Trudeau reaffirms Canada's 

support for Ukraine

Christian Baha / June 10, 2023

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his surprise visit to Kiev on Saturday is meant to reaffirm Ottawa's commitment to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian people during what he referred to as Russia's "brutal war."

Trudeau emphasized Canada's solidarity with the war-struck nation, promising further updates about this trip will come soon and that his followers should stay tuned for more information regarding the visit.

Joint address by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau to Canadian journalists at the Press Gallery Dinner in Ottawa

11 June 2023 - 20:12

Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau:

Hello everyone. Bonjour à tous. 

I’m pleased to be joining you with my friend, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, tonight.

When I realized that I would be missing this year’s Press Gallery Dinner, I wanted to make sure that I could still speak with all of you.

Because the work you do is incredibly important. 

And because this a scary time for journalists, and for democracies.

En ce moment, les médias sont la cible d’attaques et la démocratie est en recul.  

Des journalistes se font harceler, censurer, menacer et même tuer. 

Des leaders dénigrent votre travail. 

Et les gens ont de moins en moins confiance en nos démocraties et nos institutions. 

The fourth estate is one of our most important democratic institutions. 

We cannot let it be weakened—by cynical politicians or by large corporations who want to shirk their responsibility to pay their fair share.

Whether you are a foreign correspondent who helps us see through the fog of war or a local reporter who covers city hall, your work matters. 

The stories and facts you report give people the information they need to make choices that affect them, deeply. 

Pour que la démocratie fonctionne, on doit tous se fier aux mêmes faits vérifiés. 

C’est de cette façon que les gens vont pouvoir comprendre ce qui se passe vraiment et avoir des vrais débats sur la meilleure façon d’avancer.

Ça ne pourrait pas être plus vrai ou plus important qu’à ce moment-ci de notre histoire.  

L’Ukraine – et les Ukrainiens – le comprennent mieux que quiconque. 

Tonight is an opportunity for us to express our gratitude for all those who are shedding a light on Putin’s brutal war.  

The brave women and men who continue to put themselves at risk so we may know the true extent of Russia’s crimes. 

Tonight, we salute you.

A free press is, unequivocally, essential to democracy. And vice versa.

You speak truth to power, and you give a voice to the voiceless. 

My friends, you make democracy stronger. 

And what a privilege it is for us to be able to live and work in a democracy.

Partout dans le monde, les populations font d’énormes sacrifices pour avoir ce privilège.

Alors, ne tenons jamais pour acquises les libertés que nous offre notre démocratie. 

Et continuons de travailler ensemble pour défendre et protéger ces libertés. 

I want to close by simply saying thank you.

Thank you for everything you do for our country, its people, and for the world.

And you know we all talk often about fighting for democracy.

Well, I’d like now to turn it to someone who knows a thing or two about fighting for democracy. 

Volodymyr!

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy:

Thank you so much, Justin.

I greet you all from Ukraine. Thank you for standing with us, with Ukraine.

This is often the case – and especially often with journalists and correspondents – when life challenges you to choose to become a hero. Sometimes it is much easier to avoid choosing and stay somewhere in the gray zone between the good and evil – just to pretend to be neutral. But everyone who does not avoid it, who defies the evil, who calls a spade a spade, can become a hero for more than just one day.

We live in times when our freedom depends on all of us – when the world should know the whole truth about every crime against freedom in one part of the world to keep the freedom everywhere else. The evil now claims not just one country but values – our values. It claims to destroy them.

And I thank you all for not tricking with the evil. 

Thank you for telling the truth about Russian war crimes! Thank you for using your power – probably the highest power in the modern world – the power to decide what holds people’s attention and what people know. Thank you for using your power to give guidance for people and humanity.

Thank you Canada and you, Justin, my friend, the friend of Ukraine, Mister Prime Minister! Thank you! 

Слава Україні!

Justin Trudeau: Героям слава!

Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Thank you

Ukraine claims advances around Bakhmut as Trudeau visits Kyiv

By Patrick Hilsman

JUNE 10, 2023 

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky (R) and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shake hands during a press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday amid the Russian invasion.

 Photo by Oleg Petrasyuk/EPA-EFE

June 10 (UPI) -- Ukrainian forces claimed to have made advances around the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut on Saturday as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged more assistance during a surprise visit to Kyiv.

Col. Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military's Operational East Command, said Kyiv's troops were successful in advancing up to 1,400 meters ( 0.8 miles) in various areas around the key Russian-occupied city in eastern Ukraine.

"In total, there were six combat clashes, in which our Defense Forces eliminated 138 occupiers, wounded 236, and took one prisoner," Cherevaty told official media.

Ukrainian forces also destroyed Russian war materiel including howitzers, mounted combat vehicles, an anti-aircraft gun, trucks and ammunition depots in the attacks, he said.

Cherevaty emphasized that Ukrainian forces had taken high ground around Bakhmut and that Russian forces were reinforcing their positions in a bid to hold off advances that appeared to be part of a long-expected Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian invaders in the eastern part of the country.

"Our main goal remains unchanged: to inflict maximum damage on the enemy, maximum losses on the enemy, and all tools are employed to this end," Cherevaty said.

Meanwhile on Saturday, Trudeau and Deputy Canadian Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland made a surprise trip to Kyiv where they met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who made his clearest indication yet that the counteroffensive is indeed underway.

During his visit, Trudeau observed destroyed Russian vehicles on display in Kyiv and pledged an additional $500 million in aid as well as new sanctions aimed at 24 Russian individuals 17 entities.

The Canadian leader put blame for the collapse of the Kakhovka dam squarely on Russia.

