Canada’s West Coast Longshore Contract Expires

The longshore contract convering Canada's West Coast ports including Vancouver has expired (Port of Vancouver)

PUBLISHED APR 3, 2023 11:50 AM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

The labor contract for Canada’s West Coast ports expired on Friday, March 31 with the union already saying that they are at an impasse with their employers. The Canadian federal government is becoming involved, deferring the possibility of strikes till at least June in what is likely to be protracted negotiations.

The last five-year contract covered over 7,400 longshore workers and foremen at the ports including Vancouver and Price Rupert, which collectively handle approximately 25 percent of the country’s imports and exports. Estimates are that the West Coast ports handle nearly C$300 billion worth of cargo annually (US$225 billion). The last agreement, which took approximately 18 months of negotiations and resulted in a brief lockout, sets the wages, benefits, hours of work, and employment conditions for the longshore workers.

The International Longshoremen & Warehouse Union Canada (ILWU) filed an official notice in November 2022 under Canadian labor law to commence the negotiations to renew the collective agreement with the British Columbia Maritime Employers Association. At the time they said they expected to begin discussions in January 2023, but the first meeting did not take place till February 16 during which proposals were exchanged and dates established for the negotiations in March and April.

After only a few sessions, the ILWU filed a notice of dispute on March 20 with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. At the time, the union said it was taking that action because “there has been no meaningful progress with the BCMEA in discussions to renew the Industry Collective Agreement.”

Observers were left to speculate on what is happening due to the quick action to seek mediation. While it is the same process they followed for the prior negotiations the action came quicker than anyone anticipated. The Federal government which had fifteen days to act also moved quickly with the Minister of Labor appointing two conciliation officers on March 29. 

The speculation varies between efforts to accelerate the process this time or deep divisions between the two sides. Before the start of the negotiations, the union made public comments saying that it was seeking significant wage increases. While both benefits and work conditions were expected to be discussed during the negotiations, the union’s primary concern is automation. Similar to the U.S. West Coast labor union which has yet to resolve its contract negotiations, the Canadian union is opposed to efforts toward port automation. It is likely to be a primary issue in Vancouver where they are working to build a new container terminal.

BCMEA in its statements has repeatedly said it has a “sincere objective of reaching a fair and equitable agreement that recognizes the efforts and skills of B.C.’s waterfront workforce, while also ensuring West Coast ports remain competitive, resilient, and affordable for all Canadians.” When the union filed its notice of dispute, the employer’s association emphasized the critical role the ports play in the economic and social well-being of Canada.

Under Canadian labor laws, the appointment of the conciliation officers starts a mandated 60-day period where they will seek to guide the negotiations. That period could be extended by the mutual consent of the two sides. At the end of the conciliation period, a further 21-day cooling-off period begins if there is no agreement. Observers are noting that based on that timeline it would be at least June before there could be a sanctioned strike or the employers would be permitted to lock out any workers.

THIRD WORLD U$A

She lost her child in a home birth. Prosecutors charged her with murder

Sam Levin in Los Angeles
Mon, 3 April 2023 

Kelsey Carpenter was alone in her San Diego apartment when she went into labor on 14 November 2020.

The mother of two had planned a home birth for her third child. But the baby came two weeks earlier than expected, so she delivered on her own, then passed out, records show. When she awoke, her newborn - whom she named Kiera - was not breathing. Despite her attempts at CPR, the baby did not survive.

The loss, however, was only the beginning of Carpenter’s nightmare.

Police soon after arrested Carpenter, 33. The San Diego district attorney is moving forward with charges of murder “with malice” and child endangerment and has cited her decision to have an “unattended delivery” as well as her alleged drug use. Prosecutors have continued to pursue the case despite the county medical examiner saying the manner of death was an “accident”; medical experts testifying that the state’s cause-of-death claims were not backed by scientific evidence; and the passage of a new California law explicitly prohibiting the criminalization of pregnancy loss.

If convicted, Carpenter could face a life sentence.

“I am still stunned and horrified that a person could have the biggest tragedy of their life and lose a child who was loved and was so wanted, and then be charged with such a horrible crime,” Carpenter told the Guardian in a recent message from jail. “I had cherished the idea of this baby and was totally committed to becoming the best mother I knew how to be. I mourn every day for Kiera.”

The case comes as women across the US have been increasingly subjected to surveillance, arrest and charges for abortions, stillbirths, and other actions that police claimed “endangered” their fetuses, with routine healthcare decisions and pregnancy outcomes treated as crimes.



It’s this American idea that we can police our way out of these social problems

Dana Sussman, Pregnancy Justice

Since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June 2022, a Nebraska teenager and her mother were charged with unlawful abortion and “concealing the death of another person” after allegedly obtaining abortion pills; a South Carolina woman was arrested after delivering a stillborn fetus in a hospital; a pregnant woman found with marijuana was jailed for months in Alabama to “protect” her fetus; and three women were sued for wrongful death after a Texas man alleged they helped his ex-wife obtain an abortion. Carpenter’s prosecution in California, a state considered a leader on reproductive justice and women’s rights, was a reminder that this crackdown was not limited to conservative states, advocates said.

“It’s this American idea that we can police our way out of these social problems – that placing someone in jail or prison is a way to address mental health needs, substance use disorders or lack of access to healthcare,” said Dana Sussman, acting executive director of Pregnancy Justice, a legal advocacy group assisting Carpenter. “It has really devastating outcomes for everyone.”
A tragic ‘accident’

Carpenter has struggled with substance use disorder for much of her adult life, stemming from sexual abuse and trauma she endured as a child, she said: “I tried to hide the pain of those experiences in drugs.” She repeatedly sought treatment and went to rehab, but said that medical professionals who learned of her addiction in some cases responded with punitive measures that caused her life to further unravel.

