100+ Scientists to Newsom: Stop Oil and Gas Drilling in California—Especially Near Homes

"California cannot be a climate, health, and environmental justice leader while giving permits to the oil industry to dig, burn, and dump toxic pollution in our communities, air, and water."

An oil well pumps in a neighborhood near Shell's Alamitos No. 1 discovery well on Signal Hill in Long Beach.
(Photo: David McNew/Getty Images)


BRETT WILKINS

COMMON DREAMS
Jun 12, 2023

More than 100 scientists on Monday urged California Gov. Gavin Newsom to stop approving new permits for fossil fuel drilling in the nation's most populous state—especially in residential neighborhoods.

In a letter, the scientists thank Newsom, a Democrat, for "taking key steps toward protecting California's frontline communities and our climate from fossil fuel pollution, including supporting legislation to establish a health and safety buffer zone between communities and oil and gas extraction and taking steps to end Big Oil's price gouging of working families at the pump."

"However, in this time of emergency, we are shocked at the sharp increase in oil and gas permitting by CalGEM, which has approved more than 1,000 permits this year for oil and gas operators to continue drilling," the scientists continued, referring to the state's energy management agency. "Even more shocking is the fact that almost two-thirds of those permits are for projects within the landmark 3,200-foot health and safety buffer you and your administration fought hard to pass last fall."

 

The letter asserts that "California's oil industry has created an interlinked public health, environmental justice, and climate crisis in our state," and that "public health studies have established that living near oil and gas wells increases the risks of cancer, asthma, and other respiratory diseases, preterm births, low birth weights, and other serious harms."

The scientists say these harms threaten the health of the more than 7 million Californians who live within a mile of fossil fuel wells, which—due to a long history of environmental racism—are concentrated in or near communities of color.

Earlier this month, for example, inspectors found that 27 sites—or 40% of all those examined—in the Lamont-Arvin area of southeastern Kern County were leaking methane, a potent greenhouse gas with 80 times the planet-warming power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere. Lamont and Arvin are both over 90% Latino.



Some California municipalities—most notably Los Angeles—have banned fossil fuel drilling within their geographical limits, and in April 2021 Newsom announced California would stop issuing new fracking permits by 2024 and completely phase out oil and gas production by 2045.

"California cannot be a climate, health, and environmental justice leader while giving permits to the oil industry to dig, burn, and dump toxic pollution in our communities, air, and water," the scientists stressed. "We implore you to take the science-and-justice-based actions needed now to phase out the fossil fuels driving the escalating climate, health, and justice crises in our state, and oversee an equitable, clean, renewable energy buildout that protects all Californians."

Specifically, the letter's signers call on Newsom to "restart the health and safety rulemaking to permanently establish a... health and safety protection zone that prohibits all oil and gas operations within a minimum 3,200 feet of homes, schools, hospitals, and other sensitive sites," and "stop issuing permits for oil and gas extraction and fossil fuel infrastructure."

Aradhna Tripati, a professor at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California, Los Angeles who signed the new letter, said in a statement that "Gov. Newsom has the power to end the neighborhood oil drilling that is poisoning communities of color first and worst."

"Gov. Newsom has the power to end the neighborhood oil drilling that is poisoning communities of color first and worst."

"We need him to act now to stop drilling near where people live, work, and play to protect Californians on the frontlines of deadly fossil fuel pollution," Tripati added.

Letter signatory Daniel Kammen, the Lau distinguished professor of sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley, said that "there's no time for complacency when oil and gas are fueling California's climate chaos."

"Gov. Newsom should show the world what climate leadership looks like by halting new oil and gas approvals and ramping up rooftop solar and local storage that will protect communities and the climate," Kammen added.

Signer Shaye Wolf, the Center for Biological Diversity's climate science director, said that "scientists are imploring Gov. Newsom to build on his climate action and protect Californians from harmful oil and gas drilling and fossil-fueled climate chaos."

"We have all the evidence we need to end the dirty fossil fuel era in California," Wolf argued. "Now's the time for urgent action."

As Canada Burns, Docs Reveal Oil Giant Weighed In on Government Carbon Plan

"Carbon capture and storage is a scam, and as these documents show, the call is coming from inside the house," said one campaigner.


The Suncor Edmonton Refinery in Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada

 is shown on September 12, 2021.
(Photo: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

JESSICA CORBETT

COMMON DREAMS
Jun 08, 2023

As wildfires continued to cause air pollution problems across eastern North America on Thursday, The Narwhalrevealed it obtained documents showing that fossil fuel giant Suncor "provided input on the first draft" of the Canadian government's forthcoming Carbon Management Strategy and a company executive sat on an "obscure" advisory panel.

Highlighting the "important reporting" from The Narwhal's Carl Meyer, Torrance Coste—national campaign director at the Wilderness Committee, a Canadian nonprofit—tweeted that "carbon capture and storage is a scam, and as these documents show, the call is coming from inside the house."

Meyer, an investigative reporter at the nonprofit Canadian media outlet, shared details from a February 2022 briefing note prepared for Natural Resources Canada Deputy Minister John Hannaford—whom Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has just named as clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the Cabinet, a promotion set to take effect later this month.

