King’s green energy firm was investigated after 38-day greenhouse gas leak


Severin Carrell
Sun, 9 April 2023

A green energy company set up by King Charles was investigated for numerous health and safety breaches after the unauthorised leak of more than 1,000 tonnes of global-heating gases.

Methane, CO2 and traces of the toxic gas hydrogen sulphide were released after a gas-holder at the plant split open in 2020. The incident, which lasted for 38 days, was described as “significant” by the Environment Agency.

The plant in Dorset, JV Energen, was also investigated for breaches involving “flammable and toxic” substances. It is majority-owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, a hereditary estate that raises revenues for whoever is the male heir to the throne.

The duchy said in a statement: “The negative impact of the emissions associated with the leak, while regrettable, were completely immaterial compared with the positive impact of the provision of renewable energy.”

The plant is at Rainbarrow Farm, near Dorchester, on land belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall. Now owned by Prince William by right of his title of Duke of Cornwall, the duchy estate had for decades been overseen by his father.

Cost of the crown is an investigation into royal wealth and finances. The series, published ahead of the coronation of King Charles III, is seeking to overcome centuries of secrecy to better understand how the royal family is funded, the extent to which individual members have profited from their public roles, and the dubious origins of some of their wealth. The Guardian believes it is in the public interest to clarify what can legitimately be called private wealth, what belongs to the British people, and what, as so often is the case, straddles the two.

• Read more about the investigation

JV Energen was opened in 2012 and hailed by Charles as a breakthrough in green energy production. It is a joint venture between four farmers and the duchy. The plant turns crops into gas and electricity, which are used in the local area, as well as to create fertilisers for local farms.

Related: Revealed: royals took more than £1bn income from controversial estates

The Health and Safety Executive investigated the plant after the 2020 leak and issued a series of improvement notices under health and safety legislation, dangerous and explosive substances regulations and worker safety rules.

In December 2020, the HSE’s inspection found JV Energen had failed to protect its employees by neglecting to make a “suitable and sufficient assessment [of the] risks of fire, explosion, asphyxiation, toxic releases and potential over-pressurisation of work equipment” at Rainbarrow Farm.

Charles on a visit to Rainbarrow Farm in June 2021.

 Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

Its follow-up investigations uncovered other safety breaches, including the unsafe use and storage of propane gas, failures to prevent “flammable atmosphere formation” at the site, and a failure to test ventilation equipment that protects staff from exposure to potentially toxic ammonia.

The investigations concluded in August last year. The requirements of the final improvement notices were met the following month but the plant is still being monitored “to ensure sustained compliance” with those notices, the agency said.

As a producer of green energy, the plant has been eligible for significant government subsidies. These are worth more than £4m a year to JV Energen. Since its launch in 2012, the company has received more than £28m in state subsidies, according to data analysed by the Guardian.

In addition to the four improvement notices issued over the gas leak, there have been numerous warning notices and improvement requests made by the Environment Agency after other incidents.

Official records seen by the Guardian show these incidents included a major leak in January 2015 of tonnes of liquid and solid “digestate”, a byproduct from gas production used as a fertiliser, which flooded farmland and a nearby road. The following month, a tanker carrying the same type of fluid overturned at a roundabout near JV Energen’s site.

JV Energen is legally controlled by the Duke of Cornwall. Until he became king and passed the duchy to his male heir, Charles was named in the company’s records as the person with significant control.

The duchy receives a 59% share of JV Energen profits and has received more than £1m in rent from the company for using the duchy land it is built on. The duchy has been paid a further £6m in interest from a series of loans it has provided to JV Energen.

Last year, the duchy said the business, which also sells carbon dioxide to drinks firms, was the most profitable of the joint ventures it had with other business partners. Its accounts suggest it made about £4m profit for the duchy in 2022, a significant contribution to revenues that were used to pay the male heir to the throne more than £20m. Buckingham Palace insists such income is “private”.

JV Energen was hailed by Charles after its opening as a breakthrough in green energy production. Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

The gas leak in 2020 led to a series of disputes between the Environment Agency and JV Energen over the factual accuracy of the company’s estimates of how much gas had leaked, and how to measure its global-heating effects.

The agency disputed calculations by consultants for JV Energy who said the overall greenhouse effect of the leak was equivalent to just over 1,000 tonnes of CO2. An agency official said he believed it was at least double that.

When contacted by the Guardian, JV Energen referred requests to comment to the Duchy of Cornwall.

The duchy said in its statement that it was “a responsible landowner committed to sustainability and continues to invest in renewable energy and reduce the estate’s carbon footprint”.

It said: “The anaerobic digester and biomethane-to-grid plant … was the first of its kind in the UK, providing renewable energy direct to the local community and across Dorset. It continues to work with all regulators and bodies to ensure it meets all rules and regulations in this space.”