Her first son was born in 2012 and her second in 2019. In both cases, the hospitals reported that the infants tested positive for drugs and called California Child Welfare Services (CWS), which immediately took custody – despite the fact that both were healthy births, there was no indication either child suffered adverse consequences due to drug exposure, and she was taking prescribed addiction medication, her lawyers say. She has maintained relationships with both kids, with her mother adopting her oldest and Carpenter regaining joint custody of the youngest.

When Carpenter became pregnant again with Kiera, she was determined that this time would be different: “I did not want to risk losing my third child to the system … I love my babies and hoped to provide a sibling to them. I had imagined my sons being her big brothers and protecting her and showing her love.” In 2020, she prepared for a home birth, getting literature on delivery at home, reaching out to a midwife, and buying medical supplies, baby care items, a changing table and a crib.

She was also in drug treatment again. Records show that in September, she visited a methadone clinic, which prescribes patients medications to manage addiction and withdrawal. The facility was aware she was pregnant and had her take buprenorphine, which leading medical associations and US health agencies recommended for pregnant patients with opioid use disorder.

After delivering her baby, she cut the umbilical cord and secured it with cloth and tape, and also tried unsuccessfully to breastfeed her newborn before losing consciousness amid significant blood loss, her lawyers said. After discovering her baby was lifeless, she attempted CPR and called 911.

She was hospitalized – and then arrested for child endangerment.
‘Like someone ripped my heart out’

Shande Carpenter, Kelsey’s mother, showed up to the Oceanside police station where her daughter was in shock and severe physical pain while being questioned by officers: “She was hysterically crying, collapsing in my arms, completely inconsolable, hyperventilating. She told me Kiera had passed away and the police were blaming her. It was gut-wrenching. I felt like someone was ripping my heart out.”

She was initially released, but in March 2021, Summer Stephan, the San Diego district attorney, charged Carpenter with murder, prompting local news stories headlined “Drug addict loses third child”. She faced significant online abuse, death threats and harassment, including someone spraying “baby killer” on her car, her mother said: “I was fearful for her safety, and all of this was happening while she was trying to mourn Kiera.”

Related: She was jailed for losing a pregnancy. Her nightmare could become more common

Kelsey Carpenter said the stress was overwhelming, and she was consumed by grief: “Before I was arrested I slept with Kiera’s ashes next to me every night and told her all of the hopes I had had for us. She was so fully loved for the few minutes I had her. I miss her so much.”

The county coroner’s November 2020 autopsy deemed the loss an “accident”, and said the cause was “perinatal death associated with methamphetamine and buprenorphine exposure and unattended delivery”. But a Yale University expert who reviewed placental records for Carpenter’s lawyers said a rupture was the most likely cause, meaning blood loss prior to or during delivery, and that there was no evidence that drug exposure was responsible.

At a hearing in September 2022, a police detective acknowledged that it was not illegal to have an unattended home birth nor to use buprenorphine. And the medical examiner, when cross-examined by Carpenter’s attorney Brian White, acknowledged it was “not a homicide because there’s no intent to kill”, it would be “reasonable” to “certify this death as undetermined” and it was possible the baby might not have survived if the birth had been at a hospital.

In addition to the legality of home birth and uncertainty about the cause of death, Carpenter’s lawyers grew more confident in their case late last year when lawmakers adopted reproductive rights legislation that made clear this kind of prosecution simply isn’t allowed.

But the new law has not stopped the San Diego DA.
‘Who do these prosecutions serve?’

AB2223, which went into effect in January, states that a person cannot be charged for conduct during pregnancy that results in abortion, miscarriage, stillbirth or perinatal death. Its adoption came after a district attorney in California’s Central Valley spent years pursuing murder cases against Chelsea Becker and Adora Perez, two women who had stillbirths, alleging without scientific basis that drug use caused their losses.

Advocates, backed by the state’s attorney general, argued that California’s “murder of a human fetus” statute has long only applied to third parties – if, for instance, someone shoots a pregnant person, leading to a miscarriage. The new law makes this explicit and is supported by medical experts, who argue that criminalizing pregnancy outcomes is unethical, counter to scientific evidence and harmful for public health.



Why are we prosecuting tragedies instead of preventing them?

Jennifer Chou, ACLU

Research shows that policies that punish people for substance use during pregnancy can lead to worse outcomes, in part because people skip prenatal care and treatment out of fear, said Dr Sarah CM Roberts, University of California, San Francisco, professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences: “We’re prosecuting and blaming people for a decision to avoid care, when we as a society put the policies in place that made them scared to get care.”

Reproductive rights and health experts who submitted a brief in Carpenter’s case also noted that scientific studies have not demonstrated that a pregnant person’s use of methamphetamine causes infant death.

“It’s concerning that people who have anything but a perfect birth are vulnerable to this kind of state misinterpretation of the event as willful and the individual therefore culpable for the tragic outcome,” said Dr Mishka Terplan, an OB-GYN physician and addiction expert. “Who do these prosecutions serve? They certainly don’t serve Ms Carpenter. What is to be gained from this?”

Jennifer Chou, ACLU of Northern California staff attorney, said Carpenter’s case served to create further mistrust in the medical system: “Why are we prosecuting tragedies instead of preventing them? For Ms Carpenter, Ms Perez and Ms Becker, what would have been helpful is connections to resources that they needed to stay healthy, but instead we put them into the criminal system.”

Before Roe v Wade was overturned, Pregnancy Justice tracked 1,700 cases of pregnancy criminalization in the US, many involving substance use claims. While prosecutions of pregnant people suffering from addiction have not typically sparked widespread outrage, Sussman said she hoped people were now paying attention; those cases are the “blueprint” for the broader crackdown on bodily autonomy in a country that increasingly values “fetal personhood” and no longer has a constitutional right to abortion.
Separated from her kids

As Carpenter’s lawyers have moved to dismiss the case by citing AB2223, San Diego prosecutors have focused on her conduct after the birth, claiming she did not properly secure the umbilical cord, that she took 28 minutes to call 911 after waking up, and that if she had sought help faster, “the baby would have survived”.

