EU relaxes subsidy rules to prevent green tech companies from relocating to the United States
Jorge Liboreiro
Thu, 9 March 2023
The European Commission has made good on its promise to further relax the EU's long-standing rules on national subsidies to prevent green tech companies from relocating to the United States and retain the bloc's ability to compete on a global scale.
The rules were already under an extraordinary state of relaxation due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the energy crisis, an amendment that allowed member states to pump public money more easily into struggling companies and vulnerable households.
But the approval last summer of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a massive programme of state aid promoted by US President Joe Biden, has pushed the Commission into further prolonging the crisis framework and even expanding its scope to shield homegrown companies needed to fight climate change.
Over the next ten years, the IRA will dole out up to $369 billion in tax credits and direct rebates to help firms scale up the production of green, cutting-edge technology – but only if these products are predominantly manufactured in North America.
Brussels considers this provision to be discriminatory, unfair and illegal, and fears the allure of the generous American bill will trigger an industrial exodus across the Atlantic Ocean, dealing a fatal blow to the EU's long-term competitiveness
With this in mind, the Commission has adapted the state aid rules to simplify the approval of subsidies into six key areas – batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, heat pumps, electrolysers (an apparatus required to obtain green hydrogen) and carbon capture technology –, as well as for the production of the components and raw materials needed to manufacture them.
The new procedures will allow greater margins for member states to inject public money – in the form of grants, loans or tax credits – with the goal of sustaining the development of these green tech products, which are indispensable to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving climate neutrality by 2050.
In cases where the risk of relocation is high, countries will be able to match the subsidies offered by a non-European government, such as the US, and retain the company within EU borders. Alternatively, countries will be able to compensate for the funding gap the company estimates to have.
This option, known as "matching aid," is considered the most innovative element of the relaxed rules and raises the possibility of a subsidy race between EU and non-EU countries at the expense of taxpayers.
The Commission admits this scenario is likely and has proposed several "safeguards" to guarantee the "matching aid" does not spiral out of control, such as compelling the aid to be granted in less developed areas or mandating the project to be located in at least three member states.
The company that benefits from the "matching aid" will do so on condition that it will not relocate outside the EU for the next five years, or three years for SMEs.
The new rules will apply until the end of 2025 but disbursements could continue afterwards.
Although not mentioned by name, the safeguards appear to be designed to avoid Germany and France from further amassing subsidies for their national industries.
The two countries accounted for 77% of the €672 billion in approved programmes across 2022, a stunning stat that led other countries to urge the Commission to exercise extra caution before further relaxing state aid rules.
Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner in charge of overseeing competition policy, has insisted the amended rules will be "proportionate, targeted and temporary."
But in early February, when she first previewed the changes, Vestager warned that using money from taxpayers to benefit hand-picked companies "only makes sense if the society as a whole benefits."
"Using state aid to establish mass production and to match foreign subsidies is something new," Vestager said back then. "And it is not innocent."
Iran: unions and civil rights groups demand democracy and social justice
Simin Fadaee, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of ManchesterThe Conversation
Thu, 9 March 2023
Women, life, freedom: protests against the oppression of Iranian women in Iran in Ottowa, Canada, September 2022. Taymaz Valley/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
Forty-four years after Iranians rose up against their hated monarch in February 1979, a group of 20 organisations engaged in long-term social and economic struggles – including labour unions, teachers, women’s groups and youth and student movements – issued an ultimatum to the government of the Islamic Republic.
The Charter of Minimum Demands of Independent Trade Union and Civil Organisations of Iran contains 12 demands concerning social justice, democracy and political reform. The charter is a protest:
against misogyny and gender-based discrimination, economic instability, the modern enslavement of the workforce, poverty, distress, class violence, and nationalist, centralist, and religious oppression. It is a revolution against any form of tyranny, whether it be under the pretext of religion or not; any form of tyranny that has been inflicted upon us, the majority of the people of Iran.
This charter represents the first organised and collective demand from within Iran since the explosion of unrest on Iranian streets after the death of Mahsa Amini at the hands of the morality police in September 2022.
The push for transformation inside Iran stands in stark contrast to the attempts of some exiled Iranians who want to reimpose the pre-1979 monarchy.
The revolutionary movement that overthrew Mohammad Reza Shah, the last monarch of Iran, was a broad-based coalition of mostly urban working- and middle-class people. Supporters of the revolution were united by their opposition to the monarchy, but they were motivated by a range of ideologies: socialism, communism, liberalism, secularism, Islamism and nationalism.
These groups were also unified by their fierce opposition to Iran’s foreign policy that left it subordinate to the west. Deeply etched in Iranians’ collective memory is the fact that the monarchy had been reinstalled in 1953 after a coup d’etat against the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. The coup had been orchestrated by the US and UK, who backed Mohammad Reza Shah throughout his brutal and oppressive reign, in return for control of Iran’s oil industry.
By the 1970s, brutal state oppression was accompanied by increasing inequality. Poor living and working conditions provoked unrest that was met with further repression and Iran’s jails overflowed with political prisoners.
In January 1979, Mohammad Reza Shah and his family were forced into exile by a broad-based revolutionary coalition. But the unity that succeeded in ousting the hated regime proved to be shortlived and the theocratic Islamic Republic was established under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
But a large segment of Iranian society that had supported the revolution staunchly opposed the Islamic Republic from the beginning. This opposition has remained firm to the present day and is represented in huge numbers in the street protests that have rocked Iran since the death of Amini.
