lawmakers in Chile have launched impeachment proceedings against President Sebastian Pinera over the controversial sale of a mining company through a firm owned by his children, after new details emerged in the Pandora Papers leaks.

Pinera used “his office for personal business”, Congressman Tomas Hirsch said on Wednesday as he presented the accusation in the lower house of Congress, the first step in an impeachment process that could last for several weeks.

The move comes after Chile’s public prosecutor said this month it would open an investigation into possible bribery-related corruption charges, as well as tax violations related to the 2010 sale of the Dominga mine, which took place during Pinera’s first term in office.

The probe was prompted by the Pandora Papers leaks, a vast trove of reports on the hidden wealth of world leaders researched by the International Consortium of Journalists (ICIJ).

The Pandora Papers linked Pinera to the sale of Dominga, a sprawling copper and iron project, through a company owned by his children, to businessman Carlos Delano – a close friend of the president – for $152m.

It said a large part of the operation was carried out in the British Virgin Islands.

In addition, it said a controversial clause was included that made the last payment of the business conditional on “not establishing an area of environmental protection in the area of operations of the mining company, as demanded by environmental groups”. That decision falls within the remit of the Chilean president.

Pinera, one of the richest people in Chile, has denied any wrongdoing, saying the sale had previously been examined and dismissed by courts in 2017. “As president of Chile, I have never, never carried out any action nor management related to Dominga Mining,” he said last week.

But another opposition Chilean legislator, Jaime Naranjo, one of the drivers of the impeachment proceeding, said Pinera had “openly infringed the Constitution … seriously compromising the honour of the nation”.

Now Chile’s Chamber of Deputies, controlled by the opposition, will have to decide whether to approve or reject the indictment. A vote that will take place the first week of November, congressional sources explained to the AFP news agency.

If it receives the go-ahead, the case would pass to the Senate, which would have to act as a jury to seal Pinera’s fate.

The controversy came in advance of presidential and legislative elections in November.

Pinera’s second term, which began in March 2018, is set to end next March. He will be leaving office deeply unpopular after his right-wing coalition suffered a shock defeat in an election in May for a constituent assembly tasked with re-writing the country’s constitution.

The impeachment push came a day after Pinera declared a state of emergency in two southern regions of Chile where a conflict with Indigenous Mapuche people – who are demanding the restoration of their ancestral lands and more autonomy – is intensifying.

“We have decided to call a state of exception” in four provinces of the southern regions of Biobio and Araucania, as well as deploy troops to help control “the serious disturbance of public order” there, the president said in a speech on Tuesday.

Al Jazeera’s Lucia Newman, reporting from Santiago, said armed Mapuche groups “have become more and more bold” and have been “carrying out acts of arson, sabotage, [and] taking over land”.


“The president has been under tremendous pressure for months now from conservatives within his own party, and other groups including truck drivers, to call a stage of siege in the Araucania, but he has been reluctant to do so until now,” Newman said.

Chilean president declares state of emergency over Mapuche conflict

Demonstrators face off riot police during a protest march by Mapuche Indian activists against Columbus Day in downtown Santiago, Chile October 10, 2021. 

© Ivan Alvarado, REUTERS

Text by:NEWS WIRES
Issued on: 13/10/2021 - 

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera on Tuesday announced a state of emergency and deployed troops to two southern regions where clashes have broken out between Mapuche indigenous people and security forces.

The Mapuche are demanding the restoration of their ancestral lands and self-determination.

"We have decided to call a state of exception" in four provinces of the southern regions of Biobio and Araucania and the deployment of troops to help control "the serious disturbance of public order" there, Pinera said in a speech.

The billionaire right-wing president addressed the nation on a controversial national holiday that marks the "discovery" of the Americas by Christopher Columbus.

It is a day in history that is viewed as a disaster by many indigenous peoples throughout the Americas due to the colonisation that followed.

A protester is detained by police during a protest for Mapuche self-determination in Santiago on October 10, 2021 - Copyright AFP AHMAD AL-RUBAYE

Pinera, 71, said that the four provinces in question have seen "repeated acts of violence linked to drug-trafficking, terrorism and organised crime committed by armed groups," and that innocent civilians and police officers have been killed in the violence.

The state of exception is initially due to last two weeks in the provinces of Biobio and Arauco in the Biobio region, and in Malleco and Cautin in La Araucania.

The Mapuche are Chile's largest indigenous group numbering 1.7 million out of the country's 19 million population and live mostly in the south.

Their leaders are demanding that land currently owned by farms and logging companies be restored to them.

The lack of a solution to Mapuche demands has prompted radical groups to carry out attacks on trucks and private property over the last decade.

One person was killed and 17 injured on Sunday when clashes broke out in Santiago between security forces and protesters marching for Mapuche autonomy.

Possible escalation

Political analyst Lucía Dammert criticized Pinera's decision, saying that the deployment of troops could further intensify the Mapuche conflict.

"The government has been unable to generate an effective and fair policy to solve the problems that exist in Araucania," Dammert, a professor at the University of Santiago, told AFP. She added that sending troops to the region could lead to "an escalation of violence."

But Luciano Rivas, the ruling party's governor of Araucania, backed the deployment saying there is "a very deep security crisis" in the region.

"Today we are living in a very complex situation where the police are overwhelmed by groups with heavy caliber weapons," Rivas told CNN Chile.

(AFP)