SCOTLAND

Conspiracy theorists are losing the plot over the SNP

Kevin McKenna
Sun, 9 April 2023 

(Image: Andrew Milligan / PA Wire)

As the flames now engulfing the SNP raged this week it soon became obvious what dark forces were really at work here.

Why, it was the Russians, of course, aided and abetted by the British establishment. How we didn’t see this is a stain on Scottish mainstream journalism.

Vladimir Putin, enraged by the unstintingly brave rhetoric of the SNP’s Nato wing had obviously been planning this for some time.

Did you not get a close look at the features of some of those cops who descended on the home of Peter Murrell and Nicola Sturgeon? Some of them looked more than a bit Russian to me.

And don’t tell me that this could never happen. You need only recall the plot to kill Winston Churchill as described in Jack Higgins’s great war-time thriller, The Eagle Has Landed.

That was when a detachment of crack German special forces, led by Michael Caine, landed on the south coast of England, dressed up as British soldiers, and came within a whisker of slaying the Prime Minister.

Those Irish were also involved. Wouldn’t at all surprise me if the hidden hand of Erin was at work somewhere here too.

Putin has obviously hollowed out the Scottish Government as well as the upper echelons of Scottish society. MI5 will work with anyone to bring down those whom they consider to be Britain’s real enemy: the SNP.

Did you see those tweets by Roddy Dunlop, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates? He was demanding that people refrain from making any comment on the police searches at the homes of our First Minister and SNP party headquarters.

It was all obviously part of a sophisticated and co-ordinated effort to ensure these disproportionate and over-the-top searches of the Murrells’ home could proceed unhindered.

Some of us have had suspicions about Scotland’s legal establishment for quite some time. And it’s clear, too, that the Russians orchestrated the GRR shambles that helped fold this house of cards.

I wouldn’t even be surprised to see some of the SNP’s top brass sipping black tea on Red Square before hopping in to their Maserati Ghiblis to enjoy weekends with their mistresses at their Black Sea dachas.

Spin-off jobs

I note that our new First Minister is seeking the services of a new spin doctor. At this rate, I think Humza Yousaf could probably also do with the assistance of a spin orthopaedic consultant; a spin theatre nurse; and a spin undertaker.

Why Mr Yousaf feels he needs to spend 90k on a press enforcer is a mystery. Several of my esteemed colleagues in the Scottish commentariat and the blogging fraternity have been acting as unpaid cheerleaders for the SNP establishment for quite some time.

As we’re all family in the Scottish media, I offer this in a spirit of fraternal goodwill. Some of them might now consider pausing a little while to reflect on why they neglected to distance themselves from the glamour of power rather than acting as its mouthpiece.

This also applies to some prominent operators in the independent television documentary sector.

Airy conditioning

A curious by-product of Nicola Sturgeon’s ruinous stewardship of the SNP and the Scottish Government has seen the emergence of a class of middle-aged, middle-class males some of us like to call “The Airy Bikers”.

They take to social media to flaunt their edginess, having spent their lives in garden centres and shopping for fleeces in outdoor clothing emporiums. They began to embrace transgender activism as the principal means of displaying their newly-discovered radicalism.

It didn’t matter to them that real progressives such as feminists and lesbians were being subject to abuse and slander for objecting to the slow eradication of womanhood. What mattered was that, having done nothing more rebellious than purchase Fairtrade coffee products, they now appeared cool in their 50s and 60s.

They can now be spotted gathering in little social media self-help groups trying delicately to unhitch their wagons from their lost leader’s caravan.

Flying Scotsman

As a longstanding member of the mainstream press, it pains me to write this but it needs saying. At next year’s national press awards, the work of the Rev Stuart Campbell on Wings Over Scotland, inset, should be rewarded in the digital media categories.

He’s not everyone’s cup of Darjeeling, and, of course, we in the grown-up media would never use the sort of language he does, or turn people over to obtain a story.

But for several years now, his revelations about the true nature of life inside the SNP and his predictions about the apocalypse now engulfing the party have been 100% spot-on.

Good journalistic practice includes the virtue of giving due credit to rival publications when following up their stories in your own organ.

So, take a bow Wings Over Scotland and please continue to be a roaster, a banger, a weapon, and a rocket.

Cubans seek solutions and solace in Santería amid crises

A fusion of African religions and Catholicism, Santería was one of the few religious practices to quietly endure through decades of prohibitions and stigma by the communist government.

A doll depicting the Yoruba deity Yemayá is propped up on a chair before the start of a Santería ceremony in the home of Mandy Arrazcaeta, in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. A fusion of African religions and Catholicism, Santería was one of the few religious practices to endure through decades of prohibitions by the communist government. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

April 10, 2023

By 

Associated Press

HAVANA (AP) — From a two-room concrete home on the fringes of Cuba’s capital, the rumble of wooden drums spills out onto the streets.

Neighbors gather at the door and kids climb a fence to peer inside. They watch as dozens of Cubans wearing white and African beads make offerings at a bright blue altar consuming half a room, asking for luck, protection and good health.