Amini, a Kurdish Iranian, was visiting relatives in Tehran when she was arrested by the morality police for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. Her death, after reportedly being brutally beaten while in custody, provoked outrage across the country.
Read more: Iran: hijab protests reflect society-wide anger at regime which trashes rule of law and human rights
In the protests that followed, many young women and men have been killed by security forces. Now the Islamic Republic faces the most serious challenge in its 44-year existence.
During the 1979 revolution, the hijab became a symbol of resistance to the Pahlavi monarchy and its commitment to “modernise” – in other words, westernise – Iranian society. Many women wore the headscarf as a protest against the imposition of western norms.
After the Islamic Republic took power the dress code for women became stricter. A month after the revolution – on March 8 1979, women launched massive demonstrations across Iran against what they saw as patriarchal oppression on the part of the new Islamic regime. However, the hijab became obligatory in 1983, by which time Iran was at war with Iraq.
So the hijab symbolises Iranian women’s struggle against control by both the monarchy and the theocracy. The killing of Amini in September 2022 was the trigger for the current wave of protests, but they are a manifestation of long-lasting repressive gender relations. It is opposition to deeply rooted patriarchal relations that brought women and girls onto the streets in their hundreds of thousands across almost every city and town.
While women led the demonstrations, many men offered support. The slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom”, which places women at the centre of the struggle, also calls for transformative changes in the economy (“life”) and politics (“freedom”). Like in 1979, the current protests enjoy support from diverse social groups. For many, this wave of demonstrations represents continuity with the 1979 revolution, and an opportunity to achieve the objectives that were undermined by the establishment of the Islamic Republic.
Progressive revolution
The 44th anniversary of the 1979 revolution marked a significant moment for which many Iranians have been longing. The new charter calls for “an end to the formation of any kind of power from above and to start a social, progressive, and human revolution for the liberation of peoples from any form of tyranny, discrimination, colonisation, oppression, and dictatorship”.
The demands are broad-ranging. They include the freedom of all political prisoners, freedom of belief and expression, equality between men and women and improved wages and conditions for all workers. They demand the free participation of people in democracy through local and national councils and the redistribution of wealth and resources.
The charter provides the first draft of a vision for a new Iran. Its proclamation on the anniversary of the 1979 revolution makes a historical connection to that struggle and its anti-imperialist and anti-dictatorial sentiments. The demands put forward demonstrate that Iranians have a clear vision for their future. And it shows that it is time for the reactionary forces outside Iran to accept that Iranian people can indeed alter their society from within.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Economic growth doesn't have to mean 'more' – consuming 'better' will also protect the planet
Renaud Foucart, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster UniversityTHE CONVERSATION
Thu, 9 March 2023
Nattapol_Sritongcom/Shutterstock
Around 30 years ago, many developed countries started a process of absolute decoupling of their emissions of CO₂ and energy use from economic growth. This means keeping emissions stable, or better yet, shrinking them, while still growing the economy.
As a result, GDP is now much higher than it was in 1990 in the UK, France, Germany and the US, but CO2 emissions are lower. This is not just because of the deindustrialisation of the west: emissions decrease even if we include our imports from countries like China.
This trend may be too little too late to avoid the worst consequences of climate change and the destruction of wildlife. But it is a testimony of perhaps the biggest misunderstanding about economics: that growth is a measure of how much an economy produces, rather than an imperfect account of the value of this production.
Emissions versus GDP
Fighting climate change requires a radical transformation of the economy to use less energy and resources. This means it could cause economic growth by making us consume “better”, not more. Putting a monetary value on protecting the Earth means people will pay the true cost of their consumption.
“Better” consumption of goods and services
The things we buy typically become more valuable if the perceived quality of a product increases. And research shows that consumers are willing to pay more if they believe a brand is more valuable, for example, because it is more ethical or environmentally friendly. This is the case for low-carbon energy sources, fairtrade chocolate, organic and local products – and it’s even more the case for people that care about how others see them. So if this means replacing a £1.89 pack of beef burgers with £12 bean and mushroom patties, economic growth will certainly be good for the planet.
The same can be said for the services people spend money on. In fact, as the economy becomes more dependent on services than products, this part of our consumption is even more important to “green”.
This is because much of today’s economic growth is not about measuring the value of the objects we buy. Two-thirds of the world’s GDP is constituted of services, and those are increasingly provided from our own homes as we work remotely. The environmental cost is then almost entirely composed of the energy needed to make the internet work – and there is a way to make that greener.
Sci-fi authors and futurists of the 1960s correctly predicted that we would live in a world of wireless communications, flat-screen TVs and sophisticated kitchen appliances, while fewer foresaw that younger generations would celebrate the return of sleeper trains in Europe. They would probably also be surprised at how many people find love via their phone, using online dating services. The fact that Match.com is worth more than car companies Mitsubishi and Mazda combined shows how our economy is changing towards consumption of services rather than traditional goods.
This does not mean that free markets and technology alone can save the world from climate change. Government intervention is also needed. In fact, one of the oldest and most accepted ideas in economics is the principle that consumers should not only pay for the cost of producing what they buy, but also for its cost to society. This means taxing pollution, the destruction of wildlife, unhealthy food, traffic congestion and the depletion of natural resources, rather than raising the same amount by taxing income.
