Sunday, May 07, 2023

Israeli Forces Demolish Palestinian School, Hours Later It Is Rebuilt

Shortly after the Israeli occupation forces demolished an EU-funded school in Bayt Ta'mar, located east of Bethlehem in the West Bank, Palestinian citizens and activists were ready to reconstruct it.
M.Y | DOP - 

Shortly after the Israeli occupation forces demolished an EU-funded school in Bayt Ta’mar, located east of Bethlehem in the West Bank, Palestinian citizens and activists were ready to reconstruct it.

The school was demolished by the Israeli military on Tuesday, leading to outrage from the local community and international human rights groups, including the EU.

Despite the destruction, within hours of the demolition the local community had already begun mobilizing to rebuild the school.

This is the same facility that was reconstructed six years ago after being taken down by the Israeli occupation in 2017.

Residents and activists from the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, based in Palestine, reconstructed the school where about sixty children from first to fourth grade are attending.


Israel demolishes Palestinian school, drawing heavy EU criticism

EU said it was 'appalled' by demolition of school it funded, saying such actions were illegal under international law and that 'children's right to education must be respected'


Palestinians pick up papers and books from the site of a school demolished by Israeli authorities in Jabbet al-Dhib, east of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, 7 May 2023 (AFP)

By MEE and agencies
Published date: 7 May 2023 

Israeli forces on Sunday demolished a Palestinian primary school in the occupied West Bank, citing safety issues and drawing sharp criticism from the European Union which had funded the project.

Palestinians hurled rocks at Israeli forces who fired tear gas at them as bulldozers moved in on the site at Jabbet al-Dhib village near Bethlehem.

The EU said it was "appalled" after Israeli forces arrived at dawn at the school site, which a Palestinian Authority official said served 45 students and consisted of five classrooms.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War. The territory is home to around 2.9 million Palestinians. Around 475,000 Jewish settlers also live there in state-approved settlements considered illegal under international law.

A trailer and classrooms constructed of tin sheeting were cleared out of their contents before the demolition, an AFP correspondent said.

COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body overseeing civilian affairs in the occupied territories, imposed in March a two-month deadline to vacate the premises following an order by a Jerusalem court.

The body had determined that the school had been "built illegally" and posed a "safety hazard".
'Illegal under international law'

Ahmed Naser, a Palestinian education ministry official, said the school had replaced another demolished by Israel in 2019.

Naser noted its remote location, which he said prevents the "displacement and forced eviction" of local Palestinians, charging that Israel "wants to confiscate these lands".

The EU called on Israel to "halt all demolitions and evictions, which will only increase the suffering of the Palestinian population and further escalate an already tense environment".

"Demolitions are illegal under international law, and children's right to education must be respected," the office of the EU representative to the Palestinian Territories said in a statement.

In January, a group of United Nations experts had called for action to stop Israel's "systematic and deliberate" demolition of Palestinian structures.

"Direct attacks on the Palestinian people's homes, schools, livelihoods and water sources are nothing but Israel's attempts to curtail the Palestinians' right to self-determination and to threaten their very existence," the experts said in a statement.

Mubarak Zawahrah, head of the Beit Tamar local council where the school was located, told AFP Israeli authorities had agreed a stay on the demolition pending a court appeal on Wednesday.

"But the Israeli army ignored that and just demolished it," he said.

Naser, the education ministry official, said a tent would be erected on Monday on the site with basic infrastructure to replace the demolished structures.

 


EU angered as Israel razes Palestinian school built with European funds

COGAT said in a statement that the building had been constructed illegally and 'was found to be dangerous to the safety of anyone studying or otherwise visiting there.'
JERUSALEM POST
Published: MAY 7, 2023 

Israeli troops take position during clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops after Israeli machinery demolish a school near Bethlehem in the West Bank May 7, 2023

(photo credit: REUTERS/MUSSA QAWASMA

The European Union condemned on Sunday the IDF demolition of an illegal Palestinian school built with its financial assistance in the Gush Etzion region of the West Bank.

“The EU has been following closely this case and has asked the Israeli authorities not to carry out the demolition which directly affects 81 children and their education,” said EU external affairs spokesperson Peter Stano.

Such “demolitions are illegal under international law and children’s right to education must be respected,” he added.

"[Such] demolitions are illegal under international law and children’s right to education must be respected"EU external affairs spokesperson Peter Stano

The small narrow one-story school located in the Palestinian village of Jubbet Adh Dib, adjacent to the Herodium National Park was also demolished in 2017 but was then rebuilt.

Israel NGOs squabble over illegal Palestinian school

The right-wing group Regavim had petitioned the Jerusalem District Court in 2021 against the school. The court ruled that the structure must be razed in early May.

Palestinians throw stones during clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops after Israeli machinery demolish a school near Bethlehem in the West Bank May 7, 2023 (credit: REUTERS/MUSSA QAWASMA)

The left-wing group Peace Now said the village itself lacks “basic infrastructure, from electricity connections to public buildings.”

The Civil Administration has in the past rejected the village’s development plans, forcing residents to build without building permits and find alternative sources of electricity, Peace Now explained.

The Office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories(the building's owner had refused several attempts by Israeli authorities to engage in dialog over the status of the structure before the enforcement of the demolition.

Students and witnesses said the building had been brought to rubble with no trace of the school that once stood there.

"We got ready to come to school and when we arrived we didn't find the school," student Mohammed Ibrahim told Reuters. "We want a school today! We want to study, if they (the IDF) will keep demolishing, we will keep building."

Witnesses also said the contents of the building had been confiscated.

"They demolished the school and they took everything with them," a nearby resident and witness whose grandson was a student at the school Ismael Salah told Reuters. "All the furniture, they put them in trucks and took them."

