Feds looking into Norfolk Southern's handling of additional reported hazmat concern weeks after East Palestine


LUCIEN BRUGGEMAN
Thu, March 9, 2023

Federal regulators are looking into a previously unreported incident involving Norfolk Southern potentially mishandling a conductor's concern on a train carrying hazardous material just weeks after a similar defect precipitated the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

According to a complaint obtained by ABC News, on the morning of Feb. 27, a Norfolk Southern train was lurching through Stoneville, North Carolina, when a safety official manning a hot-box detector desk in Atlanta radioed the crew to alert them that car number 32 was "trending hot," but not hot enough to trigger an alarm, and that the nearly two-mile train should proceed.

The conductor of the train checked his manifest and made a startling discovery: Car 32 was carrying ethanol, and five cars away, another was carrying propane. Both were labeled as "dangerous" on the train's manifest, according to the complaint, which was filed with the Federal Railroad Administration.

MORE: NTSB to open special investigation into Norfolk Southern following recent derailments

The complaint alleges that the conductor, now concerned that the "trending hot" warning could lead to an overheated wheel, radioed the desk back and suggested that they stop the train and inspect it. But the dispatcher overruled the crew and urged them onward.

Meanwhile, a maintenance worker in the train's vicinity allegedly overheard the radio chatter and offered to observe the train as it passed by. The complaint states that when the worker reported that he hadn't witnessed any smoke, the crew was told to keep going some 40 miles south to Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Crew members were "shocked," according to the complaint. To continue into a heavily populated area after being notified that a car carrying hazardous materials was "trending hot" could potentially pose a profound threat not only to the crew, but to adjacent communities, crew members feared.

Ultimately, the train was able to complete its trip without further incident. But the Federal Railroad Administration is now looking into the previously unreported Feb. 27 incident as part of a broader "safety assessment" of Norfolk Southern, a spokesperson confirmed. The agency said in a press release this week that its assessment would scrutinize "operational control center procedures and dispatcher training," among other things.

A spokesperson for Norfolk Southern did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the record.

PHOTO: Workers continue to clean up remaining tank cars, Feb. 21, 2023, in East Palestine, Ohio, following the Feb. 3, Norfolk Southern freight train derailment. (Matt Freed/AP, FILE)

The reported incident on Feb. 27 raises fresh safety and accountability concerns regarding Norfolk Southern and the rail industry at large, three weeks after a wheel bearing overheated on a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials through East Palestine, derailing the train and causing an environmental crisis for nearby residents.

Over the past two decades, major rail carriers and trade groups have spent more than $650 million lobbying in Washington, often advocating against stricter government oversight of its safety procedures, according to the federal watchdog OpenSecrets.

In the wake of the East Palestine derailment, a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Ohio Sens. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, and J.D. Vance, a Republican, introduced legislation that would tighten government-backed safety requirements for trains carrying hazardous materials.

But some Senate Republicans have balked at the bill, leaving its fate in question. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., has said that "an immediate quick response heavy on regulation needs to be thoughtful and targeted."

Norfolk Southern, for its part, has already taken steps to self-regulate. Earlier this week, CEO Alan Shaw laid out a six-point plan to "immediately enhance the safety of its operations," the company said. The initiative will improve its defect detector network, pilot next-generation hot bearing detectors, and generally support a more stringent safety culture, according to officials.

MORE: NTSB on East Palestine toxic train derailment: '100% preventable'

On Wednesday, the Association of American Railroads, a trade group representing major freight railroad companies, announced its own list of new measures, including a commitment "to stopping trains and inspecting bearings whenever the temperature reading from a [hot bearing detector] exceeds 170° above ambient temperature" -- a lower threshold than previously required.

But federal regulators aren't waiting around. In addition to the Federal Railroad Administration safety assessment, the National Transportation and Security Board has taken the extraordinary step of opening a special investigation into Norfolk Southern.

The agency said Tuesday it would scrutinize the company's "organization and safety culture" after a series of incidents, including the derailment in East Palestine and another derailment in Springfield, Ohio, earlier this month. A press release did not list the reported Feb. 27 incident in North Carolina.

"The NTSB will conduct an in-depth investigation into the safety practices and culture of the company," the agency said in a statement. "At the same time, the company should not wait to improve safety and the NTSB urges it to do so immediately."

Rail unions are also pressing for more government oversight. After the death of a Norfolk Southern conductor earlier this week near Cleveland, Eddie Hall, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, called for "significant improvements in rail safety for both workers and the public."

MORE: East Palestine derailment: Timeline of key events in toxic train disaster

"All railroad accidents are avoidable," Hall said.

Shaw, the Norfolk Southern CEO, said in a statement Tuesday that Norfolk Southern would "cooperate fully" with the NTSB and continue to find new solutions to improve the company's safety practices.

"We are going to invest more in safety," Shaw said. "This is not who we are, it is not acceptable, and it will not continue."

Shaw is scheduled to testify Thursday on Capitol Hill before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Prominent US civil rights lawyer Jasmine Rand on being an ally and fighting against racism


Nadine White
Wed, 8 March 2023 

Jasmine Rand (Supplied)

Renowned US lawyer Jasmine Rand has spent much of her career fighting to get justice for the families of Black people who have died as a result of state violence.