While nearly 70% of Latin America’s 670 million people consider themselves Catholic, in Cuba, Santería is the name of the game.

A fusion of African religions and Catholicism, Santería was one of the few religious practices to quietly endure through decades of prohibitions and stigma by the communist government.

Now, as that stigma gradually fades and the country enters a moment of compounding economic, political and migratory crises, the religion is growing in popularity and expanding to new demographics.

“Every day the religion grows a little more,” Mandy Arrazcaeta, 30, said among the throngs of people in his home dancing and making offerings at the altar to a plastic doll depicting the Yoruba deity Yemayá. “Right now, Santería in the country is a sort of bastion.”

Santería was born as a form of quiet resistance among the island’s black communities. The religion dates back centuries to when Spanish colonists brought in hundreds of thousands of African slaves.

While the Spanish tried to force Catholicism on the slaves, the Africans brought their own religions, mostly from West Africa, which they would camouflage by attaching their deities — orishas — to Catholic saints.

Cuba’s patron saint, Our Lady of Charity, for example, blended with the golden deity, Oshun.

“It would mix and mix … through this Catholic virgin, they would speak to their African saints,” explained Roberto Zurbano, a Cuban cultural critic. “That’s how the religion was able to survive.”

While there are hundreds of orishas in Santería, practitioners known as santeros usually worship only a handful, connecting with them through rituals and offerings.

On one Friday night, Arrazcaeta, family and friends splay out offerings of coconut and red Cuban pesos emblazoned with the face of Che Guevara, sacrificing two chickens over bowls filled with rocks and seashells. In exchange, they ask for good health, strength during hardship, and even luck in love.

“It’s something that’s very Cuban, something spontaneous that we do. Because we know the struggles we face in this country,” Arrazcaeta said.

Millions worldwide are estimated to practice Santería, though definitive numbers — especially in Cuba — are hard to pin down due to the religion’s informal nature. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom estimates 70% in Cuba practice some version of Santeria or similar African-based religions.

What is clear in the altars dotting homes across the island and the many Cubans in Havana cloaked in white — worn by santeros their first year after converting to represent rebirth — is that Santería has captured the Cuban consciousness.

Following the Cuban revolution in the 1950’s, Fidel Castro dismantled religious structures and expelled the priests who criticized his government. Religion, famously described by communist philosopher Karl Marx as “the opium of the people,” was strictly prohibited.

Catholicism, highly dependent on meeting in churches and on hierarchy, withered.

Meanwhile, Santería practitioners pulled from the same tools they used to survive in earlier centuries.

“People did believe, but you couldn’t say anything because it was politically prohibited by Marxism. All that did was strengthen Afro-religious faiths in very closed circles,” Zurbano said. “They would keep it a secret, keep their religiosity to themselves.”

Zurbano’s family would quietly perform rituals inside their home and divide ceremonies that once would last a week into smaller two-day chunks to avoid alerting authorities. Some adherents secretly wore religious garb under street clothes.

Katrin Hansing, an anthropologist in Cuba for City University New York, said Santería endured because of its flexibility, and because of its perceived utility in assuring good health in exchange for offerings.

In the 1990s when Cuba’s main ally, the Soviet Union, collapsed and the island spiraled into economic crisis, many Cubans found solace in Santería.

The Cuban government has accepted it, but the officially authorized ceremonies remain practically deserted, as islanders prefer celebrations in more informal settings such as Arrazcaeta’s home.

“It’s incredibly resilient as a religious system,” Hansing said. “It’s so decentralized and it allows the individual believer or practitioner to make it what they need it to be.”

Santería is once again seeing a surge, and expanding past historically impoverished black communities.

Arrazcaeta, a white Cuban and member of the LGBTQ+ community, found refuge in the religion when he was 12. Once an Evangelical Christian, he said he felt rejected by members of that religion for being gay.

“I never fit in that religion,” Arrazcaeta said. “I liked that Santeria doesn’t obligate anyone to fit into a model.”

As a teenager, he began putting glasses of water around the house, as offerings to orishas. His mother, Maritza de la Rosa Perdomo, would throw the water out, saying there was no place for religion in her home.

That changed three years ago, when Arrazcaeta joined a wave of Cubans in embarking on a journey to the U.S., traversing the perilous jungles of the Darien Gap.

When Arrazcaeta went missing for seven days in the jungle, the first thing Perdomo did was put out an offering.

“I began to beg for my son, I said I needed to hear from him, to know that he was alive. I was begging with my whole heart,” Perdomo said.

When she received a call from him shortly after, she decided to join the religion alongside her children.

“A religion that used to be, you know, dominantly practiced by descendants of Africans or people of African descent has now become a multiracial religion in Cuba,” Hansing said. “Santería has grown enormously.”

But for each practitioner, Santería means something different.

For Arrazcaeta, who nowadays travels between Cuba and work in Florida as an Uber driver, Santería is a spiritual experience. For Perdomo, it’s a way of seeking good health. For both, it’s a way to stay connected with the other an ocean away.