This could also be a source of economic growth. Research shows taxing pollution generates a “double dividend”: it restores fair competition between polluting and non-polluting products, and it generates tax revenue to invest for everyone’s benefit. If the prohibitive cost of pollution and limited natural resources forces us to innovate, we can actually create value instead of destroying it.
Green policies as the future of growth
In this kind of world, sustained growth for the next century would mean the phasing out of fossil fuels and increased energy efficiency, and largely replacing meat production with plant and lab-based alternatives. But also more value created by services, addressing wellbeing, and creating cleaner air and water, healthier food and safer cities.
Indeed, 15-minute cities are more of an economist’s dream than a socialist utopia. Charging for the true cost of car use by heavily taxing noise and air pollution is textbook introductory economics. Reallocating public land towards humans and public transport saves time for everyone. On the other hand, adding roads simply creates more congestion, while public transport gets more efficient as more people use it. Less time spent in a car means more time for work and leisure.
And when it comes to artificial intelligence, just like machines and robots in the past, it will not kill jobs but give us more time and money to spend on leisure. This is economic growth.
PISSING OFF THE SWISS
St Bernard’s originated in London and not the Alps, new book claimsBlathnaid CorlessThu, 9 March 2023 
St Bernard - swisshippoThey are as synonymous with Switzerland as Toblerone and yodelling.But St Bernards as we know them today originated in London, not the Swiss Alps, according to a new book.The earliest records of the world’s most famous rescue dog come from monks at a hospice at the St Bernard Pass in the Swiss Alps in 1707 and it has long been assumed that the breed started here.The rescue work of the monks’ dogs came to prominence in the early 19th century through stories of the heroism of a mountain dog called Barry - who was said to have saved between 40 and 100 lives.Inspired by such tales, John Cumming Macdona, an English clergyman who founded the Kennel Club, imported dogs from the Alps that were allegedly Barry’s descendants. But unlike Barry - a short-haired mongrel - these were large, brown, long-coated dogs.Prof Michael Worboys, a historian from the University of Manchester, now claims in his new book, Doggy People, The Victorians Who Made the Modern Dog, that the breed recognised today was influenced by a fictional scene created by a Victorian animal painter at his studio in St John’s Wood, London.
Edwin Landseer - Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images
Edwin Landseer’s rescue scene of two Alpine Mastiffs in 1820 - inspired by stories of Barry - prompted Mr Macdona to recreate the majestic breed from the painting even though they bore no resemblance to the real-life dog.
The colourful and friendly canines he bred soon became a sensation at Victorian dog shows, with over half of St Bernards in the first Kennel Club Studbook in 1874 from Macdona’s kennel. His own dog, Tell, also became a canine celebrity.
However, these long-haired, gentle giants looked nothing like the monks’ original working dogs.
“It’s fascinating that Macdona’s St Bernards, due to their size, weight and long coats, were ever thought to have been good working dogs in snowy mountains,” Prof Worboys said.
“The newly invented St. Bernards were bred for show, not work; form trumped function. Macdona was a founder member of the Kennel Club, whose shows fostered the increase in the number, standardisation and beautification of breeds.
“Though defined by their form, the new breeds were also given backstories, and St Bernards had a good one that celebrated Victorian values,” he added.
After he died, Barry was taxidermied and placed in the Natural History Museum in Bern.
Barry
But after visitors complained that he looked “wrong” and nothing like the modern St Bernard, the museum remodelled him to make him taller with a more noble appearance.
Landseer’s painting also popularised the false idea that St Bernards carried a barrel of brandy on their collar, and the museum added this feature to Barry to make him more appealing.
Ciara Farrell, the Library and Collections manager for Crufts, said that while the St Bernard is not a direct descendant of the dogs in the Alps, the evidence is “too tenuous” for it to be re-registered as a native British breed.
“The modern St Bernard is descended from - but not a direct descendant - of the dogs that the monks would have had at the Hospice of St Bernard in the Western Alps,” she said.
She added: “I wouldn’t say that it was invented from scratch in the 19th century - it definitely shares ancestry with those original Swiss dogs - but some other dogs have been bred along the way as well to try and recreate the St Bernard as they knew it. And you can see from the pictures that they've ended up with a heavier dog than the one known from the Alps.”
On Friday, St Bernards will be competing in Crufts which is taking place from March 9 to 12 in the NEC in Birmingham.
Charles Cruft, who founded the show in 1886, was reportedly an admirer of the breed, making them a logo of his early shows.
Overbreeding since the Victorian period has led to Saint Bernards being placed on the Kennel Club’s Category 3 list: breeds considered to be more susceptible to developing specific health conditions associated with exaggerated conformation.
It shares this category with eight other breeds including the German Shepherd, Bulldog and Pug.
Penny Forrest, who is representing the English Saint Bernard Club at Crufts, said: “St Bernards are a Category 3 breed for showing because of previous health issues they’ve had. They used to have really heavy, wrinkly heads. We had an issue with the eyes at one point because of that - they literally couldn’t see through their own faces.”
She told The Telegraph it has taken generations of breeding to eradicate some of the extreme genetic problems.
“Because they’re a giant breed we did have a problem with hips at one point, but that’s much better now.
“Where they started to introduce new lines, we lost a lot of the height in the breed. They’re now breeding the height back.”