Tanya Sierra, a DA spokesperson, said in an email that the DA “fully recognizes the reproductive rights enshrined by AB 2223”, but alleged that the new law was not relevant: “Carpenter is not being prosecuted for her decision to have a home birth or substance use. This is not a case involving abortion, stillbirth, or any other pregnancy outcome. This is a case about a newborn baby who died as a direct result of a parent’s acts and omissions after the baby’s live birth.”

Carpenter’s attorneys have countered that there was no clear evidence any of her actions after delivery caused the death and that the DA was still criminalizing her lawful home birth: “The law is clear: decisions a woman makes during pregnancy cannot be used to prosecute her for the outcome of the pregnancy,” said Daniel Arschack.

It’s unclear if Stephan, the DA, has prosecuted similar cases, which are rare in California. A former Republican, now a registered independent, Stephan has presented herself as a champion for women and children, and has made national headlines for her conspiracy case against leftist protesters demonstrating at a pro-Trump rally. Oceanside police did not respond to inquiries. The medical examiner declined to comment.

Carpenter was originally released on bail, but after a failure to appear in court, she was arrested again and brought to jail in January, her lawyers said, once again separating her from her children.

Shande said she wished the DA and the public understood who her daughter really was – a mother deeply devoted to her sons, who has a gentle spirit. “She’s a beautiful, loving, caring, sweet woman, who has been trying so hard for years to heal from the pain that drives her addiction, so she can conquer this disease.” One of the hardest parts of her incarceration is that her two sons can only see her during brief video visits; the oldest, age 11, cries, saying he misses cuddling and playing with his mom, and the youngest, age three, doesn’t understand why he has to talk to her on a screen.

Carpenter had been working to get her real estate license to better support her kids, but she is now unsure she’ll be able to pursue that career, she said, adding that the turmoil of her case had exacerbated her struggles with addiction.

“I wish that instead of taking my babies away when I was trying to beat my dependency problem, I could have been supported and been assured that having a baby in a hospital while being treated for dependency did not mean that my baby would be taken away,” she said. “I have been a good mother to my children and I would have been to Kiera if I’d had the chance.”

Brian Moser obituary

Jan Rocha

THE GUARDIAN
Mon, 3 April 2023 



In October 1967, when the body of Che Guevara was brought out of the Bolivian jungle lashed to a helicopter, Brian Moser was the first photographer on hand in Vallegrande to take what became iconic pictures of Latin America’s most famous revolutionary leader.

A week later, the trial began in nearby Camiri of Régis Debray, the French Marxist intellectual who had been captured after visiting the rebels, and Brian was there to film it, smuggling Debray a note with a message from Fidel Castro.

In 1985, when the remains of Josef Mengele, the notorious Nazi doctor of the Auschwitz death camp, were found in Brazil, Brian was there to interview the Austrian couple who had sheltered him and who still talked approvingly of the need to eliminate the untermenschen, the Jews. The footage formed part of the film The Search for Mengele, narrated by David Frost.

Brian, who has died aged 88 of heart complications, was not only present to record key moments in Latin America’s recent history, but he was also a documentary film-maker who pioneered a groundbreaking series for Granada TV called Disappearing World. The award-winning series, which began in 1970 and ran for more than 20 years, told the stories of indigenous peoples under threat from the advance of the outside world, in their own words.

His 1967 film on Che Guevara, End of a Revolution, shown by Granada’s World in Action series, refuted the official version that Guevara had died in a gunbattle. Brian’s version, that Guevara was captured alive and then killed, was based on a tipoff from a member of the American special forces who were present in the jungle region where Guevara and his guerrillas were trying to start a peasant revolution. The film, made by Brian with the help of his wife Caroline, turned them into objects of suspicion for the CIA.

Brian studied geology at Cambridge University, and then spent two years in Colombia with the anthropologist Donald Tayler, recording the music of eight remote indigenous tribes, the beginning of his long love affair with South America, and particularly Colombia. The film he made caught the attention of the Granada TV programme controller Denis Forman, who decided to invest in the amateur film-maker, providing training and then hiring him to work on World in Action.

In 1967 he married the anthropologist Caroline Shephard and they spent several years in Latin America, where together they developed the idea of the Disappearing World films.

Caroline says “There were two guiding principles – first, we would work with anthropologists who worked with tribal groups to give us access. Second, they would tell their stories in their own language and words, with subtitles, with little or no commentary, a revolutionary departure from the usual custom of having a presenter, invariably a white male.”

Disappearing World became a landmark anthropological series, internationally acclaimed, offering intimate portraits of remote communities, like the Cuiva, Embera and Panare of South America but also the nomadic Tuareg of the Sahara, the Kurdish Dervishes and the Meo of Mongolia. Each episode was filmed on 16mm film, usually taking about four weeks. A three-month edit in the Granada studios in Manchester followed. For Forman, Disappearing World and Coronation Street were two of the best series Granada ever made: both were commercially successful.

In 1976 Brian moved to Central TV and made the series Frontier, exploring the lives of people living on the edge of society. For the first episode, the couple and their two small children lived for months in a tiny bamboo hut built above a swamp in a slum community in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

In 1982 Brian and Caroline divorced and he later married the Colombian soprano Marina Tafur and spent most of the next few years in her home country. Because of his work recording and documenting indigenous peoples he was made an honorary citizen of Colombia, regarded as a pioneer of visual anthropology. Many of his sound recordings and photos are held there, while others are at the Pitt-Rivers Museum in Oxford and at the British Museum.

Brian was born in London. His father, Charlie Moser, was a Jewish businessman whose family, originally from Germany, were successful wool merchants in Bradford. His mother, Eliza (nee Henderson), grew up in Chile, where her family ran an export-import business, sending her to Britain for her education. In London she became an artist.

