Canada joins pledge to end public fossil fuel finance, shift resources to renewables

Bob Weber
The Canadian Press
Thursday, November 4, 2021


Canada has joined the United States, United Kingdom and 21 other countries in a historic deal to stop new direct public finance for coal, oil and gas development by the end of 2022 and shift investment to renewable energy.

“It's a big deal,” said federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson from Glasgow, Scotland, the site of a United Nations-sponsored meeting on climate change.

“It's a signal that many countries in this world are making this commitment not to use public resources to finance further exploration and development for fossil fuels.”

“It shows that Canada recognizes the harmful social and economic impacts of fossil fuels and the urgent need to end global production and use,” said Alan Andrews of Ecojustice, an environmental law firm.

But industry groups responded warily.

“We believe responsible energy producers such as Canada should be playing a larger role in meeting global energy demand,” said Jay Averill of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Few details were immediately available about the deal. It commits signatories to stop using loans, loan guarantees, grants, share purchases and insurance coverage from any government or government agency to finance new international fossil fuel developments.

Oil Change International, a group that monitors fossil fuel financing, says an average of about $78 billion a year flows to such projects. It estimates Thursday's deal could affect about $22 billion of that.

But in Canada, the issue is complicated by the fact that Export Development Canada, through which most of that financing flows, is involved with both international and domestic deals.

Wilkinson said the new agreement will affect about $1 billion in financing from the agency, roughly what was committed to such projects last year. That money could now be used for renewable energy projects.

“It certainly opens up that potential,” Wilkinson said. “(Export Development Canada's) mandate, increasingly, is very much focused on a net-zero portfolio.”

The deal also allows governments to keep funding projects in which carbon emissions are “abated,” or that are consistent with reduction targets. Canada is still free to finance developments such as carbon capture, Wilkinson said.

“This does not affect financing to support clean technology investments that are about reducing emissions.”

The government still has to figure out how the deal will specifically apply in Canada, said Wilkinson. There are also clauses that allow fossil finance “in limited circumstances” - details that need to be worked out.

“They drafted it in fairly general terms with a number of provisions that do require further detail,” he said. “We are going to define exactly what Canada means by that.”

Bronwen Tucker of Oil Change International said that could be a loophole.

“There's a way to do it in good faith and a way to do it in bad faith.”

Everything depends on how fossil fuel investment is defined, said Tucker.

“I do have some concerns there.”

She said Canada has for years been one of the world's top public financiers of fossil fuels, averaging about $13.6 billion a year.

Wilkinson acknowledged the deal doesn't include China, Japan or Korea - the world's other top fossil fuel funders. He said he hopes those countries will eventually sign on just as they recently signed on to deals to stop financing international coal development.

“We're going to work to expand the coalition and work to put pressure on all actors, including China, to ensure that it moves in this direction as well.”

In Alberta, provincial Energy Minister Sonya Savage said the deals the Liberal government is agreeing to in Glasgow make Canada an “outlier” in a world that's ramping up fossil fuel production, not shutting it down.

“It sends the wrong message to investors,” she said, dismissing COP26 as a “photo op.”

The COP26 deal adds to previous government commitments.

During the recent election campaign, the Liberals said they would eliminate fossil fuel subsidies by 2023. Export Development Canada has said by 2023, it will reduce support to the six most carbon-intensive sectors by 40 per cent below 2018 levels and set “sustainable finance targets” by July 2022.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2021.

In the coming second American Civil War -- which side are you on?

Chauncey Devega, Salon
November 04, 2021

Supporters of President Donald Trump storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. 

(Tyler Merbler/WikiMedia Commons)

If there is a second American Civil War, which side would you choose? It may be wise to make that decision now, in the spirit of planning for the worst while hoping for the best.

A recent public opinion poll by the University of Virginia Center for Politics finds that a majority of Trump voters want to secede from the Union. Alarmingly, nearly as many Biden voters, 41 percent, also feel it may be "time to split the country." This is part of a larger pattern; other polls and research have come to similar conclusions.

It's important to resist false equivalence and superficial analysis here. It may be true that a large percentage of both Democrats and Republicans are willing to consider seceding from the United States, but their reasons and motivations are very different.

Today's Republican Party has, in practice, largely surrendered to neofascism and white supremacy — currents that were not far below its surface for many years. It has embraced and condoned the violence of the Jan. 6 insurrection, and has come very close to directly endorsing terrorism against its perceived political enemies.

