Inside the crucible

On the second anniversary of the storming of the US Capitol, a first-hand account recalls the carnage of the day Donald Trump’s supporters tried to seize power

LUKE MOGELSON

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Thousands of people were already moving up the National Mall, advancing over the long lawn slowly but steadily, as if pulled by a current. A few Trump supporters shouted out encouragements, but mostly there was an eerie sense of inexorability mixed with apprehensive hesitation. The mood was quiet and subdued. It reminded me of certain combat situations: the slightly stunned, almost bashful moment when bravado, expectation and fantasy crash against reality.

I’d left the Washington Monument a little before one o’clock. At roughly the same time, two pipe bombs were discovered outside the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters, a few blocks from the Capitol. While searching the area, officers found a pickup truck containing 11 Molotov cocktails, a semi-automatic rifle with a scope, a shotgun, three handguns, several high-capacity magazines, a crossbow, machetes, a Taser, smoke devices, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and a piece of paper with a handwritten quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln: “We the people are the rightful masters of both the Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”

As officers pulled weapons from the truck, and explosive ordnance technicians disabled the pipe bombs, and Ted Cruz and his colleagues settled into the House of Representatives for a historic joint session of Congress, a couple of hundred Proud Boys fell in with a crowd of Trump supporters on the west side of the Capitol. Steel barricades cordoned off the grass. A few police stood nearby. Cell phone footage documents the ensuing confrontation. “Back the fuck off!” one man tells the officers; another removes his denim jacket, turns his red MAGA hat backward, and begins pushing and pulling the barricades as officers on the other side struggle to keep them upright. A female officer falls, hits her head, and suffers a concussion; the Trump supporters plough over her peers.

How is it possible that the perimeter of the US Capitol, on this day, could be so poorly defended and breached with such shocking speed and ease? Where was the militarised and vastly disproportionate force that had been marshalled to “dominate” racial-justice protesters in Minneapolis and Portland? Around 1,200 officers were on duty. After the pipe bombs were discovered, many of them were moved from their posts to help evacuate nearby congressional buildings. During Senate testimony, Steven Sund, who resigned as Capitol Police chief after January 6, would speculate that the purpose of the explosives had been “to draw resources away,” and that it was no accident that the Proud Boys assaulted the perimeter while his officers “were not at full strength.” Sund would add: “I think there was significant coordination with this attack.”

It’s an interesting theory. But like many interesting theories, it distracts from an essential truth: after months of cracking down on antifascists and Black Lives Matter protesters, no federal or local authority viewed the Patriots as dangerous.

On the west side of the Capitol, where presidential inauguration ceremonies had been held since 1981, two broad flights of marble steps descended from an outdoor terrace, on the third floor, to the National Mall. In anticipation of Joe Biden’s swearing-in, huge bleachers had been erected over the steps and a 10,000-square-foot platform constructed between them. After the officers at the outer perimeter were overrun, they retreated to these bleachers, where they formed a back line with colleagues in riot gear and members of the Metropolitan Police Department.

Trump supporters gain access to the US Capitol Building in a bid to overturn the result of the 2020 US presidential election. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty

“We need some reinforcements up here now,” one officer told dispatch, in an audio recording made public during Trump’s impeachment hearing. “They’re starting to pull the gates down. They’re throwing metal poles at us.” Another officer reported “multiple law enforcement injuries.” As I approached the melee, I could hear the dull thud of stun grenades and see their bright flashes. “It’s us versus the cops!” a man in camouflage yelled. Someone let out what sounded like a rebel yell. A makeshift gallows stood near a statue of Ulysses S Grant. People paused to climb the structure’s wooden steps and take pictures of the Capitol framed within an oval noose.

“We the people make the law!” a man shouted. “Trump won!” Beside the gallows, a woman held a sign that read: the storm is here. Paramedics rushed by, pushing a stretcher loaded with equipment. A limping man was helped towards an ambulance. Scattered groups wavered, debating whether to join the confrontation. “We lost the Senate – we need to make a stand now,” a bookish-looking woman in a down coat and glasses appealed to her friend. “This is it.”

The bleachers had been wrapped in ripstop tarpaulin, creating a solid monolith that functioned as a kind of rampart. Trump supporters were using barricades as ladders to scale the balustrades and cutting through the fabric with knives. Officers blocked an opening at the bottom of the bleachers, but they were outnumbered and obviously intimidated as the mob pressed against them, screaming threats and insults, pelting them with cans and bottles. Some people shoved and punched individual officers; others linked arms and rammed their backs into the row of riot shields, eyes squeezed shut against blasts of pepper spray. A few Trump supporters countered with their own chemical agents. A man in a cowboy hat lifted his jacket to reveal a revolver tucked into his waistband. The stone slabs underfoot were smeared with blood. “To protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies – foreign and domestic!” someone yelled.