Brian said that when he was nine years old he would catch the No 11 bus from his home in Chelsea to a cinema in Victoria where they showed newsreels of the war and he saw pictures of Belsen concentration camp being liberated. “Perhaps it was the ability of those images to tell such a powerful story that sowed the seeds of my future career.” He saw the films he made for Disappearing World as “telling the stories of ordinary people often struggling for survival and frequently fighting for their rights”.

Brian was charismatic, charming, risk-taking. He loved the rainforest; he hated urban life. He spent his last few years living in a cottage in Dorset, organising his huge collection of photos into a book with the help of his son Titus.

He is survived by Marina, Titus and Nat, his grandchildren, Tage, Kaia, Sebastian, Savva and Elinor, his stepchildren Juanita and Sandra, and his sister, Leonora.

• Brian John Moser, documentary film-maker, born 30 January 1935; died 16 February 2023

Former union man takes on top job at Scottish Labour

Hamish Morrison
Mon, 3 April 2023 

Anas Sarwar pictured with former Scottish Labour general secretary James Kelly (far left) (Image: PA)

A FORMER senior trade union figure has been appointed general secretary of Scottish Labour.

John Paul McHugh takes on the post from former MSP James Kelly who has held the role since September 2021.

McHugh was assistant general secretary of the Community union until leaving the post in December, having been at the union for 15 years.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said: “I am delighted that John Paul has been appointed as our party’s new general secretary.

“John Paul brings with him a wealth of experience and knowledge and will be ready to build on the great work done by outgoing general secretary, James Kelly.

READ MORE: Scottish Labour reject anti-SNP tactical voting ploy with Tories

“The people of Scotland need a Labour government and Scotland needs a strong Scottish Labour Party.

“Together, we can lock the Tories out of Downing Street and the SNP out of Bute House. Scottish Labour – the change that Scotland needs.”

McHugh said: “It is an honour and a privilege to join the team at this exciting and hopeful moment for our movement.

“I will do all that I can to build on the legacy left behind by James Kelly and do all I can to deliver the Labour government that Scotland desperately needs.”

Prior to joining the Community union, McHugh worked as a mechanical fitter.

Eco-anxiety: climate change affects our mental health – here's how to cope


Matthew Adams, Principal Lecturer in Psychology, University of Brighton
Mon, 3 April 2023

A climate protest in Ontario, Canada. Ali Jabber/Shutterstock

As a psychologist, I have been researching, writing and talking about psychological and social responses to climate change for over ten years. An increasingly common response appears to be extreme worry.

The University of Bath recently published the results of its 2023 Climate Action Survey. Out of almost 5,000 respondents, 19% of students and 25% of staff said they were “extremely worried” about climate change, while 36% and 33% stated they were “very worried”. Climate worry was higher compared with results from the previous year’s survey.

In 2021, a global survey of how children and young people felt about climate change found similarly high levels of worry. Most of the 10,000 participants reported feelings of sadness, anxiety, anger, powerlessness, helplessness and guilt.


This phenomenon is called eco-anxiety, and it’s no surprise that so many people suffer from it. Wherever we are, more of us are now starting to experience the effects of the climate crisis in some way, whether this be drought, food shortages, flooding or extreme weather. Calling the climate crisis a crisis has also gone mainstream after years of being on the margins, and is now front and centre of wildlife documentaries, films, news media and celebrity culture.
Eco-anxiety can’t be ‘fixed’

Being worried or anxious about the climate and ecological crisis is a reasonable and predictable response to a dangerous situation. We should expect an increase in distress and complex emotional responses.

This is an important point for me and many other psychologists and psychotherapists that engage with the climate crisis as a profound societal and psychological challenge. It means that we should be wary of trying to accurately measure distress-related responses like eco-anxiety as individual traits.

When we do, the issue too easily becomes about the individual and the solution to fix them. This is often done by helping them adapt to reality through therapy and even medication.

But in framing the problem this way, we collectively engage in a form of denial. Can we, in good conscience, come up with “tips” for dealing with eco-anxiety if they are only aimed at finding ways to make the bad feelings go away and ignore their source?

I think we can. Distress can be overwhelming and debilitating. We do need to find ways to manage it both individually and collectively, while recognising that eco-anxiety is, in many ways, a “healthy” response.

Here are some tips for coping with eco-anxiety whenever the despair gets too much.
1. Acknowledge difficult emotions

Remind yourselves that anxiety and other emotions reflect a healthy psychological response to the fact that we are living in a time when so much of what we accept about the nature of a good life, progress, and what the future holds is unravelling.

By acknowledging these difficult emotions in yourself and others, you are less likely to engage in denial and defence mechanisms. These mechanisms include minimising the scale of the problem, blaming others and deepening support for opposing viewpoints.

The counterproductive nature of these mechanisms in our ability to collectively deal with societal problems is well-documented. For example, if everyone redirects the responsibility of climate action to others, then climate solutions are unlikely to get much traction.

A figure showing the different discourses that result in delayed climate action.

2. Recognise that it’s normal to feel overwhelmed

Doing things that reduce your carbon footprint is a common response to eco-anxiety. This might include recycling more or buying goods with reduced packaging. It can also be a stepping stone to other, more substantial lifestyle shifts like eating less meat or avoiding flying.

Much of this behaviour happens socially, so it can create conversations with others and shift social norms. The more we break the collective silence around the reality of the climate crisis, the more likely we are to see it as a shared problem. This in turn is the basis for political engagement and imagining a different kind of future.

But it is important to recognise that it is normal to feel overwhelmed both by the difficulty of removing ourselves from existing carbon-intensive lifestyle choices, such as shopping, holidays, driving, flying and buying stuff, and by the lack of visible results on a wider scale that follow from the changes we might already be making.