For Republicans, America's multiracial democracy is anathema to their values and must be destroyed. Public opinion research has shown that tens of millions of white Republicans, especially Trump supporters, view Joe Biden as an illegitimate president who should be removed from power by whatever means necessary.

For decades the right-wing propaganda machine has used stochastic terrorism to radicalize its public toward ever more extreme views. In the Age of Trump, that has devolved into overt and direct appeals to violence in defense of an imagined "real" America. In practice, this has led to hate crimes and other acts of violence against nonwhite people, immigrants and other targeted groups.

This was to be expected: History shows that fascism in its various forms is inherently violent and destructive, both toward its opponents and members of its own movement.

When Democrats or progressives report a desire to secede from the country, they are seeking refuge and self-preservation. To suggest any equivalence between that desire and the overtly violent yearnings of the Republican-fascist movement is intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt.

The prospect of a second American Civil War may seem wildly unlikely, or not even logistically feasible. But if it were to happen, such an outcome would not be based on empirical facts, reality or the complexities and nuances of public opinion polls.

A large percentage of Republicans and the larger white right actually believe that they are in an existential struggle for survival against Black and brown people and "illegal aliens" who want to "replace them," sinister "secularists" who want to outlaw Christianity, "critical race theory" aimed at brainwashing their children, a "liberal media" that deliberately lies to them, and a cabal of "elites" and "socialists" who are treasonous and determined to destroy the "real" America.

These right-wing white-identity fever dreams show no signs of breaking; if anything, the collective pathology is getting worse. Law enforcement and terrorism experts continue to warn that the country is at great risk of a violent right-wing insurgency inspired by the events of Jan. 6 and the Trump-Republican "Big Lie" about the 2020 election.

Wars begin for a wide range of reasons — often because of some miscalculation by one or more of the leaders and groups involved. Wars and other violent conflicts also happen because political leaders and other elites have talked themselves into a corner, leaving bloodshed as the only way out. Very often, civil war and sectarian violence have seemed impossible — until circumstances radically changed.

In an essay for Foreign Policy, Monica Toft explains how civil wars tend to happen, explaining that various factors are involved, including a history of previous internal conflict, "deepening cleavages" in society and a third element, "a shift from tribalism to sectarianism":
With tribalism, people begin to seriously doubt whether other groups in their country have the larger community's best interests at heart. In sectarian environments though, economic, social, and political elites and those they represent come to believe that anyone who disagrees with them is evil and actively working to destroy the community. Enemies of the state come to displace the loyal opposition, with those having been inside another tribe seen as the most disloyal. It's akin to how some religions treat apostates and infidels. Often, it is apostates, the former adherents of the faith, that are targeted more readily over infidels, those who had always been on the outside. It is hard not to see echoes of this dynamic at play as Republicans condemn other Republicans over their loyalty (or lack thereof) to former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Indeed, the United States now displays all three core elements that can lead to civil breakdown. If one described them — fractured elites with competing narratives, deep-seated identity cleavages, and a politically polarized citizenry — without identifying the United States by name, most scholars of civil war would say, "Hey, that country is on the brink of a civil war."

In a powerful essay published on Substack, Salon columnist Lucian K. Truscott IV offers a scenario for America's second Civil War, observing that the opposing forces "will not be conveniently costumed in blue and gray as they were in the 19th Century ... making it difficult to tell who is actually on which side":
There also won't be a discernible front line or front lines, making it hard to tell which side is holding what territory. This, along with the absence of uniforms, means that a whole lot of people will be killed by mistake. It's probably likely that the MAGA side will dress itself in various camo costumes as many of them did when the mob assaulted the Capitol in January, but Trump followers aren't the only people in this country with camouflage hunting clothing. So if you shoot someone wearing camo assuming he or she is on the MAGA side, you just might be shooting someone on your side. Combatants won't be wearing "dog tags" marking them as on one side or the other, making the identification of dead bodies difficult. Is this guy one of ours, or one of theirs?

Truscott concludes with a series of terrifying possibilities:

Perhaps the grimmest prospect of all will be the sub-wars that break out within the bigger Civil War. Every prejudice will be indulged. Racist whites will target Black people. Fundamentalist Christians might target "heathens" like Muslims and Jews and non-fundamentalist Christians. Ethnic divisions will exist within the greater sides that face-off. ...