“Today, the entire country is dressed in white,” Perdomo said.

It’s Lord Ram’s birthday this week. Here’s why he’ll be remembered in six faiths.

This week, millions will mark the birth of one of the most iconic figures in global lore.

A statue of the Hindu god Ram. Photo by Pavan Kumaar/Unsplash/Creative Commons

March 28, 2023

By 

Murali Balaji

(RNS) — In a climactic scene of “RRR,” the Telugu-language blockbuster, one of the protagonists, an Indian freedom fighter named Ram, transforms into an icon of Lord Ram, an incarnation of the god Vishnu and one of the most important deities in Hinduism. With Ram’s bow and arrow, the mortal Ram defeats the British colonizers.

The scene, and the success of “RRR,” is an example of how Ram has grown in the Western imagination in the past three decades or so, beginning with his depiction in the popular 1995 screen version of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic children’s tale, “The Little Princess.”

But Ram, also called Rama, has for centuries been influential wherever Hinduism spread around the globe, even among believers in Islam, Christianity and Sikhism. This week, his birthday will be celebrated by millions of Hindus and members of other faiths on Ram Navami, the last day of the nine-day Chaitra Navratri festival.

While some scholars have recently begun to suggest that Ram was likely an actual ruler in ancient India (or a composite of several), the scriptural version of Ram has had an outsized impact on Hindus and followers of Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Islam and Christianity.

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RELATED: Why Hinduism’s Holi is more than an explosion of color for the Indo-Caribbean diaspora

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The Ramayana, the Sanskrit epic attributed to Sage Valmiki, a former bandit turned Hindu rishi, tells the life of Ram, a human prince and fierce warrior who marries the princess Sita. Ram is about to inherit his father’s throne when his stepmother, in a succession struggle, schemes to send Ram into exile. While Ram and Sita are abroad, Sita is kidnapped by the demon king Ravana and Ram must rescue her with the help of the monkey god Hanuman. 

The sacred text, which highlights the importance of virtue and the victory of light over darkness, is one of the bases of the Hindu festival of Diwali, which marks Ram’s return from exile. 

An artist dressed as Hindu monkey god Hanuman, left, takes a selfie with artists dressed as demon king Ravana, center, and Hindu god Ram, right, before a final Ramleela performance as part of Dussehra festival celebrations in New Delhi, India, Oct. 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

The Ramayana also idealizes dharma, the central tenet of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Ram always puts duty and righteousness above all else, qualities that have helped his legend survive even in societies where Hinduism is no longer practiced as widely, if at all. Most importantly, it teaches that no one is completely good or completely evil, an idea underscored by its villain, Ravana, a staunch devotee of Lord Shiva who became blinded by power.

Over time, both Jainism and Buddhism adopted versions of the Ramayana as part of their religious lore. In Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, once Hindu strongholds, the Scripture’s importance as a guide to virtue remained even as their populations were converted to other faiths. In mostly Buddhist Cambodia, the Ramayana is known as the Reamker, or the Glory of Rama, while in Muslim-majority Indonesia, it is a national symbol and intricately woven into the country’s social fabric.

But even though it spawned many local versions, Valmiki’s epic was inaccessible to millions of Hindus, who did not read or write Sanskrit until the 1600s, when St. Tulsidas, one of the greatest figures of the Hindu bhakti movement, penned the Ramcharitmanas, a poem that extols the accomplishments of Ram, in Awadhi, a language linked to Ayodhya, Ram’s birthplace. Tulsidas, who had been imprisoned by the Mughal emperor Akbar, is widely believed to have composed the poem on Ram’s birthday.

As millions of impoverished Hindus left India in the 19th century as indentured servants and scattered across the British Empire, the Ramcharitmanas became a unifying source of comfort.

Because of the syncretic connections between Sikhism and Punjabi Hinduism, many Sikhs came to view Ram as king of Ayodhya, though there are some disagreements about whether Sikh gurus also considered him a divine being. Still, Ram is mentioned in both the Guru Granth Sahib and the Dasam Granth, a text long considered to be one of the works of Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th in Sikhism’s lineage of founding teachers. In recent years, some Sikh groups, particularly in the diaspora, have pushed back on that idea.

A devotee has the name of Hindu god Rama written on his forehead during a religious procession to celebrate Ram Navami, a Hindu festival marking the birth anniversary of Lord Ram, in Hyderabad, India,  April 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A., File)

The Meo Muslims of northern India have long revered Ram and trace their roots to him, and many men in the community still take names with roots in the Ramayana. However, in recent years, some Meos have abandoned Ram and other Hindu traditions due to a rise in both right-wing Hindu sentiment and Islamic puritanism fueled by money from Arab states.

