BC

Protestors gather to stop plan to cut old growth forest near Argenta

People are already standing together to stop a plan to log a section of old growth forest near Argenta.

Last weekend an environmental protest camp was set up near Argenta, with support from local environmentalists and at the invitation of the Autonomous Sinixt, Last Stand West Kootenay (LSWK) — a grassroots collective, non-profit group — intends “to help protect part one of the most significant wilderness areas in southeastern B.C.,” noted a LSWK press release on Monday.

“The Argenta-Johnsons Landing Face is an ecologically diverse mountainside, important to wildlife and home to old growth spruce, cedar and rare 300-plus-year-old western larch,” the release explained.

For several years BC Parks has suggested the importance of protecting this land, according to the release, but Cooper Creek Cedar (owned by Porcupine Wood Products) has been permitted access to five clear-cut blocks, “some of which contain potential priority one old growth.”

LSWK’s Fox Forest said the action started on the weekend isn’t just about the Argenta Face.

“This is about a province-wide need to protect old growth,” Fox Forest said in the press release. “We are asking for the government to follow through with promises to protect B.C.’s remaining old growth forest and to consult fully with First Nations before proceeding with logging of vulnerable areas.”

Beyond the trees

The need to protect the old growth forest goes beyond the trees, said Amber Peters, a biologist with the Valhalla Wilderness Society.

“Connectivity to the lake should be preserved to maintain the integrity of the Purcell Wilderness Conservancy ecosystem,” she said. “A herd of caribou have been known to use the area which may be one of the last refugia not subjected to intensive motorized recreation, which are a serious disturbance to the local and dwindling mountain caribou.”

Important species like grizzly bear, goshawk, mountain caribou, heron and wolverine also call this piece of forest home.

The logging could also affect water sources and ground stability for some residents. Breanne Hope and her family live below where some of the logging is scheduled to happen.

“We are very concerned about the impact this will have on our drinking water, along with the rest of the community’s water,” she said.

The nearby Johnsons Landing community experienced a major landslide in 2012 that killed four people, took out four homes and severely damaged others.

“We have been told that slides are less likely in our area, however, a local biologist surveyed the area and confirmed that the area lies on an inherently weak base,” Hope stated.

Conservancy at work

An independent group of Argenta locals created the Mount Willet Wilderness Forever Proposal to protect the area in question and include it in the Purcell Wilderness Conservancy.

Their efforts have put this mountain face on the map of the provincial government, said Sam Fleming, who calls Argenta home.

“The local MLA, Brittny Anderson, has been there. Aimee Watson of RDCK has been there. Suzanne Simard has studied it. Even John Horgan has been to Argenta and talked to local advocates. They know it’s worth protecting,” Fleming said.

In alignment

LSWK’s action is in alignment with Autonomous Sinixt’s Land Declaration which asserts their sovereignty over unceded təmxʷúlaʔxʷ (homeland).

The declaration calls for a “full stop to proposed resource extraction” within their təmxʷúlaʔxʷ until they have had time to evaluate it and make sure it is in alignment with their traditional laws.

The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) recognizes each nation’s right to make decisions about their own land, recently reinforced by B.C.’s commitment to the 2022-2027 89-point Action Plan.

“Carrying on the legacy of decades of advocacy, and under the jurisdiction of the Autonomous Sinixt, we will stand in the way of industry in peaceful protest until the unique and biologically significant forest is added to the wilderness conservancy,” noted the LSWK release.

Source: Last Stand West Kootenay

Joining in The protest is located 500 metres up Salisbury Forest Service Road — directly across from Davis Creek and Lost Ledge — just past the community of Argenta on the east side of Kootenay Lake.

Before joining the camp, people are asked to message laststandwestkootenay@protonmail.com for a schedule and intake, and to read and abide by their camp protocols.

People can follow them on Facebook or Instagram — @laststandwestkootenay — for letter templates, camp intake information, location and other ways to get involved.

Timothy Schafer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Nelson Daily

Biden's top labor lawyer is pushing for a change that could make it easier for workers to join a union — and achieve one of the movement's biggest goals

insider@insider.com (Juliana Kaplan) - 

© NLRBJennifer Abruzzo, general counsel for the NLRB. NLRB

Right now, employers can choose to recognize a union their workers form, or workers have to go to a vote.
Jennifer Abruzzo, general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board, wants to change that.
Abruzzo wants to reinstate an old doctrine for union formation, which would be a seismic shift for the movement.