The briefing note was developed for a meeting with Jacquie Moore—then Suncor's vice president of external relations and now its top lawyer—and lobbyist Daniel Goodwin that "served as Hannaford's introduction to some Suncor 'key initiatives,' including the company's membership in the 'Oilsands Pathways to Net Zero alliance,' the former name of the Pathways Alliance, which was then a fledgling organization in the oilpatch," Meyer reported.

"The alliance wants to soak up at least $10 billion in public funding to build a mammoth, unprecedented system that would capture carbon from oilsands operations in Alberta and pipe it to an underground reservoir in the province's east," the journalist noted.

While serving as Suncor's vice president of regional development, Chris Grant was chosen to be on a "thought leaders' senior reference group" for the government plan—previously known as the Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) Strategy—according to the briefing note. Grant has since retired from the Calgary-based energy company.

Although Grant, Suncor, and the Pathways Alliance did not respond to requests for comment, Natural Resources Canada spokesperson Michael MacDonald told The Narwhal that "Suncor's input had no impact whatsoever on the timelines for the development of the strategy," the company was "one of nearly 1,500 organizations and individuals" who weighed in, and "input was solicited from all interested Canadians" online from July 2021 to November 2022.

MacDonald also said that members of the 13-person advisory board, including Grant, "were asked to bring their expertise and experiences to the table as individuals, not as representatives of their respective organizations."

The board included a University of Alberta professor, a clean energy consultant, a Shell Canada manager, the NRG COSIA Carbon XPrize executive director, CEOs of CarbonCure and Svante, president of Wolf Carbon, and vice presidents at BMO's Impact Investment Fund, Carbon Engineering, Cement Association of Canada, International CCS Knowledge Center, and Scotiabank.

"As the entire country burns, one has to wonder: should fossil fuel companies be weighing in on our national climate change policy?"

Meyer reported that the panel—convened by Drew Leyburne, Natural Resources Canada's assistant deputy minister for energy efficiency and technology—met three times between April and July 2021, then corresponded over email the following year. One member said they served as "a sounding board," providing "casual, nonbinding, nonconsensus advice."

The government spokesperson did not say when the plan will be released but said that "it was determined that a more holistic view of carbon management solutions was necessary in this space," given that CCUS "technology is not, on its own, a silver bullet to combat climate change," but it is "one component of an overarching strategy" that will also include nature-based solutions such as tree-planting and wetland restoration along with other technologies like direct air capture.

Some global campaigners and experts have long argued that CCUS is "a false solution" that has become "a dangerous distraction driven by the same big polluters who created the climate emergency," as Common Dreams has reported. Critics have also warned that industries promote "nature-based solutions" so they can "keep burning fossil fuels, mine more of the planet, and increase industrial meat and dairy production."



The reporting on the Canadian government's evolving carbon plan came as smoke from Canadian wildfires—intensified by global heating largely driven by fossil fuels—disrupted travel and outdoor activities across the U.S. East Coast as officials warned millions of people to stay indoors due to poor air quality.

Fatima Syed, Meyer's colleague at The Narwhal, tweeted that "this story is bonkers when you consider wildfires."

Emma McIntosh, another reporter at the outlet, similarly said that his "scoop feels like a bad joke when you read it under a layer of wildfire smoke: Suncor, a massive oil company, helped the federal government write its climate change strategy. Which is now a year late."

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CCS 

Fossil Fuel Companies' Net-Zero Plans Are 'Largely Meaningless,' Report Finds

Existing pledges tend to ignore emissions caused by the distribution and consumption of petroleum products, and not a single fossil fuel company has committed to ending oil and gas production by 2050.


Flames grow near oil wells on the eastern flank of the 16,000-plus-acre Guiberson fire, burning out of control for a second day on September 23, 2009 near Moorpark in Ventura County, California.
(Photo: David McNew/Getty Images)

KENNY STANCIL
Jun 12, 2023

A growing share of fossil fuel corporations have pledged to reach "net-zero" greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century, but a new report reveals that the vast majority of them are doing "nothing concrete" to achieve such goals.

Climate justice advocates have long denounced the concept of "net-zero" because, they say, allowing planet-heating pollution to be "canceled out" via questionable carbon offset programs or risky carbon removal technologies is an accounting gimmick that doesn't guarantee the deep emissions reductions needed to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis. Net Zero Stocktake 2023, unveiled Monday at the United Nations Bonn Climate Change Conference, shows that even if one accepts the premise that entities can negate, rather than eliminate, their pollution, they are still failing to deliver on the framework's own terms.

Based on publicly available data compiled by the collaborative research outfit Net Zero Tracker, the third comprehensive annual analysis of "net-zero target intent and integrity" finds that 75 of the world's largest 114 fossil fuel companies have now made net-zero by 2050 commitments, up from 51 a year ago.

However, most of those commitments don't fully cover or lack transparency on the coverage of "scope 3" emissions, rendering them "largely meaningless," the report says. In contrast to "scope 1" and "scope 2" emissions—resulting from production and the operation of company-owned property, respectively—scope 3 emissions stem from the distribution and consumption of products, making them by far the most significant for fossil fuel companies.