"Russia is responsible and will be held accountable," he said.

Trudeau also pledged to extend Operation Unifier, the Canadian mission to train Ukrainian forces, through 2026.

"We are very grateful that we have such good friends of Ukraine and your people show such big support for all our people in Canada," Zelensnky told Trudeau.

During his visit, Trudeau attended a wreath laying ceremony at the Wall of Remembrance -- a collection of photos honoring those killed during the Russian invasion.

In remarks at a joint press conference with Trudeau, Zelensky told reporters, "Counteroffensive and defensive actions are taking place in Ukraine, at which stage I will not talk in detail."

The comments came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said he believes Ukraine's counteroffensive is already underway and that it is already failing.

Ukrainian demonstrators rally in Kyiv on February 12, 2022 to show unity amid U.S. warnings of an imminent Russian invasion. Photo by Oleksandr Khomenko/UPI | License Photo

WAR IS ECOCIDE

Ukraine’s dam collapse is both a fast-moving disaster and a slow-moving ecological catastrophe

Associated Press
June 11, 2023 

The destruction of the Kakhovka Dam was a fast-moving disaster that is swiftly evolving into a long-term environmental catastrophe affecting drinking water, food supplies and ecosystems reaching into the Black Sea.

The short-term dangers can be seen from outer space — tens of thousands of parcels of land flooded, and more to come. Experts say the long-term consequences will be generational.

For every flooded home and farm, there are fields upon fields of newly planted grains, fruits and vegetables whose irrigation canals are drying up.

Thousands of fish were left gasping on mud flats.

Fledgling water birds lost their nests and their food sources.

Countless trees and plants were drowned.

If water is life, then the draining of the Kakhovka reservoir creates an uncertain future for the region of southern Ukraine that was an arid plain until the damming of the Dnieper River 70 years ago.

The Kakhovka Dam was the last in a system of six Soviet-era dams on the river, which flows from Belarus to the Black Sea.

Houses are seen underwater in the flooded village near Kherson, Ukraine on June 10.AP

Then the Dnieper became part of the front line after Russia’s invasion last year.

“All this territory formed its own particular ecosystem, with the reservoir included,” said Kateryna Filiuta, an expert in protected habitats for the Ukraine Nature Conservation Group.
The short term

Ihor Medunov is very much part of that ecosystem.

His work as a hunting and fishing guide effectively ended with the start of the war, but he stayed on his little island compound with his four dogs because it seemed safer than the alternative.

Still, for months the knowledge that Russian forces controlled the dam downstream worried him.

SEE ALSO

Ukraine claims intercepted call proves Russia blew up Nova Kakhovka dam

The six dams along the Dnieper were designed to operate in tandem, adjusting to each other as water levels rose and fell from one season to the next.

When Russian forces seized the Kakhovka Dam, the whole system fell into neglect.

Whether deliberately or simply carelessly, the Russian forces allowed water levels to fluctuate uncontrollably.

They dropped dangerously low in winter and then rose to historic peaks when snowmelt and spring rains pooled in the reservoir.

Until Monday, the waters were lapping into Medunov’s living room.

Now, with the destruction of the dam, he is watching his livelihood literally ebb away.

The waves that stood at his doorstep a week ago are now a muddy walk away.

Houses are seen underwater in the flooded town of Oleshky.AP

“The water is leaving before our eyes,” he told The Associated Press. “Everything that was in my house, what we worked for all our lives, it’s all gone. First it drowned, then, when the water left, it rotted.”

Since the dam’s collapse Tuesday, the rushing waters have uprooted landmines, torn through caches of weapons and ammunition, and carried 150 tons of machine oil to the Black Sea.

Entire towns were submerged to the rooflines, and thousands of animals died in a large national park now under Russian occupation

.

Streets and trade port are seen underwater and polluted by oil in Kherson.AP

Rainbow-colored slicks already coat the murky, placid waters around flooded Kherson, the capital of southern Ukraine’s province of the same name.

Abandoned homes reek from rot as cars, first-floor rooms and basements remain submerged.

Enormous slicks seen in aerial footage stretch across the river from the city’s port and industrial facilities, demonstrating the scale of the Dnieper’s new pollution problem.

AP

Ukraine’s Agriculture Ministry estimated 10,000 hectares (24,000 acres) of farmland were underwater in the territory of Kherson province controlled by Ukraine, and “many times more than that” in territory occupied by Russia.

Farmers are already feeling the pain of the disappearing reservoir. Dmytro Neveselyi, mayor of the village of Maryinske, said everyone in the community of 18,000 people will be affected within days.

“Today and tomorrow, we’ll be able to provide the population with drinking water,” he said. After that, who knows. “The canal that supplied our water reservoir has also stopped flowing.”
The long term

The waters slowly began to recede on Friday, only to reveal the environmental catastrophe looming.

The reservoir, which had a capacity of 18 cubic kilometers (14.5 million acre-feet), was the last stop along hundreds of kilometers of river that passed through Ukraine’s industrial and agricultural heartlands.

For decades, its flow carried the runoff of chemicals and pesticides that settled in the mud at the bottom.

Emergency workers evacuate an elderly resident from a flooded neighborhood in Kherson.

Ukrainian authorities are testing the level of toxins in the muck, which risks turning into poisonous dust with the arrival of summer, said Eugene Simonov, an environmental scientist with the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Working Group, a non-profit organization of activists and researchers.

The extent of the long-term damage depends on the movement of the front lines in an unpredictable war.

SEE ALSO

UKRAINE WAR
Russian troops ‘swept away’ by flooding from Ukraine dam collapse

Can the dam and reservoir be restored if fighting continues there?