There is a long history of vested interests asserting the mantra of personal responsibility in maintaining the status quo. From those pushing tobacco to fossil fuel companies, a key strategic emphasis has been to “blame the consumer”, such as the endorsement of “tips” for reducing individual consumption.

This focus deflects from the need for bigger economic, social and structural change. After all, a structural problem requires a structural solution, not an individual one.
3. You’re not alone

It is best to think of eco-anxiety as something that we share, both collectively and culturally. We are in the midst of a planetary problem, with an accompanying planetary-scale emotional charge. You are tapping into what millions of other people are feeling too, however difficult it is to express.

In fact, as American climatologist Michael E. Mann has long argued, if you want to think about effective individual behaviour change, then contributing to collective pressure for bigger policy changes is the most useful thing you can do. This starts by sharing our concerns and connecting with others.

Talking about your concerns with others is a good start. AndriiKoval/Shutterstock

One final tip. Never lose sight of why you care so much in the first place. Eco-anxiety stems from biophilia – a love of all life.

So slow down, keep noticing nature and voicing what you care about. Whatever loss we are already mourning, whatever we are scared of losing, there is still a world out there to care for.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Matthew Adams is a member of the Climate Psychology Alliance.

Pacific trade deal ‘will make mockery of UK’s climate ambitions’

Fiona Harvey and Helena Horton
Mon, 3 April 2023

Photograph: Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images

The UK’s membership of a Pacific trade agreement will result in more deforestation overseas, endanger animal welfare and “make a mockery” of the government’s environmental commitments, campaigners have said.

Ministers signed an agreement late last week for the UK to become a member of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a trading bloc of 11 nations including Japan, Canada, Australia and Mexico.

The government said membership of the bloc would add about £1.8bn a year to the UK’s economy and free up trade for products such as whisky and pork. But environmental groups have raised concerns about the implications of the trade deal after the UK agreed to scrap European tariffs on palm oil as a condition for entry into the Pacific deal.

Last week Kemi Badenoch, the trade secretary, told Sky News that “you have to make trade-offs” in signing trade deals, and that palm oil was “a great product” and “not some illegal substance”. She added: “There are other crops in the EU that are causing deforestation that fit within EU rules.” The remarks enraged environmental and animal welfare groups, which warned that the deal would encourage deforestation overseas, particularly in south-east Asia, and could allow for the import of cheap low-quality meat produced under conditions that would be illegal here.

Palm oil produced in Malaysia is of particular concern as tariffs on the product, currently at 12%, will be eliminated and imports could increase, including from areas that have been deforested. Research by conservation groups over years has shown palm oil is closely associated with deforestation, the loss of habitats for rare species including the orangutan, and devastating forest fires.

Daniela Montalto, a forest campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “The UK has no safeguards in place to ensure it is not importing or financing palm oil operations that damage critical forests, peatlands, Indigenous lands and habitats for threatened species including orangutans. Cutting palm oil tariffs will only incentivise further destruction and runs completely counter to the government’s promise to embed the environment at the very heart of trade. It is beyond outrageous.”

At the Cop26 summit in Glasgow in 2021, the UK government spearheaded a global forests initiative, aimed at halting deforestation, and ministers have also brought in new rules to prevent goods from deforested areas being sold in the UK.

Montalto said: “[The Pacific trade deal] makes a total mockery of the UK government’s legislation to tackle deforestation in UK supply chains and runs completely counter to the government’s promise to put the environment at the very heart of trade.”

Angela Francis, the director of policy solutions at WWF, said: “By joining the CPTPP, the UK government is encouraging hugely destructive agriculture, which would be illegal in the UK, into our market. This announcement risks more imports of food produced in ways that drive deforestation, us harmful pesticides, or rely on unregulated fishing practices – all of which undermine the high standards UK producers are already required to meet.”

Animal welfare would also suffer, according to the RSPCA. Many members of the CPTPP use methods of production that would be illegal in the UK, including sow stalls and battery eggs, as well as antibiotic use, hormone treatment and pesticides that are outlawed here. There are no explicit references to animal welfare standards in the trade bloc’s formal conditions, according to the charity, which fears that products using these methods could be unwittingly bought by UK consumers.

David Bowles, the head of public affairs at the RSPCA, said: “The UK joining this transpacific trade bloc is another potential nail in the coffin for animal welfare standards back home. We now fear there will be nothing to stop those products [produced with lower standards] being imported into the UK.”

He added: “We were hoping that this transpacific agreement would result in a far better outcome in terms of animal welfare than the standalone trade deals with Australia and New Zealand, but this looks like another catastrophic own goal for animal welfare.”

Badenoch claimed doubling the amount of palm oil the UK imports from Malaysia would not have an impact on deforestation, adding that “you have to make trade-offs” when doing a deal and said the UK currently bought 1% of Malaysia’s palm oil exports but “moving to 2% from 1% is not what is going to cause deforestation”.

A spokesperson for the Department of Business and Trade told the Guardian: “The UK is committed to tackling illegal deforestation within our supply chains, and our agreement to join CPTPP does not change that. We will always support the sustainable production of palm oil, and at accession we will publish a joint statement with Malaysia to protect forests. Existing UK tariffs on Malaysian palm oil are already low, and the UK accounted for around 1% of Malaysia’s global palm oil exports last year, with deforestation related to palm oil in Malaysia falling 60% since 2012.”

War-torn Myanmar hit by 1,000pc leap in malaria cases

Sarah Newey
Mon, 3 April 2023

The Moei river, which marks the porous border between Thailand and Myanmar - Sarah Newey

Malaria has surged by more than 1,000 per cent in eastern Myanmar since 2020, a blow in a region pushing to eliminate the deadly parasitic disease by 2030.

Across Kayin state – a mountainous, forested province also known as Karen – 4,510 cases were reported in January 2023, compared to just 399 over the same period in 2020. Last year, roughly 32,000 cases were reported overall – in both 2019 and 2020, that figure hovered at around 8,000.