To make matters worse, not a single fossil fuel company has committed to phasing out oil and gas production by 2050 nor have any committed to ending exploration for new oil and gas fields or halting the extraction of existing reserves, notes the report. Only two have vowed to stop building or enlarging coal mines and another two have rejected new coal-fired power stations. Just four have promised to end coal-fired power generation by 2030 in rich countries and by 2040 in all nations.

The International Energy Agency made clear in 2021 that any new investment in coal, oil, and gas is inconsistent with its net-zero by 2050 roadmap. Since then, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has repeated its warning that expanding fossil fuel supply is incompatible with limiting global warming to 1.5°C. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has condemned the status quo as a civilizational "death sentence" and called the aforementioned actions currently being ignored by all but a few dirty energy firms a "survival guide for humanity."

Despite all of those alarm bells, oil and gas corporations—long aware of their contributions to the climate emergency, swimming in record profits, and empowered by policymakers who have continued to lavish the industry with trillions of dollars in subsidies each year while failing to agree to a global fossil fuel phaseout—are still planning to ramp up drilling in the coming years.

During last year's COP27 summit, a group of U.N. experts outlined the parameters of a high-integrity net-zero strategy for companies and sub-national governments. In addition, the U.N. earlier this month launched the Global Climate Action Recognition and Accountability Framework for non-state entities.

As the latest Net Zero Stocktake, citing the U.N.'s guidance, points out:
Achieving credible net-zero requires the phasing down and out of fossil fuel extraction and use, with any residual emissions being removed by like-for-like carbon dioxide removal later in the century. For the 77 fossil fuel companies with net zero targets, as well as those without them, they should reflect on the U.N. Expert Group's fifth recommendation that a fossil-fuelled future is incompatible with what 195 nations agreed to in 2015 when they signed the Paris agreement. The U.N. expert group also clarified that the focus should not just be on transitioning away from fossil fuels by mid-century, but "must be matched by a fully funded transition toward renewable energy."

"We haven't yet seen a huge move from fossil fuel companies or other companies on meeting those [guidelines], so there's still a lot of work to do to come up to that level," report co-author Thomas Hale, a professor at the University of Oxford, toldReuters.

Fossil fuel corporations aren't the only entities examined by Net Zero Tracker.

Researchers are keeping tabs on all countries, all states and regions in the 25 highest-emitting nations, all cities with more than 500,000 residents, and the largest 2,000 publicly listed companies worldwide, leading to a database with over 4,000 entries. Of those, at least 1,475 have set a net-zero target, up from 769 in December 2020. However, as with oil and gas firms, "there are very limited signs of improvement in the robustness of sub-national and corporate net-zero targets and strategies" overall, the report notes.

Progressive critics might say the analysis provides further evidence that despite the U.N.'s best efforts to establish high standards, corporate net-zero pledges still amount to little more than a greenwashing tactic—one that threatens to delay the transformative action needed to save millions of lives this century.

US warns against Israeli settlement expansion after reports of new West Bank plans

BY LAURA KELLY 

- 06/12/23 THE HILL

Greg Nash
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby addresses reporters during the daily briefing at the White House on Monday, June 5, 2023.

The Biden administration is reiterating opposition to Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank that it says undermines efforts to achieve a two-state solution with the Palestinians, following reports that Jerusalem is preparing to announce thousands more housing units in the politically-fraught territory.

Axios reported on Monday that Israel has informed the United States of building plans that include 4,000 housing units in several existing West Bank settlements, suggesting that construction plans related to an area known as E1 near Jerusalem would likely be included in such an announcement.

White House National Security Spokesperson John Kirby on Monday would not confirm if the Israeli government has told Biden officials about plans to announce settlement expansion, but said U.S. policy is consistent in opposing any unilateral decisions to advance Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

“We have long made clear our concerns about additional settlements in the West Bank, that we don’t want to see actions taken that are going to make a two-state solution that much more difficult to achieve,” Kirby said during the White House press briefing.

“We don’t want to see steps taken that only increase the tensions and we’ve been very clear about that. Nothing’s changed about our policy.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to balance a coalition of hard-right members that are key to maintaining his grip on power but who’s political demands — to advance plans to annex the West Bank, permit settlement construction and institute a judicial overhaul — have triggered pushback from the Biden administration.Trump-Milley feud played key role in classified documents caseHouse lawmakers want 5.2 percent pay raise for troops

Among the demands from Netanyahu’s coalition members is to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank in areas that, for decades, were off limits as part of attempts to advance a two-state solution with the Palestinian Authority.

Last month, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller issued a statement criticizing the Israeli government’s moves to legitimize the outpost of Homesh in the West Bank that was earlier determined to be built on private, Palestinian land and that went against a policy that had lasted more than 20 years.

'Blatantly Violating International Law': Israel Plans West Bank Settlement Expansion

One Israel-based group asserted the government's new annexation moves "entrench Jewish supremacy and apartheid in the West Bank."