As a female lawyer trying to break through in a male-dominated world, Ms Rand, who runs her own law firm in Miami, Florida, has faced myriad obstacles.

But she’s also experienced inequality from the other, more privileged side. As a white woman working on civil rights cases, Ms Rand acknowledges that she will never fully understand the racial injustice that she works so hard to fight.

“Early on in my career, I acknowledged the limitations I have based on my race because I will never understand what it is to be Black and I will never understand what it’s like to be discriminated against (in that way),” Ms Rand, who’s from Vermont in Washington, told The Independent.

“It’s a unique position to be in, where I’m working in this area as a lawyer and an academic but can never fully understand because I’m not a racial minority.”

She adds: “My goal is to serve my brothers and sisters. I think when you’re serving with really a pure heart, people see that.”

She is arguably best known for her work with the families of Trayvon Martin - a Black teenager who was shot dead by a neighbourhood watch coordinator in Florida in 2012 while walking home from a trip to a convenience store - and George Floyd - whose death at the hands of a white police officer in 2020 sparked global protests - but has won multimillion-dollar cases in catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death cases and state violence cases.

After receiving her law doctorate, Ms Rand began working with Benjamin Crump, a leading civil rights attorney, in 2012, who she regards as a mentor to this day. He walked her down the aisle at her wedding, three years ago.

She is currently part of the team representing the relatives of Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old Black father who died after being beaten by Memphis Police officers during a traffic stop, along with Mr Crump and Antonio Romanucci – Mr Nichols’ family attorneys.

Last month, The Independent revealed that an urgent United Nations appeal, co-authored by Ms Rand, has been filed by Mr Nichols’ family members and their legal team.

Ben Crump and Jasmine Rand (Supplied)

Activism

Ms Rand, 41, says that a “love” for others drives her career path, with the aim of helping others through a legal career, having been an aspiration of hers since the age of 10.

She studied African American studies at undergraduate level prior to her doctorate, and made it her business to study how the mechanisms of power oppress marginalised communities.

However, Ms Rand’s path has not been without risk. She is used to dealing with regular threats, made to both her and her loved ones.

”There have been occasions when I feel real fear because of what I do,” she says. “I receive threats on a regular basis; I once came off an interview on Fox News and a stranger called me, making threats, having just found out my home address.”

Mr Crump faces even more devastating intimidation tactics and threats to his life as a Black, male attorney, Ms Rand added.

“Ben gets many more threats than I do - and more credible ones. I can’t even comment on the nature and type he gets, because that’s how real and serious they are.”

With that said, it is an understanding and appreciation of purpose that propels lawyers like Ms Rand to continue carrying out their vital advocacy work.

“You have to have courage to do this job,” Ms Rand explained. “ We acknowledge the fear and make a conscious choice to work beyond it. Our work is not a choice but a calling."

(© 2020 Stuart Villanueva/The Galveston County Daily News)

Reflecting on International Women’s Day, the lawyer revealed that this year’s annual observation holds immense personal significance as she embarks on a new and exciting journey: motherhood.

“Women have always been leaders, we have just not always been recognised,” she said. “International Women’s Day is an active effort to level the playing field of a history that has overlooked the contributions of powerful women throughout the world like Nur Jahan, Queen Nzinga, Benazir Bhutto - those should be household names.

“This year is a special International Women’s Day for me because I am becoming a first-time mother. Motherhood is my power; it has always been my source. A woman expressing her desire to be a professional, leader, activist, and mother has become nearly taboo. Some view motherhood as a weakness.

“My future children have fueled my drive to leave the world a better place. I know my son will inspire me to accept heightened roles in leadership and service.”

The theme for Women’s Day, ‘embracing equity’, is an important call to action that resonates with many around the globe, as they navigate their respective paths and carve out legacies, often against the odds.

“I want my legacy to help redefine the future of justice and to continue developing international human rights law,” Ms Rand said.

“My legacy is not in the accomplishments I leave the world, it is in my decision to continue standing up for what is right no matter how many times we get knocked back down.

“That’s the lesson I want my son to learn: to always stand back up.”
International appeals

From cases in Jamaica – a country that she describes as her “first love” – to Morroco, the lawyer has been called to work on social justice issues outside of the US.

Along with a team of international lawyers, Ms Rand lobbied the United Nations to take action on racism at borders in Ukraine, a travesty which was first reported on by The Independent.

The struggle for equality is undoubtedly an international one that knows no border.

“As the world evolves, we are becoming more and more interconnected and it feels increasingly globalised,” Ms Rand said.

A UN group recently denounced the UK as an institutionally racist country where Black people are living in fear for their lives (AFP via Getty Images)

“With the advent of social media, citizens of various countries can share the plight in real time of what’s happening in their nation.”

Recently, a UN group denounced the UK as an institutionally racist country where Black people are living in fear for their lives.

Prior to this, Ms Rand appeared as a special guest at the Law Centres Network’s annual conference in the UK in November, where she addressed the importance of tackling systemic racism around the world.

As ever, the eyes of US civil rights champions are on the UK and its track record on race equality. Earlier this year, the eminent Reverend Al Sharpton visited London and offered British activists guidance on the future of UK activism.