At 1.49pm, about 10 minutes after I arrived at the base of the Capitol steps, Chief Steven Sund called General William Walker, the commander of the DC National Guard, and asked him for assistance. While each state’s National Guard is controlled by its governor, units in DC answer to the White House. Typically, their activation is approved or denied by the secretary of the army and the secretary of defence, who do so on behalf of the president. Thousands of National Guard troops were mobilised in DC after George Floyd was killed. In December, Mayor Muriel Bowser had submitted a written request to General Walker for support with crowd control on January 6, in downtown areas beyond the Capitol Police’s jurisdiction. Walker had sought approval from the secretary of the army, Ryan McCarthy, who agreed to make the troops available but imposed two caveats: there would be no quick-reaction force, or QRF – in this case, an element of soldiers equipped with riot gear, trained and organised to quell violent unrest – and if at any point Walker wished to move personnel from one location to another, McCarthy must first sign off on it. In a Senate hearing in March, Walker would call both of these requirements “unusual.” He would also describe the “frantic call” that he received on January 6 at 1.49: “Chief Sund, his voice cracking with emotion, indicated that there was a dire emergency on Capitol Hill, and he requested the immediate assistance of as many Guardsmen as I could muster.” After getting off the phone, General Walker immediately contacted the Pentagon and asked for permission to send troops to the riot. He would receive the green light more than three hours later.

While Sund was appealing to Walker, a man using a bullhorn plastered with Infowars stickers made his way along the police line. “You’re a bunch of oath breakers!” he barked. “You’re traitors to the country!” Following behind him were half a dozen Proud Boys. Seconds after they passed me, the mob overwhelmed the officers at the opening in the tarpaulin, and everyone flooded into the understructure of the bleachers.

“Storm!” people yelled as they scrambled through the scaffolding’s metal braces and up the granite steps. Towards the top, a temporary security wall contained three doors, one of which was instantly breached. Dozens of police stood behind the wall, using shields, nightsticks and chemical munitions to prevent the mob from crossing the threshold. Other officers took up positions on the planks above us, firing a steady barrage of pepper balls into the horde. As rounds tinked off metal and a caustic miasma filled the space like the inside of a fumigation tent, more and more Trump supporters crammed into the bleachers, crushing those towards the front against the wall. A few people baulked: “We need to retreat and assault another point!” But most remained resolute.

“Keep pushing!” they screamed. “Shoot the politicians!”

“Push forward! We’re winning!”

Martial bagpipes blared through portable speakers. I was tightly pinned, unable to move. Each time the mob heaved, it lifted me off my feet. One of the people I was pressed against wore a helmet, a gas mask, and an army combat uniform with a patch that read “armor of god”.

I looked behind me. Tens of thousands of Trump supporters filled Pennsylvania Avenue, stretching as far back as I could see. Although the people at the rear had no way of knowing what was happening here, from my vantage point they all bled together, comprising a single entity animated by one purpose. In the video I recorded at this moment, individual features become progressively more distinct as they approach the foreground. A man with meticulously coiffed silver hair, in a military dress coat adorned with medals; a man wearing swimming goggles and a motorcycle helmet printed with a skull and crossbones; a man in wire-frame bifocals, clothed from head to foot in animal pelts; and then, a couple of feet away, leaning all his weight into the bodies directly beside me, a corpulent and goateed man whose black baseball hat is embroidered with the letters “TAT”.

The meaning of the acronym – “Take Action Today” – had changed somewhat dramatically since Jason Howland first started wearing the hat as a marketing gimmick for the Jason Howland Corporation. In one promotional video, three years before he co-founded the American Patriot Council, Howland had averred: “I want to be an example of Christ for people in business, show people that you can become a master in your market space through honesty and integrity and doing the right thing every time.” I now watched that would-be example of Christ drop his head, plant his feet, and add his considerable mass to the human thing churning over the Capitol Police. Balanced on a crossbeam above Howland was his partner, Ryan Kelley, who, in June, had thanked law enforcement “for standing up for our communities” and insisted: “We are here demanding peace.” A cell phone video would capture Kelley yelling at rioters: “This is war, baby!”

While I was under the bleachers, Lauren Boebert, the newly elected congresswoman from Colorado, rose to deliver the first speech of her career in the House of Representatives. The lawmakers had broken off from the joint session after Ted Cruz objected to the votes from Arizona, the third state in the certification process, which proceeds alphabetically. Both chambers were now debating independently, after which they would reunite and continue to Arkansas. “The members who stand here today and accept the results of this concentrated, coordinated, partisan effort by Democrats, where every fraudulent vote cancels out the vote of an honest American, has sided with the extremist left,” Boebert warned her fellow Republicans. But she also had a message for Nancy Pelosi: “Madam Speaker, I have constituents outside this building right now.”