A 21st Century American Civil War would make the struggles we are currently suffering over elections and distribution of wealth and between races and ethnicities seem like the good old days when we all got along. An American Civil War will mean that we don't merely disagree with one another or dislike each other. It will mean we kill each other.
None of us, and I mean none of us, has an inkling about how horrible it would be. But if we are to have a future of any kind whatsoever, we'd better get more of a clue than the woman in the MAGA hat in Iowa who seemed to so casually look forward to a Civil War between her side and the side she was told to hate. Who you hated and why will be hard to remember when death comes to your door.

What role would Donald Trump play in such a conflagration? In a recent essay for TomDispatch, historian Alfred McCoy offers these observations:

Whether it's a poor country like the Philippines or a superpower like the United States, democracy is a surprisingly fragile construct. Its worst enemy is often an ousted ex-president, angry over his humiliation and perfectly willing to destroy the constitutional order to regain power.

No matter how angry such an ex-president might be, however, his urge for a political coup can't succeed without the help of raw force, whether from a mob, a disgruntled military, or some combination of the two….
So, in 2024, as the continuing erosion of America's global power creates a crisis of confidence among ordinary Americans, expect Donald Trump to be back, not as the slightly outrageous candidate of 2016 or even as the former president eager to occupy the White House again, but as a militant demagogue with thundering racialist rhetoric, backed by a revanchist Republican Party ready, with absolute moral certainty, to bar voters from the polls, toss ballots out, and litigate any loss until hell freezes over.
And if all that fails, the muscle will be ready for another violent march on Washington. Be prepared, the America we know is worsening by the month.

There are many expert voices who are sounding the alarm about the potential of a second American Civil War, and marshaling reasonably evidence why it likely will not happen.

But even the fact that so many public voices, and so many ordinary Americans, find themselves in a moment where such an eventuality must be seriously considered indicates how dire the country's democracy crisis really is.

At its core, these discussions of a possible second American Civil War reveal that the rise of Trumpism, and the full-on embrace of fascism by the "conservative" movement reflect a nation in existential crisis.

The distinction between "nation" and "country" is critical here. A country is an agreed-upon set of laws and governing institutions, but a nation is the symbols, ideas, stories, shared values and beliefs and other intangibles that give a people a sense of community and shared destiny that is distinct and different from other people in other places.

Trump World and the MAGAverse, and those fellow travelers who have pledged loyalty to the Republican-fascist movement, have a fundamentally different conception of the nation than do other Americans. Who "owns" the country? Who are its rightful heirs? Do some Americans have a special and privileged birthright status as compared to other Americans?

If America succumbs to a second civil war or other widespread political violence, the answers to those questions will become the dividing line. As the truism goes, no one hates like family. The American people — that is, our American family, which has endured, with considerable difficulty, for close to 250 years — may soon be reminded of that truth on a brutal massive scale.

Dems told to kill filibuster after all Senate Republicans but one block John Lewis Voting Rights Bill

Common Dreams
November 04, 2021

President Barack Obama awards the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom to Congressman John Lewis in a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Feb. 15, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

Calls mounted Wednesday for U.S. Senate Democrats to reform or abolish the filibuster after all but one of the chamber's Republicans blocked yet another voting rights bill.

"We can protect our democracy, or we can preserve the filibuster."

Only Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) joined Democrats to support a full floor debate on the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Named for the late Georgia congressman and civil rights icon, the House-approved bill would restore key protections from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that were gutted by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision.

"John Lewis dedicated his life to being a fierce and resilient champion for democracy in the face of impossible odds. He quite literally put his life on the line to protect our democracy from sometimes violent attacks by conservatives and right-wing extremists seeking to undermine the right to vote," said Meagan Hatcher-Mays, director of democracy policy at Indivisible.

"The bill that bears his name, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, joined a slew of critical democracy reforms that have been blocked this year because of the outdated, racist filibuster—even with the last-minute appearance of a single Republican, Lisa Murkowski, willing to vote in favor," she said. "If Senate Democrats truly want to honor the legacy of Congressman Lewis and pass meaningful democracy reform, they must go beyond naming a bill after him and bringing it to the floor for a performative vote."

"We've had enough of these theatrics," Hatcher-Mays declared. "We all know that what comes next is what needs to come first: Senate Democrats must fix the Senate rules and remove the filibuster from the Senate Republicans' obstructionist toolbox."

The procedural vote follows Republicans in the evenly split Senate blocking a bold voting rights package called the For the People Act—twice—as well as a comprise bill, the Freedom to Vote Act. Progressives have responded to the GOP obstruction with growing demands that Democrats change or kill the filibuster to protect and expand ballot access nationwide.