But Muslims in other parts of the world still hold the Ramayana in deep reverence. Its story was long retold in popular Balinese and Javanese shadow puppetry known as Wayang golek until Muslim rulers disapproved. Refashioned into the more palatable Wayang kulit, it maintains the same references to Ram. Many Indonesian Muslims continue to draw their names from the Ramayana and the country’s national airline is called Garuda, the mythological bird that makes appearances in numerous Hindu stories.

Far from India, in the Caribbean countries of Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, names like Ramsingh, Rampersuad, Ramkissoon, Ramnarine and Sitaram continue to be common, even among West Indians whose families have long since become Christian. In at least some of these converted communities, celebrating Diwali, specifically Ram’s return, continues, though a rise in evangelical Christian activity in recent years has lessened those observances.

Still, Ram Navami marks the birth of a figure whose life and lionization continue to play a major role in the lives of hundreds of millions across the world. On Thursday (March 30), millions of homes around the world will mark the occasion with readings of the Ramayana or Ramcharitmanas, fasting and musical odes to the greatness of one of the most iconic figures in global lore.

(Murali Balaji is a journalist and a lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. His books include “Digital Hinduism” and “The Professor and the Pupil,” a political biography of W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.) 

Faith leaders and religious groups voice opposition to Biden’s plan to restrict asylum

The new rules mirror restrictions set forth by the Trump administration that were eventually blocked in court by migrant activist groups.

Activists march to the White House to rally against family detention and President Joe Biden's proposed asylum ban on March 16, 2023, in Washington. (Eric Kayne/AP Images for Movement Catalyst)

March 29, 2023

By 

Alejandra Molina

(RNS) — Taking advantage of a required public comment period, a broad array of faith leaders and religious groups, including faith-based refugee aid organizations, are speaking out against a proposed federal rule that would generally deny asylum to migrants who arrive at the U.S. southern border without first seeking protection in any country the migrants passed through.

Put forward in late February by the Biden administration, the measure imposes dire limitations on asylum for migrants of any nationality, other than Mexicans, who less rarely travel through a third country to reach the U.S.

The new rules mirror restrictions set forth by the Trump administration that were eventually blocked in court by migrant activist groups, including the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, a Berkeley, California, nonprofit founded in the 1980s by six congregations committed to providing sanctuary for Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees. They were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“If the Biden administration goes through with the proposed asylum ban, we’ll sue just as we did successfully with the Trump asylum bans,” Katrina Eiland, an attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, told Religion News Service.

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RELATED: Faith-based organizations urge Biden not to enact ‘asylum ban’

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Eiland and other critics say Biden’s proposed measure combines two things in the Trump administration’s version: blocking asylum for people who entered the country without going through an official border crossing and barring asylum for migrants who didn’t apply for protection in another country before reaching the U.S. southern border.

U.S. officials say the Biden administration’s measure is different from Trump’s because it offers more exemptions and it makes other legal pathways available, in particular humanitarian parole for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and Ukrainians. 

But Eiland argued that not all people fleeing danger fall into these nationalities, adding that “seeking asylum is a legal pathway, regardless of how one enters or the route that they take to this country.”

During the 30-day public comment period, which ended Monday (March 27), the ACLU detailed in a 30-page letter its opposition to the proposed rule that “would cause countless people seeking asylum immense, avoidable suffering.” The Southern Poverty Law Center’s 29-page letter calls the new proposal “a new iteration of similar asylum bans the Trump administration attempted to advance.”

Migrants wait to be processed after crossing the border Jan. 6, 2023, near Yuma, Arizona. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Advocates have criticized the Biden administration for not giving groups more time to respond to a rule of this magnitude, that if finalized, will be in place for two years. Administration officials expect the measure to begin when a pandemic-era health order that denies asylum on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19 ends.

HIAS, a Jewish organization that is one of six faith-based agencies contracted by the federal government to resettle migrants, objected to what it refers to as “restrictive changes to the U.S. asylum system.”

“We are there for refugees and asylum seekers when and where they need help most,” said Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres, policy counsel for HIAS, in a March 24 letter addressed to federal immigration officials.

“We see firsthand why people are making the unbearably difficult decision to flee their home countries to make the dangerous trip to the U.S.-Mexico border,” she said.

HIAS operates along the migration route from Venezuela, through South America and Central America, as well as in Mexico, and helps migrants with their asylum claims as well as with accessing health, employment and social services. The organization provides free legal representation to refugees and asylum-seekers of all faiths.

Biden’s plans, HIAS said, would “unlawfully deny protection to asylum seekers and require them to seek asylum in countries that do not have functional asylum systems and where they may still be in harm’s way.”

In a March 23 letter, a coalition of 130 faith organizations representing different religions and denominations urged Biden not to reinstate family detention and called on him to reconsider proposed asylum restrictions. 

“We’re concerned that the proposed asylum rule may exacerbate the issues prevalent in detention, around access to counsel and due process. It’s plain to see that these policies will sow confusion and instill fear,” the coalition wrote.

The coalition included Hope Border Institute, Church of the Ascension, T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, the Episcopal Church and the United Methodist Church-General Board of Church and Society.