In December 2021, Amazon workers at a Staten Island warehouse asked the tech and retail giant to voluntarily recognize their union so they could begin bargaining right away.

Instead, workers didn't get to vote on their union until more than three months later, ultimately becoming the first warehouse to unionize under the Amazon Labor Union.

The process took so long because, under current law, when workers say that they've formed a union, companies can choose to voluntarily recognize them and start bargaining immediately — but they often don't.

The other option — which has been happening at big names like Starbucks, Amazon, and the New York Times — is having workers go to a secret ballot election.

Both of those processes might change if Jennifer Abruzzo, the Biden administration's general counsel for the NLRB, has her way. The former counsel for the Communication Workers of America, Abruzzo wants to revive a more than 50-year-old process called the Joy Silk doctrine.

Named for Joy Silk Mills, this process can let workers show they want a union by having a majority of union authorization cards signed — what's called card check — instead of a formal voting process. Unless the employer has a "good faith" doubt that it's a true majority, they must begin bargaining with the union. Abruzzo filed a brief in April to the NLRB board saying that Joy Silk should be reinstated.

"Joy Silk is logically superior to current Board law's ability to deter election interference," Abruzzo wrote in her brief. "It directly disincentivizes an employer from engaging in unfair labor practices during organizing campaigns to avoid a bargaining obligation, as doing so will typically result in the imposition of a bargaining order."

After Joy Silk was replaced, Abruzzo wrote, unfair labor practices "increased dramatically," and, "in turn, the number of elections fell precipitously and, as a result, the rate of unionization now rests near all-time lows."

It's a move that's already won support from labor leaders. "Reinstating Joy Silk in its original form would stop employers from playing games and refusing to recognize a union when workers have unquestionable proof of majority support & would deter employers from unlawfully interfering in organizing campaigns," Liz Shuler, the president of the AFL-CIO, the country's largest labor federation, wrote in a tweet.

But Glenn Spencer, senior vice president for employment policy at the right-leaning US Chamber of Commerce, said that "there's a number of reasons why the board abandoned the process," and that the card check process is "inherently unreliable," because there's a whole assortment of reasons that people sign union cards.

"The simple fact is that Congress has repeatedly rejected efforts to make card check the preferred process," Spencer said.

If Joy Silk was reinstated, it would mark a seismic shift in union organizing and how quickly a group of workers can begin bargaining a contract.

Elections can be a drawn out process, and they've gotten longer, as Bloomberg's Ian Kullgren reported in 2021. In 2020, according to Bloomberg's calculations, the median time between filing for an election and the actual voting was 31 days. From 2016 to 2019, it took a median of 24 days. Some of that may have been due to Trump's NLRB board enacting new rules that could lengthen and complicate the time of elections.

Employers also frequently employ anti-union tactics during elections: A 2009 paper from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that 96% of employers "mounted a campaign against the union" during an election. In cases where employers did mount an anti-union campaign, workers won just 48% of elections — compared to 72% of elections won when there was no campaign.

Currently, employers can make anti-union meetings, called captive audiences, mandatory. That's also something Abruzzo wants to change, urging the board to find mandatory meetings unlawful.

"Workers don't feel that they can leave, even though they have the right to refrain from listening to speech, just as much as they have the right to listen to it, because of the very real fear of retaliation," Abruzzo told Insider.

Philippine Conglomerate Ayala Targets U.S. Wind Projects

Ian Sayson
Tue, April 26, 2022,


(Bloomberg) -- Philippine conglomerate Ayala Corp. plans to acquire wind projects in the U.S. in line with a target to boost its renewable energy capacity to 5,000 megawatts by 2025.

Ayala unit ACEN got board approval to enter the U.S. renewable energy market through a partnership with UPC Solar & Wind Investments LLC and Pivot Power Management. They will acquire operating wind projects and extend their life through repowering, it said in a stock exchange filing.

“Our aspiration is for the U.S. to become a priority market for ACEN outside of the Philippines over time,” ACEN International President Patrice Clausse said in a statement.

The Ayala unit has invested more than $200 million in each of Australia, Vietnam and Indonesia. In early April, the company and ib vogt GmbH of Germany announced setting up a platform to fund solar power plants in Asia.

ACEN has about 3,800 MW of attributable capacity in the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, and Australia with a renewable share capacity at 87%, among the highest in the region.

US panel calls on Biden to sanction India over sliding religious freedom under Modi

Alisha Rahaman Sarkar 

A US panel has urged the Joe Biden administration to impose targeted sanctions on India over what it called the erosion of religious freedom under the leadership of prime minister Narendra Modi.

