UK

Johnson government passes scab agency laws as train drivers vote to strike

Laura Tiernan

WSWS.ORG

A Tory government in disarray—whose deposed leader squats inside 10 Downing Street—has passed new laws aimed at breaking strikes and imposing crippling fines on unions for taking industrial action.

On Monday night, the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses (Amendment) Regulations 2022 passed in the House of Commons. It allows for the use of agency workers as a scab workforce to break strikes. It was moved by Jane Hunt, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, who was appointed by Boris Johnson on Friday.

Maximum fines against unions are quadrupled for taking industrial action deemed illegal. Fines on large unions have been raised from £250,000 to £1 million. It is the first increase since Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government introduced a battery of anti-strike provisions, including a ban on secondary boycotts and pickets, in the Employment Act 1982.

The new laws were passed as thousands of train drivers voted to strike. Drivers across eight train operating companies delivered a resounding “yes” in postal ballots for industrial action.

Great Western Railway's Swansea to London Paddington is seen at its destination [Photo by Jeremy Segrott / Flickr / CC BY 4.0]

At Arriva Rail London, drivers voted 98.9 percent to strike, Chiltern Railways by 92.3 percent, Great Western 86.1 percent, LNER 88.5 percent, Northern 95.2 percent, Southeastern 91.6 percent, TransPennine Express 94.2 percent, and at West Midlands Trains 89.6 percent. They join 40,000 RMT members who have voted to strike against plans to cut thousands of jobs and overturn conditions, pensions and safety as part of the government’s Great British Railways scheme.

A ban on employment agencies recruiting strike-breakers has been in place since 1973. The new law paves the way for specialist recruitment agencies to hire strike-breakers among former military personnel, police and far-right forces. The British ruling class created civilian scab armies in the lead-up to the 1926 General Strike.

During the debate, the government linked its repressive amendments to last month’s rail strikes by the RMT. Hunt said the strikes had “held the country to ransom”, while fellow Conservative MP Jonathan Gullis declared, “What we have seen from the RMT is a politicisation from the communists and Putin apologists who want to use this opportunity to bring this country to a halt”.

Rail strikes are not the only target of the new measures. Tory MPs railed against threatened industrial action by teachers, nurses and airline workers.

The proceedings were a graphic exposure of Labour’s role in propping up a hated Tory government. In this first session of parliament since Johnson was deposed as party leader, Labour’s leader Sir Keir Starmer was absent, with his Deputy Angela Rayner refusing to move a vote of no-confidence in the government that would be linked to a defence of the right to strike. Johnson’s hastily assembled cabinet of Thatcher clones and stand-ins was therefore able to push through a major attack on the right to strike.

Labour MPs described a government in “chaos”. Rayner likened Tory MPs to strikers withdrawing their labour to bring about Johnson’s removal. “The Minister now finds herself, much like agency workers under the regulations she proposes, filling in at short notice as a desperate last resort, with no time to prepare, in an organisation reduced to chaos.”

She spoke of a “prime minister cling[ing] to his desk by his fingernails”, but her attack on Johnson centred on the complaint that the Tories’ measures were “ripping up decades of national consensus.”

“They will not prevent strikes; they will provoke them” she declared.

She appealed to a deposed and absent Johnson to honour his (non-existent) pledge to outlaw “fire and rehire” tactics that saw 800 P&O Ferry workers sacked in February and replaced by poorly paid and untrained agency staff, “the company broke the law and the government implied that they were going to do something about it… Will the prime minister keep the promise that he made before he loses office?”

Labour’s Lloyd Russell-Moyle said the government’s charter for agency scabbing was “deeply anti-British” and also likened it to P&O’s mass firing of UK-based ferry workers.

Labour’s vaunted cross-party alliance against “fire and rehire” was exposed during the debate when Tory MP for Dover Nathalie Elphicke declared her support for the government’s anti-strike provisions. During the P&O dispute, Elphicke was promoted by the RMT as an ally against fire and rehire. Elphicke spoke attacking the rail strikes and making clear she “fully supports trade unions” partnering with business. She recalled her role in “having helped with the negotiations between the unions and the P&O management through two previous restructures during the COVID pandemic.”

It was Jeremy Corbyn’s political ally, former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, who most clearly spelled out the right-wing corporatist basis of Labour’s opposition to the Tories’ anti-strike laws. He warned, “it will exacerbate industrial relations across the whole of the country”, adding, “I say to honourable Members from all parts of the House to be careful what they wish for…. I am fearful about what this legislation could do.”

McDonnell, whose Hayes and Harlington constituency includes Heathrow airport, explained that workers’ grievances were best suppressed via the unions. Pointing to British Airways, he said, “We negotiated a deal. The union accepted that there would have to be some jobs reduced in the short term and wages reduced to ensure that the company survived.” BA had subsequently reneged on reimbursing a 10 percent pay cut, “Members can imagine how angry those workers were… We did the normal thing that we do at the airport: we went into negotiations and we settled the dispute.”

“These measures will cause animosity and division,” McDonnell concluded. He opposed the raising of maximum fines on unions for illegal strikes on a similar basis, explaining that “unions are meticulous in the way they go forward on these matters, but where they are not, the injunction route for the employer has worked effectively.”

Labour’s Barry Gardiner, author of the party’s failed bill against “fire and rehire”, warned explicitly that higher fines would undermine employers’ ability to secure court injunctions against illegal strikes.

Amid an historic crisis of the Tory government, and growing opposition to the cost-of-living crisis, with falling wages, austerity, a resurgent pandemic and the most dangerous war in Europe since 1945, the working class is being politically prevented by the Labour and trade union bureaucracy from asserting its social power and class interests.

Labour and the TUC are not even calling for a general election. They are just as determined as the Tories to keep the government’s conspiracy against the democratic and social rights of the working class behind closed doors. They are backed by trade unions determined to block, delay and suppress strike mandates by millions of workers.