El Paso Catholic Bishop Mark Seitz talks with Celsia Palma, 9, of Honduras, as they walked to the Paso Del Norte International Port of Entry on June, 27, 2019, in Juarez, Mexico. Seitz escorted the girl, her parents and two siblings across the port of entry to U.S. immigration authorities so they could be processed into the U.S. (AP Photo/Rudy Gutierrez)

The Most Rev. Mark J. Seitz, who serves as bishop of the Catholic Diocese of El Paso, has also been outspoken about this proposed rule, saying it is a “significant step backwards at a time when we really need meaningful reform.”

“It is also a policy that perpetuates the misguided notion that heavy-handed enforcement measures are somehow a solution to the realities at the border,” Seitz said in a statement.

Seitz added: “The Catholic Church in the United States has consistently rejected policies that weaken asylum access for those most in need of relief and expose them to further danger.”

The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, another of the faith-based resettlement agencies that contract with the federal government, worked with partners in the Interfaith Immigration Coalition to launch a public comment campaign to mobilize opposition to the Biden’s administration’s proposed rule.

“Voices from the faith community spoke with moral clarity when the prior administration attempted to ban asylum, and today we continue the fight,” said Jill Marie Bussey, director for public policy at LIRS, in a statement.

The public comments, which appear on a federal database, include the voices of priests and ordinary people of faith opposed to Biden’s plan.

Karen Scherer, who is identified as a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, wrote, “Walking alongside people who have fled their homes and people who need help is a core commitment as a Christian living out teachings of our faith. The right to seek asylum is an essential protection for people seeking safety from persecution.”

Michael Wallens, a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande, said he’s “concerned as a person of faith and an American that our nation is not living up to the commitment to be a beacon of liberty and hope for all people.”

Wallens said he’s part of the Rio Grande Borderland Ministries that serves along the border from Big Bend National Park in West Texas to the Arizona state line.

“I believe this proposed rule would put families and other vulnerable migrants seeking protection along the U.S. southern border in further danger,” Wallens wrote.

The Rev. Karleen Jung, a Lutheran pastor serving two congregations in the Louisville, Kentucky, area, wrote in opposition to the proposed measure, citing a long history in the Lutheran church “of welcoming in and re-settling refugee families, including asylum seekers.”

“We have done this, not only because of the traditions of our faith, but also because of the traditions of our nation as a refuge and haven for the persecuted and destitute,” Jung wrote.

“This proposed rule is heartless and not at all consistent with my values as pastor and believer, and as a U.S. citizen,” she added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Report: LGBTQ Americans tend to be younger and have no religion

The new report from PRRI also found that many religious Americans support LGBTQ nondiscrimination rights, even those who oppose same sex-marriage.

Photo by No Revisions/Unsplash/Creative Commons

March 23, 2023

By 

Bob Smetana

(RNS) — For the most part, religious Americans say their LGBTQ neighbors should be free of discrimination when they are at work, in public or at home.

This is true even among groups that oppose same-sex marriage

One place they disagree is over whether businesses — such as cake bakers or other vendors — ever have the right to refuse service. On that issue, Americans are split along religious and party lines.

Meanwhile, almost half of LGBTQ Americans are young and claim no religion. 

Those are among the findings of a new report on polarization and LGBTQ rights from the Washington, D.C.-based Public Religion Research Institute. The report, based on data from PRRI’s 2022 American Values Atlas, looked at the views of 22,984 adults living in all 50 states.

PRRI’s researchers found that about 10% of Americans overall — almost half (46%) of them under the age of 30 — identify as LGBTQ: 3% as gay or lesbian, 4% as bisexual and 2% as something else. Nearly one-quarter of Americans under 30 identify as LGBTQ (23%).

According to the report, LGBTQ Americans are more likely to have no religious affiliation (50%) than Americans in general (26%). They are also much more likely to be Democrats (48%) than Republicans (8%).

Among non-Christian Americans, about 1 in 5 identify as LGBTQ, according to the report.

“This includes 19% of Unitarian Universalists, 19% of the religiously unaffiliated, 15% of Buddhists, 11% of Jews, 9% of Muslims, 5% of Hindus, and 32% of members of other non-Christian religions,” according to the report. “Members of Christian religious traditions are less likely to identify as LGBTQ, with the exception of Hispanic Protestants (12%).”

“Support for Nondiscrimination Protections for LGBT People, by Religious Affiliation, 2015-2022” Graphic courtesy of PRRI

Researchers from PRRI found that most religious groups, from 92% of Unitarian Universalists to 62% of white evangelical Protestants, support anti-discrimination laws. This includes Jews (86%), Hispanic Catholics (86%), Black Protestants (79%), Latter-day Saints (78%), Hindus (76%) and Hispanic Protestants (62%). Jehovah’s Witnesses (50%) are the religious group least likely to support such laws.