"What has happened to our country?" Democracy Initiative executive director Charly Carter asked Wednesday, pointing out that "in 2006, the Voting Rights Act passed with a unanimous vote in the Senate and was signed into law by a Republican president."

In fact, as Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn noted, Murkowski was "one of 10 current Senate Republicans who voted for the Voting Rights Act reauthorization when it passed the Senate 98-0 in 2006. Today, the other nine turned their backs on the freedom to vote."

While "the right to vote is not and should never be a partisan issue," Republican's latest refusal to recognize that "presents a stark choice" for President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and the rest of the chamber's Democrats, Carter concluded, warning that "we can protect our democracy, or we can preserve the filibuster."

Tefere Gebre, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO and a co-chair of the Democracy Initiative board of directors, agreed that "the path forward is clear: We must fix or nix the filibuster so that bills with majority support can be debated and come to a vote on the Senate floor."

Hobert Flynn, another co-chair of the Democracy Initiative board, highlighted the filibuster's history as well as recent attacks on voting rights, arguing that "the Senate loophole long used to stymie civil rights legislation in the 1960s must not be abused again to defend the new Jim Crow laws being passed across the country."

"Lewis fought his entire life for the protection of fair, democratic principles, and the House and Senate must act now to honor his legacy."

"It is unconscionable that there are no longer even 10 Senate Republicans today who will vote to have a debate on protecting our freedom to vote," she said. "Senate Democrats must reform the filibuster to pass these critically important bills to protect every American's freedom to vote."

Supporters of the bill have long argued that its passage is essential to not only serve American voters and democracy but also honor the legacy of Lewis, who was brutally beaten by police on "Bloody Sunday" in 1965 for leading civil rights marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.

"This is not the end for the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act or Freedom to Vote Act. Now, the Senate must do whatever it takes to pass these bills," said Greenpeace USA democracy campaign director Folabi Olagbaju. "Lewis fought his entire life for the protection of fair, democratic principles, and the House and Senate must act now to honor his legacy."

Underscoring why "failure is not an option," Olagbaju explained that "19 states have already enacted 33 laws that erect barriers to the ballot box for millions of Americans" and "together, this widely popular, commonsense legislation would stop racist anti-voter bills dead in their tracks."

As Wade Henderson, interim president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, put it: "The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would help identify barriers that could silence Black, Latino, Indigenous, young, and new Americans and ensure we all have an equal say in the decisions that impact our lives."

While calling out the "anti-voter" Republicans who "have yet again attacked the most basic principle of our democracy," Henderson suggested that "the bipartisan vote shows that we can find common ground."

However, some Senate Democrats framed the vote as evidence that change is needed now.



The New York Times reported on some top Democrats' remarks:

"At some point, our democracy has to move along," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota and chairman of the Rules Committee. "And that's the discussion we'll be having."

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, was more blunt.
"If it means an exemption to the filibuster, then I believe we should do it," she said. "We cannot let a Senate procedure stop us from protecting the right to vote in the United States of America."

Speaking on the Senate floor after the vote, Schumer thanked Murkowski for "working with us in good faith on this bill," while noting that "down to the last member, the rest of the Republican conference has refused to engage, refused to debate, even refused to acknowledge that our country faces a serious threat to democracy."

"Just because Republicans will not join us doesn't mean Democrats will stop fighting," he vowed. "This is too important. We will continue to fight for voting rights and find an alternative path forward, even if it means going at it alone to defend the most fundamental liberty we have as citizens."

Why are medieval weapons laws at the center of a US Supreme Court case?

November 4, 2021

In the opening scene of “The Last Duel,” the new film set in 14th-century France, a herald announces the rules for conduct at a tournament to the death. He declares that no members of the public – whatever their social background – are allowed to bring weapons to the event.

This scene might seem far removed from 21st-century America. But medieval weapons laws – including a 1328 English statute prohibiting the public carry of edged weapons without royal permission – are at the center of dueling legal opinions in a case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

The plaintiffs are challenging New York’s “proper cause” gun law, which tightly restricts public carry of firearms. If they win, similar laws in several other states will be called into question. That means that concealed carry licensing laws could be broadly liberalized for millions of Americans currently living in those more restrictive jurisdictions.

