World Bank, partners launch tracking system to clean up carbon markets

Story by By Susanna Twidale and Simon Jessop • Yesterday 

FILE PHOTO: Smoke and steam billows from Belchatow Power Station© Thomson Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - The World Bank and partners including Singapore on Wednesday launched a global tracking system to clean up the opaque market for carbon credits and help developing countries raise much-needed climate finance quickly and more cheaply.

Carbon credits - generated through activities such as planting forests or pulling climate-damaging carbon dioxide from the air - are sold to polluters to offset their emissions as a way of helping them reach net-zero emissions to limit global warming.

While governments wrangle over the rules for trading so-called compliance credits, projects are being launched to generate new credits and countries are setting up registers to track them.

Private-sector efforts also have sprung up offering credits for "voluntary" carbon markets, while a range of registries such as Verra and Gold Standard is accrediting and tracking them.

The $2 billion voluntary market has remained small. Critics cite concerns including poor market transparency, a limited supply of credits and questions over the quality of projects.

The new database - called the Climate Action Data Trust (CAD Trust) - aims to address these issues by collating all the project and carbon credit data in one place and making it free to the public.

"The goal for us was to create this global, public data layer which allows people to get a better sense of what's happening across the world, across different jurisdictions, across different programmes," Chandra Shekhar Sinha, an adviser of the Climate Change Group at the World Bank, told Reuters.

"We're able to track it, avoid double-counting (and) figure out what are the innovations that are taking place," and hopefully create a "race to the top" at the same time as lowering the barriers to entry for market participants.

The CAD Trust, co-founded with the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), will provide a platform listing various existing carbon offset registries to make it easier for companies and countries to share data.

Sonam Tashi, chief planning office at Bhutan's Ministry of Economic Affairs, told Reuters the new CAD Trust portal would allow the country to save around $1 million in initial costs for accessing the market, compared with the costs of setting up its own systems.

"It really helps us ... leapfrog the entire learning process. It brings us up to speed with what is required within the carbon markets," he said.

He said Bhutan is in discussions with possible buyers who want details about how carbon credits from its forests are being registered, verified and monitored.

"This is where the World Bank facility will help us," Tashi said. "The CAD Trust meets all the technical requirements of host countries and buyers."

Using the CAD Trust means Bhutan would likely be able to start selling credits in 2023 - a year earlier than if the country had not been able to access the facility, he said.

(Reporting By Susanna Twidale and Simon Jessop; Editing by Katy Daigle and Lisa Shumaker)

MANITOBA

High cost of living drives people to food banks

Yesterday 

In 2022, more Manitobans than ever are reaching out to local food banks for help to get through these tough inflationary times. So far, the donations continue to meet demand.

Niverville Helping Hands

Helping Hands coordinator Larissa Sandulak says that the Niverville-based food bank began receiving a significant increase in food hamper requests long before this year’s Christmas season.

“Since the summer, we’ve had a 20 percent increase in families needing hampers,” says Sandulak. “Every week we have multiple new families getting in touch with us. This significantly increases the amount of food we require to keep up with the need.”

Sandulak is thankful for the various food drives and collection bins around town that have been keeping the pantry stocked. She’s hopeful that December’s collection efforts will be enough to fill the many Christmas hamper requests coming in.

“We will need the community’s continued support in the coming months,” says Sandulak. “Residents can leave donations in our bin at Bigway or make a tax-receipted financial donation on our website if they’d like to help us meet the increased needs.”

Helping Hands is also seeking groups, businesses, or individuals who are willing to sponsor a family in need this Christmas. As of December 1, there were still 22 families awaiting sponsorship.

IDC Food Bank

Suzanne Tetreault is one of three coordinators who manage the Île-des-Chênes food bank out of the rectory next to the IDC Parish. Due to a lack of space for large-scale food and toy storage, the food bank relies on sponsorships of families at Christmas as well.