Should the region be allowed to become arid plain once again?

Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrij Melnyk called the destruction of the dam “the worst environmental catastrophe in Europe since the Chernobyl disaster.”

The fish and waterfowl that had come to depend on the reservoir “will lose the majority of their spawning grounds and feeding grounds,” Simonov said.

Downstream from the dam are about 50 protected areas, including three national parks, said Simonov, who co-authored a paper in October warning of the potentially disastrous consequences, both upstream and downstream, if the Kakhovka Dam came to harm.

It will take a decade for the flora and fauna populations to return and adjust to their new reality, according to Filiuta.

And possibly longer for the millions of Ukrainians who lived there.

Oil slicks seen in aerial footage stretch across the river from the city’s port and industrial facilities  

It will take a decade for the flora and fauna populations to return and adjust to their new reality

In Maryinske, the farming community, they are combing archives for records of old wells, which they’ll unearth, clean and analyze to see if the water is still potable.

“Because a territory without water will become a desert,” the mayor said.
26
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Further afield, all of Ukraine will have to grapple with whether to restore the reservoir or think differently about the region’s future, its water supply, and a large swath of territory that is suddenly vulnerable to invasive species — just as it was vulnerable to the invasion that caused the disaster to begin with.

“The worst consequences will probably not affect us directly, not me, not you, but rather our future generations, because this man-made disaster is not transparent,” Filiuta said. “The consequences to come will be for our children or grandchildren, just as we are the ones now experiencing the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, not our ancestors.”

 

Ukraine's Kherson Region Faces 'Ecological Catastrophe' Amid Ongoing Fighting

A flooded cottage in the village of Odradokamyanka that had earlier been damaged by shelling. Photo: Andre Luis Alves (RFE/RL)

June 11, 2023 
By Aleksander Palikot

ODRADOKAMYANKA, Ukraine -- The cemetery in this riverside steppe village got flooded within hours of the breach of the Nova Kakhovka dam, located five kilometers upstream on the Dnieper River. Three days later, when Mykhailo Boyarskiy, a farmer from the nearby Kozatske village who used to visit his family graves here, came to the cemetery, he saw wooden crosses and granite monuments covered with mud and rotting weed. An otter was swimming meters away, and the smell of dead fish was in the air.

The breach of the Russian-held Soviet-era hydroelectric dam in the early hours of June 6 unleashed a torrent of water that flooded villages and sparked the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from both sides of the Dnieper River in Ukraine's southern Kherson region. It also caused what many fear is one of Europe's biggest environmental disasters in decades.

Unlike some villages located at a lower altitude down the Dnieper, Odradokamyanka got flooded only to a limited extent. Three days after the dam breach, several houses remained under water, and its artificial lakes spilled deep into the surrounding fields.

"It turns out we kicked them out of here just to get this mess in return," Boyarskiy said in a characteristic mixture of Ukrainian and Russian that is widely spoken here, referring to the Russian troops driven out of the region by the Ukrainian Army last autumn.

The partly flooded cemetery in Odradokamyanka in the Kherson region.

Two of Boyarskiy’s friends who preferred not to disclose their identity -- middle-aged farmers taking care of the local animal stock -- were in the village the night the Nova Kakhovka dam was destroyed.

The men with faces tired from lack of sleep said that, after they heard a loud bang, they went to the riverbank with a thermographic camera and saw torrents of water cascading downstream. The farm livestock and wild animals from the other side were trying to swim to the higher right bank of the Dnieper, they said, but the rushing current and whirlpools drowned them.

Russian Soldiers 'Washed Away'

They also said a Russian reconnaissance group that was approaching the Ukrainian-controlled territory with a boat -- a typical occurrence on this part of the Dnieper, which has effectively turned into a front line -- was caught by surprise by the flood and sought rescue on one of the river's multiple islands. "But ultimately, the water washed Russian soldiers away from the treetops," one of the men said.

Boyarskiy came to Odradokamyanka with his comrade Eduard Laktyonov to bring humanitarian aid to some of the 300 remaining in a village that had more than 3,300 residents before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Most of those who stayed cannot move out because of old age and poor health.

Mykhailo Boyarskiy (left) and Eduard Laktyonov help the residents remaining in the frontline villages in the Kherson region.

The mutual exchange of fire across the Dnieper did not stop despite evacuations and rescue missions continuing in the Kherson region. Plumes of smoke hover above the steppes amid the sounds of outgoing and incoming artillery rounds.

"The locals struggle to get by with shells and missiles coming every day and night," said Kostyantyn Kyrychenko, 41, one of the few younger people remaining in the village, which has electricity only from a gasoline power generator and a very limited amount of drinkable water pumped from a local well.

Kostyantyn Kyryczenko is staying in Odradokamyanka despite the near-constant shelling.

His wife and daughters left for the Czech Republic, while both his son and his brother are serving in the Ukrainian Army. He stays in the village to help older people. His house got partly destroyed by the shells that fell close to it, and he only has a dugout cellar to hide in.

"The only thing I need is for you to bring me new pair of glasses finally," he told Boyarskiy, who handed over a box with food and other products as Kyrychenko gave him a freshly caught fish in exchange.

According to several residents, the Russian Army is shelling Odradokamyanka with mortars, artillery rounds, and missiles, and attacking it with planes daily. Numerous private houses, the school, the village council, other buildings, and an unknown soldier's monument, have all been razed to the ground.

A building in Odradokamyanka razed to the ground as a result of air attacks.

The civilian population of the Kherson region, which first survived the brutal Russian occupation and later lived alongside daily shelling and air attacks, is now bound to face what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described as "an environmental bomb of mass destruction."