‘Really basic stuff’: Crufts showcases ‘good citizens’ scheme as dog attacks rise
Jessica Murray Midlands correspondent
Thu, 9 March 2023
Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
At the Good Citizen Dog Training ring at Crufts, a number of dog owners are trying to distract their pets with colourful balls, outdoor toys and, in once case, an inflatable paddling pool.
The dogs, however, stay put. From the large dalmatian to the miniature pinscher, all have been trained to Kennel Club silver award standard, and (mostly) engage only when told to by their owners.
Their display is followed by a “Safe and Sound demonstration”, reminding people how to approach dogs in the street they don’t know – ask the owner’s permission, let the dog smell the back of your hand first and then slowly progress to gentle strokes.
After a spate of serious dog attacks in recent months, the Kennel Club is more keen than ever to promote the educational benefits of Crufts, which opened at the Birmingham NEC on Thursday.
“Crufts is really about dog ownership – the interaction between people and dogs, and dogs living in our society,” said Bill Lambert, a Kennel Club spokesperson. “We can’t talk about all the good things about dogs without recognising the responsibility that comes with them. And a lot of this is really basic stuff that anyone can do.”
A BBC investigation this week revealed the number of dog attacks recorded by police in England and Wales had risen by more than a third in the past five years, with nearly 22,000 cases of out-of-control dogs causing injury in 2022.
This year alone has brought the death of a four-year-old girl in Milton Keynes, who was attacked by a dog in her back garden, and Natasha Johnston, who was killed by the dogs she was walking in a Surrey park.
“Although some numbers may be inflated because of better reporting, we certainly seem to have seen an increase in these major incidents over recent months,” said Lambert, adding that the sharp rise in dog ownership during lockdown could be behind the increase.
An American cocker spaniel parades before the judges at Crufts. Photograph: Katja Ogrin/Getty Images
“It seems likely that we have quite a lot of untrained, poorly socialised dogs out there that could possibly lead to an increase in incidents, and of course we have a lot of inexperienced new dog-owners too. So it’s almost a perfect storm.”
This year Crufts has a four-day programme for its Good Citizen training ring, covering how to train and socialise a dog to ensure they develop a steady temperament, and are calm “good citizens” in different environments.
Dog owners are also helping to spread awareness. On Friday, Courtney Goodey, 27, is competing at the event with her Australian shepherd dog, Mr Bixby. She has trained him to go into youth groups and teach children how to interact with dogs. He can, on command, demonstrate the behaviour of dogs when they don’t feel comfortable or safe and may be more likely to bite, such as backing away and lowering his tail.
“It’s just making them aware of things to look out for because, unfortunately, some parents don’t seem to actually do much with their own kids around dogs, especially if they don’t have them at home,” said Goodey, who is a trained dog behaviourist and former school sports coach. “Some parents don’t know what signs to look for in their dog, and they think sitting the child on top of the dog is cute for a photo.”
She teaches children not to go running up to dogs in the street to hug them.
“You do, unfortunately, see quite a lot of dogs outside now that aren’t maybe as well-behaved,” Goodey said. “I think people maybe aren’t doing the research behind the breeds, or just going for the bigger the better. It’s a shame there have been so many incidents, because dogs are such a nice thing to be around.”
US firm bids to stop contested DR Congo oil auction
Emmet Livingstone
Thu, 9 March 2023
A US investment firm has proposed to stop a controversial oil auction in DR Congo's rainforests, bidding to exploit carbon credits instead of drilling in the environmentally sensitive areas.
In July, the Democratic Republic of Congo opened bidding for 27 oil blocks, arguing that exploiting its fossil resources was an economic imperative for the impoverished central African country.
But some of the blocks overlap with protected areas in the basin of the Congo River -- a huge carbon sink and rainforest haven second in size only to the Amazon.
Green groups have warned of dire consequences should the oil industry move in.
The danger is considered particularly acute in the central Congo Basin peatlands, which researchers estimate store around 30 billion tonnes of carbon.
Worldwide carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for 2021 stood at about 37 billion tonnes, according to Global Carbon Project, a monitor.
Investment firm EQX Biome has filed a bid for the 27 oil blocks, setting out an alternative business case to extraction, designed to protect the forest.
The New York-based company is proposing to spend $400m in conservation projects, which would then generate $6 billion over 20 years through the sale of carbon credits, according to CEO Matthias Pitkowitz.
Planting trees or protecting tropical rainforests have become popular tools for companies to offset CO2 emissions or burnish their green credentials.
Companies can buy carbon credits, from certified conservation projects, that represent the volume of CO2 prevented from being emitted into the atmosphere. One credit typically represents one tonne of C02.
A condition of EQX Biome's bid is that the government call off oil drilling in all 27 blocks.
Pitkowitz argues that the proposal makes better economic sense than oil, with the potential to create thousands of local jobs and generate taxable revenue.
"$6 billion instead of oil drilling," he told AFP. "This isn't dreamland".
The $6bn-revenue figure is based on estimates about the success of the conservation projects, which would then would generate carbon credits, Pitkowitz explained.
He declined to comment on whether EQX Biome, founded in 2022, had secured funding for its proposed $400m investment.
The DRC's hydrocarbons ministry did not respond to questions.
- Contested credits -
Proponents argue that carbon credits are a viable mechanism to avoid deforestation.