Israel has often cited a lack of building permits, which Palestinians and rights groups say are nearly impossible to obtain, in destroying Palestinian structures in the West Bank. The EU in the last two decades has funded the construction of such structures as a humanitarian step to help provides Palestinians with housing in the light of the absence of building permits.

It’s a move that has created tension between Brussels and Jerusalem. Stano said that such demolitions “are illegal under international law, and children’s right to education must be respected.” He called on Israel “to halt all demolitions and evictions, which will only increase the suffering of the Palestinian population and risk enflaming tensions on the ground.”

Israeli machinery are seen after they demolish a school near Bethlehem in the West Bank May 7, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/MUSSA QAWASMA)

Last year, Stano said, Israel demolished or seized 954 Palestinian structures, both in the West Bank and in east Jerusalem, noting it was the “highest number recorded since 2016.”

The EU’s Representative Office in Jerusalem said it was “appalled” by the demolition explaining that it further escalated an “already tense environment.

Regavim has argued that such construction is part of a Palestinian Authority plan to seize control of Area C to ensure it is included within their state’s future borders.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Palestinian demands for Inte'l Criminal Court to investigate circumstances of Adnan's death
[07/May/2023]

GAZA May 07. 2023 (Saba) - Palestine demanded on Sunday the International Criminal Court to open an immediate investigation into the crimes of administrative detention and medical negligence in the prisons of the Zionist enemy, which led to the death of the captive Sheikh Khader Adnan.

According to Palestine Online website, the Ministries of "Justice" and "Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners" called, during a joint press conference held in front of the Red Cross headquarters in Gaza City, to internationalize the file of the martyrdom of the prisoner Adnan in all international forums.

The two ministries accused the Zionist enemy of committing the assassination of the prisoner, Khader Adnan, through a policy of deliberate medical negligence.

They denounced the clear double standards in dealing with the Palestinian people and the enemy leaders who are left without real accountability.

They called on the United Nations to form an independent fact-finding committee that the Zionist enemy has no hand in, and whose mission would be to open an immediate investigation into the circumstances of the death of prisoner Khader Adnan after he went on hunger strike for 87 days.
H.H

CLIMATE CRISIS
Canada’s Alberta announces state of emergency over wildfires

Almost all of Northern Alberta and much of neighbouring Saskatchewan province face extreme fire risks.

A smoke column rises from a wildfire near Lodgepole, Alberta, Canada
 [Alberta Wildfire/Handout via Reuters]

Published On 7 May 2023

Alberta has announced a state of emergency as wildfires flare across the Canadian province, forcing 25,000 people to flee their homes in what a top official said was an “unprecedented” crisis.

Thousands more have been told to be prepared to leave on a moment’s notice, as the number of fires – fanned by strong winds – jumped to 110.

One-third of the blazes were listed as out of control.

“We’ve declared a provincial state of emergency to protect the safety, health and welfare of Albertans,” the province’s Premier Danielle Smith told a news conference on Saturday after a meeting of her government’s emergency management committee.

Earlier, she said the province – one of the world’s largest oil-producing regions – “has been experiencing a hot, dry spring, and with so much kindling, all it takes is a few sparks to ignite some truly frightening wildfires”.

“These conditions have resulted in the unprecedented situation our province is facing today,” she said.

According to Smith, more than 20 communities have been evacuated and at least 122,000 hectares (301,000 acres) have burned so far.

The state of emergency declaration gives the government of Alberta “greater powers to respond to extreme situations,” she said, including mobilising additional resources and unlocking emergency funds

.
Some 110 fires were active, with 33 of them listed as out of control 
[Alberta Wildfire/Handout via Reuters]

Almost all of Alberta – in the midst of an election – and much of neighbouring Saskatchewan province as well as a large swath of the Northwest Territories face extreme fire risks, according to a federal government fire danger map.

Federal Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair tweeted that Ottawa stood ready to provide federal assistance if needed.

Oil sands facilities closely monitored the dangers, but none reported production disruptions.

Drayton Valley, with 7,000 residents – about 140km (87 miles) west of Edmonton – was among the communities evacuated as firefighters battled an out-of-control blaze.

Some 550km (342 miles) north of the provincial capital, a severe fire consumed 20 homes, a general store and a police station in the community of Fox Lake.

Residents were evacuated by boat and by helicopter.

In the town of Edson, which has a population of more than 8,000, residents have also been ordered to “evacuate immediately”.


In recent years, extreme weather has hit western Canada repeatedly, growing in intensity and frequency due to global warming.

Forest fires in Canada’s oil sands region in 2016 disrupted production and forced out 100,000 residents from Fort McMurray, pummelling the nation’s economy.

More recently in 2021, the westernmost British Columbia province suffered record-high temperatures over the summer that killed more than 500 people, as well as wildfires that destroyed an entire town.


That was followed by devastating floods and mudslides.

SOURCE: REUTERS

More than 24,000 evacuate in western Canada as 103 wildfires rage across Alberta
2023/05/06
Officials say more than 100 separate fires are burning across western Canada, prompting the evacuation of more than 24,000 people. - Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Wildfires raged across western Canada on Saturday, forcing 24,000 people to evacuate their homes, authorities said.

Roughly 301,243 acres burned in 103 separate blazes, said Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

Forty-five new fires took during Friday and Saturday, said NBC News.

At least 31 of the 92 fires reported Friday were considered to be out of control, said the Alberta Emergency Management Agency.

A total of 24,511 people have been effected by mandatory evacuations across northern and central Alberta.

Another 5,200 have been placed under evacuation alert in what is being described as a “rapidly-evolving situation,” said Smith.

In response to the wildfires, Smith also activated her Cabinet’s emergency management committee, and said the government is prepared to use its emergency powers.

“Our top priority is and always will be public safety and we’re being briefed regularly by the experts who are handling the response,” Smith added.