Following last month’s three-day national rail strikes, RMT officials are back in talks with the rail bosses this week. They have refused to set further strike dates despite RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch confirming that the Johnson government is refusing to budge on its agenda for slashing jobs, pay, terms and conditions.

In the face of a growing wave of strike votes by train drivers, ASLEF General Secretary Mick Whelan stated that strike days would not be scheduled to coincide with any further action by the RMT or TSSA, “There’s no reason why we’d call them all out together, but at some point it could coalesce.”

ASLEF is dividing train drivers on a company-by-company basis, and along with the RMT is blocking a political struggle to bring down the Johnson government and defeat its historic assault on rail workers’ jobs, pay, terms and conditions.

Tourists trample all over protected, prehistoric Peruvian hill carving

By AFP
Published July 12, 2022

A frame grab from a video courtesy of the Peruvian Ministry of Culture shows police examining the damage at the Paracas Candelabra - Copyright AFP MIGUEL MEDINA

Tourists have left footprints all over Peru’s Paracas Candelabra, an enormous hillside carving that dates from some 2,500 years ago, according to officials who have launched a search for the culprits.

Over the weekend, police found footsteps zigzagging over the Paracas “geoglyph” — a large design carved into the ground similar to Peru’s better-known Nazca lines, according to a culture ministry statement.

They found “two rows of footsteps that go from the bottom (of the carving) to the top, zigzagging, entering the right arm (of the candelabra), the left arm, and central part of the geoglyph,” which visitors are allowed to view only from the sea, it added.

Apart from the footsteps, which appeared to belong to three people, officials also found vehicle tracks.

The captain of a tourist ship told a television station he had spotted, from the sea, “a foreign couple with their young son and a shovel damaging the candelabra.”

The station also broadcast footage recorded on a mobile phone from a nearby boat showing five people walking near the carved hillside figure, whose origins and meaning remain the subject of research.

The geoglyph is about 170 meters (557 feet) tall, 60 meters wide, and carved into the slope of a hill in the Paracas peninsula, south of Lima.

It was declared a national heritage site in 2016, and Peruvian law dictates jail terms of between three and six years for anyone damaging an archaeological monument.

The Paracas culture flourished on Peru’s southern coast from around 100 BC to 200 AD, but little was known about the people until archaeological excavations began in the 1920s.

Over 1,000 children in Telford were sexually exploited, inquiry finds

Offenders ‘emboldened’ by failure of authorities to investigate, says three-year investigation into scandal

Children in the town may have been victims of child sexual exploitation over 40 years.

In 2013 seven men were jailed following Operation Chalice, a police inquiry into child prostitution in the Telford area. Photograph: West Mercia Police

Jessica Murray 

Midlands correspondent

THE GUARDIAN

Tue 12 Jul 2022 

More than a thousand children in Telford were sexually exploited over decades amid the failure of authorities to investigate “emboldened offenders”, an independent inquiry into the scandal has concluded.

The three-year independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation (IICSE) found that abuse was allowed to continue for years and children, rather than perpetrators, were often blamed.

Issues were not investigated because of nervousness about race, the inquiry’s final report said, and teachers and youth workers were discouraged from reporting child sexual exploitation.

Tom Crowther QC, who chaired the inquiry, said: “The overwhelming theme of the evidence has been the appalling suffering of generations of children caused by the utter cruelty of those who committed child sexual exploitation.
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“Victims and survivors repeatedly told the inquiry how, when they were children, adult men worked to gain their trust before ruthlessly betraying that trust, treating them as sexual objects or commodities. Countless children were sexually assaulted and raped.”

Earlier this year the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) published a report on child sexual exploitation nationally, concluding that police and councils were downplaying the scale of the problem and children were often blamed for their abuse.

It followed inquiries into child sexual abuse rings in a number of towns including Rotherham and Rochdale.

The Telford report, published on Tuesday, echoes a number of those findings, concluding several factors led to the “shocking failure” by authorities in the Shropshire town to tackle the problem, including overcaution about acting in the absence of “hard evidence”.

“Offenders were emboldened and exploitation continued for years without concerted response,” Crowther concluded.

In 2013 seven men were jailed following Operation Chalice, a police inquiry into child prostitution in the Telford area that found girls as young as 13 were sexually exploited and groomed with offers of alcohol and money.

However, the report states that following the convictions, authorities failed to understand the importance of maintaining focus in this area and “by 2015 both the council and [West Mercia police] provision for child sexual exploitation [CSE] had in some ways gone back almost a decade”.
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“Even after Operation Chalice, police and the council scaled down their specialist CSE teams to virtual zero – to save money,” Crowther concluded.

The report also said it was the often the work of “committed individuals not top-down directives” that continued the work. “It was, as it had been in 2006, ‘ground level’ officers and practitioners who were keeping the CSE-specific response alive,” Crowther said.

The inquiry confirms the findings of a Sunday Mirror investigation in 2018 that reported up to 1,000 children in the town may have been victims of child sexual exploitation over 40 years.

“The extent to which that estimate was accurate has been the subject of debate in Telford,” Crowther said. “I have come to the conclusion that the Sunday Mirror’s estimate is an entirely measured, reasonable and nonsensational assessment.”

Crowther said he would review stakeholders’ progress in two years’ time and his findings would be published. “They will be held accountable to the victims, survivors and public at large, for their response to those recommendations.”

Speaking on behalf of West Mercia police, assistant chief constable Richard Cooper, said: “I would like to say sorry. Sorry to the survivors and all those affected by child sexual exploitation in Telford. While there were no findings of corruption, our actions fell far short of the help and protection you should have had from us, it was unacceptable, we let you down.