In Ritchot, local companies have stepped up in a big way this year, reaching out to the food bank to offer sponsorship of multiple families at a time.

“We’ve given out the names of nine families, mostly those with kids,” says Tetreault. “So the [company staff] will be making their Christmas hampers and buying cute gifts for the kids.”

This generosity will mean the food bank can use items coming in from the local food drives to keep their shelves full, as Tetreault doesn’t see the need for food assistance going down anytime soon.

Tetreault and her team also witnessed a surge in hamper requests this past summer. They have been consistently filling 24 biweekly hampers in comparison to the average 17 hampers needed in the first half of 2022.

All recipients of food hampers this December will be receiving an additional gift certificate redeemable at the Red River Co-op.

Harvest Manitoba

Harvest Manitoba, once known as Winnipeg Harvest, is also witnessing a surge in requests for food aid like they’ve never seen before.

“Since last year around this time, the demand for food at Harvest has increased by 41 percent,” says Harvest’s Christa Campbell. “And the number of people with jobs who are accessing the food banks has increased by 50 percent. There is no precedent in our 38-year history for an increase of this size.”

Currently, Harvest Manitoba supplies food supports for around 90,000 Manitobans, almost half of whom are children. That equates to 12 million pounds of food annually.

To pull this off, says Campbell, it requires an ongoing army of faithful and generous supporters. To date, the support being received is still adequate in meeting demand.

Recently, CBC held their annual Make the Season Kind radiothon in support of Harvest. The project has raised $364,000.

Harvest Manitoba also provides food to many smaller food banks around the province when their own resources run low.

A Food Bank User Tells Her Story

Former Niverville resident Donna Swarzynski recalls with poignancy the memory of the first time she needed the help of a food bank to get back on her feet.

It was 2016. Swarzynski and her young daughter were enjoying the feeling of new condo ownership in Niverville and Donna’s career as a car sales consultant was going well.

One day, Swarzynski says, it all came apart when the feelings of deep sadness she’d been experiencing rose to the surface. Her doctor recommended short-term sick leave from her job, but the mental battle persisted and soon she found herself jobless.

Trying to subsist on health insurance payouts alone wasn’t enough and she had nowhere to turn for help. Her parents had died years prior.

She said it was a church acquaintance who suggested that Swarzynski take advantage of the services of Helping Hands. This was a first for her. She’d placed donations in the bin at the local grocery store before. Never had she considered she might someday need it herself.

“I remember pulling up to the [food bank] and feeling hopeless and so alone,” says Swarzynski. “I sat in my car for a few minutes before I had the courage to walk inside and ask for help. I remember walking up to the big brown steel door and starting to cry. I couldn’t believe I was in this position of needing help. I had always worked, since I was 14 years old. Never could I have ever imagined that I would be in need of help one day myself. As I started to walk down the stairs, with my head held down and with tears in my eyes, I looked up to see about six ladies smiling and welcoming me to Helping Hands. One of the ladies immediately came up to me and put her arms around me and comforted me. She was like an angel in disguise, giving me hope in what I felt was a hopeless situation.”

Swarzynski’s challenges didn’t end that night. She eventually found herself in a shelter in Steinbach until affordable housing was found.

Today, she has become a valuable volunteer at Steinbach Community Outreach, an organization whose mandate is to assist people experiencing poverty and lack of housing by providing food, shelter, clothing, and friendship.

One of her greatest joys now is being that angel in disguise for someone who comes to the Outreach for help.

“I feel like I’m able to empathize with people more,” Swarzynski says. “When I tell them that I used to be homeless, people’s eyes just get big and they can’t believe that [someone like me] was once in their shoes.”

It’s especially hard for parents, she adds, when they feel the pressure of needing to provide not just for themselves but the little lives that depend on them. Not to mention the extra dose of humility it takes to tell the children where their food and clothing comes from.