As of Saturday, 14 Alberta counties and communities had declared states of emergency.

A wildfire in Fox Lake in northern Alberta destroyed 20 homes, a police station and a water treatment plant, reported the emergency management agency.

“This is a stark reminder of just how unpredictable and powerful wildfires can be,” said Stephen Lacroix, the Alberta emergency management agency’s managing director. “I ask you to keep the affected folks in your thoughts today.”

© New York Daily News

Gold mine fire kills at least 27 in Peru

  • PublishedShae
IMAGE SOURCE,FACEBOOK
Image caption,
The fire seen on a hill side in the Arequipa region

At least 27 people have died in a gold mine fire in Peru, in the worst mining accident in the country in decades.

Officials said two people were rescued from the blaze, but no more survivors are expected to be found.

An electrical short-circuit is thought to have sparked the fire inside the La Esperanza mine in the Arequipa region.

Some 30 specialist officers are headed to the scene to secure the mine itself before beginning recovery efforts, local media report.

Photos and video from local media showed flames and smoke erupting from the hillside site on Saturday.

It is believed that miners were working at least some 80 to 100 metres (330ft) below the surface when the blaze broke out.

In a statement, the regional government said the closest police station was some 90 minutes away from the remote site, and several hours from the closest city, complicating the emergency response.

Peruvian newspaper La República reports that relatives of the missing miners arrived at the scene Sunday morning, but have been denied access to the site.

The mining company itself - a small operation named Yanaquihua - has yet to comment on the disaster.

Peru is one of the world's largest gold producers, mining more than 100 tonnes a year - or about 4% of the entire world's annual supply.

While Saturday's fire is believed to be the worst disaster in years, dozens of deaths a year are not uncommon in the country's mining industry - usually spread over many smaller incidents.

MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M
Grocery Store Workers Stand to Lose Over $300 Million Annually if Kroger and Albertsons Merge

Workers’ ability to negotiate better pay and working conditions rests on their capacity to switch jobs. By decreasing the number of outside options available to workers, the merger will limit competition.


Unionized grocery store workers rally to oppose the proposed merger between Kroger and Albertsons outside a Ralph's supermarket in Los Angeles on April 13, 2023, out of concern for less competition, increasing food prices and putting union jobs at risk.

(Photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

BEN ZIPPERER
May 07, 2023
EPI Blog

In October 2022, Kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the U.S., announced plans to acquire Albertsons, the second largest, for $24.6 billion—a deal that faces antitrust scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission and state regulators. Historically, antitrust concerns have focused on the damage to consumers caused by concentration in product markets that gives large firms pricing power. However, a recent wave of economic research has called attention to potential damages to workers’ bargaining power over wages stemming from concentration in labor markets. In this policy memo, we discuss these labor market implications of the proposed merger. We find that the merger of two of the largest supermarket chains in the country will increase employer concentration and reduce the wages of all grocery store workers in affected cities across the country.

Workers’ ability to negotiate better pay and working conditions rests on their capacity to switch jobs. By decreasing the number of outside options available to workers, the merger will limit competition for hiring and retaining employees, and grocery store worker earnings will fall as a result. Crucially, the wage effects we identify are solely driven by this increase in labor market concentration. If the merger also leads to layoffs or hours cuts, this would add another dimension of damage to affected workers.

Our analysis uses grocery store employment and earnings data and the specific locations of Kroger and Albertsons stores. We find that:The merger will lower wages for 746,000 grocery store workers in over 50 metropolitan areas of the U.S. Increased concentration will suppress wages for all grocery store workers in affected cities—not only those workers currently employed by Kroger or Albertsons;
The total annual earnings of grocery store workers will fall by $334 million in affected metropolitan areas;
Because Kroger and Albertsons employ about one quarter of all grocery store employees, most of the wage losses caused by the merger will be a negative externality that falls on grocery store workers employed by other firms. On average, all grocery workers in affected markets will lose about $450 per year in wage income;
Earnings losses will be smaller in areas with a stronger union presence or a tighter labor market. In areas with weaker worker bargaining power, workers will experience larger wage declines; and
The expected earnings losses are a pure windfall for the employers. In our analysis, wages fall solely because of a change in labor market power brought about by increased concentration. Quantitatively, this windfall represents a significant transfer of income from wages to profits: The decrease in wages is equivalent to 2% of Kroger and Albertsons’ profits or three times the companies’ CEO compensation.
Analysis

Recent research has established that concentrated labor markets can reduce worker pay. As explained in Abdela and Steinbaum (2018), much of this research estimates the expected change in average wages for a given change in employer concentration in a particular industry- or occupation-specific labor market.

This analysis uses estimates from that research and applies them to labor markets, which we define as grocery store industry employers or employees in metropolitan areas using the 4-digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industry 4451, Grocery and Convenience Retailers. For each of these metropolitan area labor markets, total grocery store wage losses are calculated by estimating percent changes in employer concentration due to the merger and multiplying those concentration changes by the wage responses estimated in the research literature described above.

To estimate the percent change in concentration due to the merger, we first estimate the level difference in the metropolitan area grocery store industry concentration before and after the merger and then divide that level change by an estimate of the baseline, pre-merger concentration.

On average, each of the affected 746,000 workers will lose about $450 in annual wage income.

To estimate the pre-merger concentration levels, we choose an average pre-merger concentration level by relying on the existing research literature that calculates trends in retail or grocery concentration. Measuring concentration as the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) for 4-digit NAICS industries in commuting zones, Rinz (2022) found that the average HHI for the retail trade sector trended between 0.1 and 0.2 between 1976 and 2015. Zeballos, Dong, and Islamaj (2023) also calculated that the average HHI for two 6-digit industries associated with food retail markets in metropolitan areas rose from about 0.1 in 1990 to about 0.2 in 2019. In the following analysis, we choose a constant 0.15 as the average pre-merger concentration level in metropolitan areas for the grocery store industry. Coincidentally, 0.15 is the threshold at which the Department of Justice considers a market to be “moderately concentrated.”