“We, in the US, are starting to get calls by advocates to assist in the social justice movement of issues pertaining to racial justice happening in the UK,” Ms Rand added.

“We make every effort to support not just what’s happening in terms of racial justice in the US, but in the UK and other parts of the world as well.”

Norfolk MP calls for UK to negotiate Caribbean slavery reparations

Dan Grimmer
Wed, 8 March 2023 

Norwich South MP Clive Lewis (Image: ©mark tillie)

Norwich South MP Clive Lewis has called on the UK government to enter into discussions with Caribbean states over paying reparations for Britain's role in slavery.

The Labour MP made the call during a debate in Westminster Hall in which he said there was "an urgent need for some form of reparatory justice" after 400 years of what he branded "400 years of exploitative colonial history".

Mr Lewis's remarks came after members of the British aristocratic Trevelyan family went to Grenada - where Mr Lewis's father was born and raised.

The Trevelyan family apologised and promised to pay reparations for their ancestors' ownership of more than 1,000 enslaved Africans.

Mr Lewis said the issue should not be dismissed as "the obsession of a group of so-called woke extremists" and that it continued to have an impact on the lives of millions of people.

He said: "This is a live issue that evokes great passion and sometimes anger."

Mr Lewis called on prime minister Rishi Sunak to enter negotiations with leaders in the Caribbean.

UK
Police federation demands minimum 17% pay increase for officers

Nina Lloyd, PA
Wed, 8 March 2023 


The Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) has demanded a 17% pay increase for officers, suggesting salaries are negatively affected by restrictions on their right to strike.

It warned the Government could “no longer sit by and ignore our members’ basic needs” as it called for the rise on Wednesday.

The PFEW, which is a statutory staff association representing more than 139,000 officers, cited independent research by the Social Market Foundation (SMF) which it described as a “wake-up call to policy-makers”.

The SMF report shows police pay has lagged almost 20% behind inflation since 2000, according to the federation.

It also shows police constable starting salaries have lagged behind earnings as a whole across the economy, it said.

The research also shows MPs salaries saw a 4% rise in total over the same period, the federation said.

In a press release, it suggested that an inability to take industrial action puts the profession at a “distinct disadvantage” compared with all other emergency workers.

The PFEW has argued the unique obligations police have, and their risk of exposure to physical and psychological harm, should be reflected in their remuneration.

Chair of the federation Steve Hartshorn labelled the research a “wake-up call for policymakers in the UK,” adding: “For a long time now, the Police Federation of England and Wales has been working to achieve better pay and working conditions for our members.

“Police officers put their lives on the line every day to serve and protect their communities.

“That is why today our National Council has taken the decision to call for a minimum of 17% increase in pay for our officers.

“The Government can no longer sit by and ignore our members’ basic needs and must recognise the impact of this independent research.

“In the context of ongoing inflation, indications of a police retention crisis, and reports of officers being forced to turn to food banks, the issue of police pay must be addressed now after more than a decade of being ignored.

“Police officers deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, and that begins with better pay – pay that not only reflects the cost-of-living crisis that many of us face but puts right the 17% decline since 2000 and compensates officers for the dangers they’re exposed to as part of the job.

“They must be compensated fairly for doing a job that is so important and unique that they do not have access to industrial rights.”

UK
RMT strikes on 14 train operators will still go ahead - but union open to talks

Wed, 8 March 2023 



The Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers' union (RMT) has said planned strike dates on 14 train operators will go ahead, but they insist they are open to discussions with bosses.

The union said the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), representing 14 train operators, invited them to discussions to settle its ongoing dispute, but on the condition that planned strike action on 16 and 18 March is suspended.

But the union's executive council said the schedule will remain in place. They added the union will be "available for discussions and will attend any meetings on creating a resolution to the dispute through an improved offer".

The union said it will contact the RDG seeking such a meeting, a RMT statement read.

Members of the union are also due to strike on 30 March and 1 April in the dispute against the train operators.

Members of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) union had voted to accept an offer by train companies last month in their long-running dispute over pay, job security and conditions.

A RDG spokesperson said the RMT leadership have been invited to meet on Thursday for talks. "We are always open to dialogue", they said.

"However we have also made clear to the RMT leadership that meaningful progress can only be made if they remove the threat of strikes hanging over our passengers before it is too late to avoid disruption.

"We urge the RMT leadership to engage with us in good faith and resolve this dispute."

The RMT announcement was just the latest in a series of updates on its campaign of industrial action.

Read more:
It will be interesting to know whether the latest offer from Network Rail to RMT members is in any way different from the last one

Its members are to vote on a new offer presented by Network Rail, who are responsible for track, signals and some stations.

Strike dates against Network Rail - due to take place from 2am on 16 March until 1.59am on 17 March - were suspended on Tuesday evening.

Police fire pepper spray after Women's Day protest in Istanbul


Wed, 8 March 2023 





ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish riot police fired pepper spray to disperse a group of protesters pushing back against a line of police on Wednesday as a rally to mark International Women's Day was winding down in central Istanbul.

Women whistled and chanted "We do not keep quiet, we are not scared, we do not bow down", as they pushed riot police shields, triggering the tussles with police, while the rest of the crowd of around 2,000 dispersed.