“I think any time of year is a hard time for people to ask for help, whether it’s Christmastime or not,” Swarzynski says. “It’s easy for people to naturally want to help other people, I think, but to ask for help is very difficult.”

For this reason, Swarzynski is glad to tell her story. She’s a survivor and she wants to help break through the shame so that others can become survivors too.

Brenda Sawatzky, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Niverville Citizen

Oldest DNA sheds light on a 2 million-year-old ecosystem that has no modern parallel

Story by Katie Hunt • CNN - Yesterday


A core of ice age sediment from northern Greenland has yielded the world’s oldest sequences of DNA.

The 2 million-year-old DNA samples revealed the now largely lifeless polar region was once home to rich plant and animal life — including elephant-like mammals known as mastodons, reindeer, hares, lemmings, geese, birch trees and poplars, according to new research published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

The mix of temperate and Arctic trees and animals suggested a previously unknown type of ecosystem that has no modern equivalent — one that could act as a genetic road map for how different species might adapt to a warmer climate, the researchers found.

The finding is the work of scientists in Denmark who were able to detect and retrieve environmental DNA — genetic material shed into the environment by all living organisms — in tiny amounts of sediment taken from the København Formation, in the mouth of a fjord in the Arctic Ocean in Greenland’s northernmost point, during a 2006 expedition. (Greenland is an autonomous country within Denmark.)

They then compared the DNA fragments with existing libraries of DNA collected from both extinct and living animals, plants and microorganisms. The genetic material revealed dozens of other plants and creatures that had not been previously detected at the site based on what’s known from fossils and pollen records.

“The first thing that blew our mind when we’re looking at this data is obviously this mastodon and the presence of it that far north, which is quite far north of what we knew as its natural range,” said study coauthor Mikkel Pedersen, an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, at a news conference.

It smashes the previous record for the world’s oldest DNA, set by research published last year on genetic material extracted from the tooth of a mammoth that roamed the Siberian Steppe more than a million years ago, as well as the previous record for DNA from sediment.


An artist's reconstruction of what the Kap København Formation in northern Greenland might have looked like 2 million years ago. - Beth Zaiken

Lush ecosystem

While DNA from animal bones or teeth can shed light on an individual species, environmental DNA enabled scientists to build a picture of a whole ecosystem, said professor Eske Willerslev, a fellow of St John’s College at the University of Cambridge and director of the Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre. In this case, the ecological community researchers reconstructed existed when temperatures would have between 10 to 17 degrees Celsius warmer than Greenland is today.


“Only a few plant and animals fossils have been found in the region. It was super exciting when we recovered the DNA (to see) that very, very different ecosystem. People had known from macrofossils that there had been trees, some kind of forest up there, but the DNA allowed us to identify many more taxa (types of living organisms),” said Willerslev, who led the research.

Researchers were surprised to find that cedars similar to those found in British Columbia today would have once grown in the Arctic alongside species like larch, which now grow in the northernmost reaches of the planet. They found no DNA from carnivores but believe predators — such as bears, wolves or even saber-toothed tigers — must have been present in the ecosystem.

Love Dalen, a professor at the Centre for Palaeogenetics at Stockholm University, who worked on the mammoth tooth DNA research but wasn’t involved in this study, said the groundbreaking finding really “pushed the envelope” for the field of ancient DNA.

“This is a truly amazing paper!” he said via email. “It can tell us about the composition of ecosystems at different points in time, which is really important to understand how past changes in climate affected species-level biodiversity. This is something that animal DNA cannot do.”

“Also, the findings that several temperate species (such as relatives of spruce and mastodon) lived at such high latitudes are exceptionally interesting,” he added.



A close-up of organic material in the coastal deposit at the Kap København formation in northern Greenland. - Professor Svend Funder

Genetic road map for climate change?

Willerslev said the 16-year study was the longest project of its kind he and most of his team of researchers had ever been involved in.