In our analysis, the pre- and post-merger difference in concentration levels assumes Kroger and Albertsons act as two separate firms prior to the merger and as one single firm after the merger, and then we calculate the level change in HHI where it is possible to estimate store-level employment for each Kroger and Albertsons store. This estimate is a linear prediction based on a subset of 153 stores for which we have employment estimates, square footage data, and Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) metropolitan area-level average employment per establishment.

All told, this analysis covers 205 metropolitan areas containing 3,770 Kroger and Albertsons stores for which we can estimate store-level employment—and hence potential concentration changes—and for which we have 2022 QCEW data for baseline metropolitan area grocery store employment and earnings levels. According to the 2022 QCEW data, there are about 1.6 million grocery store workers in these cities and about 2.8 million grocery store workers nationwide. In 55 of these metropolitan areas, concentration will increase after the merger because these areas contain both Kroger and Albertsons stores.

Wages will fall on average for all grocery store workers in these areas due to the decrease in employer competition. (In other metropolitan areas, we assume there will be no wage change due to the merger because there is no estimated change in concentration.) The exact magnitude of the wage response is based on estimates published in Rinz (2022): Specifically, our analysis assumes that a 10% increase in concentration in a labor market will lower the average wage by 0.4%.

Table 1 summarizes the results. The metropolitan areas with concentration increases contain 746,000 grocery store workers, and the total annual wage bill is $26.3 billion. Across these areas, earnings-weighted average concentration will increase by 32% because of the merger. As a result, wages will decline by 1.3%, given the assumed elasticity of wages with respect to a concentration of -0.04. The Kroger-Albertsons merger will cause annual wages to fall in these affected cities by a total of $334 million. On average, each of the affected 746,000 workers will lose about $450 in annual wage income.

Because the wage losses will, on average, affect every grocery store worker in a metropolitan area where there is a merger of Kroger and Albertsons’ stores, cities with large grocery employment bases will experience particularly large losses in total wage income. Table 2 shows the 10 largest wage losses by metropolitan area. For example, the merger will cause annual grocery store wages to fall by $51 million in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, California, metropolitan area and $32 million in the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, Illinois-Indiana-Wisconsin, metropolitan area

The effects described above represent average losses, and some individual workers may experience larger or smaller wage declines. In particular, the losses may be reduced in labor markets where workers have more bargaining power. Benmelech, Bergman and Kim (2022), in the case of manufacturing, and Prager and Schmitt (2021), in the case of hospital workers, show that the negative wage effects of employer concentration are larger in areas where union density is below average or right-to-work laws reduce unions’ bargaining power. For example, union coverage rates in the grocery store industry are only 8% in the South, but 20% in the Northeast.

As wage declines entail significant losses for grocery store workers, they simultaneously represent sizable parts of Kroger and Albertsons’ bottom lines. Some reports estimate total employment at Kroger and Albertsons to be about 710,000 workers, about one quarter of the total 2.8 million employees in the grocery store industry. Accordingly, a reasonable expectation for wage losses for employees at Kroger and Albertsons is one quarter of the $334 million, or about $84 million. Since Kroger’s profits were $2.3 billion and Albertsons profits were $1.5 billion in 2022, the merger-induced decline in grocery store worker wages is equivalent to about a 2% increase in Kroger and Albertsons’ profits. Because grocery profits were relatively high in 2022, the wage reductions would represent an even higher share of “normal” pre-pandemic profits. The wage losses also represent a significant windfall for company executives: Wage losses for workers at Kroger and Albertsons are about three times the size of the total CEO compensation of the two companies.
Conclusion

The Kroger and Albertsons merger will reduce the number of outside employment options available to workers and place downward pressure on grocery store workers’ wages. Based on existing empirical research showing the labor market effects of employer concentration, we find that the merger will permanently reduce the wages of 776,000 grocery store workers. Their annual earnings will fall by $334 million—about a $450 loss in annual wages per worker. If unionization rates were significantly higher in areas affected by the merger, union contracts and bargaining power could mitigate some of these losses.

For additional notes and references, see the original Economic Policy Institute report.

© 2023 Economic Policy Institute

BEN ZIPPERER is an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. His areas of expertise include the minimum wage, inequality, and low-wage labor markets. He has published research in the Industrial and Labor Relations Review and has been quoted in outlets such as the New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, and the BBC.
Full Bio >
Now Is the Time to Stop Using Dehumanizing Language to Describe Migrants


The more of this language we use, the more likely it is that we will see immigrants as the “other” to justify cruel immigration policies.


Venezuelan and Nicaraguan migrants are transferred by agents of the Border Patrol after crossing the Rio Grande river from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico to El Paso, Texas, US to ask for political asylum on December 27, 2022.

(Photo: Herika Martinez/AFP via Getty Images)



DANIELLA PRIESHOFF
May 07, 2023
OtherWords

Last year, my client Susan called me to discuss her immigration case.

During our conversation she referenced the news that immigrants were being bused from the southern border to cities in the North, often under false promises, only to be left stranded in an unknown city.

In confusion and fear, Susan asked me: “Why do they hate us so much?”

While I couldn’t answer Susan’s question, her underlying concern highlights a startling escalation of public aggression against migrants over the past year.

Many outlets describe recent migration through the Americas as a “flood,” “influx,” “wave,” or “surge”—language that reinforces the notion that migration is akin to an imminent, uncontrollable, and destructive natural disaster.

There seems to be a growing “us” versus “them” mentality towards immigrants. This divisive language serves no purpose other than to divide our country, undermine the legal right to seek asylum in the United States, and cultivate a fear of the most vulnerable.