Few people realize how big a role history has played in the battle over gun rights – the topic of a 2019 collection of essays, “A Right to Bear Arms? The Contested Role of History in Contemporary Debates on the Second Amendment,” that I co-edited with Smithsonian Museum of American History curators Barton Hacker and Margaret Vining.

The book explores how courts in the United States have turned to history for instruction in how guns should be treated – decrees, laws and interpretations of the past that are at the forefront of the case before the Supreme Court today.
Scalia points to the English Bill of Rights

The United States legal system grew out of the English legal tradition. This connection – which is often referenced by originalists – is crucial to making sense of the arguments around gun rights in America today.

Originalism is a legal philosophy that attempts to interpret legal texts, including the Constitution, based on what lawyers think is their original meaning.

An important victory for gun rights advocates took place in District of Columbia v. Heller. In that 2008 decision, the Supreme Court for the first time ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm for personal self-defense in the home.

New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen is the most significant gun rights case before the Supreme Court since 2008.

Ron Watts/The Image Bank via Getty Images

Justice Antonin Scalia, author of the 5-4 majority Heller opinion, claimed that there was a long tradition of the English state’s granting freedom to possess weapons dating back to the 1689 English Bill of Rights, which includes a clause that reads “the subjects which are Protestant may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.”

Scalia’s argument relied heavily on the work of historian Joyce Malcolm, the author of “To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right” and a Second Amendment scholar at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. Malcolm and lawyers who support the expansion of gun rights argue that this clause created the legal basis for having weapons for personal self-defense in Colonial America.

Having prevailed in Heller, gun rights activists are seeking the liberalization of restrictions on public carrying of guns outside the home. In the New York case, some lawyers and other parties are now arguing that medieval statutes restricted only public carry that “terrified” the public, and that such statutes were never actually enforced to prevent “normal” public carry.

Historians object

However, most scholars of English and American history vigorously dispute the accuracy of this claim. In fact, since the Heller decision, the history of firearms regulation in England and the U.S. has been the focus of what Fordham University law professor Saul Cornell has called an “explosion of empirical research.”

Many of these findings appear in an amicus brief presented to the Court in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Signed by 17 professors of law, English history and American history – including me – the brief demonstrates through a review of historical evidence that “neither English nor American history supports a broad Second Amendment right to carry firearms or other dangerous weapons in public based on a generic interest in self-defense.”

It highlights 700 years of trans-Atlantic weapons regulations, from the English tradition of restricting public carry through the American tradition of doing the same.

The brief makes clear that limitations on the public carry of dangerous weapons, including firearms, are a centuries-old legal and cultural norm.

Early royal proclamations dating as far back as the 13th century regularly prohibited going armed in public without special permission. In 1328, the Statute of Northampton banned the public carry of swords and daggers, open or concealed – this was before the invention of firearms – without express permission from the authorities.

As legal scholar and historian Geoffrey Robertson, an expert on the English Bill of Rights, put it: “There was never any absolute ‘right’ to carry guns. As the Bill of Rights (1689) made clear, this was only ‘as allowed by law.’”

A pair of flintlock pistols that were common in 17th-century England. Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images

An American tradition of limiting public carry

The English tradition of broad public carry restrictions continued across the Atlantic into the Colonies.

During periods of heightened risk of attack, some Colonies required certain individuals to carry guns to church or when working in fields away from fortified or populated areas. However, this obligation was not understood as establishing a right to carry firearms in public.

After the American Revolution, states continued to adopt regulations echoing the Statute of Northampton. Recent scholarship has uncovered that early-to-mid-19th-century firearms regulations varied considerably by jurisdiction and geography, but 19 states had restrictions for public carry on the books.

After the Civil War, as the lethality of firearms increased exponentially through technological advances, municipalities and states like Texas imposed even broader public carry prohibitions.

By 1900, there was a legal consensus that states and localities generally had the authority to limit public carry. While the American approach to public carry restriction was fluid – varying across time and jurisdiction based on social and political changes – there is a consistent history and tradition of many American Colonies, states, territories and municipalities imposing broad prohibitions on carrying dangerous weapons in public, particularly without a specific need for self-defense.
An invented tradition?

So how did a 1689 English Bill of Rights that never gave any absolute right to carry guns turn into a key justification for that very right in the U.S.?

Patrick Charles, the author of the 2019 book “Armed in America: A History of Gun Rights from Colonial Militias to Concealed Carry,” argues that pro-gun advocates have selectively interpreted the historical record to justify a personal right to possess and carry weapons in public.