For the third year in a row, the United States Commission on International Freedom (USCIRF) recommended the US state department designate India as a “country of particular concern” for “engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom”.

In its 2022 report, published on Monday, the bipartisan panel asked the Biden administration to “impose targeted sanctions on individuals and entities responsible for severe violations of religious freedom” by freezing their assets and/ or prohibiting them from entering the US.

The Modi administration has previously rejected the panel’s findings, calling it an “organisation of particular concern”.

The report comes at a time when issues of religious beliefs, caste and faith have taken centre stage in India, in both public discourse and politics.

Though minorities make up nearly 20 per cent of India’s 1.3 billion population, they have been facing increasing persecution since 2014, when Mr Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power, according to USCIRF.

“The Indian government escalated its promotion and enforcement of policies — including those promoting a Hindu-nationalist agenda — that negatively affect Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits and other religious minorities,” the report stated.

India’s religious freedom, a principle enshrined in its constitution, has “significantly worsened” in 2021, the report said, citing examples of suppression of critical voices through intimidation, arbitrary arrests and persecution under draconian laws such as the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

The UAPA allows Indian authorities to detain people without producing any incriminating evidence and keep people in prison without trial by setting stringent requirements for bail.

The panel pointed to the federal government’s unkind treatment of Jesuit priest Stan Swamy, who was the country’s oldest under-trial prisoner arrested in relation to violence at Bhima Koregaon on 1 January 2018.

The champion of human rights for dalits and tribals “was arrested on dubious UAPA charges in October 2020 and never tried”, the report noted.

Having suffered from multiple ailments, including Parkinson's disease, Swamy died at a prison in Navi Mumbai city at the age of 84.

© Provided by The Independent File photo: 

A Christian nun, center, holds a placard and shouts slogans with others demanding the release of tribal rights activist Stan Swamy and other activists during a demonstration in Bengaluru, India, in November 2020 (AP)

The report also raised the arrest of Khurram Parvez, a prominent Muslim human rights activist from India-administered Kashmir, over terror-funding charges.

“The government also broadly targeted individuals documenting or sharing information about violence against Muslims, Christians, and other religious minorities,” it said.

“Numerous attacks were made on religious minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians, and their neighbourhoods, businesses, homes, and houses of worship. Many of these incidents were violent, unprovoked, and/or encouraged or incited by government officials,” the report added.

Examples of tensions between religious communities have continued with clashes at homes and places of worship taking place in more than five states in the past month. In several states this has included the destruction of mostly Muslim-owned properties by state and local authorities

.

© Provided by The Independent

 Hindus participate in a religious procession to mark a festival in Hyderabad on 16 April 2022. India’s hardline Hindu nationalists have long espoused an anti-Muslim stance, but attacks against the minority community have recently occurred more frequently. In many cases, hate-filled and provocative songs that are blared through speakers during Hindu festivals have become a precursor to this violence (AP)

The report also expressed concerns over the Muslim residents of Assam who face being stripped off of their citizenship due to enforcement of a National Register of Citizens (NRC), which aims to identify and deport “illegal” migrants from Bangladesh.

It also briefly touched upon anti-conversion laws that rights groups say have led to dozens of arrests of Muslim men and state overreach in interfaith marriages.

The Biden administration has refrained from directly criticising Mr Modi or his right-wing BJP government. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar asked earlier this month: “What does Modi need to do to India’s Muslim population before we will stop considering them a partner in peace?”

Following a high-level meeting between the Indian and US defence and foreign ministries in Washington two weeks ago, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “We regularly engage with our Indian partners on these shared values [of human rights] and to that end, we are monitoring some recent concerning developments in India including a rise in human rights abuses by some government, police and prison officials.”

He was sharing the stage with Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and defence minister Rajnath Singh. Mr Jaishankar said the state of human rights in India had not been raised at the dialogue.

Apart from India, the USCIRF flagged 14 other countries over religious freedom concerns, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Myanmar, China, Eritrea, Vietnam, Iran, Syria, Nigeria, North Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Rockets fly over Europe’s biggest nuclear plant as Russia warns of nuclear risk

Moldovan president calls urgent security meeting after breakaway region targeted

Russia said its missiles destroyed six facilities powering the railways that were used to deliver foreign weapons to Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donbas region. 