It was dark and lights were glowing in the windows of the rotunda when, at 5.40pm, three hours and 19 minutes after the Capitol Police requested their assistance, 154 National Guard soldiers arrived. By then, with the help of officers from Maryland and Virginia, the building had been secured. I linked up with the photographers Balazs Gardi and Victor Blue. Balazs and I had walked together up the National Mall from the Washington Monument but were separated in the chaos under the bleachers. He had entered the Capitol on the same level as I but ended up in a space beneath the rotunda known as the Crypt. Victor had gone to the Capitol earlier that morning. He had witnessed the Proud Boys overpower the officers on the outer perimeter, and had been with the mob that tried to break into the Speaker’s Lobby. While I was following the crowd into the Senate chamber, Victor was taking pictures of Ashli Babbitt as she died.

Four years earlier, when Trump defeated Clinton, Victor and I had been in Mosul, where the immediacy of the civil war raging around us seemed to dwarf the significance of the American election. That felt like a long time ago now.

Protester Richard Barnett sits inside the office of US speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on January 6, 2021. Barnett’s trial begins on January 9. Photo: Saul Loeb/Getty

Mayor Bowser had imposed a curfew, and as the three of us headed back towards our hotel, downtown DC was quiet. Scattered bands of Trump supporters roamed the streets. We were walking up the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, talking about where we had been and what we had seen, when a young man ahead of us stopped and turned around. I think we all expected some kind of confrontation. The man, however, only wanted to share something with us. “Check this out,” he said excitedly, holding forth a black cube with a plastic lens. Balazs, Victor, and I leaned over to inspect the object. It appeared to be a body camera.

“I took it off a cop,” the man said.

We stood there mutely staring at the thing. I was aware that I should be asking questions. I knew the questions that I was supposed to ask. Who was he? Where, when, and how had he done it? Why? But I did not want to hear his answers. I didn’t care. After a while, our failure to congratulate the man seemed to make him regret showing us his prize. He shoved it back in his coat pocket. A cold wind was gusting down the avenue. The man shrugged and continued on his way. We watched him disappear into the empty city.

Abridged from The Storm is Here: America on the Brink by Luke Mogelson, published by Riverrun.

In Turkey, a festival revives a jewel of the Sephardic world and aims to break stereotypes

Izmir, a hub of Sephardic history, is drawing tourists with a synagogue restoration project


Restorations of the the Etz Hayyim Synagogue revealed a Hebrew inscription next the Torah ark which reads “Makom Hashushvinin,” meaning “place of the groomsman.” Whether the specific area was used for weddings is unclear. (David I. Klein)


By David I. Klein

FORWARD

January 4, 2023

IZMIR, Turkey (JTA) — Prague has the dubious honor of being chosen by Adolf Hitler to be a record of what he hoped would be the vanquished Jews of Europe. The Nazis left many of the city’s synagogues and Jewish sites relatively intact, intending to showcase them as the remnants of an extinct culture.

That has made Prague a popular tourist destination for both Jewish travelers and others interested in Jewish history since the fall of the Iron Curtain: the city provides an uncommon look into the pre-war infrastructure of Ashkenazi Europe.

Could Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city, become a Sephardic Prague, in terms of history and tourism? That’s the goal for Nesim Bencoya, director of the Izmir Jewish Heritage project.

The city, once known in Greek as Smyrna, has had a Jewish presence since antiquity, with early church documents mentioning Jews as far back as the second century AD. Like elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, though, its community grew exponentially with the influx of Sephardic Jews who came after their expulsion from Spain.

At its peak, the city was home to around 30,000 Jews and was the hometown of Jewish artists, writers and rabbis — from the esteemed Pallache and Algazii rabbinical families, to the musician Dario Marino, to the famously false messiah, Shabbetai Zevi, whose childhood home still stands in Izmir today.


Today, fewer than 1,300 remain. The establishment of the state of Israel, coupled with a century of economic and political upheaval, led to the immigration of the majority of Turkish Jewry.

“From the 17th century, Izmir was a center for Sephardic Jewry,” Bencoya told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We can’t recreate that, but we cannot forget that either.”

Izmir is located on Turkey’s Aegean coast. (David I. Klein) 

Celebrating in the former Jewish quarter

Bencoya, who is in his late 60s, was born in Izmir but spent most of his adult life in Israel, where he led the Haifa Cinematheque, but he returned to Izmir 13 years ago to helm the heritage project, which has worked to highlight the the culture and history of Izmir’s Jewish community.

Over nine days in December that included the week of Hanukkah, thousands attended the annual Sephardic culture festival that he has organized since 2018. The festival included concerts of Jewish and Ladino music, traditional food tastings, lectures on Izmir’s Jewish community, and — since it coincided with Hanukkah and also a Shabbat — both a menorah lighting ceremony and havdalah ceremony were conducted with explanations from Izmir’s leading cantor, Nesim Beruchiel.