“It is important we now take time to reflect critically and carefully on the content of the report and the recommendations that have been made. We now have teams dedicated to preventing and tackling child exploitation.“

Nearly One-Fourth of World's Population at Risk of Floods: Study

July 12, 2022 

Elise Cutts

People talk outside their homes at a neighborhood affected by flood in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan on Borneo Island, Indonesia, Jan. 17, 2021.

More than 1.8 billion people worldwide are at risk of severe floods, new research shows. Most reside in low- and middle-income countries in Asia, and four out of 10 live in poverty.

The figures are substantially larger than previous estimates. They show that the risk is concentrated among those least able to withstand and recover from flooding.

"I thought it was a valuable paper, indeed. Because this link between poverty and flood risk is kind of overlooked," said hydrologist Bruno Merz, of the German Research Center for Geosciences, who was not involved in the study.

Flood risk assessments typically consider risk in monetary terms, which is highest in rich countries where more wealth is at stake. The new study focused on how flood exposure and poverty overlap.

Published in the journal Nature Communications, the study combined a global flood risk database with information on population density and poverty. The research focused on places where floods 15 centimeters deep or deeper happen at least once every 100 years on average.

The study found that nearly 90% of people at risk of severe flooding live in poor countries, not rich ones. More than 780 million flood-exposed people live on less than $5.50 per day.

The substantial overlap between high flood risk and poverty feeds into a vicious cycle that further concentrates flood protections in rich countries that have more resources to deal with floods in the first place, said flood risk researcher Jeroen Aerts of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Aerts was not involved in the study.

"It's doing a cost-benefit analysis," Aerts said. "Less money is going to poorer countries, because, of course, if the country is poorer, there are less dollars exposed." Aerts said that this also happens within countries, which tend to invest in pricey flood protections for wealthy urban centers rather than for poorer rural areas.

The new estimate for global flood exposure is higher than some earlier ones. For instance, one previous study predicted that 1.3 billion people would be exposed to severe floods by 2050 — 500 million fewer than are exposed today, according to the new estimate. The authors attribute their higher number to their use of better data covering more regions at higher resolution and combining the risks from coastal, river and surface water floods.

The study did not consider protections, such as levees or dikes, in its assessment of flood exposure. This "distorts the picture," Merz said, since some flood-prone populations are well-protected, such as those in the Netherlands.

Rather than undermining the study's findings, Merz thought that this could mean that an even greater proportion of the people threatened by floods lives in poor regions.

"In many low-income countries, there is no flood protection, so people will be flooded by a small flood … that occurs on average every five years. On the other hand, in Europe, in North America, many of the areas are protected (from floods that happen once every) 100 years, 200 years or even higher. And so, this is not included," he said.

Unprotected, poorer regions could thus shoulder an even greater share of the actual risks from flood exposure than the paper suggests.

The new result offers a snapshot of flood risk around the world as it is today, not a projection of how it will develop in the future. Climate change is projected to increase the frequency and intensity of floods in much of the world. And although early warning systems have decreased flood fatalities, including in resource-poor regions, population growth in flood-prone areas will also put more people at risk in the future, Aerts said.

"The exposure to natural hazards, exposure to flooding — it's larger than previously investigated. And the majority of those exposed people live in a vulnerable, poor region," Aerts said. "I think that's the takeaway, I think, and maybe one sentence more: This means that investments in … flood adaptation should be targeted at those areas."

Europe suffers under major heatwave, faces drought and wildfires

By Euronews with AP, AFP, Reuters • Updated: 12/07/2022 

A man sits in the sun at Carcavelos beach, outside Lisbon, Friday, July 8, 2022. -

 Copyright Armando Franca/AP

Large parts of Europe are bracing for a major heatwave this week, with temperatures expected to reach up to 40 degrees Celsius across southern and western parts of the continent.

The scorching heat and exceedingly dry weather have already caused significant problems, including an unprecedented drought in Italy and a string of forest fires in Portugal and Greece.

Concerns are growing that the continued extreme weather might spell one of the toughest summers for citizens and agricultural production alike, with most of the affected countries now on high alert.

Here are some of the latest developments from across the continent:

Spain endures second massive heatwave of the season

Spaniards kept to the shade in parks, headed for the beach or sipped iced drinks this weekend to tackle stifling temperatures as high as 43C, as the country experiences its second heatwave this year.

Warm summer sunshine combined with a hot air front from North Africa have sent temperatures soaring, state meteorological forecasters AEMET said on Sunday, and the heatwave could last until 14 July.

The highest recorded temperature on Sunday was 43C by the Guadalquivir river near Sevilla in southern Spain and in Badajoz, towards the west of the country, forecasters said.

AEMET spokesman Ruben del Campo told Reuters that temperatures could touch 44C in Cordoba or Extremadura in southern Spain.

"They could also reach 42C in parts of (central Spain) like Castille and Leon and Galicia (in central and western Spain) on Tuesday and Wednesday."

Del Campo said there was also a high risk of forest fires during the heatwave.

A firefighter works in front of flames during a wildfire in the Sierra de la Culebra, Zamora, 18 June 2022

Emilio Fraile/AP

In La Rioja, northern Spain, 90 firefighters were battling to bring a blaze under control which started on Saturday night, regional authorities said on Sunday.

In El Ronquillo, near Seville, about 100 people had to be evacuated after a fire closed in on their homes, the Andalusian regional authorities said.

In June, Spaniards weathered the earliest heatwave since 1981, according to AEMET, with temperatures surpassing 40F in parts of central and southern Spain.
Portugal on high alert

Portugal raised its alert level to its third-highest of four levels on Monday, with the government saying thousands of firefighters are on standby but it also urged people to prevent blazes.

Under the state of contingency, which is in place until Friday, the government has banned the public from accessing forests deemed to be at risk and prohibited slash-and-burn land clearances.

Multiple wildfires broke out in Portugal in recent days but, according to authorities, the worst is yet to come as temperatures across most of the country were expected to surpass 40C from Tuesday onwards.