Police had prevented the crowd from staging a march through the city centre after local authorities issued a statement saying it would not allow marches, protests or press statements. Local metro stations were closed from early in the afternoon.

"Government resign," the crowd chanted during the protest. "We are angry, we are in mourning, we are in feminist rebellion" said a large banner held up at the front of the crowd.

The event was being staged a little over two months before elections which are expected to represent President Tayyip Erdogan's biggest ever electoral challenge. It was also just over a month after devastating earthquakes in southern Turkey that killed more than 52,000 people.

(Reporting by Dilara Senkaya, Kemal Aslan, Mehmet Emin Caliskan, Bulent Usta and Yesim Dikmen; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Alison Williams)

‘Greece has derailed’: tens of thousands of protesters ‘rage’ over train disaster

Helena Smith in Athens
Wed, 8 March 2023 

Photograph: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images

Tens of thousands have staged protest rallies in Greece as anger over a train disaster that plunged the country into mourning a week ago intensified amid widespread industrial action.

In cities nationwide, as workers staged a 24-hour general strike, demonstrators voiced fury over an accident that left 57 dead when two locomotives collided head on and at high speed outside the town of Tempe. It was the deadliest train crash on record in Greece.

“There is a lot of anger, a lot of rage,” said Sofia Amorianou, 60, as she walked around Athens’ main Syntagma square holding a banner emblazoned with the words “Their profits, our dead.”

“In a minute, the narrative of development and growth, of Greece progressing, totally collapsed. In a minute our children died. People feel very vulnerable, very shocked.”

Many of those killed in the 28 February collision, when the Thessaloniki-bound night train rammed into a freight train using the same track, were students returning from a three-day holiday. The front carriages of the passenger train, which had set out from Athens with 350 on board, exploded on impact.

The arrest of a stationmaster, accused of making the wrong point switch that put the trains on the same track, has done little to assuage public conviction that the accident could have been averted if proper safeguards were in place. Instead, revelations of staff shortages and substandard equipment, in particular the poor signalling system, have shone a light on the parlous state of the Greek rail network, and an outpouring of outrage has put the centre-right government on the defensive.

Wednesday’s protests drew crowds of more than 60,000 in Athens and the northern Greek capital of Thessaloniki, according to authorities. In both cities, violent clashes erupted when police, firing stun grenades and teargas, responded to hooded, black-clad youths hurling stones and firebombs.

With so many heeding the calls of unions and student groups to take to the streets, the prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, had been forced to take immediate remedial action and delay general elections, well-placed sources told the Guardian. Polls that had been due to take place early next month “will likely” be rescheduled for 21 May.

Five days into his new role Giorgos Gerapetritis, the new transport minister, pledged to have the railroads, whose services have been suspended, up and running again, saying it was vital that the public regain its trust in a mode of travel that was both popular and inexpensive “even though that may sound like a luxury when we have mourned so many lives”.

Experts with the EU railways agency flew into Athens as the embattled administration has promised a root-and-branch overhaul of the rail network in the hope of tempering passions. A judicial inquiry has also been fast-tracked.

But in an atmosphere that has become ever more febrile, it is clear that the tragedy has shaken MPs and heightened the prospect of political instability.

“This is more than a train collision and a tragic railway accident. You get the sense that the country has derailed,” said Nasos Iliopoulos, a spokesperson for Greece’s main leftwing opposition party, Syriza.

Mitsotakis, who initially attributed the crash to “tragic human error”, has since apologised for a collision that he, too, has acknowledged could have been prevented if proper security measures had been enforced. In a statement, he described the Greek rail system as not only flaw-ridden, but the worst expression of a country that otherwise attracts millions of foreign visitors every year.

Since 2014, the EU has injected €700m (£624m) into 16 transport projects across Greece, the vast majority of which were linked to upgrading the rail network.

The judicial investigation currently under way is looking into why EU contracts that had been signed and sealed with the bloc were never implemented. Mitsotakis had hoped to clinch the forthcoming election on the back of what his government has seen as its most enduring legacy: economic recovery, wholesale reforms and effective crisis management. Digital governance and modernisation of the ailing public sector had been widely perceived as the administration’s greatest achievements. Four years later, the rail disaster has taken a wrecking ball to that legacy.

In the eight days since the tragedy, protests have been led by student organisations able to identify with victims. For a generation raised during the country’s debt crisis – a drama that eviscerated the middle class – before enduring the rigours of lockdown with the pandemic’s prolonged closure of schools, the crash appears to be the last straw.

“This has been a disaster that has mainly affected the young,” said professor George Pagoulatos, director of the Eliamep thinktank in Athens. “It could affect the way they see the political system as not delivering and thus feed into an anti-systemic vote or widespread abstention.”

Boundaries between West Bank factions blur as resistance to Israeli occupation grows


Bethan McKernan and Sufian Taha in Jenin
Wed, 8 March 2023 

The streets of the occupied West Bank city of Jenin were awash with black-clad men wearing balaclavas and toting M-16 rifles, a model apparently favoured because the ammunition is cheap. The crack of near-constant gunfire was deafening, almost drowning out chants of: “We will teach Tel Aviv a lesson.”