This year’s festival marked a turning point: it was the first in which organizers were able to show off several of the centuries-old synagogues that the project — with funding from the European Union and the local municipality — has been restoring.

The synagogues, most of which are clustered around a street still called Havra Sokak (havra being the Turkish spelling of the Hebrew word chevra, or congregation) represent a unique piece of cultural heritage.

 

Nesim Bencoya speaks from his office next to the restored Sinyora Synagogue in Izmir. 

(David I. Klein) 

Once upon a time, the street was the heart of the Jewish quarter or “Juderia,” but today it is right in the middle of Izmir’s Kemeralti Bazaar, a bustling market district stretching over 150 acres where almost anything can be bought and sold. On Havra Sokak, the merchants hock fresh fruits, and hopefully fresher fish. One street to the south one can find all manner of leather goods; one to the north has markets for gold, silver and other precious metals; one to the west has coffee shops. In between them all are other shops selling everything from crafts to tchotchkes to kitchenware to lingerie.

Several mosques and a handful of churches dot the area, but the synagogues revive a unique character of the district that had been all but lost.

“The synagogues here were built under the light of Spain. But in Spain today, there are only two major historic synagogues, Toledo and Cordoba, and they are big ones. You don’t have smaller ones. Here we have six on one block, built with the memory of what was there by those who left Spain,” Bencoya said.

Those synagogues have been home to major events in Jewish history — such as when Shabbetei Zvi broke into Izmir’s Portuguese Synagogue one Sabbath morning, drove out his opponents and declared himself the messiah (he cultivated a large following but was later imprisoned and forced to convert to Islam). The synagogue, known in Turkish as Portekez, was among those restored by the project.

Today, only two of Izmir’s synagogues are in regular use by its Jewish community, but the others that were restored are now available as exhibition and event spaces.
Educating non-Jews

Hosting the festival within Izmir’s unique synagogues has an additional purpose, since the overwhelming majority of the attendees were not Jewish.

“Most of the people who come to the festival have never been to a synagogue, maybe a small percentage of them have met a Jew once in their lives,” Bencoya said.

That’s particularly important in a country where antisemitic beliefs are far from uncommon. In a 2015 study by the Anti-Defamation League, 71% of respondents from Turkey believe in some antisemitic stereotypes.

The festival included concerts of Jewish and Ladino music, traditional food tastings and lectures on Izmir’s Jewish community.(David I. Klein) 

“This festival is not for Jewish people to know us, but for non-Jews,” Bencoya said. Now, “Hundreds of Turkish Muslim people have come to see us, to listen to our holidays and taste what we do.”

Kayra Ergen, a native of Izmir who attended a Ladino concert and menorah lighting event at the end of the festival, told JTA that until a year ago, he had no idea how Jewish Izmir once was.

“I know that Anatolia is a multicultural land, and also Turkey is, but this religion, by which I mean Jewish people, left this place a long time ago because of many bad events. But it’s good to remember these people, and their roots in Izmir,” Ergen said. “This is so sad and lame to say out loud, but I didn’t know about this — that only 70 years ago, 60% of this area here in Konak [the district around Kemeralti] was Jewish. Today I believe only 1,300 remain. This is not good. But we must do whatever we can and this festival is a good example of showing the love between cultures.”

“I think it’s good that we’re respecting each other in here,” said Zeynep Uslu, another native of Izmir. “A lot of different cultures and a lot of different people. It’s good that we’re together here celebrating something so special.”

Izmir’s history as a home for minorities has not been all rosy. At the end of the Ottoman period, the city was around half Greek, a tenth Jewish and a tenth Armenian, while the remainder were Turkish Muslims and an assortment of foreigners. In the Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922 — remembered in Turkey as the Turkish War of Independence — the Greek and Armenian quarters of Izmir were burned to the ground after the Turkish army retook the city from the Greek forces, killing tens of thousands. A mass exodus of the survivors followed, but the Jewish and Muslim portions of the city were largely unharmed.

Izmir is not the only city in Turkey which has seen its synagogues restored in recent years. Notable projects are being completed in Edirne, a city on the Turkish western border near Bulgaria, and Kilis, on its southeastern border near Syria. Unlike Izmir, though, no Jews remain in either of those cities today, and many have accused the project of being a tool for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government to assuage accusations of antisemitism, without actually dealing with living Jews.
Losing Ladino and a ‘quiet’ mindset

Bencoya lamented that he is among the last generation for whom Ladino — the Judeo-Spanish language traditionally spoken by Sephardic Jews, but only spoken by tens of thousands today — was at least a part of his childhood.

“When you lose language, it’s not only technical, it’s not only vocabulary, it’s a whole world and a way of thinking,” Bencoya said.

The project is challenging a local Jewish mentality as well. Minority groups in Izmir, especially Jews, “have for a long time preferred not to be seen, not to be felt,” according to Bencoya.