Essentially, they invented a tradition.

“Invented traditions,” a concept highlighted in the 1983 book “The Invention of Tradition,” which was edited by historians Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, are cultural practices that are thought to have emerged from long ago but actually are grounded in a much more recent past. A classic example is the Scottish tartan kilt, once believed to derive from the ancient garb of the Scottish Highlanders but actually invented in the 18th century by an Englishman.

The “individual right” to carry firearms in public seems to be another.

Author

Jennifer Tucker
Associate Professor of History and Science in Society, Wesleyan University
Disclosure statement
Jennifer Tucker is a signatory to the Historians Brief for the respondent in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

University of Florida tries to douse political firestorm | Political News

 by William

 

 November 2, 2021

 

Presented by Florida Education Champions

Hello and welcome to Tuesday.

Free fallin’ — Leaders at the University of Florida — the state’s “flagship” university that has been touting its recent rise in national rankings — tried last night to quell the backlash over the school’s decision to block three professors from providing expert testimony to the long line of groups challenging the state’s contentious new voting law.

Don’t do me like that — The conflict spilled out in the open after UF’s decision was revealed in a court filing where the groups challenging the law want to know more about why the university contends it would pose a conflict and be “adverse to UF’s interest” to have the professors testify. Worth noting: The professors were allowed to participate in past lawsuits, including a challenge to the 2019 state law that placed restrictions on voting rights for felons.

Jammin’ me — In a statement to the “campus community” sent out on Monday evening, UF President Kent Fuchs and Provost Joe Glover asserted that they remain committed to academic freedom and free speech rights. They also maintained that “if the professors wish to testify pro bono on their own time without using university resources, they are free to do so.” This caveat was not included in the initial notices that barred the professors from participating.

The Waiting — Lastly, Fuchs and Glover said they were “immediately appointing a task force to review the university’s conflict of interest policy and examine it for consistency and fidelity.” This statement came out a few hours after lawyers for the three UF professors sent a letter to top university officials asking for clarity about what they called the “university’s unlawful attempt to prevent them from providing truthful testimony on a matter of extraordinary public importance.”

Breakdown — This is just the latest brushfire at UF that, as POLITICO’s Matt Dixon and Andrew Atterbury report, is raising questions about whether the university is becoming a political tool for Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republicans. This follows — as cataloged by stories by reporters with the USA Today Network-Florida — UF’s fast-tracking of DeSantis’ pick for surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo. The decision to bar the UF professors from participating in the voting rights trial is being probed by an accreditation panel.

Into the Great Wide Open — The DeSantis administration said it did not tell UF — directly or indirectly — how to enforce its conflict of interest policies. But the governor does appoint six of UF’s trustees. Those six appointments have collectively given him or the Republican Party of Florida he controls nearly $900,000 in political contributions. The chair of the board — Mori Hosseini — is a major contributor and records showed he played a role in helping Ladapo get a job at UF that is providing him a salary on top of his pay as surgeon general.

— WHERE’S RON? — Nothing official announced for Gov. DeSantis.

'Enough is enough': Sunrise Movement confronts Joe Manchin on climate policy outside his houseboat
Common Dreams
November 04, 2021

Joe Manchin (Screen Grab)

Over a hundred climate activists confronted Sen. Joe Manchin outside his Washington, D.C. houseboat on Thursday to protest the West Virginia Democrat's obstruction of climate policy in the Build Back Better Act.

The activists from the youth climate group Sunrise Movement, some who have been participating in a hunger strike to demand a $3.5 trillion climate and jobs package, corralled around Manchin as he walked to his parking garage from his yacht to leave for a committee meeting.

Watch:


Referencing Manchin's significant ties to the fossil fuel industry, the activists demanded President Joe Biden and the Democratic leadership remove him as chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

"It is egregious and completely unacceptable that Joe Manchin, who has profited millions of dollars from his family's own fossil fuel firm, is in charge of creating consequential climate agenda," said Lauren Maunus, advocacy director of Sunrise Movement. "Manchin must be immediately removed as chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee."

As Common Dreams reported in October, Manchin has accepted $400,000 from fossil fuel industry PACs and executives in the last quarter alone, making him Congress' top recipient of oil and gas donations this election cycle. Manchin has made a fortune from his family's coal empire, raking in a total of $5.2 million since joining the Senate in 2010.

The confrontation comes as Manchin continues to stall progress on the reconciliation package, demanding reductions in climate spending.