Photograph: Alexey Furman/Getty Images


Ukraine’s state-run atomic energy company said Russian missiles flew at low altitude over Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine on Tuesday, and reiterated warnings that Russia’s invasion could lead to a “nuclear catastrophe”.

Energoatom issued its latest warning about the risks caused by the war with Russia on the 36th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear accident at the now defunct Chornobyl plant, in what was then Soviet Ukraine.

The company said cruise missiles had flown over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant during an air strike which local authorities said hit a commercial building in the city of Zaporizhzhia, killing at least one person.

“Missiles lying at a low altitude directly over the site of the ZNPP (Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant), where there are seven nuclear facilities with a huge amount of nuclear material, poses huge risks,” Petro Kotin, Energoatom’s acting chief, said.

“After all, missiles could hit one or more nuclear facility, and this threatens a nuclear and radiation catastrophe around the world,” he was quoted as saying in a statement issued by Energoatom on the Telegram messaging app.

Energoatom said Russian troops, who have occupied the plant since March 4th, were keeping heavy equipment and ammunition on the site.

“Thirty-six years after the Chornobyl tragedy, Russia exposes the whole world to the danger of a repeat of the nuclear catastrophe” it said.

Russia did not immediately comment on Energoatom’s statement. It has previously offered safety assurances about Ukraine’s nuclear power facilities since launching what it says is a “special military operation” on February 24th.

Russian troops also occupied the decommissioned Chornobyl nuclear power station soon after invading Ukraine but have since left the site.

Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was due to visit Chornobyl on Tuesday, the anniversary of the explosion and fire there on April 26th, 1986.

Russia has told the world not to underestimate the considerable risks of nuclear war and warned that conventional western weapons were legitimate targets in Ukraine, where battles raged in the east.

“The risks now are considerable,” foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told Russia’s state television according to a transcript of an interview on the ministry’s website.

“I would not want to elevate those risks artificially. Many would like that. The danger is serious, real. And we must not underestimate it.”

Mr Lavrov had been asked about the importance of avoiding a third World War and whether the current situation was comparable to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, a low point in US-Soviet relations.

Meanwhile, a sixth package of European Union sanctions against Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine is expected “very soon”, the bloc’s energy policy chief said on Tuesday.

The exact date of the package is not yet confirmed, and as with the previous rounds of EU sanctions it would need approval from EU countries, EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson told a news conference in Warsaw.

During a visit to Kyiv on Sunday, US secretary of state Antony Blinken and defense secretary Lloyd Austin promised more military aid for Ukraine.

The US state department on Monday used an emergency declaration to approve the potential sale of $165 million worth of ammunition to Ukraine. The Pentagon said the package could include artillery ammunition for howitzers, tanks and grenade launchers.

Moscow’s ambassador to Washington told the United States to halt shipments, warning western weapons were inflaming the conflict.

Mr Lavrov said: “Nato, in essence, is engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy. War means war.”

The United States is due to host an expected gathering of more than 40 countries this week for Ukraine-related defence talks that will focus on arming Kyiv, US officials said.

Britain said all tariffs on goods coming into the country from Ukraine under an existing free trade deal will be axed and it would send new ambulances, fire engines, medical supplies and funding for health experts to help the emergency services.

The Russian-backed separatist leader of the Ukrainian breakaway region of Donetsk said on Tuesday that Moscow should launch the next stage of its military campaign in Ukraine after reaching the region’s frontiers.

Denis Pushilin, the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said on a Russian talk show broadcast online that the next phase of Russia’s military intervention was crucial following security incidents outside the region.

He cited blasts that hit the Moldovan breakaway region of Transnistria bordering Ukraine on Monday, as well as Russian allegations of shelling of its border regions by Ukrainian forces.

“The pace at which the [military] operation reaches our borders is important to us in order to launch its next phase, which is needed after what we witnessed in Transnistria and Russia’s border regions,” RIA news agency quoted Pushilin as saying.
Transnistria

Moldova’s president convened an urgent security meeting on Tuesday after two blasts damaged Soviet-era radio masts in the breakaway region of Transnistria, where authorities said a military unit was also targeted.

The Moldovan authorities are sensitive to any sign of growing tensions in Transnistria, an unrecognised Moscow-backed sliver of land bordering southwestern Ukraine. It is home to about 470,000 people.

Russia has had troops permanently based in Transnistria since the collapse of the Soviet Union. There are currently about 1,500 troops based there. Kyiv fears the region could be used as a launch pad for new attacks on Ukraine.