That mindset has been codified in the Turkish Jewish community’s collective psyche in the form of a Ladino word, “kayedes,” which means something along the lines of “shhh,” “be quiet,” or “keep your head down.”

“This is the exact opposite that I want to do with this festival — to be felt, to raise awareness of my being,” Bencoya said.

 

The Bikur Holim Synagogue is one of the few still functioning in Izmir.

 (David I. Klein) 

One way of doing that, he added, was having the festival refer to the community’s identity “as Yahudi and not Musevi!” Both are Turkish words that refer to Jews: the former having the same root as the English word Jew — the Hebrew word Yehuda or Judea — while the latter means “follower of Moses.”

“Yahudi, Musevi, Ibrani [meaning Hebrew, in Turkish] — they all mean the same thing, but in Turkey, they say Musevi because it sounds nicer,” Bencoya said. “To Yahudi there are a lot of negative superlatives — dirty Yahudi, filthy Yahudi, and this and that. So I insist on saying that I am Yahudi, because people have a lot of pre-judgements about the name Yahudi. So if you have prejudgements about me, let’s open them and talk about them.”

“I am not so romantic that I can eliminate all antisemitism, but if I can eliminate some of the prejudgements, then I can live a little more at peace,” he added.

So far, he feels the festival is a successful first step.

“The non-Jewish community of Izmir is fascinated,” Bencoya said. “If you look on Facebook and Instagram, they are talking about it, they are fighting over tickets, which sell out almost immediately.”

Now, he is only wondering how next year he will be able to fit more people into the small and aged synagogues.

“For Turkey, [the festival] is very important because Turkey can be among the enlightened nations of the world, only by being aware of the differences between groups of people, such as Jews, Christians, others, and Muslims,” he said.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

It’s time to put youth at the top of the climate agenda

Education is integral to involve more young people to design a climate resilient future

NAWAL

AL-HOSANY

Climate change activists at Extinction Rebellion protests on a beach in Rio de Janeiro. Reuters

I was recently asked to write a foreword to a popular children’s book that brings the issues of climate change, energy and resource preservation to primary school learners. For me, engaging young people on the topics of climate, sustainability and the environment is crucial. So, of course, I gladly accepted the invitation.

As I was considering what to write, and importantly, how to write, about the importance of renewable energy in a way that seven-12-year-olds would understand, it occurred to me that this thought process has been too far away from the mainstream thinking around the energy transition and climate dialogues.

How often have we considered climate action through the lens of the seven-year-old who might be studying for a Stem degree in 10 years? How frequently have Cop agendas been designed to include the 15-year-olds who can see the world without the red tape that too often prevents progress? How many policies have been designed with inputs from the undergraduate or post-graduate students who have dedicated their formative years to learning from the most recent academic research into the fields of energy, climate and sustainability?

A child sits by his home at the Chebayesh marsh, Dhi Qar province, in Iraq, on August 15, 2021. Reuters

The answer, whichever way you look at it, is: not enough.

More than three decades of high-level global climate meetings have pushed the youth perspective to the margins. And yet, emissions have not reduced, they have increased. The number of people displaced by extreme weather event has not reduced, it has increased. The urgency for climate action has not abated, it’s exacerbated.

It’s time that changed. It’s time that we found new ways to harness the innate innovative mindset of our youth and engaged them in the decisions that will ultimately shape the world they inherit.

Climate action is clearly at the top of the youth agenda. It’s time that youth were at the top of the climate agenda

Today, almost one third of the global population is below the age of 20. More specifically, there are 1.2 billion people between 15-24 – the age demographic that the UN defines as “youth” – which alone represents 16 per cent of the total population. That such a large percentage of people have, until recently, not had a say on the decisions and policies being made to protect the planet they will inherit is both astonishing and myopic.

Finding a balance is the key. We should always be open to every perspective. We miss out on the value that people can offer when we narrow our expectations of where it can come from. We should be as open to the dynamism, optimism and exuberance of youth, as we should be to the pragmatism and practicalities of experienced professionals.

Britain's Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, plants trees alongside two school children as he tours Abu Dhabi's wetlands at the Jubail Mangrove Park during an official visit to the UAE on February 10, 2022. PA Wire

Young people today are more engaged on climate change that at any time previously. According to UN research, people between the ages of 18 and 35 consider climate change to be a global emergency. This figure increases to 69 per cent among under 18-year-olds.

Climate action is clearly at the top of the youth agenda. It’s time that youth were at the top of the climate agenda.

With the 13th International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) General Assembly, Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week and Cop28 all set to take place in the UAE in 2023, we have an opportunity to elevate the role of youth and set the precedent for a future of inclusive climate and energy dialogues.

In this sense, the UAE and Irena will be building on decades of groundwork that has gone into engaging and empowering global, regional and local youth, and setting out before them a pathway to move from youth leaders to climate leaders and decision makers.