A clear example is showcased in recent media coverage of northbound migration across the U.S.-Mexico border. Many outlets describe recent migration through the Americas as a “flood,” “influx,” “wave,” or “surge”—language that reinforces the notion that migration is akin to an imminent, uncontrollable, and destructive natural disaster.

These descriptions are accompanied by sensational photographs and videos of long lines of brown and Black immigrants wading across the Rio Grande, crowding along the border wall, or boarding Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) vehicles to be transported to detention.

Woven into this framing is the near-constant use of the term “illegal” or “unlawful” to describe unauthorized crossings. As an advocate for immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence, and trafficking, I’m alarmed by the use of this language to describe a migrant’s attempt to survive.

Moreover, it’s often simply incorrect. A noncitizen who has a well-founded fear of persecution in the country from which they’ve fled has a legal right—protected under both U.S. and international law—to enter the United States to seek asylum.

When mainstream media wield the term “illegal” as though it were synonymous with “unauthorized,” they misinform readers and falsely paint asylum seekers as criminals.

Worse still, they encourage politicians who call immigrants themselves “illegals,” a deeply dehumanizing term. And the more dehumanizing language we use, the more likely it is that we will see immigrants as the “other” to justify cruel immigration policies.

We must retire the use of this inflammatory rhetoric, which distracts from real solutions that would actually serve survivors arriving at our borders.

Migrants expelled back to their home countries are at grave risk of severe harm or death at the hands of their persecutors. Those forced to remain in Mexico as they await entry to the United States are increasingly vulnerable to organized crime or abusive and dangerous conditions in detention.

And those who have no choice but to desperately navigate dangerous routes to the United States to avoid apprehension are increasingly dying by dehydration, falling from cliffs, and drowning in rivers.

The words we use in everyday discourse mean something—they can spell out life or death for those among us who are most vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Now more than ever, I’d urge the public and the media to retire the use of sensationalizing, stigmatizing, and misleading imagery and rhetoric surrounding immigration.

Now is the time to apply accuracy and humanity in our depictions of migrants. Let’s not repeat the errors of our past.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.


DANIELLA PRIESHOFF is a Senior Supervising Attorney at the Tahirih Justice Center, a nonprofit that supports immigrant survivors of gender-based violence. She thanks Phoebe Quinteros for her contributions to the research for this piece.
Full Bio >
EPA Report on Neonics Proves US Has 'Five-Alarm Fire' on Its Hands, Green Groups Say

"There's now no question that neonicotinoids play an outsized role in our heartbreaking extinction crisis," said one advocate. The EPA must "ban these pesticides so future generations don't live in a world without bees and butterflies and the plants that depend on them."



Research has shown that a "serious reduction in pesticide usage" is essential to prevent the extinction of up to 41% of the world's insects in the coming decades.

(Photo: Sunchild57 Photography/cc/flickr)

KENNY STANCIL
May 05, 2023

A newly published assessment from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warns that three of the most commonly used neonicotinoid insecticides threaten the continued existence of more than 200 endangered plant and animal species.

"The EPA's analysis shows we've got a five-alarm fire on our hands, and there's now no question that neonicotinoids play an outsized role in our heartbreaking extinction crisis," Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), said Friday in a statement.

"The EPA has to use the authority it has to take fast action to ban these pesticides," said Burd, "so future generations don't live in a world without bees and butterflies and the plants that depend on them."

The agency's new analysis found that clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam likely jeopardize the continued existence of 166, 199, and 204 plants and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), respectively. This includes 25 distinct insects, more than 160 plants reliant on insect pollination, and dozens of fish, birds, and invertebrates.

"The Biden administration will have the stain of extinction on its hands if it doesn't muster the courage to stand up to Big Ag and ban these chemicals."

Species being put at risk of extinction include the whooping crane, Indiana bat, Plymouth redbelly turtle, yellow larkspur, Attwater's greater prairie-chicken, rusty patched bumblebee, Karner blue butterfly, American burying beetle, Western prairie fringed orchid, vernal pool fairy shrimp, and the spring pygmy sunfish.

"The EPA confirmed what we have been warning about for years—these neonicotinoid insecticides pose an existential threat to many endangered species and seriously undermine biodiversity," Sylvia Wu, senior attorney at the Center for Food Safety (CFS), said in a statement. "Unfortunately, this dire news is what we have told EPA all along. EPA should be ashamed that it still has yet to ban these life-threatening pesticides."

The EPA is well aware of the risks associated with the three neonicotinoids in question. One year ago, the agency released biological evaluations showing that the vast majority of endangered species are likely harmed by clothianidin (1,225 species, or 67% of the ESA list), imidacloprid (1,445, 79%), and thiamethoxam (1,396, 77%). Its new analysis focuses on which imperiled species and critical habitats are likely to be driven extinct by the trio of insecticides.

As CBD pointed out: "For decades the EPA has refused to comply with its Endangered Species Act obligations to assess pesticides' harms to protected species. The agency was finally forced to do the biological evaluations by legal agreements with the Center for Food Safety and the Natural Resources Defense Council. After losing many lawsuits on this matter, the EPA has committed to work toward complying with the act."

"Given the Fish and Wildlife Service's refusal to lift a finger to protect endangered species from pesticides, we commend the EPA for completing this analysis and revealing the disturbing reality of the massive threat these pesticides pose," said Burd. "The Biden administration will have the stain of extinction on its hands if it doesn't muster the courage to stand up to Big Ag and ban these chemicals."

CFS science director Bill Freese said that "while we welcome EPA's overdue action on this issue, we are closely examining the agency's analysis to determine whether still more species are jeopardized by these incredibly potent and ubiquitous insecticides."