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, seen here during an October 6, 2022 press conference, said on Monday June 12, 2023 that "big news for the settlements" would be announced "imminently."
(Photo: Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images)

BRETT WILKINS

COMMON DREAMS
Jun 12, 2023

Human rights defenders on Monday blasted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right apartheid government after it reportedly informed the Biden administration of plans to build thousands of new Jewish-only settler homes in the illegally occupied West Bank of Palestine.

Three Israeli and U.S. officials toldAxios that Israel will announce later this month its intention to build at least 4,000 homes in existing West Bank settler colonies. Over the weekend, Israeli and international media reported that Netanyahu's government would postpone plans for what's known as the E1 project due to U.S. pressure.

For two decades Israeli and international human rights experts have called the settlements—which are illegal under Article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention and the International Criminal Court's (ICC) Rome Statute—part of Israel's apartheid regime. The seizure of Palestinian land in the occupied territories is also a war crime under the Rome Statute.

"The American government can and should materially pressure Israel to stop impeding on Palestinian human rights."

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who opined in 2021 that all—not just most—Arabs should have been ethnically cleansed from Palestine at Israel's birth, said during a Monday press conference that "we will have big news for the settlements in the West Bank imminently."

The Biden administration has largely turned a blind eye to Israeli settlement construction and expansion but says it is strongly opposed to E1 because it would reduce the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem and further diminish faint hopes of any so-called two-state solution.

"Since the new Israeli government was inaugurated in December 2022, it has taken a series of alarming steps to accelerate its annexation of the West Bank, aiming to fulfill its commitments to increase Jewish settlements and ultimately extend Israeli sovereignty across the West Bank," tweeted Adalah, an Israel-based advocacy group for Arab minority rights.

Adalah asserted that Israel's new annexation moves "entrench Jewish supremacy and apartheid in the West Bank" by steps including:The institutional transfer of authority from military to civilian government offices in order to dismantle the authority of the military's administration, assert Israeli state sovereignty, and promote the settlements;
The further "regularization" and expansion of illegal settlements; and
The direct application of Israeli domestic law to the occupied West Bank.
"These are part of an explicit plan by Israel to annex swaths of the West Bank and institute full Israeli sovereignty over them," Adalah asserted. "They violate international law, including the Rome Statute, constituting crimes against humanity (apartheid), war crimes, and a crime of aggression."

In the United States, the progressive political group Justice Democrats called on Congress to pass H.R. 3103, the Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act. The measure—which was introduced last month by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.)—would ensure that no U.S. tax dollars are used by the Israeli military to imprison Palestinian children, force Palestinians out of their homes or demolish their property, or further expand settlements and steal Palestinian land.

The U.S. gives Israel around $3.8 billion in mostly unconditional military aid each year.

Ben-Gvir Seeks Power to Impose Administrative Detention

Af.M | DOP - 12 June, 2023

Itamar Ben-Gvir introduced a bill in parliament allowing him to issue administrative detention orders against Palestinians, Israeli media reported on Sunday.

According to Channel 14, the bill is set to be filed by MK Zvika Fogel from Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party and chairman of the Knesset’s National Security Committee.

Introducing the bill through the committee will enable Ben-Gvir’s party to skip preliminary steps that would have allowed the government’s legal advisers, particularly Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, to raise objections, Channel 14 added.

Observers say that far-right extremist Ben-Gvir’s aim is to strengthen his grip over the Arab community in Israel on the pretext of fighting crime.

Israel’s illegal policy of administrative detention is a pre-emptive measure that allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for lengthy periods of time based on disclosed allegations that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing.

Israeli occupation is currently holding more than 1,000 Palestinian detainees without charge or trial, the highest number since 2003, according to the Israeli human rights group HaMoked.

Ben-Gvir, an ultranationalist, is serving as the Netanyahu government’s national security minister. He was convicted in 2007 of supporting a terror organization and inciting racism.

UN Report Accuses Israel of 'Silencing of Civil Society' to Repress Palestinians

"We were particularly alarmed by the situation of Palestinian human rights defenders," reads the report, "who are routinely subject to a range of punitive measures as part of the occupation regime."

Palestinians take part in a protest against the Israeli decision to declare six Palestinian human rights groups as "terror organisations", in Gaza City on November 10, 2021.
(Photo: Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images)

BRETT WILKINS

COMMON DREAMS
Jun 09, 2023

Civil society groups in Israel and Palestine face serious human rights violations by Israeli authorities seeking to perpetuate an illegal occupation and apartheid regime, according to a report published Thursday by the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The report—authored by the Independent International Commission Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory—examines "attacks, restrictions, and harassment of civil society actors by all duty bearers," including the Israeli government and occupation forces, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Hamas in Gaza.

"We concluded that all duty bearers are engaged in limiting the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful association," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement. "We were particularly alarmed by the situation of Palestinian human rights defenders, who are routinely subject to a range of punitive measures as part of the occupation regime."

 

The commission found that "the Israeli authorities' silencing of civil society voices that challenge government policies and narrative is intrinsically linked to the goal of ensuring and enshrining the permanent occupation at the expense of the rights of the Palestinian people."

"This includes criminalizing Palestinian civil society organizations and their members by labeling them as 'terrorists,' pressuring and threatening institutions that give a platform for civil society discourse, actively lobbying donors, and implementing measures intended to cut sources of funding to civil society," the report states.