Entire Ecosystems 'At Risk'

This threat is felt acutely in the nearby Kamyanska Sich National Nature Park, a nature reserve named after a historical fortified Cossack settlement that was located in the area, which sits on the bank of the Kakhovka Reservoir.

Ukraine's environment minister, Ruslan Strilets, said that, in some places, the water in the reservoir had moved almost 160 meters away from the shore. Its banks will turn into salt marshes and will not be suitable for the existence of any living things for decades, he said. Ukrainian officials estimate that about 28,000 fish have already died due to the draining.

The water level is declining in a river in the Kamyanska Sich National Nature Park.

The director of the Kamyanska Sich park, Serhiy Skoryk, who spent the last months demining the site after the Russian occupation, is now occupied with controlling the water level and easing the collateral damage caused by the flooding.

Three days after the dam's breach, he and his team were removing boxes with explosive materials left by Russians and uncovered under a destroyed bridge after the water level dropped. Dried mussel shells were cracking under the boots of his team pulling the green box with TNT.

The Kamyanska Sich National Nature Park is one of 60 protected areas that suffered because of the breach of the Nova Kakhovka dam, Ivan Moysiyenko, chief of the Botany Department at Kherson State University and a member of Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group, told RFE/RL.

The water level has risen in artificial lakes surrounding Odradokamyanka village.

The flooding of areas in the lower Dnieper below the destroyed Nova Kakhovka dam and the drying of the areas above it, as well as the contamination of the Black Sea, will put entire ecosystems of flora and fauna at risk of irreversible loss, he said.

According to Moysiyenko, more than 19 endangered species listed in the Red Data Book and dozens of species protected by the Berne Convention will disappear from these places forever. Hundreds of species and hundreds of thousands of animals and plants will be affected, and in the case of some endemic species, as much as 20 percent of the world population could be extinct, he said.

The environmental disaster will affect territories that have never been under water, such as the Oleshky Sands National Nature Park, Europe's biggest desert, and destabilize places such as the UNESCO-protected Black Sea Biosphere Reserve.

"This is an international ecological catastrophe, and as long as the fighting goes on, not much can be done for the environment," Moysiyenko said.

• 

  Aleksander Palikot

  Aleksander Palikot is a Ukraine-based journalist covering politics, history, and culture. His work has appeared in Krytyka Polityczna, New Eastern Europe, Jüdische Allgemeine, and beyond.

Belgium’s historic supermarket strike is shining a light on growing repression in the name of profit

Despite growing repression, workers from Belgium’s Delhaize supermarket have led the largest strike in the country’s recent history to oppose the threats to their pay & working conditions. Now, that fight is spreading, writes Thomas Englert.

Thomas Englert
11 Jun, 2023

Delhaize workers take part in a demonstration organised by trade unions FGTB-ABVV - ACV-CSC and ACLVB-CGSLB to protest against social dumping and attacks on the right to strike, in Brussels, 22 May 2023. [GETTY]

Workers from the supermarket Delhaize in Belgium have been on strike since 7 March, protesting against management’s decision to turn 128 of its supermarkets into franchises. As a result, 10,000 workers face lower wages, a deterioration of their working conditions, and the loss of union representation. To add insult to injury, the move is likely to lead to large layoffs as well.

In response to the unprecedented mobilisation by workers, Delhaize has responded with brutal repression.

Since 2016, Delhaize – known as “The Lion” after its logo – has been part of the Ahold-Delhaize group, alongside North American brands like FoodLion, Hanaford, or Giant. With over €80 billion in revenue, €2.56 billion in profit, and just under €2 billion paid out to its shareholders (via investment funds like BlackRock and Goldman Sachs Group) in 2022 alone, the group is clearly not doing badly financially. However, due to inflation slightly lowering its margins, the group announced €4 billion worth of cuts by 2025, in order to reassure investors. The decision to franchise fits into these aims.

''In Belgium, unions are relatively strong and labour law is therefore more protective of workers. Hard confrontations and long strikes are rare because dialogue is institutionalised and generally yields a more or less acceptable compromise for both employers and unions. In the case of Delhaize’s latest move, however, workers decided to go on an indefinite strike, which is unprecedented in the country’s recent history.''

Delhaize operates around 780 shops in Belgium - 128 of these are managed directly by Delhaize itself and represent about half of the group’s Belgian revenue and employ over 10,000 people. The remaining shops have been opened, under different variations of the franchise model over the last 10-15 years.

These shops are run by self-employed managers who use the Delhaize brand, follow its marketing strategy, and apply its promotions. As exclusive supplier to these franchises Delhaize controls the supply prices and often also own the shops which the franchise managers rent from the company. In other words, the franchise has at best limited control over its shop and merchandise. Delhaize, on the other hand, enjoys an almost risk-free revenue.

The only real autonomy the franchise manager has to increase profits is by driving down personnel costs and working conditions. These are, unsurprisingly, considerably worse in franchises. In addition, they operate with about 60% less staff.

This means that should the plans to franchise be successful, the majority of their current staff would lose their jobs in the medium term. Those that remain would lose pay (on average €400/month before tax), work longer hours, and face increasingly precarious working conditions. This, in a sector where wages are already 30% below the national average, and where the difficult working conditions have a documented negative effect on health and life expectancy, would be catastrophic.

Franchised shops depend massively on precarious staff such as students, temp, and agency workers. In many cases, the pressure for growth and profit leads them to break the law when it comes to work hours and opening hours, or even to use undeclared labour. For example, just after the beginning of the strike, Delhaize’s biggest franchised shop in Brussels was closed because half its work force was working without a contract.