Women carrying drinks walk past a performer in a polar bear costume at Lisbon's Comercio square,, 11 July 2022

AP Photo/Armando Franca

Weather agency IPMA said in some areas, including in Alentejo, a southern region known for its plain pastures, temperatures could reach 46-47C. The hottest temperature on record was 47.3C in 2003.

"This is not a very normal situation," IPMA meteorologist Patrícia Gomes told SIC TV. "It is serious in all aspects -- even for our health... it is not usual to see such long periods with such high temperatures."

Most of Portugal is facing a severe or extreme drought due to a shortage of rain over the winter months, meaning there is a significant amount of dry vegetation to burn.
Italy in state of emergency

Italy found itself in the throes of the worst heatwave of the season, according to domestic meteorologists.

Temperatures started to rise over the weekend and are expected to climb all the way to 40C in the northwest and many other inland parts of the country.

Temperatures in the Po Valley, Tuscany, and Umbria could rise above 38-39°C as early as 15 July and stay at those levels until at least 22 July, ANSA news agency reported.

Smoke billows after a fire broke out at a junkyard, in the south eastern side of Rome, 9 July 2022

AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia

The heatwave, expected to last some 10 days, comes on the back of a string of highly unusual hot and dry periods, forcing the government to declare a state of emergency in five regions after a large portion of the country experienced the worst drought in the past 70 years.

The drought is estimated to have affected about one-third of Italy's agricultural product, and the latest, the fifth heatwave, is considered to be particularly problematic, as overnight temperatures are also expected to reach record highs.

The government has issued a number of recommendations for the coming weeks, including avoiding going outdoors between 11 am and 6 pm, wearing light-coloured clothing and sunscreen, and drinking at least two litres of water a day.
French PM mobilises ministers to deal with heatwave

A new heatwave is settling over France, with peaks of 39C possible from Tuesday in the south of the country.

The intensity and duration of the latest wave of extremely hot weather are still difficult to predict, say experts at Météo France, but temperatures were already above 30C on Monday over much of the country and are expected to reach between 36C and 38C on Tuesday in the south-west and the Rhone valley, with possible peaks of 39C.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has asked all ministers to mobilise to deal with the consequences of the weather, her office announced on Tuesday morning.

"The heat has a very rapid impact on the state of health of the population, particularly the most vulnerable. In this context, all the players in the territories must be mobilised," Matignon said in a statement.

"The government will ensure that the ORSEC heatwave health management system is activated in all the departments on heatwave alert, the statement read.

A man sunbathes in Marseille, 17 June 2022

AP Photo/Daniel Cole

The measure includes all public services, local authorities, and health institutions. The more vulnerable groups such as the elderly and people with disabilities, and people overexposed to the heat, like the homeless are also to be taken into account, Borne's office said.

According to Météo France, the heatwave is expected to last "at least eight to 10 days", with a peak probably between Saturday and Tuesday (19 July).
Britain bakes after being hit by unusually high temperatures

The UK is experiencing a heatwave this week with highs of 33 degrees Celsius on Monday (11 July) afternoon, according to the British Meteorological Office.

Central, southern and eastern England should all experience rising temperatures during the week.

The Met Office and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) have issued a level three heat health alert, on a scale of four, from Monday morning until Friday morning in some English regions.

According to the Met Office forecasting models, temperatures could reach up to 40 degrees this weekend.

If that were to happen, it would break the current British temperature record of 38.7 degrees set in Cambridge in 2019.

A street performer wearing a clown costume buys a bottle of water from an ice cream van on Westminster Bridge in hot weather in London, 16 June 2022

AP Photo/David Cliff

Local and health authorities are advising people to take precautions, such as staying hydrated and staying indoors and checking on the most vulnerable people.

The Met Office has been forecasting these extreme temperatures for the UK since last week.

The high 20s should be the norm for most regions until the weekend when temperatures are expected to rise again to 31 degrees in cities like London and Oxford. But these temperatures are actually common, according to Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern.

"By the weekend temperatures could be exceptional and there's a chance they'll be record-breaking and so that really would make it unusual."

Photos: Portugal battles wildfires amid drought

The wildfires come as Portugal endures a heatwave with temperatures expected up to 43 degrees Celsius.

Portugal's civil protection agency said more than 3,000 firefighters were combatting active fires. [Paulo Cunha/EPA]

Published On 11 Jul 2022

More than 3,000 firefighters and 30 aircraft have been battling wildfires in Portugal that authorities say have injured 29 people, including 12 firefighters and 17 civilians.

The European Union on Sunday activated its firefighting air fleet assistance programme that allows member nations to share resources to help Portugal. Spain, which has also endured wildfires recently, quickly responded by mobilising two firefighting planes to send to its neighbour, according to the EU crisis commissioner, Janez Lenarcic.


The EU says climate change has the continent facing one of its hardest years for natural disasters such as droughts and wildfires.

In June, 96 percent of the southern European country was classified as being in either in “extreme” or “severe” drought.

The fires have caused authorities to increase a state of alert already in place. Portugal’s government declared a state of heightened alert on Saturday that will run through Friday.

The wildfires come as Portugal endures a heatwave with temperatures expected up to 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit). The country has adopted restrictions barring public access to forests deemed to be at special risk, banned the use of farm machinery and outlawed fireworks.