In addition to calls to remove Manchin from his leadership position, Sunrise Movement activists called on Biden and the Democratic Party to fight back against special interests and immediately pass a Build Back Better Act that meets the scale of the climate emergency.

"Our lives are worth more than [Manchin's] coal money," said Kidus Girma, a climate hunger striker. "We'll keep fighting until President Biden, Joe Manchin, and Democrats pass a climate and jobs package that meets the moment of the climate crisis. One sad, greedy man, cannot stand in the way of life saving climate legislation. Enough is enough."

Air taxis promised to fly above potholes of Rome

The VoloCity air taxi on display in central Rome

 Andreas SOLARO AFP

Issued on: 04/11/2021

Rome (AFP) – With streets filled with potholes, buses erupting in flames and soul-crushing traffic on the ground in the Eternal City, some say the only way is up.

A new electric air taxi could be transporting passengers from Rome's Fiumicino Airport to the city centre within three years, according to German company Volocopter, Rome's airport operator ADR and transportation infrastructure holding company Atlantia.

The project, called VoloCity -- which is also planned for Paris and Singapore -- promises to whisk people from the airport to the city in 20 minutes, with no traffic and zero emissions, travelling at a maximum speed of 110 kilometres per hour.

The 'VoloCity' project is planned for Paris and Singapore as well as Rome 

Andreas SOLARO AFP

Initially, the taxi will carry the pilot plus one passenger, "until the aircraft will fly completely autonomously," when it will be able to take two passengers, read a joint press release announcing plans.

Still required for the Fiumicino project is the development of "vertiports" to allow the taxis to take off and land vertically.

In Rome on Thursday, the gleaming white Volocopter flying taxi was parked in a square near the Trevi Fountain where curious onlookers were allowed to board.

"I would have liked them to have thought more about the railway system before going up into the sky," said 32-year-old Giuseppe, who declined to give his last name.

Still, he conceded: "This is a leap into the future. We talk about going to Mars, so this is the least we can do."

Local news reports put the price of the planned 20-minute ride from Fiumicino to the city centre at 140 euros ($161), compared to a taxi, which costs 48 euros, or a 32-minute train for 14 euros.

Italy's ancient capital suffers from a notoriously creaky public transportation system, with pothole-laden roads that wreak havoc on tyres, ageing buses that sporadically go up in flames and metro stations often shuttered for months.

The idea of flying taxis -- eventually without pilots -- has spread worldwide, part of a push to ease congestion on roads and limit pollution.

Various companies, including ride-services giant Uber and automaker General Motors, are working on "vertical take off and landing aircraft" (VTOL), but major challenges remain, including regulatory issues and safety concerns.

© 2021 AFP

Beirut port blast investigator forced to suspend probe for third time

The August 4, 2020, blast at the Beirut port killed more than 200 people, injured thousands and destroyed swathes of the Lebanese capital. © Dylan Collins, AFP/File

Issued on: 04/11/2021 

Text by: NEWS WIRES

The Lebanese judge leading investigations into last year's Beirut port blast was forced to stop work Thursday over a lawsuit filed by an ex-minister he had summoned for interrogation.

Tarek Bitar was informed of a "lawsuit submitted by former public works minister Youssef Fenianos... which forced him to pause the probe until a ruling is issued", a court official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

It is the third time that Bitar has had to suspend his probe in the face of lawsuits filed by former ministers suspected of negligence over the August 2020 explosion.

The total number of lawsuits filed against Bitar now stands at 15, according to judicial sources.

The latest comes amid a campaign led by the powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah demanding Bitar's replacement over allegations of "bias" that have been widely dismissed by rights groups and families of blast victims.

The Shiite group's representatives in government have said they will boycott cabinet meetings until it takes a clear stand on demands to replace Bitar.

The cabinet, as a result, has failed to hold a single session in three weeks.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Thursday condemned attempts to force his government to intervene in judicial affairs, in a thinly veiled criticism of Hezbollah.

"We have tried as much as possible to keep the Beirut blast probe under the purview of the judiciary and we have rejected any kind of (political) interference," Mikati told a news conference.

Human rights groups and victims' relatives fear the repeated suspensions are a prelude to Bitar's removal, which would further derail the official inquiry into Lebanon's worst peace-time tragedy.

Bitar's predecessor, Fadi Sawan, was forced to suspend his probe for the same reason before he was finally removed in February, in a move widely condemned as political interference.