According to the figures from the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU), the recent jump upends years of low and declining transmission in the state – which shares a long, porous border with Thailand.

At a small clinic south of Phop Phra, on the Thai side of the winding Moei River that separates the two countries, health workers told the Telegraph that although the case-load remains far smaller than in the 1990s, they now see malaria cases on an almost daily basis.

“The situation has really changed, it’s not a development we wanted to see,” says Eh Moo, head of the clinic’s antenatal unit, which offers healthcare for migrants and refugees from Myanmar. “It’s not as bad as 30 years ago, when I started working here, but the increase suggests transmission is changing, especially on the Burma side of the border.”

As if to prove her point she walks out to the waiting area, where a dozen women and children are perched on wooden benches, and asks if anyone there was infected. A 21-year-old pregnant woman raises her hand, the team in the lab has just confirmed the fever she’s been suffering from is malaria.

“See, every day we’re confirming new cases,” says Eh Moo. “It’s a worrying trend.”

But it is the situation a few hundred miles away, in Hpapun Township in northern Kayin state, that has most alarmed experts. There, the surge in December has been linked to the spread of the dangerous Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite.

Not only does this cause more severe infections than the Plasmodium vivax parasite – which makes up the majority of cases in this region – but it is prone to develop resistance to critical treatments.

“Of course, you don’t want to have P. vivax, but it won’t kill you, it’s less dangerous,” said Prof François Nosten, a professor of tropical medicine and director of SMRU. “What we are really concerned about is P. falciparum – it’s more severe, it’s much more drug resistant, and that’s a problem. That’s why we want to eliminate it.”

Myanmar has two annual malaria peaks: during the rainy season between May and September, and a shorter but more intense period in the cold season, between November and December.

In December 2022, 1,413 malaria infections in an area of northern Kayin state were linked to P. falciparum infections, followed by 833 in January. It’s a significant increase: just 213 were detected in December 2022 – falling to 103 at the same point in 2020, and only 39 in 2019.

It’s not exactly clear why P. falciparum has spread more widely in this part of the state, though recent events may have played a role.

Malaria transmission first picked up during the pandemic, when measures to curb the spread of Covid-19 made it harder to access some communities and disrupted supply chains and healthcare services.

Since then, the uncertain security situation in Myanmar has made it more challenging to respond to the increase, and has also pushed many displaced people into the forested areas where mosquitoes thrive.

Malaria is not the only disease where trends are going in the wrong direction. At the sprawling Mae Tao Clinic just outside Mae Sot, which has been providing healthcare for Burmese migrants and refugees since 1989, health workers have also reported an increase in conditions including tuberculosis, severe HIV and malnutrition in new arrivals.

“Overall the situation is getting worse and worse, as access to services are interrupted… we are seeing almost a collapse of the health system [in Myanmar],” said Dr Cynthia Maung, who founded the clinic after fleeing political upheaval in Myanmar in the late 1980s. “So we see more severe cases of HIV, or child malnutrition or other noncommunicable diseases.”

But the jump in malaria cases, especially the increased transmission of the P. falciparum parasite, is a particular blow.

Dr Cynthia Maung, head of the Mae Tao clinic near Mae Sot, which provides healthcare for Burmese migrants and refugees - Sarah Newey

A waiting room at the Mae Tao Clinic - Sarah Newey

Across the Mekong subregion – Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and southern China – cases have fallen dramatically over recent decades, and health officials have been optimistic about hitting targets to eliminate malaria by 2030.

This is considered especially critical because, since the 1950s, parasites resistant to antimalarial drugs have consistently emerged in the Greater Mekong subregion and then been exported to other regions of the world – including Africa.

“Why did we embark on eliminating P. falciparum in this area? It’s not just for the love of humankind, it’s because the parasite in this area is very drug resistant,” said Prof Nosten. “The only way to prevent it becoming more drug resistant is to eliminate it. I think we have to stay focused on that objective.”

He added that, in northern Kayin state, the parasites spreading malaria are already resistant to artemisinin, but there’s no evidence right now that other, newer drugs are becoming less effective.

But that could change at any moment, making it more critical than ever to diagnose and treat the disease rapidly to reduce the risk of onward transmission. This is more important than rolling out bed nets to sleep under, as many of the mosquitos in this area bite during the day or early evening.

“We have to be cautious, because the resistance to artemether-lumefantrine, ACT, [a combination of malaria drugs] which everyone uses in Myanmar, could emerge and it’s difficult to pick up emergence because it’s difficult to do evaluation studies,” said Prof Nosten. “So we have to be careful not to be caught off guard.”

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UK

NHS consultants to be balloted over strike action

Daniel Keane
Mon, 3 April 2023

The threatened strike action in Scotland would be similar to the ongoing walkouts by junior doctor in England (File picture) (PA Wire)

NHS consultants will be balloted over strike action next month, the British Medical Association has announced.

Senior doctors will vote from May 15 on whether to strike over pay in a move that could deepen the NHS crisis.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay has agreed to pay talks with the union to avert potential strike action.

It comes after more than 17,000 NHS consultants in England (86 per cent) voted decisively in favour of strike action in a consultative ballot.

In a separate dispute, junior doctor members of the British Medical Association (BMA) will stage a four-day strike next week that is expected to seriously disrupt NHS services.

Around 60,000 junior doctors in England will walk out for 96 hours from April 11 after talks broke down with Mr Barclay last week.

NHS trusts across the country will begin notifying patients on Monday of delays to treatment as a result of industrial action. The last junior doctors strike, held over three days in March, led to the cancellation or postponement of 175,000 procedures and appointments.

The disruption next week is likely to be particularly severe as it will follow the longer Easter weekend, when more NHS staff are likely to be on leave.