These practices, if repugnant, are highly profitable. The unions calculated that Delhaize could gain up to €210 million a year by turning its remaining shops into franchises - five times the 2021 Belgian profits.

Strike and repression

Delhaize is a longstanding Belgian company and some of its employees have worked all their lives. The announcement that the company was selling them off therefore felt like a betrayal. Especially given that Delhaize had publicly repeated its promise not to franchise its integrated shops just 10 days prior.

In Belgium, unions are relatively strong and labour law is therefore more protective of workers. Hard confrontations and long strikes are rare because dialogue is institutionalised and generally yields a more or less acceptable compromise for both employers and unions. In the case of Delhaize’s latest move, however, workers decided to go on an indefinite strike, which is unprecedented in the country’s recent history.

The strike is peaceful but determined and organised. Picket lines have kept shops closed, while workers implemented clever strategies to limit the loss of wages while increasing the cost of the strike for the employer. Public opinion has been generally favourable and some clients even joined pickets in solidarity. A petition in support of the workers has also gathered tens of thousands of signatures.

Despite all this, Delhaize continues to snub the demands. At first, they ignored the strike, then they turned nasty. Striking workers were banned from using the toilets and management started spreading misinformation.

During negotiations, workers were met by security as well as police officers, and union representatives were frisked before entering the room. When workers picketed the annual shareholders meeting, shareholders told them to their faces they did not care about them.

Management then moved on to outright repression. They went to court to get a unilateral decision allowing bailiffs and police to threaten workers with fines if they didn’t break up the picket lines. Originally, these injunctions targeted only those pickets that physically blockaded shops, however, it quickly became about preventing all pickets.

Workers are now prevented from picketing anywhere near their shops, or any Delhaize building, or subsidiary in Belgium. Flyering clients not to enter the shops is forbidden, and workers and union representatives have been arrested by the police.

In some cases. Delhaize implemented lock outs, an approach which effectively suspends the right to strike. Whilst this tactic has been denounced by European courts in the past, legal battles will take months, if not years – time which workers do not have.

In response, workers blockaded Delhaize’s logistics depots on important days like easter weekend. The actions were soon met by police and even watercannons to breakup picket lines.

Protesters supported by the Belgian and French labor unions showing their concerns by holding leaflets to shareholders inside to raise their voice against Ahold Delhaize's proposed franchising of businesses concerning thousands employees. [GETTY]

Boycott and solidarity

Despite all of this, workers remain mobilised and those refusing to return to work remain many. Workers have resorted to guerrilla tactics to keep the strike alive: turning up to work then leaving on strike all of a sudden, chanting, blockading shops with outside help, and organising neighbourhood parties in front of shops.

Shops are being kept open by managers and newly hired students and temp workers but sales remain at 40-50% of their usual levels in most outlets.

Clients leave little notes in the isles echoing the call by workers to boycott the brand until demands are met.

The conflict is also spreading to the wider retail sector with sporadic strikes and demonstrations. The unions have entered negotiations to demand the equalisation of working conditions between franchises and integrated shops.

The three national union federations also called a demonstration at the end of last month which mobilised 25,000 people in Brussels in solidarity with the strike as well as in opposition to the national threats to the right to protest that the struggle has come to represent.

It is very clear to workers across the board that if they let Delhaize get away with this attack, franchising will become the norm for the whole sector and employers will attack the right to strike everywhere.

The Delhaize workers are fighting like Lions but they need actions and statements of solidarity from others sectors – and internationally – to increase the pressure on the employers.

Either way, the Delhaize workers’ strike is already a historic and inspiring mobilisation. One of the longest ever in Belgium’s retail sector, it has demonstrated that workers aren’t simply tools for shareholders' greed. Their struggle gives new meaning to the old P B Shelly poem:

"Rise like Lions after slumber in unvanquishable number. Shake your chains to earth like dew which in sleep had fallen on you. Ye are many. They are few."

Thomas Englert works for a trade union in Belgium (CNE). He has been active in the labour movement in Belgium and abroad for15 years. He studied Economics , History as well as a at the Global Labour University (ILO).

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.

Lawmakers say UK's planned law to deport Channel migrants breaches rights obligations

Story by The Canadian Press • Yesterday 


LONDON (AP) — A committee of British lawmakers said Sunday that the U.K. will break its international human rights commitments if it goes through with government plans to detain and deport people who cross the English Channel in small boats.

Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights said the Illegal Migration Bill “breaches a number of the U.K.’s international human rights obligations and risks breaching others.”

Scottish National Party lawmaker Joanna Cherry, who chairs the committee, said the law would leave most refugees and victims of modern slavery with no way of seeking asylum in Britain.

“By treating victims of modern slavery as ‘illegal migrants’ subject to detention and removal, this bill would breach our legal obligations to such victims and would risk increasing trafficking of vulnerable people,” she said.

The committee urged the government to make sweeping amendments to the bill, including exempting trafficking victims and curbing the government’s power to detain people indefinitely. The government, which had pledged to “stop the boats,” is unlikely to heed the recommendations.

The legislation bars asylum claims by anyone who reaches the U.K. by unauthorized means, and compels officials to detain and then deport refugees and migrants “to their home country or a safe third country,” such as Rwanda. Once deported, they would be banned from ever re-entering the U.K.

Related video: EU ministers seal 'historic' migration deal (WION) View on Watch

Britain’s Conservative government says the law will deter tens of thousands of people from making perilous journeys across the Channel and break the business model of the criminal gangs behind the trips. Critics, including the United Nations’ refugee agency, have described the legislation as unethical and unworkable.