A man pours water onto flames in Canecas, on the outskirts of the capital, Lisbon. Authorities warn that the fire risk will reach a peak in the next few days and a worsening of the situation is expected from July 12. [Mario Cruz/EPA]
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Residents fetch water from a swimming pool to pour onto the flames in Canecas. [Mario Cruz/EPA]

The fires have caused authorities to increase a state of alert already in place. Portugal's government declared a state of heightened alert on Saturday that will run through Friday. [Mario Cruz/EPA]

The wildfires come as Portugal endures a heatwave with temperatures expected up to 43 degrees Celsius (109.4 Fahhrenheit). [Mario Cruz/EPA]

Twelve firefighters and 17 civilians required medical assistance to treat minor injuries caused by blazes. [Mario Cruz/EPA]

'We are facing an almost unprecedented situation in meteorological terms,' Andre Fernandes, the national civil protection commander, said on Saturday. [Mario Cruz/EPA]
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The EU has activated its firefighting air fleet assistance programme that allows member nations to share resources to help Portugal. [Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP]

Portugal has long suffered large, and sometimes tragic, forest fires. In 2017, out-of-control wildfires killed more than 100 people. [Mario Cruz/EPA]

Dramatic pictures show South London train tracks on fire during 30C heatwave

An investigation has been launched into the fire

 
Alicia Curry 11 JUL 2022
Network Rail have launched an investigation into the incident, adding that the fire may have been caused by a ‘stray spark’. (Image: Network Rail)

A train track caught fire on a bridge in Battersea as the capital basked in scorching temperatures on Monday. The incident happened between Wandsworth Road and London Victoria at around 4.30am today (July 11). The fire has since been extinguished, although a walkway was damaged in the process.

The fire, which may have been caused by a stray spark, led to the suspension of services between Victoria and Brixton. At the time, Southeastern Railways said: "A fire next to the track between Wandsworth Road and London Victoria means that all lines to and from the station are currently blocked. Trains are being diverted to run from Cannon Street or Blackfriars."

The fire was out by 6am and all train lines had reopened by 8.45am. In a further update, Southeastern Railways said: "The fire brigade have finished putting out the fire and are currently clearing the line."

The tracks were engulfed in flames (Image: Network Rail)

Network Rail have launched an investigation into the incident, adding that the fire may have been caused by a ‘stray spark’. A spokesperson said: “We were called to a fire on a bridge in Battersea around 4.30am this morning, where a wooden beam was alight. We closed the lines on the bridge while the fire was being tackled by our friends at London Fire Brigade, and it was put out by 6am.

“We were able to reopen two of the three tracks on the bridge by around 6.30am and all three were open by 8.45am, following a thorough inspection of the bridge. We’ll need to do some repair work, notably to a walkway that was damaged in the blaze, and we’re working on a plan for doing that as we speak. The cause of the fire is under investigation.”

Network Rail had also earlier warned that the hot weather could cause lines to "expand and sometimes buckle", causing disruptions to train routes as temperatures soar. London is set for scorching temperatures this week, with the mercury predicted to climb to 36C next weekend.



Victoria station fire live: Updates as lines reopen after fire but more disruption expected

AOC, Lieu to Senate Dems: Say on the record whether Gorsuch and Kavanaugh lied

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
July 12, 2022

Reps. Ted Lieu and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez demanded Monday that Senate Democratic leaders say on the record whether they believe U.S. Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh lied under oath about their views on Roe v. Wade, a 1973 decision that both judges voted to overturn last month.

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Lieu and Ocasio-Cortez noted that neither Gorsuch nor Kavanaugh contended during their Senate confirmation hearings that Roe was "egregiously wrong from the start," a position that both justices assented to last month by joining Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization—a ruling that ended the constitutional right to abortion.

"We cannot have a system where justices lie about their views in order to get confirmed."

"They expressed the exact opposite position," the Democratic lawmakers wrote. "While several justices made misleading statements during their confirmation hearings, two examples are particularly egregious."

Lieu and Ocasio-Cortez went on to cite Gorsuch's under-oath comment in 2017 that Roe "is a precedent of the United States Supreme Court" that "has been reaffirmed."

"A good judge," he added, "will consider it as precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court worthy as treatment of precedent like any other."

Kavanaugh, for his part, similarly told senators in 2018 that "the Supreme Court has recognized the right to abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade case" and has "reaffirmed it many times."

"It is not as if it is just a run-of-the-mill case that was decided and never been reconsidered, but Casey specifically reconsidered it, applied the stare decisis factors, and decided to reaffirm it," Kavanaugh said. "That makes Casey a precedent on precedent."

Senators who voted to confirm both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh—including Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)—have cited such statements as evidence that the judges duped them into believing they viewed Roe as established precedent and would therefore be unwilling to cast it aside as they did on June 24.

In their letter on Monday, Lieu and Ocasio-Cortez argued that "we cannot have a system where justices lie about their views in order to get confirmed," warning that such a system "makes a mockery of the confirmation power, and of the separation of powers."

"We respectfully request the Senate issue a finding—through a resolution or another kind of public statement—on whether these justices lied under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee," added Lieu and Ocasio-Cortez. The New York Democrat has also urged the House to launch impeachment investigations into Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and other right-wing justices.

"We must call out their actions for what they were before the moment passes," Lieu and Ocasio-Cortez wrote Monday, "so that we can prevent such a mendacious denigration of our fundamental rights and the rule of law from ever happening again."

World's Oldest Martian Meteorite Traced to Precise Crater It Came From

BY DARKO MANEVSKI, ZENGER NEWS 

ON 7/12/22 

The world's oldest Martian meteorite has been traced to the precise crater where it originated.

Named Black Beauty, it formed almost 4.5 billion years ago and adds to evidence the Red Planet was once habitable.

The famous space rock found in the western Sahara of Africa formed part of a primordial crust that hosted oceans of water.

Now, an international team has pinpointed its exact home.

The world's oldest Martian meteorite has been traced to the precise crater where it originated. Scientists used a supercomputer to track its creation on the red planet in a province known as Terra Cimmeria-Sirenum, seen circled on the graphic.

STEVE CHATTERLEY, SWNS/ZENGER

They used a supercomputer to track its creation on the red planet in a province known as Terra Cimmeria-Sirenum.