But critics warn that forests do not store carbon permanently -- trees release carbon back into the atmosphere when they die -- and that some companies may use credits to cover for increased emissions.
A recent scandal over the alleged ineffectiveness of projects certified by leading carbon-credit provider Verra has also cast a shadow over the industry.
A lax regulatory environment in the DRC, one of the world's poorest and most corrupt countries, has also triggered skepticism about efforts to use carbon credits to protect its vast tracts of remote forest.
“Their plan is very ambitious,” said a Western diplomat following environmental issues in the DRC, explaining that EQX Biome had little direct experience in the country, or in the carbon-credits market.
But the diplomat said that it was important to explore credits as a tool to fight deforestation despite criticisms of the relatively new mechanism.
It is unclear which other firms have submitted bids for the 27 oil blocks.
Companies have until October to submit bids on some of the blocks, according to the hydrocarbons ministry.
In the DRC's Cuvette Centrale region -- one of the most sensitive areas comprising forests and peatlands -- bidding ends in July and August.
Hydrocarbons Minister Didier Budimbu has previously indicated that he is open to bids to carbon-credit groups.
Thomas Annicq, CEO of carbon-credits firm Oneshot.earth, said that his company expressed an interest bidding but the Congolese government never responded to a request for further information.
"I felt like they didn't take it seriously," he said, adding that carbon credits have more to offer longterm than fossil fuels.
The value of the voluntary carbon market -- where firms can purchase carbon credits from conservation projects -- reached about $2 billion in 2021, according to Boston Consulting Group. It is expected to rise to $10-40 billion by 2030.
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Walgreens failed to read the room. Now it faces a boycott — and thousands of angry customers
Holly Baxter
Thu, 9 March 2023
Walgreens is the second-largest pharmacy provider in the country (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)
When Governor Gavin Newsom announced this week that California would no longer do business with Walgreens, most reacted with surprise. While retweeting a CNN story about the pharmacy giant choosing not to distribute the abortion pill mifepristone in 20 states, Newsom wrote: “California won’t be doing business with Walgreens — or any company that cowers to the extremists and puts women’s lives at risk. We’re done.”
It was action without a warning shot, and it clearly took the pharmacy giant by surprise. Walgreens — which, for any Brits and New Yorkers keen to join the boycott, shares a parent company with Boots and Duane Reade — operates nearly 600 stores in California and is the second-largest pharmacy chain in the United States. It is responsible for around 10 per cent of the pharmacy market in the west coast state. That means that taking a stand against Walgreens would be costly for the company, but also potentially for Californians themselves. The state is huge — the most populous in the country, with the third-largest landmass after Alaska and Texas — and many in rural locations known colloquially as “healthcare deserts” rely on supersize Walgreens stores to access in-network medication. Because of the company’s size, it is able to accept most health insurance plans versus a local pharmacy on an isolated small-town street.
Pulling all business with Walgreens may, then, have the unintended effect of cutting off some Californian women’s ability to access the abortion pill altogether.
Yet it remains unclear what California no longer “doing business with Walgreens” actually means. Newsom has been cagey about details, and his spokesman Brandon Richards told CNN that his team is currently “reviewing all relationships between Walgreens and the state”. It’s hard to imagine the forced closure of over 600 stores going ahead. It’s possible that “doing business” refers to pensions or sharing in California-specific innovations. The state recently announced that it plans to make its own insulin as a solution to keeping costs down for diabetics. If that comes to fruition, and insulin for $35 or less per month becomes the norm in the state as opposed to the usual $200-plus co-pay for privately insured citizens at the moment, then cutting Walgreens out of the deal could drive thousands away from the stores almost immediately.
Mifepristone is used for abortions conducted in under 8 weeks’ gestation (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)
What’s most bizarre about Newsom’s statement is that Walgreens didn’t see it coming. Just days earlier, it had responded to pressure from Republican politicians from jurisdictions where abortion is both legal and illegal by agreeing not to distribute mifepristone in any of their 20 states. On 1 February, the attorneys general of states where abortion has been effectively outlawed, like Kentucky and Texas, co-signed a letter alongside colleagues from other states — such as Alaska, Montana, Iowa and Florida — where abortion remains legal. The letter was sent to Walgreens and competitors including CVS, Rite Aid and Walmart, and purported to concern the protection of women and children. It effectively threatened the pharmacies with numerous legal actions if they continued to sell mifepristone. The message was clear: We intend to make this hard for you.
In late February, Walgreens was the only company to publicly respond to the pressure. In a letter dated 17 February, a representative of the Walgreens Boots Alliance responded to all of the signatories, stating: “Walgreens does not intend to dispense mifepristone within your state and does not intend to ship mifepristone into your state from any of our pharmacies. If this approach changes, we will be sure to notify you.” To many people’s surprise, this letter didn’t exclude the attorneys general who had written from states where the abortion pill remains legal. It looked very much like Walgreens was throwing women to the dogs at the first sign of trouble.