On Wednesday, the bodies of two militants killed in an Israeli army raid the day before were wrapped in Palestinian flags and carried through the centre towards the refugee camp on the city’s western edge. The huge number of armed men, and the mingling of flags belonging to several different militias – Hamas, Fatah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad – spoke to a new dynamic in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In defiance of the West Bank’s semi-autonomous governing body, the Palestinian Authority (PA), armed resistance to the Israeli occupation is growing, and the boundaries between factions are blurring as their interests begin to merge.

“The PA are against us, they arrest and torture us. They sold out for money while we protect this land with our blood,” said a 25-year-old wearing a silver headband and the insignia of Fatah’s al-Aqsa Brigades, who spoke on the condition he was not named. “I have come from Nablus today to support our brothers. We face the occupation wherever it is. You can see by our numbers, look how many are here today. For every martyr they kill, 10 take his place.”

People stage a protest in Hebron after six Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire during a military raid on Tuesday in the West Bank city of Jenin.

 Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Six men – three affiliated with Hamas, one from Islamic Jihad, one from Fatah, and one man who was apparently a defecting member of the PA’s security forces – were killed in a rare daylight Israel Defence Forces (IDF) raid on Jenin camp on Tuesday afternoon targeting the Palestinian gunman who killed two Israelis in the West Bank town of Huwara last week. That attack had triggered a revenge rampage by nearby settlers living illegally on Palestinian land that even IDF officials described as a “pogrom”.

Related: ‘They ransack our village for sport’: one farmer’s story of Israeli settler violence

At the scene of the fighting, a car had slammed into the front of the targeted house, its bonnet crumpled like paper; witnesses said a shoulder-launched rocket fired by Israeli troops had thrown it forward by several metres, as well as blasting iron gates off their hinges and sending breezeblocks from destroyed walls tumbling to the ground.

Pools of dark red blood, still wet, shimmered in the sunlight. Inside the building, the orange and white kitchen, remarkably intact, looked at odds with the carnage on the other side of the missing living room wall.

“When we heard the soldiers shouting in Hebrew, we knew a raid was starting,” said 30-year-old Islam Fayed, who lives next door.

“We are worried about the impact of all of this on the children. They don’t sleep any more, they keep waking up from nightmares.”

Last spring, the IDF launched Operation Breakwater, a campaign of near-nightly raids across the West Bank mainly targeting the northern cities of Jenin and Nablus, in response to a wave of Palestinian terror attacks in Israel. A year later, not only have terrorist attacks targeting Israeli civilians increased, but the campaign’s soaring Palestinian death toll has galvanised a new generation of Palestinian fighters.

Signs are emerging that the groups of young men who organised in their home towns to fight back against the Israeli incursions are beginning to coordinate across different cities: that the Huwara shooter, a Hamas member from Nablus, chose to hide out in Jenin’s refugee camp, where he was sheltered by local fighters, suggests those links are strengthening. Such coordination lays the groundwork for a return to full-scale conflict with Israel, even if the PA, and half of its divided ruling Fatah faction, is against it.

I think this is worse than the second intifada

Overnight in both Nablus and Jenin, imams broadcast a message from Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails asking the people to rise up together in solidarity, a missive met with cheers and fireworks. The two cities, as well as the West Bank’s administrative capital, Ramallah, observed a general strike on Wednesday in protest against the militants’ deaths in Jenin – the kind of collective action the weak and corrupt PA can only dream of inspiring.

For the residents of these cities, war has already returned. About 70 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces so far in 2023, around half militants and half civilians, according to rights groups. Over the same period, Palestinian “lone wolf” attacks have killed 14 Israelis, all but one of them civilians. The bloodshed follows 2022, which was the deadliest year on record in Israel, Jerusalem and the West Bank since the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, in the 2000s.

Mourners attend the funeral of Palestinians killed in an Israeli raid.

 Photograph: APAImages/Rex/Shutterstock

“I think this is worse than the second intifada. Now, every time [the Israelis] enter, they kill. They don’t distinguish between civilians and militants,” said Nadja, a 55-year-old resident of Jenin camp.

Originally a shelter for Palestinians who fled their homes during the war surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948, Jenin camp today, along with 18 others like it across the West Bank, resembles a ghetto: jobs are scarce, guns are plentiful, and resistance to the occupation has always been strong.

In the 30 years since its creation, the PA has done nothing to improve living standards here. If anything, recently matters have become worse, as the Israeli army has secured agreement to find the militants the PA’s own forces are too weak, or ambivalent about, to apprehend themselves.

As the Palestinian death toll steadily climbs, and settlers commit violence like that seen in Huwara with impunity, the little respect the PA still enjoys is evaporating. In videos circulated on social media on Tuesday night, frustrated Palestinians praised what they described as “the heroism of the martyrs”, while berating the PA as collaborators.

The near future does not bode well. The holy Muslim month of Ramadan, when tensions often boil over, starts on on 23 March. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the extremist national security minister in Israel’s new far-right government, appears likely to pour fuel on the fire during the febrile period by pushing ahead with orders to demolish Palestinian homes in occupied East Jerusalem and visiting the city’s sensitive Temple Mount complex.

“I am not afraid to die,” a 20-year-old fighter from the camp said. “There is no life here anyway. Every day, there are incursions by the army or the PA, and people die.”