As CFS explained:
Chemically similar to nicotine, neonicotinoids kill insects by disrupting their nervous systems. Just billionths of a gram can kill or impair honeybees. Introduced in the 1990s, neonicotinoids have rapidly become the most widely used insecticides in the world. Neonics can be sprayed or applied to soil, but by far the biggest use is application to seeds. The neonic seed coating is absorbed by the growing seedling and makes the entire plant toxic. CFS has a separate case challenging EPA's regulation of these seed coatings.

Bees and other pollinators are harmed by exposure to neonic-contaminated nectar and pollen, with studies demonstrating disruptions in flight ability, impaired growth and reproduction as well as weakened immunity. Neonic-contaminated seed dust generated during planting operations causes huge bee kills, while pollinators also die from direct exposure to spray.

Neonics are also persistent (break down slowly), and run off into waterways, threatening aquatic organisms. EPA has determined that neonics likely harm all 38 threatened and endangered amphibian species in the U.S., among hundreds of other organisms. Birds are also at risk, and can die from eating just one to several treated seeds.

Neonicotinoids have long been prohibited in the European Union, but as recently as a few months ago, a loophole enabled governments to grant emergency derogations temporarily permitting the use of seeds coated with these and other banned insecticides. In January, the E.U.'s highest court closed the loophole for neonicotinoid-treated seeds—a decision the post-Brexit United Kingdom refused to emulate.

In the U.S., neonicotinoids continue to be used on hundreds of millions of acres of agricultural land, contributing to an estimated 89% decline in the American bumblebee population over the past 20 years.

According to Freese, "EPA has thus far given a free pass to neonicotinoids coated on corn and other crop seeds—which represent by far their largest use—that make seedlings toxic to pollinators and other beneficial insects."

"Our expert wildlife agencies—the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service—have the final say on this matter," Freese added, "and may well find that neonicotinoids put even more species at risk of extinction."

A 2019 scientific review of the catastrophic global decline of insects made clear that a "serious reduction in pesticide usage" is essential to prevent the extinction of up to 41% of the world's insects in the coming decades.
There’s Still Time to Avoid Climate Catastrophe

If we fail to reach the goal of reducing emissions by 50 percent by 2030, it won’t be for lack of options


Aerial view of solar power station and solar energy panels

(Getty)


DAVID SUZUKI
May 07, 2023
David Suzuki Foundation

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions to keep the world from heating to catastrophic levels is entirely possible and would save money. Although emissions continue to rise, there’s still time to reverse course. Ways to slash them by more than half over the next seven years are readily available and cost-effective — and necessary to keep the global average temperature from rising more than 1.5 C.

The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report includes a chart that shows how. Compiled by the world’s top scientists using the most up-to-date research, it illustrates potential emissions reductions and costs of various methods.

At the top are wind and solar power, followed by energy efficiency, stopping deforestation and reducing methane emissions. Nuclear energy, carbon capture and storage and biofuels bring much poorer results for a lot more money.

Wind and solar together can cut eight billion tons of emissions annually — “equivalent to the combined emissions of the US and European Union today” and “at lower cost than just continuing with today’s electricity systems,” the Guardian reports.

Nuclear power and carbon capture and storage each deliver only 10 percent of the results of wind and solar at far higher costs. It’s telling that those less effective, more expensive pathways are the ones touted most often by government, industry and media people who are determined to keep fossil fuels burning or are resistant to power sources that offer greater energy independence.

Making buildings, industry, lighting and appliances more energy efficient could cut 4.5 billion tons of emissions a year by 2030 — and there’s no doubt that simply reducing energy consumption could add to that.

Because forests, wetlands and other green spaces sequester carbon, stopping deforestation could cut four billion tons a year by 2030, almost “double the fossil fuel emissions from the whole of Africa and South America today,” the Guardian reports.

Cutting methane emissions, especially those that leak from fossil fuel operations, could cut three billion tons. This is especially important because methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over the short term. It also shows that fracking for fossil gas and production of so-called “liquefied natural gas” are not viable solutions.

Other ways to lower emissions include switching to sustainable diets, such as eating less meat (1.7 billion tons), shifting toward public transit and active transportation (which has more potential than electric cars) and better agricultural methods.

We’re constantly told that quickly transitioning from coal, oil and gas is not realistic and that renewables aren’t ready to replace them, and that we need expensive, often unproven or dangerous methods like nuclear and carbon capture and storage. But those claims ignore the rapid pace at which renewable energy and storage technologies have been advancing — and dropping in price.

We could get even further than this research suggests by using less energy and fewer products that require energy to produce and transport. Shifting from a consumer-based system is especially important in light of the fact that even renewable energy is not impact-free. Mining for materials, replacing aging infrastructure and making space for installations means our ultimate goal should be to use less.

Likewise with electric cars. Although electric cars are far better than fossil-fuelled, all personal vehicles waste resources, require massive infrastructure and are not efficient at moving people around, regardless of how they’re powered.

But what this chart and mountains of other research show is that even with current technologies, methods and systems, cutting emissions and avoiding catastrophic consequences of climate disruption are entirely possible and affordable.

If we fail to reach the goal of reducing emissions by 50 percent by 2030, it won’t be for lack of options.

The problem isn’t a shortage of solutions, or exorbitant costs, or any benefits of fossil fuels over renewable energy; it’s a lack of political will, and to some extent, public support. This is driven to a large degree by the efforts of industry to protect its interests in raking in huge profits and perpetuating a system that mostly benefits a small and dwindling number of people at the expense of human health, well-being and survival.

Nature is speaking, and science is confirming that we have no time to lose. We can’t afford not to change.


With contributions from Senior Editor and Writer Ian Hanington
'This Land Is Our Life': Indigenous Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo People Defend Forest From Illegal Destruction in Peru


More than 300 community members participate in La Guardia Indigena, protecting around 8 million hectares of one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth from logging, fishing, and coca growing.