“In the early morning of April 26th, two explosions occurred in the village of Maiac, Grigoriopol district: the first at 6.40am and the second at 7.05am,” Transnistria’s interior ministry said.


No residents were hurt, but two radio antennae that broadcast Russian radio were knocked out, it said.

Separately, Transnistria’s Security Council reported a “terrorist attack” on a military unit near the city of Tiraspol, Russia’s TASS news agency reported.

It gave no further details.

The incidents followed a number of blasts that local television reported on Monday hit Transnistria’s ministry of state security in the regional capital, Tiraspol. Local officials said the building had been fired on by unknown assailants with grenade launchers.

Moldovan president Maia Sandu on Tuesday called for a meeting of the country’s Supreme Security Council in response to the incidents.

On Monday, the Moldovan government said the Tiraspol blasts were aimed at creating tensions in a region it had no control of.

Last week, a senior Russian military official said the second phase of what Russia calls its “special military operation” included a plan to take full control of southern Ukraine and improve its access to Transnistria.
Stiff resistance

Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on February 24th in what it called a special operation to degrade its southern neighbour’s military capabilities and root out people it called dangerous nationalists. Ukrainian forces have mounted stiff resistance and the west has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia in an effort to force it to withdraw its forces.

Russia has yet to capture any of the biggest cities. Its troops were forced to pull back from the outskirts of Kyiv in the face of stiff resistance.

“It is obvious that every day – and especially today, when the third month of our resistance has begun – that everyone in Ukraine is concerned with peace, about when it will all be over,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late on Monday.

“There is no simple answer to that at this time.”

Having failed to take the capital Kyiv, Moscow last week launched a massive assault in an attempt to capture eastern provinces known as the Donbas, which if successful would link territory held by pro-Russian separatists in the east with the Crimea region that Moscow annexed in 2014.

Russia’s defence ministry said its missiles destroyed six facilities powering the railways that were used to deliver foreign weapons to Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donbas region. Reuters could not verify the report.

The head of Ukraine’s state rail company said that one railway worker had been killed and four injured by Russian missile strikes on five Ukrainian railway stations on Monday.

Ukrainian forces have repelled five Russian attacks and killed just over 200 Russian servicemen, said the Ukrainian military command in the southern and eastern sectors.

Five tanks were also destroyed, along with eight armoured vehicles, it said in a statement.

Reuters was not able to immediately verify the reports.

Russian forces were continuing on Monday to bomb and shell the vast Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol where fighters are hunkered down in a city ravaged by a siege and bombardment, Ukrainian presidential aide Oleksiy Arestovych said.

Moscow said it was opening a humanitarian corridor to let civilians out of the plant but Kyiv said no agreement had been reached. – Reuters

Oil and gas will be around a lot longer than some think, despite climate change goals: RBC


Tue, April 26, 2022

Climate change policies are being thrust into competition with energy security as countries and consumers grapple with energy shortages and high fuel and utility bills, a new RBC report notes. (Kyle Bakx/CBC - image credit)

Global ambitions to tackle climate change are being confronted by rising concerns about energy security, according to a new report by RBC, which is why oil and natural gas are going to be used for quite a while.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has sent energy prices soaring, as there are supply concerns for many commodities such as oil, natural gas and coal. As many countries grapple with energy security and affordability issues, there is less emphasis on climate change.

That's why the authors of the report say countries like Canada now have to figure out how to produce more oil and gas in the short term, all the while trying to meet climate goals.

"Short of major additional action, oil and gas will likely remain critical and contentious energy sources for longer than some think," the report notes.

In the last few months, there has been a renewed push by countries like Canada and the United States for more oil and natural gas production. At the same time, some countries in Europe are investing in liquefied natural gas terminals to import more natural gas and also looking at coal and oil-fired electricity to reduce reliance on Russian gas.

Global demand for oil keeps rising and is expected to increase for several more years, according to the International Energy Agency.

The RBC report highlights how many governments around the world are also offering subsidies to offset high gasoline and power prices, including "usual climate leaders" such as Germany, California, and British Columbia.

Kyle Bakx/CBC

Climate change is still a priority, said RBC economist Colin Guldimann, but there isn't as much momentum as compared to six months ago after the UN climate conference.

"Many will admit that things have changed markedly, especially in the energy space, in the last couple of months," he said in an interview.

Canada must now thread the needle of meeting climate goals while also meeting energy needs.

Even after oil demand peaks, Guldimann said "the pace of that decline, and the steepness of how quickly that decline happens, is fundamentally uncertain."