US carbon pipeline faces setback as residents refuse to cede land rights

Thu, March 9, 2023 
By Leah Douglas

(Reuters) - Navigator CO2 Ventures’ proposed carbon pipeline project in the U.S. Midwest is struggling to secure a site to store millions of tons of greenhouse gas it hopes to collect from the region’s ethanol plants, as residents refuse to give up land rights over fears the underground reservoirs could leak, according to documents reviewed by Reuters.

The issue could slow the project, one of three carbon pipelines planned in the Midwest that aims to help the ethanol industry reduce its climate footprint in line with federal government efforts to decarbonize the U.S. economy. The projects are a major test of the viability of carbon capture and storage as a climate solution.

In Illinois, Navigator has restarted the permit process for its Heartland Greenway pipeline in part due to difficulty getting land rights from residents living above the underground formations where it hopes to store up to 15 million metric tons annually of carbon dioxide, according to a Reuters review of the state regulatory docket and interviews with landowners along the proposed route.

Residents along the proposed route of the pipeline, as well as along the routes of two other carbon pipelines proposed by Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions and Denver-based Wolf Carbon Solutions, have expressed concern about damage to their farmland from installing the pipeline and safety risks if the pipeline were to leak.

Some living above Navigator's proposed sequestration site are also worried that carbon dioxide stored 5,800 feet underground could seep upward and contaminate their groundwater with carbonic acid, which is formed when carbon dioxide meets water.

Acidification of groundwater can kill plants or sub-soil animals and increase concentration of metals in drinking water, according to research by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Department of Energy in 2021 invested $4 million for research on the issue.

In January, Navigator withdrew its initial permit application with the Illinois Commerce Commission. This came two months after a senior ICC engineer recommended that the commission deny the company's application because it had not secured the necessary sequestration site, the commission's docket shows.

Navigator must secure land rights within an 11-month window from submitting the application, according to state law.

In a new permit application filed in late February, Navigator added 42 miles of pipeline leading to a second sequestration site - an underground geologic formation where it would store captured carbon dioxide - in a county neighboring where it had initially proposed to store carbon.

The company also pushed back its expected timeline for receiving federal, state, and county approvals by several months.

Navigator Vice President of Government and Public Affairs Elizabeth Burns-Thompson told Reuters in an interview on Monday that the company is on track to break ground on the pipeline on its original mid-2024 timeline and that it withdrew and resubmitted its application to accommodate adding the new pipeline branch.

Burns-Thompson also said Navigator is selecting sequestration sites specifically for their ability to permanently retain captured carbon dioxide.

The company did not share the number or percent of easements it has secured over its proposed sequestration sites.

Karen Brocklesby lives over the pore space Navigator initially proposed in Christian County. She was quick to reject the company's easement offer when they approached her last year and helped to form an Illinois community group that opposes the pipeline.

"It was easy to come together as a group that said no, we don’t want this," she said.

'GUINEA PIGS'

Elsewhere along its proposed route - which crosses Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Minnesota, in addition to Illinois - Navigator could seek eminent domain authority from regulators in cases where landowners refused to sign easements.

But Illinois law does not address the use of eminent domain above underground pore space, meaning Navigator may need to get every landowner living over the sequestration area to agree to sell off a portion of their land rights.

Christian County officials don't believe residents will be more receptive to Navigator's second permit attempt.

"There’s nothing like this in the world," said county board chairman Bryan Sharp. "We don’t want to be the guinea pigs."

The two other major carbon pipeline projects are working to secure underground carbon storage space.

Summit has negotiated easements with landowners for more than 85% of its sequestration site in North Dakota, the company told Reuters.

Wolf, which is partnered with grain processor Archer-Daniels-Midland Co (ADM.N), declined to provide updated information but said last year that it plans to store captured carbon at a site already owned by ADM.

(Reporting by Leah Douglas; editing by Diane Craft)

UK

The lesson from Matt Hancock’s WhatsApps is this: these clowns can’t govern, their only skill is covering tracks

Zoe Williams

THE GUARDIAN
Wed, 8 March 2023 

Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

What is the public interest value of Matt Hancock’s huge cache of WhatsApp messages? They tell us a fair amount about him and his vanity. He has a laser-like focus on claiming credit. “I CALLED FOR THIS TWO MONTHS AGO,” he writes in shouty caps, to an aide, about the plan to cut the approval time for a vaccine. “This is a Hancock triumph.” His tone is jokey and casual, his response to criticism querulous and brittle. “What a bunch of absolute arses the teaching unions are,” Hancock texts, to which the then education secretary, Gavin Williamson, replies: “I know they really really do just hate work.” Hancock replies with two laughing emojis and a bullseye. They do not sound remotely like government ministers making high-stakes decisions: they sound like the thick two out of The Inbetweeners, moaning about their head of year and backslapping each other for their bons mots.

Hancock has a pretty high tolerance for situations that should have been intolerable to a health secretary: the “eat out to help out” policy, for example, was thought to have been driving infections – but not to worry, because he’d “kept it out of the news”. There is plenty to tease out about the man’s character, but how much of it didn’t we know already from I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here? He’s already said that he won’t be seeking re-election; his fitness for public office is now a footnote.