Members of the Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo Indigenous Guard.

(Photo: Guardia Indígena of the Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo)

OLIVIA ROSANE
May 05, 2023

The Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo people of the Peruvian Amazon are organizing themselves to protect their ancestral forests and waters from illegal fishing, logging, and coca growing amidst conservation and development efforts from both the government and international nonprofits that they say are ineffective at best and actively harmful to Indigenous ways of life at worst.

More than 300 members of the community participate in La Guardia Indigena—or the Indigenous Guard—that works from around 25 bases in the Ucayali region of Peru to protect around 8 million hectares.

"We've been resisting, and we continue to resist generation after generation because this land is our life," Lizardo Cauper Pezo, president of the Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo Council, told reporters at the virtual Peasant and Indigenous Press Forum April 27.

"Without the forest, the world would be chaos."

The Peruvian Amazon is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, but, like much of the rest of the rainforest, it is under threat. Beyond outright tree clearing, one threat is the illegal growing of coca that leads to both deforestation for planting and air pollution when it is burned during processing. Another is illegal fishing from bodies of water like Lake Imiría. Fifteen percent of more than 20,000 hectares of forest in the Flor de Ucayali community has been either cut or burned down.

To counter this threat, the guard patrols the area carrying their ancestral weapons.

"That's what represents our strength, our spirit, and it also represents our ancestors," Indigenous Guard president Marco Tulio told reporters.

However, the guard does not threaten or seek to harm fishers, loggers, or drug traffickers. Instead, they attempt to speak with them and explain that the land belongs to the Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo people. If fishers return for a second time, the guard may destroy their equipment. In total, the guard has confronted fishers 45 times.

Sometimes, the fishers or loggers are themselves armed and threaten the Indigenous Guard. The guard will act in self-defense and also explain to authorities their right to do so.

"We don't threaten, we only need to care for the forest, because the forest is for everyone," Tulio said. "Without the forest, the world would be chaos."

This work—like land defense everywhere—is not without significant risk. The most recent annual Global Witness report found that two environmental defenders were killed every two days of the last 10 years. During 2021, 40% of the murders targeted Indigenous activists, despite the fact that they make up only 5% of the global population.

Tulio told reporters that a week before speaking at the forum he received a death threat telling him he only had days left to live.

The violence comes despite the fact that the area is technically protected as the Lake Imiría regional conservation area, or ACR, and has been since 2010. In fact, many Indigenous people oppose the ACR, which they say was established without full community consent, according to an investigation published by Grist last month.

The Shipibo Konibo-Xetebo claim that the government allows poachers, coca growers, and loggers to enter the area while focusing its enforcement efforts on Indigenous people catching and selling fish to survive.

"What kind of protection and conservation are we talking about?" Pezo asked rhetorically at the press forum.

For example, a Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo woman named Sorayda Cruz Vesada was arrested and fined the equivalent of $400 in 2016 for attempting to sell a large Amazonian fish called the paiche in order to pay for her daughter's school supplies, Grist reported.

Things came to a head in 2020, when the Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo community learned of plans between the ACR, the Ucayali Department of Fisheries, and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to open Lake Imiría to commercial fishing. It was this news that prompted the Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo to reform their Indigenous Guard, as well as to occupy a park guard post in Junín Pablo in July 2022. That occupation was formalized in August as the community waits to hear from Peru's national government on a proposal to have their lands excluded from the park for them to manage themselves.

Tulio said the people wanted to live and work freely without the government harming their forest or inserting itself into their way of life.

"The forests, the rivers, the waters, they are our market," he told the forum.

The occupation in July succeeded in ousting the USAID-backed company Pro Bosques from the area, but the threat of the project lingers, and the status of the protected area remains uncertain. Tulio believes the regional government—or its supporters—is behind the death threats against him. The president of the Autonomous Government of the Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo People shared the community's concerns with the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York on April 19.

The Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo's struggle comes at a crucial time for both conservation and Indigenous rights. As world leaders pledged in Montreal last December to protect 30% of land and water by 2030, there is growing recognition in the scientific and international community that Indigenous people are the best protectors of their lands. Their 5% of the population protects 80% of Earth's remaining biodiversity, and a 2022 study found that protecting Indigenous lands could help four Latin American countries—including Peru—meet their climate goals.

Yet the growing business of carbon offsetting is raising new concerns about conservation strategies that work by excluding these very communities from their forests, as a January exposé of top carbon credit standard Verra reported happened in Alto Mayo, Peru.

It remains to be seen if the 30% goal will be met by acknowledging the rights and role of Indigenous communities or repeating the colonial fortress conservation mindset of the past. While the agreement states that Indigenous rights must be considered in its implementation, it does not allow Indigenous territories to count toward the target, as Survival International pointed out at the time.

"What we saw in Montreal is evidence that we can't trust the conservation industry, business, and powerful countries to do the right thing," Survival research and advocacy Officer Fiore Longo said in a statement. "We will keep fighting for the respect and recognition of Indigenous land rights. Whoever cares about biodiversity should be doing the same thing."

Meanwhile, the Shipibo Konibo Xetebo have a message for the people and nonprofits of the U.S.

"You need to stop supporting the things that exploit our rights, or that support these different activities and projects that trample on our rights and ways of living as Indigenous people," Pezo said.

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https://www.ursulakleguin.com/the-word-for-world-is-forest

The Word for World Is Forest was originally published in the anthology Again, Dangerous Visions in 1972. It was published as a standalone book in 1976 by ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Word_for_World_Is_Forest

The Word for World Is Forest is a science fiction novella by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in the United States in 1972 as a part of ...


https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ursula-k-le-guin-the-word-for-world-is-forest-1

Written in the glare of the United States' war on Indochina, and first published as a separate book in that war's dire aftermath, The Word for World is Forest ...