(AFP)

Europe rights body pulls pro-hijab campaign after French outcry

Issued on: 04/11/2021 - 
Video by: Catherine NICHOLSON

The pan European rights body the Council of Europe has pulled a campaign promoting diversity among women and their freedom to wear the Muslim headscarf after it sparked an outcry in fiercely secular France. European Affairs Editor Catherine Nicholson tells us more.

Is France’s porn industry having its #MeToo moment?


Four French porn actors have been charged with rape in a historic first for the porn industry in France. © Aris Messinis, AFP

Issued on: 04/11/2021 

Text by: Catherine BENNETT

Four French porn actors have been charged with rape in what’s being called the French porn industry’s #MeToo moment. Feminist organisations are calling for “the end of impunity” in the sector.

Over the course of a year-long police investigation, 53 women have come forward to recount their experiences of abuse on porn sets in France. They have described a culture of sexual violence in the industry, including being drugged and forced to carry out humiliating and degrading acts. Thirty women have filed a formal complaint with police.

Now, for the first time in France, four male porn actors – one of whom is primarily a cameraman – have been charged with rape. Three of the men who were charged on October 29 are currently in detention pending trial, while the other man remains under legal supervision.

“These are women who weren’t believed, by the police but also by their colleagues,” explained Marjolaine Vignola, a Paris-based lawyer representing two of the victims, in an interview with FRANCE 24. “Particularly because some of them had contracts – contracts that had questionable legality, and sometimes were even totally legally void. But in the world of pornography, as soon as someone has a contract, people aren’t going to dig deeper or check if it’s valid or not.”

It’s the latest development in an investigation into the French amateur porn website ‘French Bukkake’ that began in March 2020. Four people were charged last October with aggravated pimping and human trafficking, including the porn director, actor and producer who set up the French Bukkake website and who goes by the pseudonym of ‘Pascal OP’. Pascal OP is notorious in the porn industry for his violent, gonzo-style of pornography. Both he and another porn producer with the pseudonym ‘Mat Hadix’ are now in prison.

‘If you’re in your bedroom or a porn film, the law is the same’

French daily Le Parisien reported how even the men who have been charged found it difficult to rewatch the pornographic videos in the courtroom. One actor was asked to rewatch a scene in which he violently forced an actress to fellate him, and a judge asked him how he would describe the scene. He replied, “In this case, I’m guilty, I don’t have an excuse. From what you’ve told me, it’s rape, because the girl’s consent isn’t …” before bursting into tears.

“It’s a good thing that actors are being charged as well,” said Vignola. “If you have a woman in front of you who is crying and you carry on having anal sex with her – whether you’re in your bedroom or acting in a porn film, the law is the same. Consent has to be constantly reiterated during a sexual act.”
‘A vast pimping network’

Mouvement du Nid is an organisation that campaigns against prostitution and supports women who are or have been sex workers. In a press release, the organisation said that the investigation has “laid bare how the criminal porn industry is organised: a vast network of pimping and human trafficking, subjecting women to prostitution, rape and acts of torture”.

A spokesperson for the organisation, Sandrine Goldschmidt, told FRANCE 24, “This is a very important case because it shows that impunity [in the industry] can be challenged, it’s not a foregone conclusion.”

A parallel investigation was opened into the French porn website ‘Jacquie et Michel’ in July 2020. That investigation was launched after the three feminist organisations Osez le féminisme, les Effronté-es and Mouvement du Nid reported a video by the French media Konbini to the police, in which two women revealed the abuse they received when filming porn videos for 'Jacquie et Michel'.

In response to the accusations, in November 2020, 'Jacquie et Michel' and the French porn giant Marc Dorcel said they would draw up an ethical charter for the porn industry in France. The guidelines were published in April 2021 after months of consultations with people working in the industry.

But the charter has been slammed by feminist organisations as “phony”. The French journalist Robin D’Angelo, who spent a year undercover investigating the amateur porn sector, told France Inter that “these charters are just a marketing gimmick, opportunistic if not downright cynical”.

For the lawyer Marjolaine Vignola, simply bringing out a charter “isn’t a response to accusations of pimping, gang rape and human trafficking. A charter can’t change a whole system. It’s an attempt to try and redeem themselves".

The French porn industry is not the only one under scrutiny. In the United States, the porn actor Ron Jeremy was indicted with 30 charges of rape or sexual assault against 21 women in August and is currently in jail awaiting trial.