When it comes to views of small businesses that want to refuse to provide products or services to lesbian or gay people, faith groups were more divided. Unitarian Universalists (88%), Hispanic Catholics (78%), Hindus (77%) and people of other non-Christian faiths (77%) were most likely to oppose the idea of refusing service. White evangelical Protestants (37%), Latter-day Saints (46%), Jehovah’s Witnesses (50%) and Orthodox Christians (51%) were less likely.

The PRRI’s report found a wide variation in views along political lines. Ninety percent of Democrats said they favor nondiscrimination laws that protect LGBTQ people in jobs, public accommodations and housing. Fewer Republicans (66%) favor such laws.

Democrats are twice as likely to oppose rules that allow small businesses to refuse service to gays or lesbians (86% compared with 41% of Republicans).

“Opposition to Religiously Based Refusals, by Religious Affiliation” Graphic courtesy of PRRI

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“Nationally, PRRI continues to find that most Americans broadly support LGBTQ rights in 2022,” said Melissa Deckman, CEO of PRRI. “At the same time, partisan polarization is growing on some measures, including on religiously based refusals of service to LGBTQ Americans by business owners.”

Deckman noted that these differences are striking amid the current politicization of issues involving LGBTQ rights and with a major ruling expected from the U.S. Supreme Court this term in regard to religious refusals by business owners.

In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Colorado baker Jack Phillips, who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple; the court said the Colorado Civil Rights Commission mishandled the case. Phillips lost a state court appeal earlier this year on a different case concerning his refusal to make a cake for a transgender customer.

The court is currently considering the case of Lorie Smith, a graphic designer who wants to expand her business to make websites for weddings but said she would not make websites for same-sex weddings. Smith’s attorneys have argued that making a website is an exercise of free speech.

“Support for Same-Sex Marraige, by Religious Affiliation, 2014-2022” Graphic courtesy of PRRI

Researchers at PRRI also found continued disagreement among religious groups over same-sex marriage. Jews (81%), Buddhists (77%), white mainline Protestants (77%), and both white and Hispanic Catholics (75%) are among the most likely to support same-sex marriage. Jehovah’s Witnesses (19%), white evangelical Protestants (38%), Hispanic Protestants (43%) and Latter-day Saints (50%) are less likely.

Despite the opposition to same-sex marriage among Latter-day Saints, leaders in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints played a key role in supporting the Respect for Marriage Act, which was signed by President Joe Biden in late 2022. The law provided federal recognition of both same-sex marriage and interracial marriage — both of which had been previously made legal by court decisions.

Sexual abuse at sea: 'I had nowhere to go'


Luisa von Richthofen
April 9, 2023

Sexist remarks, discrimination, sexual assault — these are part of everyday life for many female workers on ships. Usually, they say nothing. But one woman broke the silence.

It was her childhood dream to become a seafarer — it took just a week for it to be shattered. Speaking with DW, Ann (full name known to editors) chose her words carefully.

"Yeah, when you're a woman, you have some bad experiences," she said. But later, she added that she was raped in just her second week at the marine college she attended in the United Kingdom, when she was only 16 years old.

At the time, Ann was ashamed and told no one about what had happened. Today, the British woman said she didn't want her dream to end before it even began. On cargo ships, the proportion of female seafarers is just 2% of 1.5 million employees, and most are the only women on their ship.
'Alone' and 'nowhere to go'

But even on the new ship, Ann experienced more assaults. She recalled how the officer responsible for her training became a new persecutor. He made sure she always worked with him alone in the hold, where no one else could see them. She lived in constant fear of assault, seeing her tormentor at every meal.

One evening, she stepped out of the shower to find the officer in her room. He stared at her and grinned. Even in her cabin, she was not safe.

Ann experienced sexual abuse at both marine college and on board several ships where she worked

Ann reported the officer, only to be told by a man in human resources that she should have expected it. What was her father thinking, sending her out to sea, the man asked, adding that he would never have sent his daughter to work on ships. From then on, she said, she knew she was alone: "I had nowhere to go."

There are many cases like Ann's. Rachel Glynn-Williams, a psychologist who counsels people who work on ships, told DW that of all the female seafarers she had met over the years, only one said she had never experienced anything like this.

Ann stuck to her job for 12 years, sailing all over the world — to Central America, around the Middle East. As each journey began, she wondered whether this time there would be a man among the crew who might create problems. She learned to avoid certain colleagues and to wear what she refers to as "the right clothes."

Eventually, she was on the verge of becoming a captain herself. Even though the physical violations became less frequent over the years, the whispered insults, the leering looks and the bullying via social media remained. And, she said, they always came with the implicit message: A woman has no business on board a ship. Eventually, she took a job ashore. It was almost as if the harassers won, she told DW.

Ann's experiences are not unique. The Women's International Shipping & Trading Association surveyed 1,128 female seafarers from 78 countries on the issue last year. Some 60% of the women reported they had experienced misogynistic discrimination on board, while 25% of respondents said physical and sexual harassment was common and that they had experienced having their privacy invaded on a ship.