Extracting the fragments of genetic code from the sediment took a great deal of scientific detective work and several painstaking attempts — after the team established for the first time that DNA was hidden in clay and quartz in the sediment and could be detached from it. The fact that the DNA had binded itself to mineral surfaces was likely why it survived for so long, the researchers said.

“We revisited these samples and we failed and we failed. They got the name in the lab the ‘curse of the København Formation,’” Willerslev said.

Further study of environmental DNA from this time period could help scientists understand how various organisms might adapt to climate change.

“It’s a climate that we expect to face on Earth due to global warming and it gives us some idea of how nature will respond to increasing temperatures,” he explained.

“If we manage to read this road map correctly, it really contains the key to how organisms can (adapt) and how can we help organisms adapt to a very fast changing climate.”

COP15
Canada commits $800 million to support Indigenous-led conservation projects


MONTREAL — Ottawa will spend up to $800 million to support four major Indigenous-led conservation projects across the country covering nearly one million square kilometres of land and water, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Wednesday.


Canada commits $800 million to support Indigenous-led conservation projects© Provided by The Canadian Press

Trudeau made the announcement at the Biosphere environment museum in Montreal accompanied by Indigenous leaders and federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault as a UN meeting on global biodiversity, known as COP15, takes place in the city.

Trudeau said the four projects — which will be located in British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, northern Ontario and Nunavut — will be developed in partnership with the communities in question.

"Each of these projects is different, because each of these projects is being designed by communities, for communities," he said.

Chief Jackson Lafferty, of the Tlicho government in the Northwest Territories, said Indigenous groups have long been working to protect their lands and water but have lacked resources and tools to fully do so.

Lafferty, who attended the announcement, called the funding "a significant step forward on a path to reconciliation across Canada."

Among the projects to be funded is a marine conservation and sustainability initiative in the Great Bear Sea along British Columbia's north coast, championed by 17 First Nations in the area.

Another project includes protection for boreal forests, rivers and lands across the Northwest Territories, spearheaded by 30 Indigenous governments.

Related video: Governments gather in Canada to boost biodiversity (The Associated Press)
Duration 1:53
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Expert hopes nations will seize opportunity for biodiversity


UNESCO: Over 18,000 Marine Protected Areas worldwide 'seen as a cornerstone of ocean conservation'


Funds will also go to an Inuit-led project involving waters and land in Nunavut's Qikiqtani region and to a project in western James Bay to protect the world's third largest wetland, led by the Omushkego Cree in Ontario.

Trudeau told reporters that the exact details of the agreements have yet to be worked out — including which portions of the lands will be shielded from resource extraction.

The Indigenous partners, he said, will be able to decide which lands need to be completely protected and where there can be "responsible, targeted development."

"We know we need jobs, we know we need protected areas, we know we need economic development," he said. "And nobody knows that, and the importance of that balance, better than Indigenous communities themselves that have been left out of this equation, not just in Canada but around the world, for too long."

Dallas Smith, president of Nanwakolas Council, said the B.C. funding to help protect the Great Bear Sea would allow Indigenous groups to build on previous agreements to protect the terrestrial lands of Great Bear Rainforest, which were announced about 15 years ago.

"I did media all over the world, and I got home and my elder said, 'Don't sprain your arm patting yourself on the back, because until you do the marine component, it doesn't mean anything,'" he said.

Grand Chief Alison Linklater of the Mushkegowuk Council, which represents seven Cree communities in northern Ontario, said their traditional territory includes ancient peatlands that store "billions of tons" of carbon, as well as wetlands that are home to many migratory birds and fish, and 1,200 kilometres of coastline.

She said caring for the lands is one of her sacred duties as grand chief and one of the main concerns of the people she represents.

"Without our lands and waters we do not exist," she told the news conference.

In a statement, the federal government said the program would employ a "unique funding model" bringing together government, Indigenous Peoples, philanthropic partners and other investors to secure long-term financing for community-led conservation projects.