ACLU, Allies Warn Internet Bills 'Would Undermine Free Speech, Privacy, and Security'

While these bills' supporters aim to hold tech giants accountable for not protecting vulnerable communities, one expert warned, "increasing censorship and weakening encryption would not only be ineffective at solving these concerns, it would in fact exacerbate them."



Children use laptops in a classroom.

(Photo: shironosov/Getty Images)

JESSICA CORBETT
May 04, 2023

As the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee considered a series of bills on Thursday, the ACLU and other digital rights advocates warned against federal legislation that would promote censorship, disincentivize protecting users with strong encryption, and expand law enforcement access to personal data.

A trio of ACLU policy experts sent a letter to the committee about three bills: the Cooper Davis Act, the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) Act, and the Strengthening Transparency and Obligation to Protect Children Suffering from Abuse and Mistreatment (STOP CSAM) Act.

"These bills purport to hold powerful companies accountable for their failure to protect children and other vulnerable communities from dangers on their services when, in reality, increasing censorship and weakening encryption would not only be ineffective at solving these concerns, it would in fact exacerbate them," said one of the experts, ACLU senior policy counsel Cody Venzke.



Named for a Kansas teenager who died after taking a pill laced with fentanyl, the Cooper Davis Act (S. 1080) would require social media companies and other communication service providers to give federal agencies information about illicit activity related to the synthetic opioid on their platforms.

The EARN IT Act (S. 1207)—which targets Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—would remove tech companies' blanket liability protection for civil or criminal law violations related to online child sexual abuse material and establish a national commission to craft voluntary "best practices" for providers.

Sponsored by committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the STOP CSAM Act (S. 1199) would, among other provisions, enable survivors of online child sexual exploitation to bring a civil cause of action against tech companies that promoted or facilitated the abuse.

The ACLU warns that the proposals "would undermine free speech, privacy, and security." As the letter explains:

First, they incentivize platforms to monitor and censor their users' speech and interfere with content moderation decisions. Second, they disincentivize platforms from providing end-to-end encrypted communications services, exposing the public to abusive commercial and government surveillance practices and as a result, dissuading people from communicating with each other electronically about everything from healthcare decisions to business transactions. And third, they expand warrantless government access to private data. As longtime champions of privacy, free speech, and an open internet, we strongly urge you to vote against reporting these bills out of committee.

Despite the ACLU's argument that "there are other avenues to protect children, privacy, and safety online that do not lead to increased surveillance, censorship, and policing," the committee on Thursday unanimously advanced the EARN IT Act, spearheaded by Ranking Member Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

As Common Dreamsreported Tuesday, the Center for Democracy & Technology led 132 other groups—including the ACLU—in a letter to the panel which says: "We support curbing the scourge of child exploitation online. However, EARN IT will instead make it harder for law enforcement to protect children. It will also result in online censorship that will disproportionately impact marginalized communities."

Fight for the Future, another signatory to that letter, tweeted Thursday that "the dangerous, anti-encryption #EARNITAct passed out of committee this morning. We know this bill—it's back from the dead to restrict the internet and make everyone less safe online."

The group also thanked Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) for entering the coalition's letter about the EARN IT Act into the record.

Representatives from the ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Equality Arizona, Fight for the Future, Reframe Health and Justice, and Woodhull Freedom Foundation came together with grassroots organizer Melissa Kadri and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on Wednesday for a press conference on some of the internet bills being considered by Congress.

Along with criticizing the EARN IT and STOP CSAM proposals, the event's speakers sounded the alarm about the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology (RESTRICT) Act.



Specifically naming Bolivia, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia as "foreign adversaries," the RESTRICT Act (S. 686) would empower the U.S. Department of Commerce to "review, prevent, and mitigate information communications and technology transactions that pose undue risk to our national security."

KOSA, which was officially reintroduced on Tuesday, would increase parental controls, force social media platforms to prevent and mitigate certain harms to minors, and require independent audits.

"I'm a parent of a 12-year-old, and I care deeply about my 12-year-old's future. And for me, I want to ask not just what policies will make the internet more sanitized or safer for my child, but what policies governing the internet will lead to the type of world that I want my child to grow up in," said Fight for the Future director Evan Greer.

"That's a world where she has access to human rights, where she has access to accurate life-saving information about issues like mental health and substance abuse, and where she has access to online community," she continued. "And that is true for so many children, particularly LGBTQ kids who are facing unprecedented assaults across the country."

Citing Fred Rogers' philosophy that what can be mentioned can be managed, Greer added that "a lot of these bills are based on the idea that we protect our kids by sequestering them off from discussion of these important topics; unfortunately, we actually know from evidence and data that that harms our kids, and that our kids are safer when they are able to discuss... with their peers and with experts these issues that affect them. These bills would, unfortunately, cut kids off from those resources, and that's why we believe that they will make kids less safe, and not more safe

 

Wyden agreed that "these bills are going to make kids less safe." Specifically, he expressed concern about EARN IT and STOP CSAM bills attacking "the single strongest technology protecting kids and families online," warning that "weakening encryption is probably the premier gift you could give to predators and god-awful people who want to stalk and spy on kids."

"I want to make one quick point about the Kids Online Safety Act: Giving extremist governors the power to decide what content is safe for kids is a nonstarter," he said, calling out the GOP leaders of Florida and Texas. "Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott are using every bit of power they have to go after queer and trans kids, censor information about reproductive health, and scrub basic history about race in America. I'm not about to give them even more power... I urge my colleagues to focus on elements that are actually going to protect kids rather than just handing big quantities of more power to MAGA Republicans to wage a culture war against children."

"I think the most important thing Congress can do to improve the internet for kids and everybody else is to pass comprehensive privacy legislation," Wyden asserted. "This fight... has been the longest-running battle since the Trojan War, and it's time to take on the special interests and get a strong bill passed."

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