Investments in clean energy are happening, but instead of replacing fossil fuels, much of that energy is offset by rising consumption around the world as the population grows.

"We think energy demand is set to surge over the next couple of decades and how we meet those energy needs is really the critical question today," he said.

"I think countries are going to struggle to switch their energy systems over to ones that are non-emitting extremely quickly. Green infrastructure takes time to build, and technologies that can replace oil are still sort of coming to the fore."

The RBC report calls for more ambition to curb emissions, not only from the oilpatch, but other sectors too such as building retrofits, zero-emission vehicle subsidies and more transmission lines to move clean power around the country.

On Monday, credit ratings agency Moody's said it expects oil producers to generate record profits and free cash flow this year — and oil prices could remain high for the next 12 to 18 months.

Oil prices dropped by more than five per cent at one point on Monday as lockdowns in China are dampening economic activity. As commodity prices fluctuate so wildly, some oil companies could delay production increases.

"I wouldn't be surprised to see if a lot of these companies say 'You know what, let's defer this decision where we have to expand our spending," said Jeremy McCrea, an analyst with Raymond James, "which ultimately will keep oil and gas prices higher, longer."

Kyle Bakx/CBC

India’s Sprng Energy Nearing $1.8 Billion Sale to Shell


Baiju Kalesh
Mon, April 25, 2022



(Bloomberg) -- Sprng Energy Pvt is nearing a deal for Shell Plc to acquire the Indian renewable power producer for about $1.8 billion including debt, people with knowledge of the matter said.

An agreement between Sprng’s private equity owner Actis and the energy giant could be signed in two to three weeks after Shell beat out rival bidders, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private.

No final decision has been made and talks could still fall apart, the people said. A representative for Shell declined to comment while representatives for Actis didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Shell was among the bidders for Sprng, along with Adani Group and renewable energy firm Greenko, Bloomberg News reported in March.

Sprng Energy is a renewable energy platform set up by Actis with a commitment of $450 million from one of the firm’s funds, according to its website. It has about 2,503 megawatt-peak of solar projects and roughly 498 MW of wind projects operating or in development, the website shows.

Pivoting to renewable energy after more than a century of pumping oil, Shell is aiming to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. It is not progressing quickly enough for some activists, and the company plans to put its energy transmission progress report to a non-binding vote at its annual shareholder meeting scheduled for May 24.

Shell’s shares in Amsterdam fell 5.6% on Monday, their largest decline since November, giving the company a market value of nearly $200 billion.

Anti-Trump PAC launches ad campaign against Toyota over donations to election objectors

2022/4/25 
© The Detroit News

Toyota has donated $99,500 total to 54 Republican election objectors since Jan. 6, 2021, according to the newsletter Popular Information.

- Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images North America/TNS

WASHINGTON — The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, is re-launching an ad campaign against Toyota Motor Corp. for resuming political donations to members of Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021.

"America's free-market, democratic system has been good for companies like Toyota for a very long time," the Lincoln Project's ad released Monday says. "So why would Toyota support politicians who try to overthrow the very system that's been so profitable for them?"

The digital ad campaign will begin Tuesday, targeting the top 25 Toyota dealerships in the country and the automaker's U.S. headquarters in Plano, Texas, Lincoln Project spokesperson Greg Minchak said. The ad will also run on CNBC in Plano and in New York City beginning Wednesday. He did not say how much the group is spending on the campaign.

The Lincoln Project is a political action committee that was created in 2019 by former Republicans to oppose former President Donald Trump's re-election. The group first took out ads against Toyota last July, and the automaker promptly reversed course and announced it would cease such donations, The Detroit News first reported.

Like many other companies, Toyota announced it would temporarily withhold and review PAC donations after Trump supporters mobbed the U.S. Capitol building and after 147 Republicans in Congress objected to the Electoral College results from select states later that evening in an attempt to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's election as president.

But the company's PAC resumed donations to some of those members as early as Feb. 4 — within a month of the insurrection — with a donation to Rep. Alex Mooney, R-West Virginia, according to campaign finance filings.

Since reversing course in July, Toyota's political action committee resumed giving to some of those members according to campaign finance filings, including a $1,000 donation last month to Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton.

"After a pause of six months, during which time Toyota had extensive discussions with internal and external stakeholders, Toyota's employee PAC, like others in the auto industry and nearly 800 companies and industry groups nationwide, has resumed contributing to some members of Congress," Toyota spokesperson Edward Lewis said via email.