Perhaps Walgreens didn’t imagine that liberals would be as strident in their blowback as conservatives were in their pressure campaign. Or perhaps the pharmacy simply doesn’t have a strategy to deal with the fallout of Roe v Wade’s overturn, even months down the line. Either way, they released a statement in the wake of California Governor Newsom’s announcement that directly contradicted what they’d said days earlier. “We want to be very clear about what our position has always been: Walgreens plans to dispense mifepristone in any jurisdiction where it is legally permissible to do so. Once we are certified by the FDA, we will dispense this medication consistent with federal and state laws. Providing legally approved medications to patients is what pharmacies do, and is rooted in our commitment to the communities in which we operate,” the company wrote in a statement on March 6th. The Independent approached Walgreens for further explanation and was directed back to the statement on the Walgreens website. Requests for further clarification, considering that the statement directly contradicted what was said in the letter days earlier, were ignored.
Whether or not Walgreens is backpedaling, enough damage has clearly already been done. Filmmaker Michael Moore addressed the controversy in his popular Substack newsletter on 5 March with a simple headline: “Boycott Walgreens, a pharmacy that stands with anti-abortion extremists against the rights of women”. #BoycottWalgreens began trending on Twitter. Walgreens stock began to plummet. Stories on social media began to proliferate about people cancelling their Walgreens accounts or clogging up the company’s inboxes and phone lines with angry missives. People began reminding each other that the typical Walgreens customer, as well as the typical Walgreens employee, is female. By this point, it was 8 March: International Women’s Day. Few could imagine an organisation finding itself in a worse PR bind for the biggest female-centred day of the year. Walgreens became central to the celebrations in the worst way possible — as an example of how collective action by women can be used to take sexist corporations down.
What is perhaps the most concerning about Walgreens’ initial caving to the pressures of Republican attorneys general is the fact that many of those politicians were attempting to directly subvert democracy. Kansas is a pertinent case in point. The ruby-red state ran a referendum not long after Roe v Wade’s overturning by the Supreme Court, in August 2022. It was widely expected that Kansans would vote in that referendum to overturn the state constitution and make abortion illegal. This was the first state to test the waters after SCOTUS’ decision. Anti-abortion campaigners planned to declare the results as proof that the “moral majority” agreed the procedure should be illegal.
But the plan never came to fruition. Instead, in an unexpected twist, 59 per cent of Kansans voted “no” on an amendment that would have banned abortion in the state. The victory went to the Biden administration instead, who released a triumphant statement about the importance of allowing women to make their own healthcare decisions. It seemed that far-right campaigners on the issue had forgotten why a huge proportion of Americans — especially in rural states like Kansas — vote Republican. These Republican voters are not necessarily evangelicals; in fact, they are more often than not libertarian-minded people whose main concern is keeping the government out of their business. And bringing in rules about what women can do with their own bodies in the privacy of their own homes really smells like bringing the government into their business.
Kamala Harris holds up a map showing the inconsistency of abortion access in the US after the overturn of Roe v Wade
Mifepristone is an abortion pill that works when a woman has been pregnant for eight weeks or less. Different to Plan B, it ends an early pregnancy by cutting off progesterone and opening the cervix (Plan B, sometimes known as the morning-after pill, is not an abortion pill and instead works to prevent implantation before a pregnancy occurs.) Around 80 per cent of abortions in the US are performed at this early stage, many of which can be conducted at home by taking mifepristone. Despite Republican horror stories and Trumpian lies about abortions being conducted “at birth”, just 4 per cent of abortions are carried out after 16 weeks, and most of those are because of an immediate health danger to the mother or the sad finding that a fetus has a condition incompatible with life.
Importantly, mifepristone is also prescribed by doctors to women who are experiencing a miscarriage. It helps to clear the uterus of any debris from a failed pregnancy that could lead to serious infection and potentially fatal sepsis.
Put simply, when access to mifepristone is politicised and then made difficult, people die. That Walgreens treated the issue so flippantly in the first place is a red flag — and is probably enough for a lot of its customers to never shop there again.
Walgreens Says Its Hands Are Tied on the Abortion Pill. Experts Say That’s Not True
Tessa Stuart
Fri, March 10, 2023
State Of California Cuts Ties With Walgreens Over Company Not Carrying Abortion Pill In 21 States - Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
California Gov. Gavin Newsom this week made what could either be considered a bold pledge or a shameless grandstand: He announced that the state was reevaluating the planned renewal of a contract with Walgreens, after the pharmacy chain assured 20 Republican attorneys general that it would not dispense Mifepristone in their states, including some states where abortion remains legal.
“California will not stand by as corporations cave to extremists and cut off critical access to reproductive care and freedom,” the California governor said in a statement. Walgreens had received about $54 million dollars under the contract to date, for providing prescription drugs for California’s prisons.
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As calls to boycott the pharmacy chain have grown, Newsom isn’t the first or last Democratic heavyweight to express disappointment with the company over its capitulation to the GOP AGs. A few days earlier, the CEO of Walgreens, which is headquartered in Illinois, was summoned to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office to discuss their plans, and on Thursday, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York dispatched a warning letter of her own.
Privately, representatives for Walgreens have complained that, for simply promising to abide by state and federal laws, they are unfairly bearing the brunt of public outrage about the substance of those laws. And in a statement responding to California’s decision (which Walgreens said was based on “false and misleading information”) the company sniped: “Walgreens is facing the same circumstances as all retail pharmacies, and no other retail pharmacies have said that they would approach this situation differently, so it’s unclear where this contract would now be moved.”
But experts are challenging Walgreens’ position, asserting that the company’s interpretation of state and federal law is misguided — and that the company is being needlessly restrictive with a medication that is critical not only for abortion, but for the treatment of miscarriages too.