On January 13, ahead of the Irena General Assembly on the following two days, the Fourth Irena Youth Forum will once again bring the new generation of decision makers to the table, strengthen youth networks and connect them with global thought leaders, government representatives, and Irena experts.

The Forum will create a space for young people to contribute to the Agency’s mission of accelerating renewable energy deployment to achieve climate objectives and advance the sustainable development agenda.

Directly following the Irena General Assembly, the Youth 4 Sustainability forum will see a higher participation of young people than ever with 20 youth energy leaders participating in the event, in addition to 40 young people engaged in the Zayed Sustainability Prize heading to Abu Dhabi for the Sustainability Week.

What was it like to be a young climate activist at Cop27?

Together, the Irena Youth Forum and the Prize are designed to showcase the novel and innovative ways young people approach our biggest climate and energy challenges, which we would not have access to if we hadn’t proactively worked to give them a seat at the table.

Education is integral to the process of involving more young people in designing more holistic, inclusive solutions for a climate resilient future.

The most recent example of our collaborative action on youth engagement was the launch of the Energy Transition Education Network that was announced at Cop27 in Sharm El Sheikh.

The Network aims to develop a sprawling network of primary, high school and higher education teachers, who are plugged into the latest academic and pedagogical knowledge, that they can then adapt and transfer to their students in classrooms across the world, to create novel curriculum-relevant resources that bring the energy transition to life in an accessible and engaging way.

To complete this youth-to-decision maker pathway, we must create meaningful jobs and careers. In 2021, worldwide employment in the renewable energy sector alone reached 12.7 million – up from 12 million the year before.

And according to Irena’s 1.5°C pathway, outlined it its World Energy Transitions Outlook, 122 million energy sector jobs will be available globally by 2050. Filling those jobs with the right, qualified and adaptable talent will be crucial to decarbonising our planet and building a sustainable future.

MORE FROM NAWAL AL HOSANY

Paving the road to Cop28

The Irena Student Leaders Programme offers one way that we can ready this workforce of the future. Designed to respond to the growing youth interest in renewables, the Programme prepares them to become the next generation of energy professionals through extra-curricular courses, seminars and assignments – which range from the technologies needed to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy projects to the analysis models that Irena uses to monitor renewable energy progress.

As we convene and connect with the international community in the year ahead, with the UAE playing a central global role in driving climate action and the energy transition, we must keep our youth at the top of our mind.

We must also remember that it is not our planet that won’t survive if climate change continues unchecked. It is us. Our sons and daughters. Grandsons and granddaughters. Nieces and nephews. People. Humanity. It’s us that won’t survive.

How do we tell future generations this story? If this is not the story we want to tell, how do we change the ending?

We begin by including, involving and fully integrating those who will be most affected by the consequences: our youth. It is our duty to pass the pen to them to continue the story of humanity, with a narrative that they get to write, with every possible course of action still available to them.

Published: January 05, 2023

Nawal Al-Hosany

Dr Nawal Al-Hosany is permanent representative of the UAE to the International Renewable Energy Agency

TWO GLOBAL SPREADERS

COVID-19: Nigeria dreads another wave, monitors rising cases of new variants in China, US



COVID-19 Alert

The NCDC reiterated that the most important action for Nigerians is to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

ByMariam Ileyemi
January 5, 2023

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has said its COVID-19 Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) is monitoring COVID-19 trends in countries with a “high volume of traffic to and from Nigeria.”

The NCDC noted in a statement Wednesday that the countries which include China, the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom (UK), South Africa and India, are currently battling with the rise in Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant and its lineages, dominating recorded infections worldwide.

It added that its EOC is also monitoring the resurgence of COVID-19 in China following the relaxation of the country’s zero-COVID policy, and the increased COVID-19 cases, admissions, and deaths in the UK and the USA over the past weeks driven by the usual winter exacerbations of respiratory illnesses.

The disease control centre also raised concern that the new Omicron sub-lineages XBB.1.5 in the UK and the US, and BF.7 in China “may spread faster than older Omicron sub-lineages (e.g., XBB or BQ) and that they are responsible in part for the current increases in cases, hospitalisations, and deaths”.
New variants not in Nigeria

While the NCDC confirmed that the sub-lineages that are partly responsible for the current increase in COVID-19 cases in otherwise countries (XBB.1.5 and BF.7) have not yet been detected in Nigeria, it noted that “the B.5.2.1 has been seen since July 2022 and the others are most likely here already”.

It added that “the BF.7 and XBB have also been circulating in South Africa since October 2022 but without any accompanying increase in cases, severe illness, or deaths.”