"We will not support those who, by their words and actions, create an atmosphere that incites violence. Toyota's employee PAC will continue its long history of giving equally to Democrats and Republicans based on the best interests of our company, workforce, and the U.S. automotive industry."

Toyota is not alone — a Detroit News review of filings earlier this year found several Michigan companies that had pledged to stop or alter donations following Jan. 6, 2021, resumed contributions, including Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co., DTE Energy and Rocket Companies.

The Lincoln Project is targeting Toyota "because they said they would stop making the donations, and when they thought no one was watching, they did it again," said Minchak. "We are constantly watching how companies spend their money, and will say more about what it means that corporate America puts cynical politics over democracy."

Toyota has donated $99,500 total to 54 Republican election objectors since Jan. 6, 2021, according to the newsletter Popular Information.

'Not our fight': Why the Middle East doesn't fully support Ukraine

Middle Eastern countries are still on the fence when it comes to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Their citizens are pointing out the West's double standards around conflict and refugees. Should Europe be worried?

During a demonstration in rebel-held Syria, protesters expressed support for Ukraine

At first, they were ready to go to Ukraine to join the international legion fighting there. But in the weeks following the Russian invasion, the three young Syrian men changed their minds.

"Why would we fight somebody else's war?" one of them explained last week as the trio sat around a cafe table in central Berlin. All three friends, all in their early 30s, are refugees and have been in Germany since 2015. They had discussed going to Ukraine to fight the Russians, who had ruthlessly bombed their own city, Aleppo.

But they decided against it. "We have our own problems," another of the men argued. "[Syrian dictator] Assad is still in power, the Russians still support him — and nobody cares."

None of the men wanted to put their names to these comments because they were well aware what they were saying was controversial in Europe, where most countries are fully supportive of Ukraine.

Although not everybody feels this way and there have been demonstrations of Syrian solidarity for Ukraine, the group's attitude is far from uncommon in the Middle East, or even other parts of the world. Africa and India don't necessarily see this as their fight either.

'Western hypocrisy' 

Over the past month, commentators throughout the Middle East have been quick to point out what they see as the hypocrisy of this situation. They have talked about double standards and mentioned conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Palestine, as well as the treatment of refugees arriving in Europe.

Most Europeans support Ukraine unequivocally

The tragedies in Syria "provoked no reactions in the West remotely comparable to the solidarity shown with Ukraine," Michael Young, a senior editor at the Carnegie Middle East Center, wrote this month on the think tank's website.

The same argument has been a popular topic for Arabic-language columnists.

"If you think that Putin is a criminal because he moved militarily against Ukraine and you do not think the same about [George] Bush Jr., [US administration officials] Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell, who occupied Iraq … your brain cells are malfunctioning," Ahmad al-Farraj, a well-known columnist with conservative Saudi daily, Al Jazirah, tweeted.

A writer for Hespress, a Moroccan publication, tracked the Arabic-speaking public's reactions on social media. He concluded that a lot of the angry arguments had more to do with anti-American sentiment than any genuine sympathy for Russia's invasion.

"This is the new image of the dirty competition between America, Russia and Europe," Mohammed Filali, a pharmacist's assistant in Rabat, Morocco, suggested to DW, reflecting this sort of opinion. "They are competing on the territory of Ukraine and the poor Ukrainian people alone are paying a heavy price."

Anti-American instead of pro-Ukraine

But perhaps this isn't surprising. Surveys show that locals have felt this way for years. The 2019-2020 Arab Opinion Index, a regular study which interviewed over 28,000 people in 13 Arab countries, asked respondents to assess the impact of different nations' foreign policies.

Over half — 58% — had a negative opinion of US foreign policy towards Arab countries. Only 41% felt that way about Russian foreign policy. The biannual survey indicates that these numbers have been about the same for over a decade.

Russia is still conducting air strikes in Syria today

The same poll offers further clues as to why Middle Easterners are determined to remain neutral when it comes to the Ukraine war.

Asked about their main priorities, a majority of citizens said these were economic in nature. Some worried about corruption and political stability but 57% talked about unemployment, inflation and poverty as the biggest challenges they faced.

Mohammed Karim, a 39-year-old Iraqi living in Baghdad, told DW this was the main reason he was following events in Ukraine. "This war has an impact on people's livelihoods here," Karim explained. "It has caused a rise in prices and a scarcity of some goods already."

Ukraine and Russia export substantial amounts of wheat and cooking oil to the Middle East and the price of these goods has increased significantly over past weeks, leading to protests in some parts of Iraq.