Walgreens is the second-largest pharmacy chain in the country. The largest, CVS, has remained quiet as outrage has continued to build. CVS did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Rolling Stone, nor did Walmart and Costco. (The country’s third largest drugstore group, Health Mart, a franchise program, told Rolling Stone that each owner-operator would choose whether to dispense mifepristone on their own. “Health Mart independent community pharmacy operators make their own independent business decisions.”)
If those companies are still evaluating how they will respond to threats from Republican attorneys general, Guttmacher Institute’s Elizabeth Nash, the foremost expert on state abortion laws, says they are likely to find they have more leeway than Walgreens claims it has.
The 21 states where Walgreens has said it will not dispense mifepristone fall into a few different categories, she explains. Some have banned abortion completely, some have laws that require a doctor to dispense the drug in person, some have onerous requirements that would simply make it impractical for a pharmacy to distribute it. And then there are some states, she says, that have none of the above, where Walgreens is also saying it will not dispense Mifepristone.
Alaska, Nash says, is one example: It has no ban on telemedicine, no requirement that the abortion pill be dispensed in-person, no waiting period and no gestational limit. Montana, she says, is another. A representative for Walgreens, reached for comment, pointed to language in statutes in Alaska and Montana that say an abortion can only be provided by a licensed physician, but Nash points out that that doesn’t create a meaningful obstacle, since a physician would be the one writing a prescription for the drug in any case.
The details, she says, matter very much. “Alaska, Montana — they’re both rural states where pharmacy access is could be very important,” Nash says. Both states, she also notes, have higher courts that have consistently protected abortion access. With future fights over access to birth control and gender-affirming care looming in the near future, she adds, the decision creates a troubling precedent.
“They needed to take more time to think through,” Nash says. “There are definitely states where they could be providing Mifepristone, and now they won’t be.”
One manufacturer of mifepristone — BioGenPro — and their lawyers, meanwhile, argue that the state restrictions Walgreens has cited are functionally irrelevant because courts have consistently ruled that only the federal government has the power to regulate drugs. “Was the letter intended to intimidate pharmacies? Yes. Has it done its job? It appears so,” says Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward and legal counsel for BioGenPro. “But the theory is wrong on the law.”
BioGenPro is currently suing the state of West Virginia over this issue, arguing that states cannot ban or regulate a drug in a way that is inconsistent with federal policy. Courts have reaffirmed that finding as recently as 2014 when Massachusetts tried to ban a potent opioid, only to be firmly rebuked by a federal judge, who declared doing so “would undermine the FDA’s ability to make drugs available to promote and protect the public health.”
BioGenPro is now considering whether it could utilize a similar argument in legal action against the Republican AGs working to prevent distribution of mifepristone in their states. In a statement to Rolling Stone, CEO Evan Masingill said the company “is reviewing the actions of state AGs and will continue to utilize the legal process to vindicate access to this evidence-based medication.”
The jostling between the Biden administration, pharmacies, GOP AGs, democratic governors, and drug companies is especially frustrating for people in states like Kansas who, just a few months ago, went to the polls and voted overwhelmingly to protect abortion access — only to see their elected officials working to shut that access down.
“The message in August was very clear — 19 points clear,” Ashley All, who helped spearhead the campaign against Kansas’ abortion ban with the group Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, said in a statement. “Kansans voted ‘No’ on giving politicians more power to regulate abortion. Yet at every turn, politicians have ignored the will of voters and inserted themselves into the private medical decisions of Kansas citizens.”
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, who has been at the forefront of the crusade against pharmacies, “is interfering in Kansans private medical care, deciding which legal prescriptions can be sent to Kansans, and threatening pharmacists,” All said. “Last time I checked, he is not a medical doctor or a pharmacist.”
And that gets at exactly the problem, says Ushma Upadhyay, professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at UCSF, and the co-director of the UCGHI Center for Gender and Health Justice: None of the state or federal restrictions on abortion — including rules around pharmacy certification to dispense Mifepristone that will be instituted under the Biden administration’s revamped policy — are rooted in science. “Mifepristone is extremely safe — it has an over 99 percent safety rating,” Upadhyay says. “We looked at 11,000 medication abortions and found a serious complication rate of less than a third of 1 percent.”
While she welcomes the Biden administration’s expansion of mifepristone to retail pharmacies, she says that the additional certification pharmacies must obtain to dispense the drug is an unnecessary burden for a drug that is not only used for abortion, but “very commonly prescribed to patients to treat miscarriage.” For that reason, she says, pharmacies — even in states with hostile attorneys general — must commit to dispensing the drug: “Walgreens or pharmacists in all 20 states should carry mifepristone now that they’re legally able to.”
European consumer NGO calls for ban on 'greenwashing' of food and drink products
Gregoire Lory
Thu, 9 March 2023
Food and drink producers are greenwashing their products by classifying them as CO2 neutral and must be banned, according to one of Europe's leading consumer NGOs.
In a report published on Thursday, the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) says that small 'greenwashing' labels are becoming increasingly common on the shelves of supermarkets, as more and more brands are discreetly stating that the product on sale is climate-neutral and therefore good for the planet.
"For us, this is absolutely greenwashing," Emma Calvert, a senior food policy officer at BEUC, told Euronews.