NCDC further noted that since the detection of the Omicron variant in December 2021, its sub-lineage (BQ.1/BQ.1.1) has been dominant in Nigeria, but “none of these dominant sub-lineages in Nigeria that are also circulating elsewhere has been associated with any increases in case numbers, admissions, or deaths locally.”
Statistics

As of 5 January, data from NCDC shows that a total of 266,450 infections and 3,155 deaths have been recorded across Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, while 661,019,881 infections and 6,692,005 deaths have been confirmed globally according to WHO.
Unvaccinated at risk

On vaccination, the NCDC reiterated that the most important action for Nigerians is to get vaccinated against COVID-19, “as the vaccine is the most important intervention for preventing severe disease, hospitalisation, and death.”

It added that “regardless of COVID-19 variants in different parts of the world, severe disease, admissions and deaths disproportionately affect the unvaccinated and those with established risk factors”, like older people, people with co-morbidities and the immunocompromised.

READ ALSO: SPECIAL REPORT: How religion spurred high COVID-19 vaccination in Kano (1)

The disease control centre said that though the COVID-19 protocols and restrictions may have been eased, people at high risk should continue to adhere to the recommended nonpharmaceutical intervention (NPIs) such as the use of face masks, good hand and respiratory hygiene and avoidance of crowded spaces.

It also established that the Omicron sub-lineages that were associated with increases in cases, admissions and deaths elsewhere did not cause the same in Nigeria because the population is significantly protected from a combination of natural immunity and vaccination with vaccines with a high impact on hospitalisation, and deaths.

UK

EXCLUSIVE:
Missing health chief Steve Barclay spotted as pressure mounts over NHS crisis

Health Secretary Steve Barclay has been accused of being all-but absent during recent weeks, as NHS staff took historic industrial action and ambulances queue up outside hospitals

Health Secretary Steve Barclay has been under fire over the crisis gripping the NHS 

 Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror


Matthew Young

News Reporter
Lizzy Buchan

Deputy Online Political Editor

5 Jan 2023

Missing Health Secretary Steve Barclay was this morning pictured bright and early heading into the Department of Health.

He has been all-but absent during recent weeks, as NHS staff took historic industrial action and as ambulances queue up outside hospitals.


After PM Rishi Sunak yesterday promised action on NHS waiting lists, Mr Barclay was this morning whisked into the back entrance of the Department of Health in his chauffeur-driven, ministerial car shortly before 7am.

Both Mr Sunak and his health chief had been accused of going missing in action amid the crisis gripping the NHS over the festive period.

Mr Barclay finally broke cover on Tuesday and attempted to shift blame for the escalating pressures on the health service onto Covid, Strep A and flu.

Sunak ‘detached from reality’ as PM fails to offer hope for crumbling NHS in speech

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Steve Barclay arrives for work at the Department of Health today (Image: Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)

The Health Secretary admitted the disastrous situation in the health service was not acceptable.

But he said "a combination of very high rates of flu, persistent and high levels of COVID, continuing concerns particularly among many parents around Strep A" were at the root of the "massive pressures" faced by the NHS over Christmas.

He told broadcasters: "There's £500 million of investment this year going into tackling the pressure in terms of social care. So we're putting more funding in. We've got more clinicians, we've got more staff working in the NHS.


"Of course there's a range of factors that we need to do. There's been particular pressures over Christmas because we've had a surge in flu cases, Covid cases and also a lot of concern around Strep A."

But he failed to address the pleas from medics for more support, who warn that a decade of Tory cuts have left the NHS on the brink of collapse.

FROM THE HORSES MOUTH

How the Catholic Church influenced the pro-life movement

END THEIR CHARITABLE STATUS IN US & CANADA

Experts see Dobbs decision as an opportunity to call on pro-life movement to embrace Church's teachings on human life

Abortion rights activists protest as guests arrive for the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life Americas annual gala and fundraising dinner at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, on Sept. 13, 2022. (Photo: AFP)

By Kate Scanlon, OSV News
Published: January 04, 2023 04:58 AM GMT

While the nation's legal landscape regarding abortion has changed after the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling in June 2022, the church's pro-life advocacy has entered a new phase. But this is nothing new for the church and members of the faithful who have long been key players in efforts to oppose expanded abortion laws.

In fact, early efforts to oppose broadening the practice of abortion in the United States were largely driven by Catholics.

Historian Daniel K. Williams, author of "Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-life Movement before Roe v. Wade," told OSV News in an interview that when abortion liberalization laws were proposed in the mid-1960s, "the overwhelming majority of the people speaking out against those bills were Catholic."

"Even in the early 1970s, the movement was probably more than 80% Catholic," Williams said.

Most of the pro-life organizations that formed in the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s were in northern states in traditionally Catholic areas, "which were also strongly Democratic constituencies," he said.

"Many of the pro-life activists approached the subject of abortion from the standpoint of a broader Catholic social ethic that viewed prohibitions on abortion as one piece of a larger concern for the poor and marginalized, one piece of a larger campaign for a society that would ensure human flourishing," he said.