In a letter to the Sunday Times, the chief executives of England’s ten biggest teaching hospitals warned that the industrial action would cause “significant distress and delays” for patients and urged both sides to open pay talks immediately.

The Shelford Group, which includes hospital leaders in London, Oxford and Manchester, said the strikes would be disruptive “on a scale significantly beyond that of previous rounds of industrial action”.

They wrote: “We estimate we will postpone tens of thousands of clinic appointments, diagnostic tests and operations in our ten trusts alone; national figures will greatly exceed this.”

The BMA is seeking a pay rise of 26 per cent for junior doctors to restore a real-terms fall in income since 2008. A Foundation Year 1 doctor earns around £29,000 per year, rising to £34,000 a year later.

Speaking after the consultative ballot for consultants, Dr Vishal Sharma, chair of the BMA consultants committee, said: “In my 25 years in the NHS, I have never seen consultants more demoralised, frustrated and in despair over this Government’s refusal to support the NHS workforce and the patients they serve.

“The Government is refusing to listen to consultants’ concerns, driving many out of the NHS entirely.

“Things will only worsen unless we take a stand.”

Scientists in Arctic race to preserve 'ice memory'


Ursula HYZY
Mon, 3 April 2023


Scientists camped in the Arctic are set to start drilling to save samples of ancient ice for analysis before the frozen layers melt away due to climate change, mission organisers said on Monday.

Italian, French and Norwegian researchers are in Norway's Svalbard archipelago in what they called a race against time to preserve crucial ice records for analysing past environmental conditions -- planning to ship them all the way to the Antarctic for storage.

"Glaciers at high latitudes, such as those in the Arctic, have begun to melt at a high rate," said paleoclimatologist Carlo Barbante, vice-chairman of the Ice Memory Foundation that is running the mission.


"We want to recover and preserve, for future generations of scientists, these extraordinary archives of our Planet's climate before all the information they contain is completely lost."

The eight specialists on the mission have set up camp at an altitude of 1,100 metres on the crevasse-ridden Holtedahlfonna ice field and plan to start drilling on Tuesday, Ice Memory said.

They will extract ice in a series of tubes from as far as 125 metres (137 yards) below the surface, containing frozen geochemical traces dating back three centuries.

Analysis of chemicals in deep "ice cores" provides scientists with valuable data about past environmental conditions.

But experts warn that meltwater is leaking down and altering the geochemical records preserved in ancient ice beneath.

Ice scientists "are seeing their primary material disappear forever from the surface of the planet", Jerome Chapellaz, president of the foundation, told AFP.

"It is our responsibility as glaciologists of this generation to make sure a bit of it is preserved."

Human-caused carbon emissions have warmed the planet by 1.1 degrees Celsius since the 19th century. Studies indicate that the Arctic is warming between two and four times faster than the global average.

- Antarctic 'ice sanctuary' -

One set of the ice tubes extracted will be used for immediate analysis while a second set will be sent to Antarctica for storage in an "ice memory sanctuary" under the snow, where the samples will be preserved for future generations of scientists.

From their remote source, the ice cores will be transported by sea to Europe and later to the other end of the globe, for storage at a Franco-Italian Antarctic research station.

There, on territory protected by the Antarctic Treaty, they will be stored under the snow at minus 50C, where no power is needed to keep them cool.

"In coming decades, researchers will have new ideas and techniques to give voice to these archives," the researchers said in a statement.

"For instance, they may be able to isolate other information contained in the ice of which we are not aware today."

The team in Svalbard will work for three weeks in temperatures as low as minus 25C (-13 Farenheit), cutting and pulling out a series of cylinders of ice 10cm (four inches) wide.

The 700,000-euro ($760,000) mission, partly funded by the Italian research ministry, follows a series of earlier ice core extractions by the foundation, including operations in the Alps and the Andes.

Further core-drilling missions are planned in the coming years in Tajikistan and the Himalayas.

A study published in the journal Science in January said that half of the Earth's 215,000 mountain glaciers are expected to disappear by the end of this century due to climate change caused by humans -- even if the target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is reached.

Germany and the EU are falling for corporate lobbyists' hydrogen hoax

Hydrogen is their escape route for protecting polluting assets and delaying climate action.

Belén Balanyá, Researcher and campaigner, Corporate Europe Observatory
Mon, 3 April 2023 


Flashback to May last year: captains of industry, including RWE and Shell, have been invited by German Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger to Australia to talk hydrogen with bankers, investors and politicians.

Gleeful about the potential future imports, the delegation sang a song — specially composed for the occasion — about this lucrative gas.

Corporations have reason to celebrate. Corporate Europe Observatory’s new report shows how business has successfully helped to shape Germany's stance on this hot topic through privileged access, revolving doors and big spending on PR consultancies.

Why Germany? There is a reason

Germany is hugely influential in setting the broader EU agenda. Take last week’s painful negotiations to finalise the phase-out of combustion engine cars by 2035.

Germany refused to sign until a workaround was put on the table: as a result, these vehicles can still be sold post-2035 if running on e-fuels.

Hydrogen sets the stage for next EU fight between defenders and detractors of nuclear energy


Nuclear, hydrogen and bioenergy: What does the EU’s new renewables deal mean for member states?

The German e-fuels loophole catered to the demands of guzzling car makers — including Porsche and 170 other companies — grouped in the eFuel Alliance, who openly state that their goal is "for eFuels to gain political acceptance and regulatory approval as a significant contributor to sustainable climate protection.”

E-fuels, based on hydrogen and CO2, are vastly inefficient. With an estimated 16% energy efficiency in comparison with 72% in electric vehicles, they are not exactly part of the climate solution.

An aerial view of the Haru Oni Demonstration Plant, a synthetic fuel plant that started operations in Punta Arenas, Chile, December 2022 - HIF GLOBAL / AFP

In fact, e-fuels, based on hydrogen and CO2, are vastly inefficient. With an estimated 16% energy efficiency in comparison with 72% in electric vehicles, they are not exactly part of the climate solution.