The parliamentary committee questioned whether the law would act as a deterrent and said it “could lead to people taking other, potentially more dangerous, routes into the UK.”

The bill has been approved by the House of Commons, where the governing Conservatives have a majority, but is facing opposition in Parliament’s upper chamber, the House of Lords. The Lords can amend the legislation but not block it.

More than 45,000 people, including many fleeing countries such as Afghanistan, Iran and Syria, arrived in Britain in small boats last year, up from 8,500 in 2020.

The government has housed many of those awaiting asylum decisions in hotels, which officials say costs taxpayers millions of pounds (dollars) a day. Authorities have said they plan to place new arrivals in disused military camps and a barge docked on the southern English coast.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of global migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

Jill Lawless, The Associated Press

AI really could destroy the world - but not in the way you might expect

Story by Christian Guyton

 Yesterday 
TechRadar

null© Shutterstock

Everybody loves ChatGPT, the fun AI chatbot that can help you write an essay, find your dream home, or, uh, create harmful malware. Whatever your opinion of the internet’s favorite chatty AI, there’s no denying that it’s here to stay - worming its way into every aspect of our increasingly-online society.

Now, there are plenty of prominent figures who have warned us about the dangers of AI - most recently Geoffrey Hinton, the ‘Godfather of AI’, and OpenAI founder Sam Altman, the latter of whom stated in a US Senate hearing that “regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigating the risks” of advanced AI models.

I won’t lie, I’ve been worried about it myself; not least because ChatGPT could probably write this article you’re reading right now, and it could do it a lot faster than me. I’ve experimented thoroughly with AI, though, and I’m not that worried about it all. I do worry about the nefarious stuff people could do with AI tools, but I don’t blame AI for that - that would be like banning cars because bank robbers can use them as getaway vehicles.

There is, however, one really big problem with the current explosion of AI technology, and it’s one that almost nobody seems to be talking about. Even I didn’t properly know about it until I did some research recently. AI models like ChatGPT need to be ‘trained’ in order to function, and that takes three things: a lot of training data, a lot of hardware, and a lot of electricity.

For the planet

I’ll be honest here: I’m probably not as committed an environmentalist as I probably should be in this day and age. I do recycle as much as possible, I compost my garden and food waste, and I try to avoid running the heaters in my house as much as possible (though I confess, this is more motivated by the rising cost of my utility bills).

But as a tech journalist and general gadget fiend, I’m not exactly saving the planet. I’m running a powerful PC for many hours a day, and I own a car for driving to the office and picking up groceries. I do try to minimize my carbon footprint where I can, though - as we all should.

AI, as it turns out, has a pretty damn big carbon footprint. This wasn’t true until recently, with the release of ChatGPT to the public spurring a mass wave of copycats like Google Bard and widespread interest in generative AI across a variety of business sectors. The AI industry has boomed - and so too have its emissions.

How much power does an AI need?

Did you know that a single Google search produces approximately 0.2g of carbon dioxide? That’s not a direct link; Google isn’t shooting a tiny droplet of CO2 into the atmosphere every time you search ‘chinese food near me’. It’s based on the amount of electricity a Google search uses; using search engines is a relatively resource-intensive internet activity, whereas firing out a post on Twitter uses a tenth of that at 0.02g.

Asking a generative AI bot like ChatGPT one question? Well, that could produce as much as five times the amount of carbon emissions, according to CarbonCredits.com. Let’s assume it’s one gram of CO2 per query, then. While OpenAI has not released official figures on how many queries ChatGPT handles per day, estimates have placed it at anywhere between 100 million and one billion individual responses.

So we’re already looking at up to a million kilos of CO2 emissions every single day. That’s based on the electricity required to use a large language AI model like ChatGPT, but it’s not the whole story. Developing and training AI models also comes at a cost of emissions; according to the MIT Technology Review, training just one AI model can produce as much CO2 as five regular cars will in their entire operating lifetime.

Even setting aside the raw cost of energy emissions, we also have to bear in mind that training and running these AIs also requires a vast amount of physical hardware. We’ve already seen industry-leading GPU maker Nvidia committing to AI development, and rival AMD is teaming up with Microsoft to join the AI arms race.

While this has obvious ramifications for consumers as companies like Nvidia turn away from their gaming and creative customers in favor of selling to AI developers, it’s also important to consider the impact that producing components like the best graphics cards has on the planet. These products use specific rare-earth metals in their construction - and the rare-earth mining pits used to gather them can have devastating ecological impacts.

A glimmer of hope

Ironically, AI could be both a contributor to and the solution to our current global state of environmental decline. Despite its high cost of emissions, people are already implementing AI tools in the fight against climate change.

David Jensen, a coordinator at the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), notes that AI could prove instrumental in reducing emissions over the next few years. “This can be on a large scale, such as satellite monitoring of global emissions, or a more granular scale, such as a smart house automatically turning off lights or heat after a certain time,” he explains.

The UNEP has also developed an AI-powered ‘World Environment Situation Room’, which Jensen believes can become a “mission control center for planet earth” with future advancements in AI technology. The Situation Room uses AI to expedite environmental monitoring tasks, such as tracking methane emissions and air quality around the world.

And after all, we can’t solely blame AI models for having high carbon emissions when they’re using electricity provided by energy companies willing to keep burning fossil fuels. It’s difficult to reliably source electricity from renewable sources, especially when ‘dirty’ energy sources are often cheaper - thanks for that one, oil lobbyists. It’s somewhat telling that the White House’s ‘AI Bill of Rights’ doesn’t really address ecological concerns surrounding AI.