According to the publication:
The Israeli authorities' use of anti-terror legislation to categorize civil society organizations as terrorist organizations aims to delegitimize and isolate them and undermine their activity, and to harm their international funding and support. The commission concludes on reasonable grounds that the designations by Israeli authorities of six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations and a seventh Palestinian NGO as unlawful were unjustified, undertaken to silence civil society voices, and violate human rights, including freedom of association, freedom of expression and opinion, and the rights to peaceful assembly, to privacy, and to fair trial.

Israeli officials claim the six humanitarian groups—Addameer, AlHaq, the Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children International—Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, and the Union of Palestinian Women Committees—have ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a secular political movement with an armed wing that has carried out resistance attacks against Israel. The groups deny the accusation, and a probe by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency found no evidence supporting Israel's claim.

The report further states that "Israeli authorities are increasingly using surveillance to monitor the activities of human rights defenders, including through spyware planted on mobile phones," including by planting Pegasus spyware manufactured by the Israeli company NSO Group on the phones of Palestinian human rights workers and Israeli activists participating in 2020 protests against the last Netanyahu government.

A section of the report on the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu notes:
In late 2022, a new government in Israel was sworn in, with a stated mission of weakening the judiciary and increasing government control of the media and freedom of expression, which would have a significant impact on civil society in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In February 2023, the government started enacting new legislation to weaken judicial independence amid large-scale countrywide demonstrations. The proposed changes would dismantle fundamental features of the separation of powers and of the checks and balances essential in democratic political systems. Legal experts have warned that they risk weakening human rights protections, especially for the most vulnerable and disfavored communities, including Palestinian citizens of Israel, asylum-seekers, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer persons.

The report states that Israeli authorities are subjecting both Israeli and Palestinian journalists to monitoring and harassment, with Palestinians being "particularly targeted" for intimidation, "attacks, arrests, detention, and accusations of incitement to violence, seemingly as part of an effort to deter them from continuing their work."

According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, Israeli forces have killed 20 journalists this century, with none of the killers ever facing prosecution. These include at least one U.S. citizen, Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot dead by an Israeli sniper while covering a May 2022 raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. Al Jazeera producer Ali Samodi was shot in the back but survived. An independent international probe subsequently concluded that Abu Akleh's "extrajudicial killing" was "deliberate."

On Wednesday, 22-year-old Palestinian photojournalist Momen Samreen, who was covering Israeli forces' demolition of a suspected Palestinian militant's family home—an illegal act of collective punishment—was shot in the head with a "less-lethal" projectile and was hospitalized in serious condition.

The Israeli government—which maintains that the commission of inquiry "has no legitimacy"—rejected the report's findings. Israel's U.N. mission in Switzerland said that "Israel has a robust and independent civil society which is composed of thousands of NGOs, human rights defenders, [and] national and international media outlets, that can operate freely."

The report also states that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are targeting human rights defenders "with the aim of silencing dissenting opinions," and that activists, journalists, and others have been harassed, intimidated, and in some cases arbitrarily arrested and jailed.

"The commission has received information on the use of torture and ill-treatment to punish and intimidate critics and opponents by internal security officials in Gaza and intelligence services, preventive security officials, and law enforcement officials in the West Bank," the report says. "The frequency and severity, and the absence of accountability, suggest that such cases are widespread."

Think Tanks Say Nuclear Arsenals Expanded, Modernized Last Year

June 12, 2023
By RFE/RL

A Yars intercontinental ballistic missile is test-fired as part of Russia's nuclear drills from a launch site in Plesetsk, northwestern Russia, on October 26, 2022.

Nuclear-armed states have continued to expand and modernize their atomic arsenals amid a deterioration of the world's geopolitical situation, investing huge sums of money diverted from other development goals, an influential think tank said in a report published on June 12.

While the total number of the nuclear warheads dipped year-on-year from 12,710 to 12,512, the number of nuclear weapons ready for use at the start of this year -- 9,576, accounting for about two-thirds of the total --grew last year by 86, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said.

The report said that several of the nine nuclear-armed states -- the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel -- deployed new nuclear-armed or nuclear-capable weapon systems last year.

As a matter of official policy, Israel has declined to comment on whether or not it possesses nuclear weapons.

Separately, a report also published on June 12 by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) said the nine nuclear-armed states spent a total of $82.9 billion on nuclear weapons last year, with the United States alone accounting for more than half of the amount ($43.7 billion). Russia and China were the second- and third-ranked nuclear spenders with $11.7 billion and $9.6 billion in expenditures, respectively.

Russia and the United States together account for more than 90 percent of all the world's nuclear weapons, SIPRI said, adding that transparency about both countries' nuclear weapons declined since the start of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February last year.

China has also substantially increased the number of nuclear warheads that it possesses -- from 350 to 410 year-on-year, SIPRI said.

After many years of a slow decline in the number of nuclear weapons, SIPRI said the trend is reversing.

"The big picture is we've had over 30 years of the number of nuclear warheads coming down, and we see that process coming to an end now," SIPRI Director Dan Smith told French news agency AFP. 