The location in the southern hemisphere of the planet has many gullies that could have been carved by flowing rivers. Black Beauty contains more water than other Martian meteorites.

The crater Black Beauty is from has been named Karratha after a city in the Pilbara area of western Australia renowned for its remarkably preserved rock formations.

The meteorite named "Black Beauty" formed almost 4.5 billion years ago and adds to evidence that Mars was once habitable.

STEVE CHATTERLEY, SWNS/ZENGER

"For the first time, we know the geological context of the only brecciated Martian sample available on Earth, 10 years before the NASA's Mars Sample Return mission is set to send back samples collected by the Perseverance rover currently exploring the Jezero crater," said lead author Dr. Anthony Lagain, of Curtin University in Perth, Australia.

The international team want NASA to prioritize the area around Karratha Crater as a future landing site on Mars.

Perseverance landed on Christmas Day and is currently drilling for potential past signs of life.

"Finding the region where the 'Black Beauty' meteorite originates is critical because it contains the oldest Martian fragments ever found, aged at 4.48 billion years old, and it shows similarities between Mars' very old crust, aged about 4.53 billion years old, and today's Earth continents," Lagain said.

"The region we identify as being the source of this unique Martian meteorite sample constitutes a true window into the earliest environment of the planets, including the Earth, which our planet lost because of plate tectonics and erosion."


The study in the journal Nature Communications offers never-before-known details about the Black Beauty, known scientifically as NWA 7034.
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It is the only brecciated Martian sample on Earth - meaning angular fragments of multiple rocks cemented together. All others contain single types.


A machine learning or AI (artificial intelligence) algorithm identified about 90 million impact craters.

Black Beauty's ejection site was found through analyzing thousands of high-resolution images from a range of Mars missions.

Black Beauty's ejection site on the Red Planet was found through analyzing thousands of high-resolution images from a range of Mars missions. The Karratha crater was formed 5 to 10 billion years ago when an asteroid smashed into Mars. It propelled the chunk of ancient Martian crust into space which eventually crashed into the African desert.

STEVE CHATTERLEY, SWNS/ZENGER

Lagain and colleagues found the Karratha crater was formed 5 to 10 billion years ago when an asteroid smashed into Mars. It propelled the chunk of ancient Martian crust into space which eventually crashed into the African desert.

Remains of Black Beauty were discovered in Western Sahara, Africa, in 2011. It was made when the crusts of both Earth and Mars were still young.

Now that we know the source, researchers can compare the formation of both planets. The technology will identify the source of other Martian meteorites - and billions of impact craters on Mercury and the Moon.

It paves the way to locate the ejection site of other Martian meteorites to assemble the most exhaustive view of the Red Planet's geological history.

More than 300 Martian meteorites have been found on Earth to date.

Co-author Professor Gretchen Benedix, also from Curtin, said: "We are also adapting the algorithm that was used to pinpoint Black Beauty's point of ejection from Mars to unlock other secrets from the Moon and Mercury.

"This will help to unravel their geological history and answer burning questions that will help future investigations of the Solar System such as the Artemis program to send humans on the Moon by the end of the decade or the BepiColombo mission, in orbit around Mercury in 2025."

Black Beauty is less than 2 inches long and weighs about 11 ounces. It is owned by a private collector - and valued at up to $118,900.

Produced in association with SWNS.

Michigan voters say court's abortion ruling will influence their vote, poll finds

Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News on Jul 12, 2022


The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn a half-century of abortion rights is likely to drive more Michigan voters to the polls in November as they consider where candidates stand on the controversial issue and weigh enshrining a right to abortion in the state constitution.

About 58% of Michigan voters said they opposed the June 24 U.S. Supreme Court order overturning Roe v. Wade, with 52% strongly opposing the ruling to move abortion rights decisions back to the states, according to a July 5-8 poll of 600 likely general election voters. The poll, commissioned by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV (Channel 4), has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

About 86% of respondents said a candidate's position on Roe would be important in deciding their vote compared with 13% who said it would not be important, according to the poll. About 57% said a candidate's position on abortion would be very important.

Among likely independent voters — a key voting bloc that traditionally decides Michigan elections — 68% said they oppose the Supreme Court order and 23% said they do not. Women opposed the court's decision 63% to 30%.

The polling results — combined with a record number of more than 750,000 signatures submitted Monday for a petition initiative to enshrine a right to abortion in the state constitution — show building motivation among voters of all stripes on abortion and especially among Democrats and independent voters, said Richard Czuba, a pollster for the Glengariff Group, which conducted the survey.

"These women who disagree with the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, they are going to be marching to the polls en masse. This isn’t 1972 anymore,” said Czuba, referring to the defeated 1972 ballot initiative seeking to make abortion legal in Michigan.

In the past, Republican candidates have addressed issues on the margins of abortion rights, such as limits on late-term abortions or parental consent. But the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization has forced the question of abortion in its totality into every race in Michigan, the pollster said.

"There is not a candidate running for office who will escape having to say where they stand on this issue," Czuba said.

The poll also found widespread voter opposition to the Supreme Court overturning decades of legal precedent in the 1965 landmark ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut that protected a marital couple's right to contraception.

Nearly 90% of respondents surveyed said they support the constitutional right of couples to purchase and use contraception to prevent pregnancies without government restriction. Fewer than 6% of voters said the government should be able to regulate the use of contraceptives.

That question was polled after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion to the decision overturning Roe that the high court "should reconsider" its 57-year-old ruling that nixed state laws regulating the use of birth control. Other justices said the Dobbs decision should be applied to other court precedents.

Abortion a priority issue?

The poll results appear to be in step with the experience of Planned Parenthood of Michigan as it spearheaded a lawsuit that led to a preliminary injunction stopping enforcement of Michigan's abortion ban and submitted with the ACLU of Michigan on Monday a record number of signatures for a wide-ranging ballot initiative seeking to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, said Nicole Wells Stallworth, executive director for Planned Parenthood of Michigan.