The government did not specify how much of the funding would be allocated for each project.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 7, 2022.

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press

San Francisco lawmakers vote to ban killer robots in drastic U-turn

Story by Sam Levin in Los Angeles 

San Francisco lawmakers voted to ban police robots from using deadly force on Tuesday, reversing course one week after officials had approved the practice and sparked national outrage.


Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP© Provided by The Guardian

The city’s board of supervisors voted to explicitly prohibit the San Francisco police department (SFPD) from using the 17 robots in its arsenal to kill people. The board, however, also sent the issue back to a committee for further review, which means it could later decide to allow lethal force in some circumstances.

The U-turn came after the majority of members on the 11-person board had voted last week to allow robots to be armed with explosives and use them to kill people “when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available to SFPD”. The board had also added an amendment saying that only high-ranking officers would be allowed to authorize deadly force.

The initial decision to allow “killer robots” was met with widespread criticism from civil rights groups and shone a harsh light on the increasing militarization of US police forces.

Related video: San Francisco bans killer police robots for now (CBS News)
Duration 0:13
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Police in San Francisco granted power to use robots

San Francisco's "killer robots" plan sparks protest

Supervisors and police officials who had originally supported the use of lethal force had said the robots would kill people only in extraordinary cases, such as suicide bombing or active shooter situations.

Hilary Ronen, one of three supervisors who originally voted against deploying killer robots, said at last week’s meeting: “I’m surprised that we’re here in 2022. We have seen a history of these leading to tragedy and destruction all over the world.” After Tuesday’s reversal, she tweeted: “Common sense prevailed.”

The new policy does allow SFPD to use robots for situational awareness, such as sending the equipment into dangerous situations while officers stay behind.

On Monday, supervisor Gordon Mar tweeted that he regretted voting in favor of lethal robots and said he’d be switching his position: “Even with additional guardrails, I’ve grown increasingly uncomfortable with our vote & the precedent it sets for other cities without as strong a commitment to police accountability. I do not think making state violence more remote, distanced, & less human is a step forward.

“I do not think robots with lethal force will make us safer, or prevent or solve crimes,” he added.

San Francisco police have a controversial history of using lethal force against civilians, and one former officer is now facing manslaughter charges for an on-duty killing.

SFPD chief William Scott defended the department’s push to allow robots to kill people, saying in a statement on Wednesday: “We cannot be limited in how we are able to respond if and when the worst-case scenario incident occurs in San Francisco.” He said the department was interested in “having the tools necessary to prevent loss of innocent lives in an active shooter or mass casualty incident”, adding that “part of our job is to prepare for the unthinkable”.

Scott continued, “We want to use our robots to save lives – not take them. To be sure, this is about neutralizing a threat by equipping a robot with a lethal option as a last case scenario, not sending an officer in on a suicide mission.”

The Associated Press contributed reporting

Meta avoids showdown over news content in US after journalism bargaining bill shelved

Story by Brian Fung • 2h ago


A threat by Facebook owner Meta to remove news content from its platforms appears to have been averted — for now — after US lawmakers omitted an antitrust bill it opposed from the text of an annual defense spending bill released late Tuesday evening.

Meta avoids showdown over news content
Duration 4:04
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Meta had warned on Monday that if Congress passed the competition bill as part of the larger legislation — temporarily allowing digital news publishers to negotiate collectively against tech platforms for a larger share of ad revenues — then the social media giant “will be forced to consider removing news from our platform altogether.”

The warning had come amid 11th-hour reports that lawmakers were considering including the measure as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023. Meta declined to comment on Wednesday morning.

Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a key architect of the news media bill, has argued that the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) is necessary to help small, local journalism outlets survive in the face of Google and Facebook’s advertising dominance. It is one of several tech-focused antitrust bills pending in Congress.

In a statement, Klobuchar said: “Continually allowing the big tech companies to dominate policy decisions in Washington is no longer a viable option when it comes to news compensation, consumer and privacy rights, or the online marketplace. We must get this done.”