With reporting by AFP

Nations Wasted $157,000 Per Minute on Nuclear Weapons in 2022: ICAN

The U.S. spent $43.7 billion on nuclear weapons last year—more than every other nuclear-armed nation combined, according to the Nobel Peace Prize-winning group.

An anti-nuclear protester holds a placard at a rally in Sydney, Australia on February 5, 2018.
(Photo: Peter Parks/AFP via Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON

COMMON DREAMS
Jun 12, 2023

A new report published Monday by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons shows that the world's nine nuclear-armed countries spent more than $157,000 per minute on their atomic weaponry last year, enriching private contractors at the risk of imperiling humankind.

Combined, nuclear-armed nations spent $82.9 billion on their arsenals last year, according to ICAN. The United States was the biggest spender, dumping $43.7 billion into its already massive arsenal in 2022—more than all of the other nuclear-armed countries combined.

"The U.S. Congress allocated $16 billion for the [National Nuclear Security Administration] in 2022 to spend on weapons activities," ICAN's report notes. "In 2022, the Department of Defense requested $27.7 billion for 'nuclear modernization,' including the 'Ground-Based Midcourse Defense, B-21 Bomber, Columbia class submarine, and Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications.'"

Overall, the report shows global spending on nuclear weapons increased for the third consecutive year in 2022.

ICAN describes such spending as immensely wasteful and dangerous to global safety, rejecting commonplace claims that investments in nuclear weapons—particularly as a tool of deterrence—are essential to security.

"Through an ever-changing and challenging security environment, from security threats of climate change to the Covid-19 pandemic to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, nuclear weapons spending has steadily increased, with no resulting measurable improvement on the security environment," the report states. "If anything, the situation is getting worse."

"Luck, not reason or strategy, has kept nuclear weapons from being used in warfare for the past 78 years. But we can't count on our luck to hold in perpetuity."

ICAN argues that consistently growing nuclear weapons spending is an outcome of a vicious cycle whereby tax dollars finance the construction of nuclear weapons by private companies, which proceed to fund think tanks and hire lobbyists to make the case that nuclear weapons are essential to national security—leading governments to continue pouring money "down their nuclear weapons drains."

Last year, according to ICAN's findings, nearly $16 billion in new nuclear weapons contracts were awarded to private corporations.

The companies that received the contracts—such as Bechtel, Boeing, and General Dynamics—"turned around and invested in lobbying governments, spending $113 million on those efforts in the U.S. and France," ICAN notes.

"Together," the report continues, "nuclear weapon-producing companies, nuclear-armed governments, and those in nuclear alliances spent $21-36 million funding the ten of the most prominent think tanks researching and writing about nuclear weapons in nuclear-armed states."

The think tanks highlighted in ICAN's report include the Atlantic Council—which received funding from Bechtel, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and other major contractors in 2021—and the Brookings Institution, which "received between $600,000 and $1,199,997 from three companies that produce nuclear weapons: Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman."

ICAN published its report on the same day that a new analysis by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute showed that the number of operational warheads in nuclear-armed nations' arsenals grew last year amid soaring tensions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

According to ICAN, "Russia's invasion of Ukraine and overt threats to use nuclear weapons have induced fear across the planet, but have also spurred a resilience and re-thinking of outdated concepts like nuclear deterrence," which suggests the threat of nuclear retaliation is sufficient to deter nuclear-armed countries from using the civilization-threatening weaponry.

ICAN has argued that the idea of nuclear deterrence "makes nuclear use more likely because the threat of use of nuclear weapons must be credible, and so the nuclear-armed states are always poised to launch nuclear weapons."

"Luck, not reason or strategy, has kept nuclear weapons from being used in warfare for the past 78 years. But we can't count on our luck to hold in perpetuity," the group's new report states. "For the first time in decades, the general public was confronted with a very real threat of nuclear war in 2022. The threat that nuclear weapons pose, as long as they exist, became tangible, with iodine tablets selling out across Europe and an increase in demand for nuclear bunkers."

ICAN concludes its report by imploring all nations to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), a legally binding international agreement that none of the nine nuclear-armed countries have signed. The United States and Russia, which together possess 90% of the world's nuclear warheads, have both opposed U.N. resolutions welcoming the TPNW and urging countries to swiftly ratify it.

To date, more than 90 countries have signed the treaty and nearly 70 have ratified it.


"The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is the multilateral response to the irresponsible behavior of all nuclear-armed states," ICAN's report says. "It is the normative barricade against threats to use nuclear weapons. All countries should join this landmark international instrument to prohibit the development and maintenance of nuclear weapons and prevent their eventual use by ensuring their elimination."

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

UN Palestinian refugee agency near brink of collapse, its head warns

'It takes political mobilization, political will to prevent agency from sinking completely,' says Philippe Lazzarini

Aşkın Kıyağan |12.06.2023 -

Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building, Gaza

VIENNA

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees is on the verge of financial collapse, the agency’s head warned on Monday.

The agency tried various methods over the last three years to solve these problems but has yet to get the needed results, Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), told reporters in Vienna.

The economic decline of the agency would mean that "the rights of Palestinian refugees will also decrease," he explained.