"Having a 100% CO2 neutral on a product is scientifically inaccurate and misleading to consumers. There's no way for consumers in the supermarket to verify that this is using carbon sequestration projects to justify this claim."
For BEUC, these labels are a misleading indication that have a marketing value that companies play on. It says that more than half of European consumers believe that environmental issues influence their food choices.
As a result, it is calling for a ban on these types of labels.
The NGO also says that the justification used by food companies to claim products are CO2 neutral, is not valid. Calvert said these businesses are using carbon offsetting.
"Companies will pay for a carbon credit to balance out their own carbon emissions. The problem with this is that, it's a kind of a burn now, pay later approach," she explained.
"So, they are emitting carbon right now and then the pledges are for tree planting projects mostly in the future."
This compensation can therefore take years to really be effective and is not guaranteed. Fires or extreme weather events could also cause these compensatory trees to disappear.
Nicola Sturgeon urged to intervene to save Mortons Rolls jobs in Glasgow
Stewart Paterson
Thu, 9 March 2023
Nicola Sturgeon urged to intervene to save Mortons Rolls jobs in Glasgow (Image: newsquest)
NICOLA Sturgeon said the Scottish Government will do all it can to ensure the Mortons bakery in Drumchapel continues to trade.
The firm that produces Mortons Rolls ceased trading last week, putting the jobs at risk.
The Drumchapel-based bakery, which employs about 250 people, told staff last Friday that they were being 'laid off with immediate effect'.
The company, best known for the famous crispy rolls, has said that no final decision has been taken on redundancies, but it admitted that 'all jobs are at risk'.
Paul Sweeney, Glasgow Labour MSP, asked the First Minister in Holyrood today to intervene and ensure jobs were saved at the bakery.
He said: “Investors have come forward.”
But he added it needs the Government to come forward to assist and he asked the First Minister if she was “willing to commit to doing everything to save Mortons”.
Sturgeon said: “I will give a commitment to doing everything possible to preserving Mortons Rolls and the jobs that depend on it.
“I know how important a company like this is to Drumchapel.
“We will do everything we possibly can to see if there is a rescue package to allow it to continue trading.”
Scottish teaching union members vote to accept pay deal
Ema Sabljak
Thu, 9 March 2023
Members of the EIS and SSTA unions on the picket line at St Andrew's and St Brides High School in South Lanarkshire. (Image: PA)
Members of a Scottish teaching union have voted to accept the latest pay deal and bring a long-lasting industrial dispute to an end.
The Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) voted 85.3% in favour of accepting the offer, with 14.7% rejecting it. Turnout was 79.9%.
Under the deal announced by Scottish Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville, teachers earning up to £80,000 will see their pay rise by 6% from April 2022, and then another 5.5% from the start of the 2023 financial year.
Scotland's largest teaching union is yet to conclude a ballot of members - but it is expected to announce the results on Friday.
READ MORE: Kevin McKenna at Large: How an average Scottish school was voted the best in the world
SSTA general secretary Seamus Searson said: “The membership has determined to accept the latest pay offer.
“Throughout the period of industrial action, the SSTA has taken a measured approach and has been willing to negotiate to find a solution to the pay dispute.
“The SSTA is proud to be a member-led union, and the ballot is a fundamental part of our democratic process.”
Mr Searson said the SSTA will now push for teachers to receive the backpay they are due as quickly as possible.
He continued: “However, the SSTA has a major concern over the unnecessary pay cap; this seems to be an act of political dogma rather than a rational proposal.
“The inclusion of this is a considerable barrier in the professional career structure for secondary school teachers.
“The career ladder has been stifled for many years, the number of posts of responsibility has been cut severely. Posts such as these are needed in secondary schools as they are essential for good management systems.”
WELL DESERVED
The Guardian wins daily newspaper of the year at the UK Press Awards
GNM press officeThu, 9 March 2023Guardian and Observer journalism won two major accolades at the Press Awards, including daily newspaper of the year for the Guardian and supplement of the year for Saturday magazine.The Press Awards, held in London last night (Wednesday 7 March), celebrate outstanding talent from across the UK’s press and champion the importance of journalism to society, with the awards open to all news media publishers distributing nationally in the UK.The Guardian was named daily newspaper of the year, with the category covering editorial coverage, digital strategy, design and use of photography.Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief, Guardian News & Media says:“The Guardian winning both daily newspaper of the year and supplement of the year for Saturday magazine is a fantastic achievement, as well as individual accolades for our columnists and journalists. These awards are a testament to the quality, impact and creativity of Guardian and Observer journalism, as well as the collaborative work of so many hard-working teams, who help bring this vital reporting to our readers every day.”The judges said the Saturday magazine was “witty, engaging, eclectic” adding that it delivers “agenda-setting magazine journalism” with articles that “linger in the mind and are spoken about, and followed up elsewhere”.A number of Guardian and Observer journalists were also honoured with awards, including columnist of the year (broadsheet) for Aditya Chakrabortty, and critic of the year for Jay Rayner.Pippa Crerar, who is currently the Guardian’s political editor, won political journalist of the year for her work with the Daily Mirror.The Guardian was also highly commended in two other categories, showcasing the impact of its journalism across audio and illustration. The Guardian’s daily podcast Today in Focus was highly commended in the news podcast category, along with Ben Jennings for cartoonist of the year.Read more here, including a full list of winners on the Press Awards site.