Danielle Coffey, executive vice president of the News Media Alliance, a supporter of the JCPA, said the bill was removed from the NDAA due to the ordinary give-and-take of high-stakes legislation. Congressional Republicans were strongly opposed to including non-defense legislation in the defense bill, resulting in many “ornaments” being rejected, not just the JCPA, said Coffey.

“At the end of the day, that determines our fate, even though there’s bipartisan support for this legislation,” Coffey said. “I don’t think anyone disagrees with the overall intention, which is to help newsrooms around the country.”

Coffey vowed to keep pushing for the JCPA’s passage, adding that it would be “devastating” if the United States fails to pass the JCPA while other countries including Canada and New Zealand consider similar measures.

Fight for the Future, a digital rights group opposed to the JCPA, applauded the bill’s omission from the NDAA on Wednesday and called on congressional leaders to advance the remaining tech antitrust legislation, which would erect new barriers between tech giants’ various lines of business and force Apple to allow iOS users to download apps from any source.

“There are precious few days left,” said Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future. “It would be an embarrassment, and a travesty, if the Biden administration and Democratic leadership can’t deliver on their promise to rein in the abuses of Big Tech giants.”

The prospect of the JCPA’s imminent passage this week prompted swift pushback from the bill’s opponents, including some that at times have heavily criticized Big Tech.

In a letter Monday to congressional leaders, more than two dozen groups said the JCPA could make mis- and disinformation worse by allowing news websites to sue tech platforms for reducing a story’s reach and intimidating them into not moderating offensive or misleading content.

The letter also said the JCPA could end up disproportionately favoring large media companies over the small, local and independent outlets that have been hit the hardest by falling digital ad revenues.

Among those that signed the letter were the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, The Wikimedia Foundation and Public Knowledge.

The tech industry launched its own offensive to keep the JCPA out of the defense bill, with groups including NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association announcing ad campaigns targeting the measure.

Meta, meanwhile, turned to a familiar playbook in threatening to remove from the platform. When similar legislation was on the verge of passing in Australia last year, the company briefly suspended users’ ability to share and view links to news stories on its platforms. (It later changed course and the legislation passed later that year.)

Opinion: Why Justice Alito's 'jokes' are so stunning

Opinion by Jill Filipovic • Yesterday 

If anything sums up the increasing arrogance and fecklessness of our now far-right Supreme Court, it is this: The same Supreme Court justice who penned the decision stripping a fundamental right from American women spent Monday on the bench making a joke about Black children in KKK outfits.

Santa Claus, the KKK, and other bizarre hypotheticals raised by Supreme Court in LGBTQ rights case
Duration 3:29  View on Watch

Justice Samuel Alito, who signed his name to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and has catapulted millions of American women into a dystopian misogynist hellscape that has nearly cost many of them their lives, apparently decided to play Court Jester by making a series of inappropriate jokes Monday during oral arguments for a case addressing whether a website designer could hypothetically refuse service to gay clients for their weddings. The basics are this: A Colorado graphic designer who wants to create wedding websites says she won’t make those websites for same-sex couples getting married, but she will make them for opposite-sex couples.

Notably, this woman isn’t yet running a wedding website business; she also hasn’t been sued by anyone or been in any way challenged for breaking Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws. Her case is before the Supreme Court anyway. Her lawyers say that requiring her to provide wedding websites to gay couples if she’s providing them to straight ones is tantamount to her publicly endorsing same-sex marriages, which is compelled speech and a violation of her First Amendment rights.

But opponents argue – and I would agree – that the more fundamental question in this case is whether a business open to the general public can refuse service to people in violation of state anti-discrimination laws under the guise of free speech or religious freedom.

It’s an important anti-discrimination case with the potential to shape whether laws barring discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion and sexuality can continue to stand. In the narrowest sense, it could make same-sex marriages second-tier, not entitled to the same privileges and protections as opposite-sex ones.