The professionalism and impartiality of the head of the civil service, Simon Case, have been called into question, and Michael Gove’s giant ego marvelled at. The banter, the callousness, the internecine rivalries, the chaos: it all suggests a general contempt for the public. Would we have wished it otherwise? Sure, government by mature public servants would have been more reassuring. Given what we already knew, however, from the Downing Street parties to the test-and-trace fiasco, little of this comes as a huge surprise. It’s hardly a smoking gun that Case called Boris Johnson a “nationally distrusted figure” – that distrust was palpable and often voiced.

We may see it all as our clearest view yet into the operating practices of government in this Tory era. The WhatsApps leaked to the Daily Telegraph do seem to confirm all the dark fears we had that the superficial, press clipping-driven approach apparent in public also underpinned the way inadequate ministers did their jobs in private during one of the most challenging periods of recent history.

Yet the medium really is the message, here: when policy is made over WhatsApp and transparency is delivered via a leak, a democratic debt opens up that cannot be easily be repaid. It can be serviced only by counterleak, by more gossip.

This has put the entire narrative in the hands of a newspaper fascinated by the rights and wrongs of lockdown, and whether the messaging around that time was fair or fearmongering (realistically, probably both – there was plenty to fear). Of course there are lessons to learn about the balance between civil liberties and public health, but this isn’t the way to hold Johnson and his ministers to account. Nobody was asking them to meet a completely unprecedented pandemic with perfect judgment on abstruse and novel questions such as “How serious is this new strain of the virus?”, or “Should non-cohabiting couples be allowed to see one another?”. What we could legitimately ask for was probity, coherence and the proper use of public funds, and those questions have been lost in the cacophony of a rightwing editorial agenda.

It doesn’t matter so much whether Hancock did “snogging and heavy petting” with Gina Coladangelo, or whether he broke his own social distancing rules. It’s far more important to follow the money: did the government break its own rules on procurement, and to what purpose – was it simple chumminess that saw vast sums finding their way to the likes of Michelle Mone or Pharmaceuticals Direct, a firm linked to the Conservative donor Samir Jassal? What were the criteria to get into the “VIP lane”, whether to supply PPE or focus group services?

Related: A (partial) defence of Matt Hancock: leaders must be free to discuss policy in private | Simon Jenkins

What will it take to get full details of all government Covid-related contracts? Without those, it simply isn’t possible to inquire into the pandemic response, either informally by the press or formally by committee. We don’t know whether the contractors were qualified, and we can’t gauge the quality of what they supplied; we won’t know whether NHS staff, carers and other public sector workers could have been better protected had PPE been supplied in better time, and been of better quality. We know money was wasted, of course, but we have no way of knowing how much. We can’t easily tell the difference between incompetence and corruption.

“The use of private communications,” wrote the Good Law Project, seeking an appeal hearing in the supreme court, “has not only put our national security at risk, but led to the deletion of crucial records and information that should be available for public scrutiny.” That case was denied in December, when the court of appeal ruled that courts should not control ministers’ use of private phones and messaging services, even when they were using those to negotiate commercial deals with VIPs, in breach of their own policy.

The Lockdown Files delivered one important lesson, but not for us, unfortunately: rather for cabinet ministers, who are now purportedly putting their WhatsApps on auto-delete, prompting a warning from the information commissioner . Far from opening up the pandemic period to greater scrutiny, Hancock’s messages have merely flagged to his colleagues the importance of evading it.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

UK
Tory MP lobbied NHS chief on behalf of firm that paid him £1,600 a month

The Lockdown Files Team
Wed, 8 March 2023 

Brine message

The chairman of the health select committee lobbied the head of the NHS on behalf of a firm paying him £1,600 a month, The Telegraph can reveal.

Steve Brine, a former health minister, told Michael Gove he had been “trying for months” to convince the NHS to hire anaesthetists through Remedium, a recruitment company he worked for.

A WhatsApp message seen by the Telegraph reveals Mr Brine contacted Simon Stevens, then chief executive of NHS England, as well as the Department of Health to suggest they use the company, in an apparent breach of two lobbying rules.

The message, which was forwarded to Matt Hancock by Mr Gove on Feb 2, 2021, said:

MPs condemned Mr Brine’s conduct as “disgraceful” on Wednesday and called for his resignation from the health committee.

It has previously been reported that, earlier in the pandemic, Mr Brine suggested that Mr Hancock use Remedium to hire staff to work in Nightingale Hospitals.

At the time in March 2020, he was working as an ad-hoc consultant for the firm, at a rate of £800 per day.

Mr Brine denied any wrongdoing and said he had merely passed on a letter to the then health secretary, and had not lobbied him.

The letter was dated six months and 15 days after his last payment from Remedium, which placed him outside of the restricted lobbying period for MPs.

However, in July 2020, the firm then began paying him £1,600 for eight hours' work each month – an arrangement that continued until the end of December 2021.

Steve Brine

The latest revelations from the WhatsApp message show Mr Brine claimed he had spent “months” trying to persuade both the Department of Health and Lord Stevens that they should use Remedium to hire anaesthetists.

He has since been elected chairman of the health and social care select committee in Parliament.

The message could mean Mr Brine has breached two different lobbying rules.

Under the first rule, set by the Government, former ministers are banned from using contacts from their time in government to lobby for two years after they return to the backbenches.