I don’t like being a climate doomsayer. The facts don’t lie, however; things are going to get worse if we don’t change our path. Perhaps AI really can be used to combat an impending climate disaster, though. I certainly hope so, because I’m a big believer in the ways in which AI truly can benefit our society - I just don’t think chatbots are the way to do it. Certainly not nonsense like Elon Musk’s planned ‘anti-woke’ AI, anyway…

A third of young men in Germany think violence against women is ‘acceptable,’ study finds

MISOGYNY & FEMICIDE ARE SOCIAL NORMS 

Story by Sophie Tanno • CNN

Yesterday 

A third of young men in Germany find it acceptable to use violence against women, according to a new survey which has caused outrage among gender equality campaigners.

The survey was commissioned by children’s charity Plan International Germany. Its findings were published in regional newspaper Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung.

A group of 1,000 men and 1,000 women aged 18-35 from across Germany were asked to give their views on masculinity for the study, which was carried out online.

34% of men from that age bracket admitted to being violent towards their female partner in the past, to “instil respect in them.” 33% said they thought it was acceptable if their “hand slipped” occasionally during an argument with their partner.

Exploring attitudes to victim-blaming and double standards, the survey found that 50% of men said they would not want a relationship with a woman who had had many sexual partners, while 20% of the women interviewed agreed with this statement.

The survey also found that expectations within a relationship differed greatly between men and women.

Just over half of men – 52% – wanted a relationship in the form of a “breadwinner-housewife model,” where they earned most of the money for the household and childcare and household tasks were primarily the woman’s role.

Over two-thirds of the women interviewed disagreed, wanting equal partnerships and shared decision-making.

Just under half of respondents – 48% – expressed a dislike for public displays of homosexuality, saying they felt “disturbed” by it.

A German group called the Federal Organization for Equality wrote on Twitter that the findings were “shocking.”

“According to a survey by Plan International Germany, every third young man finds violence against women ‘acceptable’. This urgently needs to change!”

Karsten Kassner from Federal Forum Men, a group which advocates for gender equality, also called for change as he said “It’s problematic that a third of the surveyed men trivialize physical violence against women.”

According to data from Germany’s Federal Criminal Police (BKA), 115,000 women in Germany were victims of partner violence in 2021.

Germany also has one of the highest rates of femicide in Europe - a problem which was exacerbated during the coronavirus pandemic, according to data from the BKA.

ISRAEL
‘Smuggling, Not Terror, Is the Real Border Threat’

by Israel Kasnett / JNS.org
OPINION

JUNE 11, 2023 


Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi attends the Arab summit in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, May 31, 2019. Photo: REUTERS/Hamad l Mohammed/File Photo.

JNS.org – The deadly June 3 attack on Israel’s southern border may have been an isolated incident, but highlighted the larger problem of cross-border smuggling, which is disrupting Israel’s efforts to maintain not only its border with Egypt but also with Jordan.

Efraim Karsh, emeritus professor at King’s College, London, and former director of the BESA Center, doesn’t believe there will be any repercussions from the attack, as Israel views it as an isolated case. He noted that Islamic State has taken responsibility for the incident.

For its part, Egypt has agreed to compensate the families of the victims.

In the early morning of Saturday, June 3, Mohamed Saleh Ibrahim, 22, shot dead Sgt. Lia Ben-Nun, 19, and Staff Sgt. Uri Iluz, 20, at an observation post near the border. In the ensuing manhunt, Staff Sgt. Ohad Dahan, 20, was killed in an exchange of gunfire with the terrorist, inside Israeli territory. Ibrahim, too, was killed in the exchange, and a fourth Israeli soldier sustained minor injuries.

An initial investigation revealed that Ibrahim had entered the border area through an emergency gate in the fence, secured only with plastic handcuffs.

Israel’s Army Radio reported on Sunday that six rifle magazines, a Koran and a knife were found on Ibrahim’s body. According to the report, the presence of the Koran has led the IDF to believe that Ibrahim was motivated by Islamic religious extremism.

However, Egypt claimed that Ibrahim had crossed the border to pursue drug smugglers following an earlier arrest.

While according to the Israeli military a drug trafficking attempt was thwarted at 3 a.m. that morning, the Egyptian statement did not explain the time gap between that and the murders of Iluz and Dahan.

According to Karsh, it is smuggling, not Islamist terrorism, that is the real problem on Israel’s southern and eastern borders.

“It’s two sides of the same coin,” he said, referring to smuggling and terrorism. “Bedouin on both sides of the fence are involved in smuggling. Once you take care of the Bedouin issue, the border will be quieter.”

Eyal Zisser, a lecturer in the Middle East History Department at Tel Aviv University, agreed that the attack was an isolated incident that does not reflect the policies of the Egyptian regime.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, he said, “remains committed to the peace agreement with Israel, and the continued close relationship and military cooperation.”

“For Sisi, a policeman brainwashed by extreme Islam is a threat to his regime and not only to Israel, so we can calm down,” he added.

Sisi’s concerns are valid. Last year, ISIS terrorists attacked a checkpoint in Qantara, in the Sinai province of Ismailia, killing 11 Egyptian soldiers.

The presence of ISIS on Israel’s southern border, coupled with the persistent smuggling problem, presents a unique challenge for both Egypt and Israel.

The problem is even worse on Israel’s eastern border.

In one of the most serious cases to date, in April, Israeli authorities arrested Jordanian parliamentarian Imad al-Adwan after finding 12 rifles and 194 pistols in his vehicle at the Allenby Bridge border crossing.

Further investigation revealed that since February 2022, al-Adwan had engaged in the illicit transportation of a diverse range of goods into Israel. This unauthorized activity took place on 12 separate occasions and was facilitated by the misuse of Adwan’s diplomatic passport. Among the items involved in this illegal operation were exotic birds, electronic cigarettes and gold.