But Alito treated it as a big gag, and, it seemed, intentionally misunderstanding and misrepresenting the arguments in favor of enforcing anti-discrimination laws. When Justice Ketanji Jackson put forward a relevant hypothetical about a Santa Claus at the mall wanting to create his own vision of a traditional Christmas by only posing with White children, the lawyer for the graphic designer said he wasn’t sure – that would be an “edge case.”

Then Alito added his two cents: What if, he asked, a Black Santa at the mall refused to pose with children wearing KKK outfits?

This question was met with some snickers from the usually-silent audience in the chamber. And Alito seemed pleased with himself.

He shouldn’t have been. The Colorado Attorney General quickly knocked his question down, responding that there are not legal protections for the right to wear a KKK outfit. Justice Kagan added, too, that the Santa’s complaint wasn’t about the hypothetical child’s race, but the hypothetical child’s outfit.

“You do see a lot of Black children in Ku Klux Klan outfits, right? All the time,” Alito countered – again, trying to joke around from the bench. (Does Justice Alito see a lot of White children in Ku Klux Klan outfits?)

It was all incredibly unbecoming of a Supreme Court justice. But Alito’s behavior also points to something more insidious: how lightly and un-seriously he appears to take these proceedings, which could have dire effects on people’s lives across the country. Alito has been on the far-right end of a right-wing court that has radically undermined not just abortion rights, but the right of students to be free from the establishment of religion in public schools, the ability of politicians to regulate guns, and the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to deal with climate change. His opinion in Dobbs is dripping with mockery of previous decisions that enshrined women’s rights into law.

This all comes as the court’s reputation is in the gutter, and as much of the public is questioning its legitimacy: Fewer than half of Americans now say they trust the Supreme Court. Trust in the court dropped precipitously as it swung to the right, overturned Roe and leaned into overt partisanship by issuing a series of conservative rulings. This is a big problem, not just for the court itself, but for American democracy and stability.

This court has made clear that it is more than willing to roll back the rights of women and minority groups, and to give preferential treatment to Christianity and Christians. Case by case, it is building an America in which those who look, love or worship differently from the White Christian population have fewer rights and less of an ability to live freely.

And Alito, arguably the leader of the court’s arch-conservative wing, seems to find it all very amusing.

GANG WARFARE LIKE HAITI

Jamaica declares widespread state of emergency to fight violent crime

Story by Teele Rebane • Yesterday 

A widespread state of emergency has been declared across Jamaica to fight violent crime, the island nation’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness said in a public address Wednesday.

“All Jamaicans should be able to enjoy the Christmas season free from the threat of violence. We have some really serious criminal threats facing us and we have to use all the powers at our disposal,” Holness said.

The State of Emergency (SOE) will be enforced in nine of Jamaica’s 14 parishes, including Clarendon, Saint Catherine, Westmoreland, Hanover and parts of Kingston, Saint Andrew, Saint Ann and Saint James, which encompasses the popular tourist destination Montego Bay.


Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness arrives for the opening session of the 9th Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, California, June 9, 2022. - Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images

The state of emergency allows authorities to arrest people and search buildings without a warrant.

“We have to ensure that our homicide rate and the level of violence that citizens experience on a daily basis does not get to the point where it threatens to collapse the state,” Holness added in his address.

Jamaica, which has one of the highest murder rates in the Carribean (per 100,000 people), previously imposed an SOE over several areas across the Island on November 15, but it ended on November 29 after it failed to pass a senate vote to have it extended.

The newly announced SOE was met with backlash from members of the public as well as opposition politicians.

During the last SOE Jamaica’s Supreme Court ruled that island authorities had violated the rights of a man who was arbitrarily arrested and detained for months without trial.