"It takes political mobilization and will to prevent the agency from sinking completely," he said.

Saying the agency has a financial deficit of close to $200 million, Lazzarini stressed the importance of food aid to Gaza, saying that $75 million is needed to continue food aid to the region, especially to the Gaza Strip, where the World Food Program has cut back on its activities.

He added that he hopes the needed financial support can be provided by this September.

The agency was founded in 1948 in the wake of the Nakba or Catastrophe, in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from their homes and lands after the founding of Israel. It continues to help millions of Palestinians in the blockaded Gaza Strip and Israeli-occupied West Bank with such services as education, food, and jobs.

THE HISTORICAL ATTACK ON TRANS RIGHTS

Sweden players ‘forced’ to prove they're women at 2011 WC: Had to show genitals

By Mallika Soni
Jun 12, 2023 

The gender tests were carried out around the 2011 tournament in Germany.

Sweden’s players had to “show their genitalia for the doctor” at the 2011 Women’s World Cup to prove that they were women, team’s centre-back Nilla Fischer revealed in her new book ‘I Didn’t Even Say Half Of It’. Nilla Fischer described the process, which was conducted by a female physiotherapist on behalf of the doctor, as “humiliating”, writing, “We were told that we should not shave ‘down there’ in the coming days and that we will show our genetalia for the doctor. No one understands the thing about shaving but we do as we are told and think ‘how did it get to this?’ Why are we forced to do this now, there has to be other ways to do this. Should we refuse?"

Nilla Fischer in a duel with an American player during the 2011 World Cup. (File)

“At the same time no one wants to jeopardise the opportunity to play at a World Cup. We just have to get the shit done no matter how sick and humiliating it feels," she added.

The gender tests were carried out around the 2011 tournament in Germany amid protests from Nigeria, South Africa and Ghana relating to allegations that the Equatorial Guinea squad included men.

In an interview with the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, Nilla Fischer said, “I understand what I have to do and quickly pull down my training pants and underwear at the same time. The physio nods and says ‘yup’ and then looks out at the doctor who is standing with his back to my doorway. He makes a note and moves on in the corridor to knock on the next door."

“When everyone on our team is checked, that is to say, has exposed their vagina, our team doctor can sign that the Swedish women’s national football team consists only of women," adding, “We had a very safe environment in the team. So it was probably the best environment to do it in. But it’s an extremely strange situation and overall not a comfortable way to do it.”

Two weeks before the 2011 World Cup began, Fifa issued its current gender recognition policies which state, "It lies with each participating member association to … ensure the correct gender of all players by actively investigating any perceived deviation in secondary sex characteristic.”

KLIMATE KRISIS

Watch: Peak of Austria's Fluchthorn mountain collapses in massive mudslide

TURN SPEAKERS UP

 
Jun 12, 2023 #Nocomment

A mountain rescuer captured the footage in Tyrol, close to the Swiss border. Fluchthorn is the second-highest summit in the Silvretta Alps.

EMOTIONAL PLAGUE

Swedish police union calls for crisis commission to stop gang shootings

STOCKHOLM, June 12 (Reuters) - Sweden's police union urged the government on Monday to set up a crisis commission to stop a wave of gun violence that saw two people shot dead and two others wounded in Stockholm over the weekend.

Shootings have become an almost daily occurrence, according to police statistics, with most blamed on gangs.

"What we are seeing now with these shootings is a threat not only to individuals, but to our whole society," the union said in a statement.

A 15-year-old boy and a 45-year-old man died after Saturday's shooting in southern Stockholm. Another 15-year-old and a woman were wounded.

Two men were later arrested. Police said the motive remained unclear.

The union called for a broad commission including government, local authorities and civil society to stop the violence.

"This isn't something the police can fight against alone," it said.

Sweden's right-wing government came to power last year promising to end the violence that has shocked a nation that until recently prided itself on order and social harmony.

The ruling coalition - supported by the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats - has blamed the unrest on what it says are decades of failed integration policies.

Both the current government and its left-of-centre predecessor have boosted the budget for the police and the criminal justice system, but the shootings have continued.

According to the police, there were 144 shooting incidents in Sweden this year up to the end of May, on average about one a day.

At least 20 people have been killed this year, including the two in Stockholm over the weekend.

In 2022, there were 391 shootings leading to 62 deaths, according to police figures. That was up from 46 deaths the year before.

 (Reporting by Simon Johnson; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

The end of the neo-liberal order?

With a new consensus in Washington, it’s time for Canberra  to consider a shake-up of misguided industrial policy.

US industry incentives have the potential to drain scarce capital and expertise away from Australia 

STEPHEN GRENVILLE

Published 13 Jun 2023

Did US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s “New Washington Consensus” speech on 27 April signal the end of the neo-liberal order, when free markets had a paramount role in an economy dominated by private-sector enterprise?

Gary Gerstle’s book, The Rise and Fall of the Neo-liberal Order, provides useful perspective to the Sullivan speech. It fits America’s modern economic history into two “orders”: the New Deal Order, beginning with the Depression and ending with the stagflation of the 1970s; and the Neo-liberal Order, beginning with the election of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and perhaps ending with the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008.