The group has seen a groundswell of support since the U.S. Supreme Court opinion was leaked in May and that support, Wells Stallworth said, has come from all corners of the state, from all walks of life.

"Roe was something that we thought was settled and it has been for the last 50 years," she said. "That’s an entire generation where this was a right for all.

"The record signatures we turned in were a record for a reason, and that is because it’s a new time and a new day."

While the high court's June 24 decision appears to be driving voter opinion, it didn't rank at the top of the list of issues with which voters are most concerned in the Detroit News-WDIV poll this month.

When asked about the most important issues facing the U.S., 22% of those surveyed ranked inflation, prices and gas costs as the top issue and nearly 20% named the economy and jobs. Abortion, Roe v. Wade and women's rights ranked third, with 14% of likely general election voters saying it's the nation's most important current issue.

That seems to be in line with the stance of Jennifer Hodge, a 40-year-old Traverse City Republican who participated in the poll. Hodge said she strongly disagreed with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling but said education policy and the content taught in schools ranked higher in her list of priorities.

Those priorities, she said, would cause her to vote for Republicans at the end of the day. But she was still torn on the matter Monday and noted the topic of abortion is discussed frequently at her home since her husband doesn't share her views on the matter.

"I do think that it’s a big deal because I think every day our rights as women are being taken away from us," Hodge said.

Genevieve Marnon, legislative director for Right to Life of Michigan, said abortion is only staying on the radar because of constant press releases from Democratic leaders on the matter and the media's complicity in writing about them. The issues individuals are really concerned about ahead of the November election, she said, are inflation and gas prices.

Marnon argued that if the survey question was phrased differently to reflect that the U.S. Supreme Court sent the abortion question back to states to decide, it's likely more people would be amenable to the decision.

Still, Marnon acknowledged that Right to Life of Michigan is fighting along three fronts this year: Elections, the ballot initiative seeking to make abortion a constitutional right, and two lawsuits seeking to overturn Michigan's abortion ban.

"If we lose any one of those, we’re in trouble," Marnon said. "We’ve been very cognizant of that all along. I don’t think it changes our strategy. It just means we’re all going to have to work hard.”

Supreme disapproval

Voters' disapproval with the June 24 U.S. Supreme Court opinion bled into other dispositions toward the high court, suggesting the justices have a "credibility problem," Czuba said.

Nearly 53% of voters, largely split along party lines, said they disapproved of the job being done by the U.S. Supreme Court, with independent voters disapproving by a margin of 54% to 33%, according to the survey. Another 67% said there should be term or age limits imposed on Supreme Court justices, who get lifetime appointments to the nation's highest court.

Nearly 60% said the U.S. Supreme Court makes decisions based on politics while 26% contended those decisions are rooted in "sound legal reasoning."

But voters were split 46% to 41% respectively on whether the U.S. Supreme Court should make decisions that "reflect what they believe the founders meant when they wrote and passed" the Constitution or "reflect modern society."

Republicans tended to support an interpretation in line with the founders while Democratic voters supported decisions in line with modern society. The divide is "eye-opening" in that it gives individuals a peek into the philosophies driving a wedge in politics, Czuba said.

"That seems to me to go to the very core of what is dividing the country right now," the pollster said. "There is this issue of modernity versus the intent."

____©2022 www.detroitnews.com. Visit at detroitnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Breakenridge: Maybe Kenney was right after all about anti-vaxxers hijacking the UCP

Jason Kenney’s recent comments about anti-vaxxers being the author of his downfall were widely seen as self-serving and unhelpful.


Jason Kenney speaks at an event at Spruce Meadows in Calgary on Wednesday, May 18, 2022.

Rob Breakenridge, for the Calgary Herald - Yesterday 

After all, there were many factors in Kenney’s demise. It’s less damaging to his ego to blame sinister forces conspiring against him than to have to confront his own missteps and shortcomings. But suggesting that the UCP has been hijacked by the anti-vaccine movement is just going to scare voters away. Not a great parting gift from an outgoing leader.

However, six weeks after those comments, they now seem much less paranoid and off-base. In fact, maybe the outgoing premier had a point.

Otherwise, it’s hard to explain the odd and creepy fixation on vaccines that’s emerged in the UCP leadership race. Kenney’s warning about “huge” numbers of memberships purchased by those “motivated primarily by their anger and hostility to vaccines” is not so easily dismissed anymore.

Leadership candidate Danielle Smith, for example, has been especially focused on issues around vaccines and vaccine mandates (to which she has previously drawn parallels to the Nuremberg trials). Last week she vowed that if elected, Alberta would not enforce any federal vaccine mandates.

Of course, there are no longer any federal vaccine mandates, and even if there were, there’s nothing for any province to “enforce.” It’s an empty slogan, but it’s an excuse to keep pushing the issue.

Being against vaccine mandates is not the same thing as being anti-vaccine. Although, it’s fair to say that everyone who is the latter is also the former.


© Azin GhaffariUCP leadership candidate Danielle Smith.

Smith’s bona fides on this issue were established well before the leadership campaign. Last year, for example, she hosted on her internet show a pathologist who has claimed that vaccines are killing people by the thousands and an Ontario doctor who has been disciplined for spreading misinformation about vaccines.

It’s quite a commentary on her own judgment that she would undermine vaccination despite the overwhelming evidence of its success while also touting hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin despite the overwhelming evidence of their ineffectiveness against COVID. Unfortunately, there’s an audience for this.

In fact, there’s apparently enough of a constituency for this type of message that other candidates are trying to compete for their own share.

Enter Brian Jean. So far his campaign hasn’t focused too much on these issues, but they must sense the need for a pivot. In a speech earlier this month in Olds, Jean made the claim , “COVID killed … a lot of people. But, so did the vaccine.”