UN experts warn of negative effects of the Mayan Train in Mexico

United Nations experts have expressed their concern on Wednesday about the Mayan Train macro-project, 1,500 kilometers of railroad tracks in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, due to the collateral effects it may have on the environment, indigenous peoples and the use of natural resources.


Archive - Construction work for the Mayan Train in Mexico -

 EL UNIVERSAL / ZUMA PRESS / CONTACTOPHOTO© Provided by News 360

The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is one of the main supporters of this project, but experts consider that the Government must adopt "additional measures" that will ultimately guarantee respect for human rights and the environment.

They warn of the threats and attacks against those who challenge this initiative, as well as the limited access to independent and impartial justice, in a particularly problematic context because it is a project elevated to the category of national security.

This change of status makes it possible to derogate certain safeguards, but for the experts, it cannot make Mexico avoid its "obligation" to "respect, protect and fulfill the human rights of the people affected by this megaproject and to protect the environment in accordance with international standards".

This decision, they warned, "not only has the potential to allow human rights abuses to go unaddressed, but also undermines the project's purpose of bringing inclusive and sustainable social and economic development to the five Mexican states involved."

The chair of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, Fernanda Hopenhaym, has also expressed her "grave concern" over "the growing involvement of the military in the construction and management of the project," which has been mired in controversy since its conception.

Among the requests made by these rapporteurs is the need for meaningful participation of affected communities, as well as the need for any assessment of the possible effects of the Mayan Train to be prepared and published in a clear manner.

"The free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples must be respected and the actual and potential cumulative impacts of projects must be assessed in a transparent manner, in accordance with international human rights and environmental standards," the signatories have stressed.

MESSAGE TO COMPANIES 

The message of the rapporteurs also extends to the participation of companies, which they urge to take into account all those derived from a project that entails costs of some 20 billion dollars.

They consider that "relevant companies and investors domiciled in Spain, the United States and China cannot turn a blind eye to the serious human rights problems related to the Tren Maya project".

ABOUT TIME!!!

UNGA affirms that Israel must give up its nuclear weapons

Story by By TOVAH LAZAROFF • JPA

Members enter into UNGA 390© (photo credit: reuters)

The United Nations General Assembly affirmed that Israel must give up its nuclear weapons in a 149-6 vote taken on Wednesday.

An earlier version of the text was approved in the UNGA's Fifth Committee in October with a 152-5 vote.

Ukraine had voted against Israel in the Fifth Committee, but this time around was absent from the proceedings after it had been criticized for standing against Israel.

Those who opposed the resolution were: Canada, Israel, Micronesia, Palau and the United States. Liberia, which had been absent from the vote in October, changed its position and opposed the text.

Another 26 countries, including India and many European states, abstained from the resolution which is part of an annual package of over 15 anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian texts the UNGA approves.


Nuclear bomb explosion (credit: PUBLIC DOMAIN)

Israel is the only country subject to that many resolutions.


Does Israel actually have nuclear weapons?

The Jewish state is believed to be the only one of nine countries to possess nuclear weapons and the only one in the region, even though it has never admitted to having such an arsenal.

The resolution presumes that Israel has such weapons. It calls on Israel to "not to develop, produce, test or others acquire nuclear weapons" and to "renounce possession of nuclear weapons."

The resolution also called on Israel to accede to the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons treaty and to place "all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive International Atomic Energy safeguards.

Israel, along with India, Pakistan and South Sudan has not signed the treaty.

The resolution was put forward by the Palestinian Authority and 20 countries, including Israel's allies in the Middle East such as Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.

It was voted on just as Israel's Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan and his Emirati counterpart are leading a joint mission of ambassadors to the UN on a visit to the Jewish state.

The resolution itself was part of a slew of dozens of texts that deal with the issue of nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation, in which Israel at times opposed or abstained.

It was the only country to vote against a resolution calling for the establishment of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, a text that had the support of 175 out of the UN 193 nations.

Two countries obtained from that vote, the United States and Singapore.