Russia has been expanding business and military ties in the region and these are among other explanations offered for Arabs' attitudes toward the Ukraine war.

At least 19 migrants died on the Polish-Belarussian border

Other reasons suggested by local media include an apparent admiration for autocratic Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "strongman leader" as well as Russia's approach to foreign policy in the region; unlike others, Russia sets no conditions around human rights or democratic norms.

Who cares what they think? 

But does any of this really matter? Voters in Middle Eastern nations with autocratic rulers cannot have a huge impact on foreign policy. But could this kind of public opinion have international repercussions in the long run?

During the recent United Nations vote on whether Russia should be expelled from the organization's Human Rights Council, only one Middle Eastern country, Libya, voted yes. Almost every other one abstained or was absent. This included the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq, all traditionally seen as friends of the US.

"That was the right thing for Iraq to do," argued Rami al-Saleh, a 29-year-old Iraqi journalist from Baghdad. "Any war taking place this century will affect every country and Iraq needs to retain its allies in every place, whether it's to deal with economic problems or terrorists. The axes of power are shifting," he noted.

The vote was about "countries not wanting to blow their bridges to the multipolar world order," confirmed Samuel Ramani, a tutor in international relations at Oxford University in the UK, who specializes in Russian foreign policy and Middle Eastern security. "They see Russia as one of the pillars of that [world order]."

Moving away from US dominance offers Arab nations more opportunity to assert themselves. For example, Morocco has used diplomatic language so that it can remain neutral, Mohammed al-Ghawati, a professor of political science in Rabat, explained.

Morocco "affirms the unity of the Ukrainian territory but is also working to consolidate strategic relations, especially with permanent members of the Security Council," he noted. 

Morocco was absent from both of the last UN votes on Russia's invasion and needs allies on the Security Council because of its territorial dispute over the Western Sahara .

Although there are factional differences inside countries — for example, Iraqi militias aligned with Iran have expressed support for Russia, an Egyptian politician very publicly parroted Russian disinformation — most people in the region don't have passionate opinions either way on the Ukraine conflict, Ramani agreed.

The two areas where public opinion around this might come to matter more, and eventually have an impact on government policy, are in food security and the recruitment of mercenaries in the region, he told DW.

Other than that, the way Middle Eastern states and their citizens are mostly dealing with the war in Ukraine is unlikely to involve any direct confrontation with Russia.

"They are basically either trying to strike a deal, or acknowledge that the world order is changing, or they want to be a voice of deconfliction," Ramani concluded. "So even if they are critical of Russian behavior, that doesn't mean they will be supportive of Ukraine."

With contributions from Ibrahim Saleh in Iraq and Abdessamad Jattioui in Morocco

Edited by: Andreas Illmer

Oldest person in the world, Kane Tanaka, dies at 119

A Japanese woman believed to be the oldest in the world has died at the age of 119. Kane Tanaka was born on January 2, 1903, and saw the reigns of five Japanese emperors.

Japanese authorities say Kane Tanaka, listed as the oldest person in the world, died of natural causes

Japanese authorities on Monday announced the death of the woman believed to have been the oldest living person in the world.

The local government in Fukuoka, in southwestern Japan, said Kane Tanaka had died on April 19 at the age of 119.

Guinness World Records listed Tanaka as the oldest living person in the world and paid tribute in a Twitter post.

Tanaka's secrets: Early to bed, early to rise, good food and lifelong learning

According to the organization, Tanaka was the second-oldest person ever recorded, behind Jeanne Calment who lived to the age of 122, although that is disputed.

Tanaka was born on January 2, 1903, the same year the Wright brothers made their first successful flight.

Tanaka married at the age of 19 and would go on to have four children of her own and would adopt a fifth child.

In 1937 Tanaka's oldest son and husband went to fight in the war with China, while she remained behind and sold noodles for a living.

In addition to the two World Wars, Tanaka lived through the 1918 flu pandemic and the coronavirus pandemic.

Tanaka said eating tasty food and studying were her secrets to a long life, along with going to bed at 9 p.m. and rising at 6 a.m.

Her family said she would do sums and calligraphy each day to help stay focused.

According to the Gerontology Research Group, French nun Sister Andre, born Lucile Randon, now becomes the oldest living person on the planet, aged 118 years and 73 days.

The Gerontology Research Group says French nun Sister Andre, born Lucile Randon,

 is now the oldest person in the world

kb/msh (AFP, dpa, Reuters)