Yossi Kuperwasser, director of the Project on Regional Middle East Developments at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, has noted that according to Israel Defense Forces figures, during 2020-2021 some 1,600 smuggling attempts from Jordan were interdicted. In the first months of 2023, he notes, several hundred weapons were seized in other smuggling attempts.

According to Michael Milstein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, weapons smuggling across the Egyptian and Jordanian borders over the past decade has reached “strategic challenge” proportions.

He told JNS that the smuggling across Israel’s border with Jordan is among the main sources of the growing security threat in Judea and Samaria.

Milstein noted that Israel’s coordination with Egypt and Jordan—both of which have signed peace treaties with Israel—“is very strong today, and a broad part of it is focused on smuggling prevention.”

Preventing such activity is also a Jordanian and Egyptian interest, as those who promote smuggling are also responsible for crimes, public disorder and even terrorism in both countries, he noted.

However, in Karsh’s view, unless the IDF implements operational changes at the borders to deal with the smuggling phenomenon, it is only a matter of time before another deadly incident occurs.

‘Unabomber’ Ted Kaczynski ‘died from suicide’

Ted Kaczynski committed suicide in prison 

(John Youngbear/AP)

SUN, 11 JUN, 2023 -
MICHAEL SISAK, MIKE BALSAMO AND JAKE OFFENHARTZ, ASSOCIATED PRESS

Ted Kaczynski, the Harvard-educated mathematician who retreated to a dingy shack in the Montana wilderness and ran a 17-year bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others, died from suicide, sources say.

Branded the “Unabomber” by the FBI, Kaczynski, who was 81 and suffering from late-stage cancer, was found unresponsive in his cell at the Federal Medical Centre in Butner, North Carolina, at about 12.30am on Saturday.

Emergency service workers performed CPR and revived him before he was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead later on Saturday morning, sources told the Associated Press (AP).

The sources were not authorised to publicly discuss Kaczynski’s death and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Ted Kaczynski pleaded guilty to his crimes 

(Elaine Thompson/AP)

The federal Bureau of Prisons has faced increased scrutiny in the last several years after the death of wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein, who also died by suicide in a federal jail in 2019.

Kaczynski had been held in the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, since May 1998, when he was sentenced to four life sentences plus 30 years for a campaign of terror that set universities nationwide on edge.

He admitted committing 16 bombings from 1978 and 1995, permanently maiming several of his victims.

His targets included academics and airlines, the owner of a computer rental store, an advertising executive and a timer industry lobbyist. In 1993, a California geneticist and a Yale University computer expert were maimed by bombs within the space of two days.

Two years later, he used the threat of continued violence to convince The New York Times and The Washington Post to publish his manifesto, a 35,000-word screed against modern life, technology and damage to the environment.

Kaczynski lived in a cabin in the woods outside Lincoln, Montana 

(Elaine Thompson/AP)

The tone of the treatise was recognised by his brother, David, and David’s wife Linda Patrik, who tipped off the FBI, which had been searching for the Unabomber for years in the nation’s longest, costliest manhunt.

Authorities in April 1996 found him in a small plywood cabin outside Lincoln, Montana, that was filled with journals, a coded diary, explosive ingredients and two completed bombs.

While awaiting trial in 1998, Kaczynski attempted to hang himself using underwear.

Though he was diagnosed by a psychiatrist as a paranoid schizophrenic, he was adamant that he was not mentally ill. He eventually pleaded guilty rather than allow his lawyers to present an insanity defence.

Growing up in Chicago, Kaczynski skipped two grades before attending Harvard at the age of 16, where he published papers in prestigious mathematics journals.

His explosives were carefully tested and came in meticulously handcrafted wooden boxes sanded to remove possible fingerprints. Later bombs bore the signature “FC” for “Freedom Club”.

The FBI called him the “Unabomber” because his early targets seemed to be universities and airlines. An altitude-triggered bomb he posted in 1979 went off as planned on board an American Airlines flight, with a dozen people on board suffering from smoke inhalation.

During his decades in prison, Kaczynski maintained regular correspondence with the outside world, becoming an object of fascination – and even reverence – among those opposed to modern civilisation.

“He’s turned into an iconic figure for both the far-right and far-left,” said Daryl Hall, a domestic terrorism expert at the New Lines Institute, a non-profit think tank. “He definitely stands out from the rest of the pack as far as his level of education, the meticulous nature in which he went about designing his bombs.”

Survey Says UK Cost Pressures Hurting Farmers' Mental Health

TEHRAN (FNA)- More than two-thirds of farmers believe their mental health has been affected by soaring production costs, according to an industry survey.

Prices for key agricultural inputs such as fuel, energy, fertiliser and animal feed have been heightened due to the global turmoil of the past 18 months, including the war in Ukraine, Eastern Daily Press reported.

And the survey by the National Farmers' Union (NFU) shows 68pc of farmers felt this has had a negative impact on their mental health.

Meanwhile, 61pc of respondents attributed poor mental health to unfairness in the supply chain, and almost 50pc cited rural crime.

The data was published ahead of a parliamentary event aiming to kickstart conversations about the wellbeing of the nation’s food producers.

NFU Vice President David Exwood said farming is one of the most rewarding jobs in the world, but the "distressing survey results" show the pressures are "incredibly challenging" too.

“Our survey pinpoints some of the root causes affecting rural mental health – economic and political uncertainty - and we are calling on government to continue taking steps to address these issues to reduce the stress farmers are facing," he said.