When Mr Brine requested advice on the role from the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, the lobbying watchdog for former ministers, he was told that for two years after leaving office in March 2019, he should not “become personally involved in lobbying the UK Government/NHS organisations on behalf of Remedium Partners” or use “Government and/or Whitehall contacts…to secure business on behalf of Remedium Partners”.

Under the second rule, set by Parliament, MPs are not allowed to lobby for an organisation from which they are receiving “a reward” for six months after receiving a payment.

The message shows that Mr Brine was lobbying in favour of the firm to both ministers and NHS organisations within this period.
Request passed to NHS England

Separate messages between Mr Hancock and his team show that Mr Brine's request was passed to NHS England via Allan Nixon, the health secretary’s special adviser:

“I told him team were sorting it and he hasn’t come back to me about it since,” Mr Nixon said.

The adviser then appeared to complain about the volume of requests Mr Brine had sent to the Department of Health.

“Steve’s being a nob right now and I’ve no idea why. Been chasing my tail trying to sort loads of stuff for him (not least his hospital) and he still acts like this.”

The next day, Feb 3, 2021, Mr Nixon said that “Prerana’s team” had been in contact with David Green, the CEO of Remedium.

It is thought Mr Nixon was referring to Prerana Issar, the NHS’s Chief People Officer.

Anneliese Dodds, chairman of the Labour Party, said: "While NHS heroes and other key workers battled the virus, and the British people did their bit by staying at home, it's disgraceful that a Conservative MP appeared more interested in making a fast buck out of the pandemic.

"If Steve Brine has broken lobbying rules he must face the consequences. Rishi Sunak has been too weak to stand up to his party or his Cabinet. Will he take the appropriate action in this case?"

Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrat health spokeswoman, said Mr Brine should resign from the committee pending an investigation.

"These messages suggest Steve Brine was desperate to help his corporate employers whilst the country was pulling together during a pandemic and leaves him with serious questions to answer,” she said.

"Frankly, the whole thing stinks. Rishi Sunak should launch an independent investigation into this damning evidence immediately."

Mr Brine told the Telegraph: "This was about responding in the national interest to an urgent public call from ministers and the NHS in a national crisis even if, ultimately, it led nowhere let alone secure any business for Remedium.”

The rule against MPs lobbying is regulated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, who can recommend sanctions, including suspension from the House of Commons for a fixed period.

The rules on paid advocacy were broken in a widely publicised way by Owen Paterson, the former MP for North Shropshire, who received support from Boris Johnson, then prime minister, after the commissioner recommended he be suspended for 30 days.

The incident resulted in a major debate over standards in public life and caused a rift between Mr Johnson and his backbenchers that precipitated his downfall.

Hancock ‘told to tone down China Covid lab leak claims’

Gavin Cordon
Wed, 8 March 2023 

Matt Hancock

Matt Hancock was instructed by the Cabinet Office to tone down claims in his memoir that the Covid-19 pandemic originated from a laboratory leak in China, according to leaked correspondence.

Officials warned it would “cause problems” if he repeated the claim in his Pandemic Diaries and insisted he must make clear he was not reflecting the Government’s view, The Daily Telegraph reported.

The changes to the book were made after he submitted the manuscript to the Cabinet Office for review last year – a procedure all former ministers are obliged to follow.

According to the Telegraph, which has obtained tens of thousands of the former health secretary’s messages, Mr Hancock had wanted to say that “given how cagey the Chinese have been” their official version of events should be treated with “considerable scepticism”.

“Global fear of the Chinese must not get in the way of a full investigation into what happened,” he wrote in the original manuscript.

In response, the Cabinet Office wrote: “This is highly sensitive and would cause problems if released.

“Must be clearer that it is supposition rather than revealing any confidential information received from inside government. Should also be clear that this is not HMG views or beliefs.”

It also expressed concern about proposed comparisons in the book between the Wuhan Institute of Virology – in the city where the virus first emerged – and the Ministry of Defence’s research laboratories at Porton Down.

Mr Hancock originally wrote it was “just too much of a coincidence” that the pandemic started in the same city as the institute.

“The only plausible alternative is that the virus was brought to Wuhan to be studied, and then escaped,” he wrote in one passage.

“The Chinese denials are a bit like us claiming that a random virus just happened to break out near a little place called Porton Down, perhaps because of some badgers. It just doesn’t fly.”

However the Cabinet Office expressed concern that it could be seized on by the Russians, who had previously claimed the novichok nerve agent used in the Salisbury poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal originated at Porton Down.

“The reference to Porton Down is damaging to national security – what is set up as a joke, is one of the attack lines Russia has used against us for the novichok poisoning, as it is only a few miles from Porton Down to Salisbury (which is entirely coincidental – as, we believe, it is that the Wuhan lab is so close to where the first Covid outbreak was recorded),” it said.

The disclosure comes after the head of the FBI said last week the agency had assessed that Covid was “most likely” the result of a lab leak.

In response to the Telegraph report, a Government spokesman said: “We would not comment on leaks or private discussions.”

A spokesperson for Mr Hancock said: “Matt will categorically not comment on national security matters.

“The release of this material shows yet again that this unlawful leak of partial information is motivated only by money and an attempt to spin a biased narrative.

“This is completely against the public interest, which will be served by the public inquiry.”