The New Deal Order began in an economy with a tiny role for government – the top rate for income tax was 7%. The architect of the New Deal, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was an economic activist but on a small scale. The US government’s role was supercharged by the Second World War and came to maturity in the three post-war decades. Roosevelt was a pragmatist without a clear economic doctrine: Keynesian macro-management came later, and with it a burgeoning role for governments in the provision of social services (education, health) and infrastructure.

The 1970s’ stagflation discredited macro-economic policies. There was also disenchantment with the demonstrated deficiencies of government services and enterprises.
International trade openness is an important marker distinguishing economic regimes – putting autarchic Cuba and North Korea in a different category from America or Australia.

Thus began Gerstle’s Neo-liberal Order, backed by the powerful rhetoric of libertarians such as Milton Friedman. The coincident election of Thatcher and Reagan looked like a watershed order-changing moment.

Meanwhile, academic theory promoted the “efficient markets” hypothesis: free markets would provide optimal guidance for production and output.

This era brought productivity-boosting economic reform. But it also brought income inequality and industrial decline for Western economies as China became “manufacturer to the world”.

The 2008 GFC should have dealt a heavy blow to the “efficient markets” view, especially in its heartland – the financial sector. However, neither the GFC nor the limp recovery afterwards changed much. There was dissatisfaction (see “Occupy Wall Street”), but as no viable alternative was on offer, not much changed.

This near-century period looks like evolution rather than libertarian revolution. The continuities are more obvious than any epoch-defining breaks.

Throughout, markets continued their central role in allocation, while at the same time regulation increased, reflecting technology and complexity. As living standards rose, demand expanded for the kind of services that only governments will provide.

How does all this fit with Sullivan’s New Washington Consensus? Viewed in the context of the huge changes encompassed in Gerstle’s two “orders”, Sullivan’s economic changes are just a tiny tweak. Sullivan is belatedly putting rhetorical flesh around the already-announced policies in the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

We should note that John Williamson’s original Washington Consensus was a middle-of-the-road common-sense articulation of the indisputable advantages of markets and international trade, rather than libertarian dogma. Sullivan’s economic initiatives would easily fit within the old consensus.
Subsidies to offset the market’s inability to address climate change are advocated almost universally.

International trade openness is an important marker distinguishing economic regimes – putting autarchic Cuba and North Korea in a different category from America or Australia. But openness is one of the continuities in American policy: free trade was consistently and loudly advocated, even if never perfectly implemented. The liberal side of politics – the Democrats – was always ambivalent about the benefits of free trade. Sullivan’s interventions are well within the quite flexible parameters that characterise the norms of trade openness – and America’s past trade restrictions.

On tariffs, Sullivan says that the intention is to put “high walls around a small yard”. Compare this with Europe’s pervasive agricultural protection, so deeply embedded that it goes without comment. On industrial policies (subsidies and trade protection), major countries routinely give domestic-production preference in defence procurement – just one example of the pervasiveness of industrial policy. Post-Second World War America has always had large government projects and industry subsidies: Eisenhower’s highways; Kennedy’s man-on-the-moon; US Department of Defence (DARPA) technology subsidies, Tesla’s electric cars and Solyndra’s (failed) solar panels.

Subsidies to offset the market’s inability to address climate change are advocated almost universally. Active labour-market programs to address income inequality and soften industrial transition are found in many countries and have long been advocated for America.

In short, Sullivan’s New Washington Order falls well within the economic mainstream.

The element that makes the Sullivan speech seem of greater import is the unambiguous priority of security over these widely-accepted economic norms. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s speech earlier in April carried the same message.

We don’t have an analytical framework to weigh the supposed security advantages against the economic costs. Commentators have noted the doubtful security benefits. Here, we concentrate just on the economic costs – to America, and to its trade-partner allies.
Redirecting our current misguided industrial policies, notably domestic production of nuclear-powered submarines, would be a big step towards economic efficiency.

America, as a huge, resource-rich flexible and diverse economy, pays only a small efficiency cost for these interventions. The main distortions will be in the response of smaller less-diverse economies.

“The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”. How should Australia react? As a beneficiary and active proponent of multilateral open trade, Australia has been guided by the idea that, just because your trading partners put rocks in their harbours, that doesn’t mean you should also do so. In any case, we don’t produce the high-tech products that are Sullivan’s focus. So, there are no trade policy implications for us.

US President Joe Biden’s climate-change initiatives, however, fall squarely into Australia’s comparative advantage: Australia’s has great potential to be a major global force in solar/wind-based electricity industries. Is America “eating our lunch”?

The climate challenge is so large that there is room for both countries (and others as well). The issue, however, is that Biden’s incentives may artificially suck scarce capital and expertise away from Australia.

We should overcome our usual well-founded presumption against industrial policy. This is the exception to the rule: a legitimate “second-best” argument for matching the incentives provided by the Biden initiative, at least in those aspects where we have clear comparative advantage – industries that require cheap, plentiful electricity, such as green hydrogen. 

Redirecting our current misguided industrial policies, notably domestic production of nuclear-powered submarines, would be a big step towards economic efficiency and enhance our energy security at the same time.