Meanwhile, in Chile, the Haru Oni project — run by a consortium including Porsche, ExxonMobil and German Siemens– produces hydrogen-based e-fuel for Germany.

In contrast with scientific warnings about the negative impacts of green hydrogen projects in the region, Porsche absurdly claims that “classic and modern sports cars can be part of the solution to lower emissions”.
A way out for big polluters

Over 100 German businesses — many of them linked to fossils and other polluting industries — have been identified as key players along the green hydrogen value chain.

As decarbonisation poses an existential risk, they have jumped on the hydrogen bandwagon as a ‘clean’ way to lock in combustion engines, pipelines, power plants and airports.

Hydrogen is their escape route for protecting polluting assets and delaying climate action.

Germany is set to become Europe’s biggest hydrogen importer, with an estimated share of up to 70% of future combined EU/UK imports.

A hydrogen train has left the station of Wehrheim near Frankfurt, 17 March 2023 - AP Photo/Michael Probst

Hydrogen has become a silver bullet for EU and German decision-makers. Germany is set to become Europe’s biggest hydrogen importer, with an estimated share of up to 70% of future combined EU/UK imports.

And the bloc’s REPowerEU plan set the EU’s 2030 targets for green hydrogen at 20 million tonnes, half via domestic production and half imported.

EU strikes REPowerEU deal to break free of its dependence on Russian fossil fuels

This is unrealistic: less than 0.04 million tonnes of green hydrogen were produced globally in 2021.
But what's the dirty truth about hydrogen?

The hydrogen hype glosses over reality. First, 99% of today’s globally produced hydrogen is the so-called "grey" hydrogen made from fossil fuels, with annual CO2 emissions exceeding those of Germany in its entirety.

"Blue" hydrogen, promoted as a "low-carbon" alternative, also has a mega-climate footprint.

Hydrogen fuel could double your energy bills - and isn’t as green as you think, research warns

Brussels wants hydrogen to help fuel the future, but can it be done in time to meet climate goals?

It is the product of fossil gas with emissions collected through carbon capture and storage, which is a flawed, risky, expensive and thus far failed technofix.

Fossil industry PR spins blue hydrogen as a step in the transition to a green hydrogen future, despite evidence that it was primarily concocted as a lifeline for dirty gas companies.

Germany’s embrace of blue hydrogen is a major win for the hydrogen lobby.

Germany's Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck attends a press conference on Danish-German cooperation on hydrogen infrastructure in Copenhagen, 23 March 2023 - Ida Marie Odgaard/AP

Germany’s embrace of blue hydrogen is a major win for the hydrogen lobby. The recently leaked version of the country’s revised hydrogen strategy explicitly foresees the use and public funding of blue hydrogen.

And corporations are grateful.

“It is a blessing that we have this Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs,” said the chair of energy lobby group BDEW last year in reference to the ministry led by Robert Habeck from the Greens.

In his first seven months after taking office, Habeck and top government officials met with gas lobbyists once a day on average. BDEW’s member companies are responsible for 90% of Germany’s fossil gas sales.
Hydrogen projects allow for climate colonialism, too

Even a green hydrogen economy is a chimaera. Produced from renewable energy, green hydrogen is energy inefficient, it's a potent indirect greenhouse gas, and large-scale production requires vast amounts of land, water and renewable energy.

Why the world’s first hydrogen rail may not be as environmentally friendly as it seems

Germany joins green hydrogen pipeline partnership with France, Spain and Portugal

Germany has established hydrogen alliances and partnerships with at least 26 potential export countries, many of them in the Global South

Saudi Arabia’s planned megacity Neom ... is a shocking case of human rights violations: ancient tribes have been forcibly evicted from their land, and several protestors have been sentenced to death.

The design plan for the 500-metre tall parallel structures, known collectively as The Line, in the heart of the Red Sea megacity NEOM - NEOM/AFP

Such hydrogen colonialism is a recipe for human rights abuses: a mapping of 27 mostly African countries did not identify a single hydrogen project that included prior consultation with the community.

Saudi Arabia’s planned megacity Neom, where ThyssenKrupp will install a huge electrolyser to produce hydrogen for export, is a shocking case of human rights violations: ancient tribes have been forcibly evicted from their land, and several protestors have been sentenced to death.
You can't dupe people with the hoax

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently issued a dire global warning for a "last chance for climate action".

But the EU — often pushed by Germany — is blocking any progress.

Under pressure from Berlin, the EU relaxes its ban on combustion engines after 2035

The EU's new debate: Are e-fuels a viable and green alternative to the combustion engine?

The loophole in the ban on combustion engines, the gas and hydrogen package, the revised Renewable Energy Directive, the Hydrogen Bank, the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation, the Net-Zero Industry Act and the Critical Raw Materials Act will all boost the hydrogen bubble and corporate profits at the expense of global justice, energy democracy and effective climate action.

Climate and social justice movements have not been duped by the hydrogen hoax.

Decision-makers must stop listening to the very industry that has caused creating the climate and energy crisis.

Policemen carry away a demonstrator during a protest in Vienna as the Austrian capital hosts the European Gas Conference, 27 March 2023 - JOE KLAMAR/AFP

At last week’s European Gas Conference in Vienna, thousands of protestors, with African activists at the forefront, stood up against the EU and Germany’s looming hydrogen colonialism and the danger it poses to the planet.

Decision-makers must stop listening to the very industry that has caused creating the climate and energy crisis. More than 100,000 people have demanded the European Parliament kick fossil-fuel lobbyists out of politics — but their voices are not being heard.

_Belén Balanyá is a researcher and campaigner with Corporate Europe Observatory, which she co-founded in 1997. She's focused on exposing the power of the oil and gas industry in the European Union.
_

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