Those activists were dismayed that, in their view, a right to life was being challenged by these proposals, he said. They campaigned against them with a message of a package of rights closely tied to the philosophies behind the New Deal and the Great Society. These same activists were also often staunch opponents of the Vietnam War.

As early as the late 1940s, Williams said, when the nation's U.S. Catholic bishops created a model list of human rights, "they started with the right to life, but then they also included the right to an education, the right to protection of labor unions, the right to a living wage."

When the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, abortion opponents included Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts "and even some liberals who were not Catholic, like Jesse Jackson, and many African Americans were strongly opposed to abortion in the 1970s," Williams said.

At the same time, many prominent Republicans, such as first lady Betty Ford and the future Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, were supportive of legalized abortion.

After Roe, however, the Democratic Party was largely split on the issue of abortion due to its pro-choice feminist and pro-life Catholic factions, and it avoided taking a firm position on the ruling. This paved the way for abortion opponents to form an alliance with Republicans instead.

In the 1980s, Williams said, the Republican Party and pro-life activists embraced a judicial strategy to change or reverse Roe "not through a constitutional amendment, but through the Supreme Court, by conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, that really did have an effect and brought the pro-life movement into closer alliance with the Republican Party building on that foundation that was already laid."

By the late 1980s and 1990s, Williams said, a "significant difference between the two parties in terms of their congressional delegations, regarding the abortion issue" began to emerge in ways they had not before.

Over the course of the 1980s, millions of socially conservative evangelicals came eventually to join Catholics in opposition to abortion.

"They embraced a lot of the traditional pro-life thinking but processed that through the lens of a different set of political commitments," Williams said, specifically "a desire to see secularization and the sexual revolution reversed in society" as opposed to Catholics' broader social justice ethic.

Mary FioRito, a Catholic commentator and Cardinal Francis George Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., told OSV News that abortion is not a Catholic issue but a human rights issue. She said the Catholic Church and its members were poised to take the issue on as a part of the church's social justice work. Meanwhile, the position was guided by the church's intellectual tradition, which "equipped it with really good lawyers and other advocates, scientists, doctors who could help argue the pro-life case in the public square," she said.

FioRito pointed to the late Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey, a Catholic Democrat, who signed a state law requiring parental consent and a 24-hour waiting period for an abortion in his first term. Planned Parenthood challenged that law, leading to the Supreme Court case Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. The Supreme Court upheld legal abortion as part of a constitutional right to privacy in a 1992 ruling. Along with Roe v. Wade, that ruling was also struck down with the court's Dobbs ruling.

Olivia Gans Turner, a Catholic and president of the Virginia Society for Human Life, a state affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee, told OSV News that her group is non-sectarian, and is "focused on the scientific reality that everybody can be pro-life because everybody's life starts the same way at the moment of fertilization."

But Catholic pro-life efforts, she said, are "companionable" to such a focus, because both recognize abortion is an act of violence against a child that can also lead to psychological damage to mothers and fathers.

One of the foremost examples of this, she explained, was Project Rachel founder Vicki Thorn, who passed away in April 2022. Thorn was an influential part of the Catholic Church's pro-life advocacy by ministering to women who had undergone abortions.

FioRito agreed and said Thorn demonstrated "tremendous compassion," and her efforts with Project Rachel helped "sensitize people not to be judgmental about women who've had abortions." Thorn's witness helped the pro-life movement recognize that many women experience various types of coercion prior to an abortion, whether from a partner or even from their parents or employers.

Experts see the Dobbs decision as an opportunity for Catholic scholars and leaders to call on the pro-life movement to embrace the totality of the Church's teachings on human life -- not solely opposition to abortion -- in its efforts to build a culture of life.

O. Carter Snead, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and Professor of Law and concurrent professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, told OSV News partisanship surrounding abortion as a political issue has led to criticism of the church or the U.S. bishops as singularly focused on abortion.

"It has always been the case that the Catholic Church has been a strong witness in favor of life," Snead said, noting that many bishops and Catholics do see abortion as a "unique problem that does require a sustained response," but the church never abandoned its other social welfare efforts. He said the U.S. bishops are "doing work on immigration, poverty, health care, war, racism, and all these other very deep and important questions."

In fact, the Catholic message coming out of the U.S. bishops' fall assembly contained a warning that without "radical solidarity" for both mothers and babies in the wake of the Dobbs ruling, the church and pro-life movement could face a situation where they won the fight to overturn Roe, only to lose the overall struggle for a culture of life.

In his Nov. 15 address to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, conference vice president Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore said the Church “cannot remain silent about abortion” but it cannot afford to ignore “the deep social problems that push women toward having an abortion.”

“Our commitment to help mothers bring their babies to term," he said, "is wholly compatible with our commitment to work for a society in which both mother and child can flourish."