It is, of course, an outrageous and irresponsible thing to say, especially for someone campaigning to be Alberta’s next premier. That he would feel such a statement could help his campaign is quite alarming, indeed.


© Greg Southam

Brian Jean speaks during his official campaign launch for the UCP leadership on Wednesday, June 15, 2022 in Edmonton.

Even Travis Toews, who seemed to reside on the party’s more sensible side, felt compelled to get in on the act. Last week, Toews posted a tweet that included an unattributed quote to “Ottawa” saying that “two doses are no longer enough.” Toews’ response to that was “enough is enough.”

Again, this seems completely out of step with Toews’ campaign as well as his time as finance minister. That he, too, feels the need to pander only serves to reinforce the notion that the anti-vaccine crowd wields considerable clout in the party.

Let’s hope that’s not the case. But even if this all does play well in the leadership race (which, sadly, it appears to), this is a dead-ender as far as a general election is concerned. Not to mention the very troubling implications for Alberta’s public health approach this fall and winter.


© Provided by Calgary Herald

Travis Toews, candidate for leader of the United Conservative Party held a media availability and news conference at the Westley Hotel in Calgary on Tuesday, June 28, 2022.

And while Kenney’s own political judgment might be forever tainted, he wasn’t wrong when he urged leadership candidates to “focus on the mainstream concerns of ordinary Albertans which revolve around jobs, economy, strong public services and a strong province.”

For whatever reason, some of his would-be successors are taking a much different — and worrying — approach.

“Afternoons with Rob Breakenridge” airs weekdays 12:30-3 p.m. on 770CHQR and 2-3 p.m. on 630CHED rob.breakenridge@corusent.com Twitter: @RobBreakenridge

​​Former Twitter employee: Twitter considered new content restrictions after Trump told Proud Boys to 'stand back and standby'

By Clare Duffy and Holmes Lybrand, CNN Business
 July 12, 2022



New York (CNN Business)A former Twitter employee told the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection that the company considered imposing a stricter content moderation policy following a September 2020 comment by then-President Donald Trump telling the right-wing extremist group the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by."

Trump's comment to the Proud Boys came during a 2020 presidential debate, after Joe Biden called for Trump to condemn the group. "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by," Trump said, adding that, "somebody has to do something about Antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing."

The former Twitter (TWTR) employee, who was on the company's content moderation team through 2020 and 2021, according to the committee, said their "concern was that the former President, for seemingly the first time, was speaking directly to extremist organizations and giving them directives," according to an interview aired during the House committee hearing Tuesday. Twitter did not end up imposing the policy — the details of which were not shared during the hearing — following Trump's comment, the employee said.

In their interview with the committee, the Twitter employee said that while the company was worried about Trump using the platform to talk to people who could incite violence, Twitter "relished in the knowledge that they were also the favorite and most used service of the former President and enjoyed having that sort of power."

Takeaways from the January 6 hearing day 7

"If former President Donald Trump were any other user on Twitter, he would have been permanently suspended a very long time ago," the employee said.

"We are clear-eyed about our role in the broader information ecosystem in regards to the January 6th attack on the US Capitol, and while we continue to examine how we can improve moving forward, the fact remains that we took unprecedented steps and invested significant resources to prepare for and respond to the threats that emerged during the 2020 US election," Twitter Vice President of Public Policy for the Americas Jessica Herrera-Flanigan said in a statement, adding that the company is engaging directly with the House committee.

Herrera-Flanigan added that Twitter "deployed numerous policy and product interventions to protect the public conversation" before and after the 2020 election, and said that on January 6 the company "leveraged the systems we had built leading up to the election to respond to the unprecedented attack in real-time."

Twitter designated the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers as violent extremist groups in July 2018 and September 2020, respectively, and says it has permanently suspended accounts associated with the groups in line with its policy prohibiting violent organizations, according to a company spokesperson. The spokesperson added that many of the groups and individuals responsible for organizing the January 6 insurrection had been suspended from Twitter prior to the attack.

Among its efforts following the 2020 election, Twitter's teams began in December 2020 observing tweets about a large protest in Washington, DC, set for January 6, and started monitoring related content, taking action against election misinformation, references to "last stands" and few direct violent threats, according to the company.

As for Trump, after saying in 2019 it would place a disclaimer on tweets by world leaders that broke its rules but are in the "public interest," Twitter began in May 2020 labeling some tweets by the then-President as "potentially misleading," in an effort to provide context around his remarks. In the wake of the January 6 insurrection, Twitter suspended and then permanently banned Trump's account, citing a "risk of further incitement of violence."

But in their testimony, the Twitter employee suggested the company should have done more ahead of the attack. On the night of January 5, 2021, the employee said they "sent a Slack message to someone that said something along the lines of, 'when people are shooting each other tomorrow, I will try and rest in the knowledge that we tried.' ... I don't know that I slept that night."

The employee continued: "For months, I had been begging and anticipating and attempting to raise the reality that if ... we made no intervention into what I saw occurring, people were going to die. And on January 5, I realized no intervention was coming, even as hard as I had tried to create one or implement one, there was nothing and we were at the whims and the mercy of a violent crowd that was locked and loaded."

 

People were going to die': Former Twitter employee on flagging potential Jan. 6 violence

The House Select Committee investigating January 6 heard testimony from a former Twitter employee who says they begged the social media platform to do something about potential violence connected to former President Dondald Trump's election lies. Twitter spokesperson Jessica Herrera-Flanigan responded, "Leading up to and following the election, we deployed numerous policy and product interventions to protect the public conversation. We declared the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers violent extremist groups in 2018 and 2020 respectively, and permanently suspended accounts associated with the organizations under our violent organizations policy, as well as many of the organizers of the attack for violations of our policies."