Shipping companies 'look the other way'

It's a small miracle that these numbers even exist, because very few cases are reported to the police. Victims are reluctant to come forward because they often have to work in close proximity to their attackers for months. Becky Newdick, CEO of Safer Waves, an NGO that helps victims anonymously, said many young women do not want to put their careers at risk.

And even if they report incidents, they face even more challenges. The nearest doctors and relevant police authorities are often thousands of miles away, making investigations and evidence recovery even more difficult than they are on land.

Since ship's crews change often, potential witnesses become difficult to find. In addition, when a crime takes place in the middle of international waters, it is rarely clear under which jurisdiction or law it should be investigated, said Newdick.

Glynn-Williams said the culture of the industry is part of the problem. "But what can be even more awful and more protracted is the stuff that comes afterwards. How they were responded to, how their suffering is narrated and understood," she told DW. To this day, some women are still blamed — and the ways to report an incident are too complicated and burdensome.

Her patients would often hear advice such as "Just smile it off," "You know how he is — just stay out of his way," and "It's a man's world, get used to it," Glynn-Williams said. "It's almost like it's the victim's job to either put up with it or to protect themselves from it rather than actually identifying the source of threat and danger and removing that."

 

Ann's old cabin on board a ship wasn't a safe place

Yet it would also make sense for companies to do just that. Working at sea can be dangerous, and crew members need to be able to count on each other. "If there's a toxic dynamic on board, that can be the cause of distraction and withdrawal," said Glynn-Williams. That quickly leads to an accident, she added.

It's not just about victims and perpetrators, but about everyone on board, said Glynn-Williams. "You know, it's a very risk-averse industry, and I don't know of any other safety risk that's handled so lightly."

#MeToo at sea

But slowly, things are starting to change. In 2021, a US woman named Hope Hicks, using the pseudonym "Midshipman X," published an account of how she survived rape as a cadet aboard a ship owned by the US subsidiary of Maersk, the world's largest container shipping company.

She wrote that every woman in her class at the US Naval Academy had experienced sexual harassment or assault on ships. Her writing sparked calls for a culture change in shipping, and politicians are taking an interest in the issue. It was a small #MeToo moment for the industry.

Amalie Grevsen, responsible for cultural transformation at Maersk, told DW that the Danish company takes every incident seriously. Since the "Midshipman X" report, she said Maersk has increased resources for handling complaints and launched an extensive training program for employees. She also said the company has made a point of becoming a knowledgeable and robust organization whose employees know how to respond in an emergency.

Ann also volunteers to mentor entry-level employees. She shares her experiences at marine colleges in the UK, and hears the same stories from young women over and over. But at least they're talking about it now, she said.

She looks again at old photos of her old life: A picture of her cabin, which had a steel door and plywood walls, on which hung her work overalls and a helmet. Looking at the picture, she told DW, reminded her of how many hours she spent staring at that door, afraid someone would come in. She rarely even went out to eat.

Ann has been in therapy for two years — an arduous process. She still wrestles with feelings of guilt. She no longer wants to think about whether she could have somehow prevented the assaults, on herself or even the women who came after her.

But she's more hopeful now, because speaking about her experience takes some of the power away from her tormentors, she said. "It should be their shame, not mine."

This article was originally written in German

News presenter generated with AI appears in Kuwait


AFP
Mon, April 10, 2023 


A Kuwaiti media outlet has unveiled a virtual news presenter generated using artificial intelligence, with plans for it to read online bulletins.

"Fedha" appeared on the Twitter account of the Kuwait News website on Saturday as an image of a woman, her light-coloured hair uncovered, wearing a black jacket and white T-shirt.

"I'm Fedha, the first presenter in Kuwait who works with artificial intelligence at Kuwait News. What kind of news do you prefer? Let's hear your opinions," she said in classical Arabic.

The site is affiliated with the Kuwait Times, founded in 1961 as the Gulf region's first English-language daily.

Abdullah Boftain, deputy editor in chief for both outlets, said the move is a test of AI's potential to offer "new and innovative content".

In future Fedha could adopt the Kuwaiti accent and present news bulletins on the site's Twitter account, which has 1.2 million followers, he said.

"Fedha is a popular, old Kuwaiti name that refers to silver, the metal. We always imagine robots to be silver and metallic in colour, so we combined the two," Boftain said.

The presenter's blonde hair and light-coloured eyes reflect the oil-rich country's diverse population of Kuwaitis and expatriates, according to Boftain.

"Fedha represents everyone," he said.

Her initial 13-second video generated a flood of reactions on social media, including from journalists.

The rapid rise of AI globally has raised the promise of benefits, such as in health care and the elimination of mundane tasks, but also fears, for example over its potential spread of disinformation, threat to certain jobs, and to artistic integrity.

Kuwait ranked 158 out of 180 countries and territories in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2022 Press Freedom Index.

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