South African lawmakers vote in favor of closing Israel's embassy and cutting diplomatic ties

ALL COUNTRIES WANTING A CEASEFIRE SHOULD DO THIS

MOGOMOTSI MAGOME
Updated Tue, November 21, 2023 



Pro-Palestinian supporters demonstrate at the entrance to the Israeli embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, Friday, Oct. 20, 2023. Israel has recalled its ambassador to South Africa, Eliav Belotserkovsky, back to Jerusalem “for consultations” ahead of a parliamentary vote in the African country to decide the fate of the Israeli embassy. The two countries’ diplomatic relations have recently witnessed a rise in tensions over the Israeli war on Gaza which has killed thousands of people. 

(AP Photo/Denis Farrell, File)

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A majority of South African lawmakers on Tuesday voted in favor of a motion calling for the closure of the Israeli embassy and the cutting of diplomatic ties until Israel agrees to a cease-fire in Gaza.

The vote on the motion supported by the ruling African National Congress party came as President Cyril Ramaphosa in a meeting with other world leaders accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza with its military offensive in the beseiged territory in search of its Hamas militant rulers.

The motion tabled by the opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters received the support of 248 parliament members while 91 lawmakers opposed it.

The vote came after Israel's foreign ministry said it had recalled its ambassador to South Africa, Eliav Belotserkovsky, back to Jerusalem “for consultations."

The two countries’ diplomatic relations have witnessed a rise in tensions over the war in Gaza. Ramaphosa previously said his country believes Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza, where thousands of Palestinians have been killed.

South Africa announced last week that it had referred what it called Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza to the International Criminal Court for an investigation. Its cabinet has called on the ICC to issue an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Earlier this month, South Africa recalled its ambassador to Israel and withdrew all its diplomatic staff.

Ramaphosa's new comments Tuesday came in a virtual meeting of BRICS countries attended by leaders of the bloc including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The Israel-Hamas war began after the Palestinian militant group's surprise attacks on Israel on Oct.7 killed about 1,200 people. Israel's retaliatory strikes on Gaza have killed more than 12,700 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.

South African leader accuses Israel of war crimes. Putin and Xi strike more cautious note at meeting

GERALD IMRAY
Updated Tue, November 21, 2023



South Africa BRICS Israel Palestinians
In this image made from video supplied by South Africa's Presidency, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa addresses BRICS leaders for a virtual meeting of leaders of developing countries Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023. Ramaphosa accused Israel of war crimes, condemned Hamas for its attack on Israeli civilians that sparked the conflict and said both sides were guilty of violating international law.

 (South Africa Presidency via AP Photo)

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa accused Israel of war crimes and acts “tantamount to genocide” in Gaza during a virtual meeting Tuesday of leaders of developing countries, including Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping.

Ramaphosa also condemned Hamas for its attack on Israeli civilians that sparked the war in Gaza and said both sides were guilty of violating international law.

“The collective punishment of Palestinian civilians through the unlawful use of force by Israel is a war crime,” Ramaphosa said at the start of the meeting of leaders and top diplomats from the BRICS bloc of countries. “The deliberate denial of medicine, fuel, food and water to the residents of Gaza is tantamount to genocide.”

“In its attacks on civilians and by taking hostages, Hamas has also violated international law and must be held accountable for these actions,” Ramaphosa said.

Putin and Xi struck more cautious notes, calling for a cease-fire and the release of civilian hostages but not launching the same level of criticism of either side as Ramaphosa.

Also joining the meeting were leaders and officials from fellow BRICS members Brazil and India, and from Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, which are set to join the bloc in January.

Ramaphosa chaired the “extraordinary meeting” and made the opening remarks because of South Africa's position as current chair of BRICS.

Putin said there was a “humanitarian catastrophe” unfolding in Gaza and it was “shocking to watch how surgeries are performed on children without anesthesia." He again blamed the crisis on what he called failed diplomacy by the United States.

“All these events, in fact, are a direct consequence of the U.S. desire to monopolize mediation functions in the Palestinian-Israeli settlement," Putin said while appearing on teleconference from the Kremlin. He called for a cease-fire in Gaza, the freeing of hostages and the evacuation of civilians from the Gaza Strip.

Putin's comments were in line with Russia's careful approach to the Israel-Hamas war, which may present an opportunity for it to advance its role as a global power broker. Putin proposed last month that Moscow could mediate in the conflict due to its relationships with both Israel and the Palestinians. He said Tuesday that the BRICS bloc could play “a key role” in finding a political settlement.

Putin has condemned the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants on towns in southern Israel that led to Israel’s offensive in Gaza, now in its seventh week, while warning Israel over its response and against blockading the Gaza Strip.

More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, two-thirds of them women and minors, and more than 2,700 others are missing and believed to be buried under rubble, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry says it has been unable to update its count since Nov. 11 because of the health sector’s collapse.

Gaza health officials say the toll has risen sharply since, and hospitals continue to report deaths from daily strikes, often dozens at a time.

The Health Ministry in the West Bank last reported a toll of 13,300 but stopped providing its own count Tuesday without giving a reason. Because of that, and because officials there declined to explain in detail how they tracked deaths after Nov. 11, the AP decided to stop reporting its count.

The Health Ministry toll does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. Israel says it has killed thousands of Hamas militants but has not provided evidence for its count.

Russia and China are leading voices in BRICS, which has largely cast itself in recent years as standing against the perceived dominance of the West in global affairs. But it has struggled to adopt united policies or positions on many issues because of the differing priorities of the five current members.

The meeting came a day after China’s top diplomat hosted the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and Indonesia in Beijing, their first stop on a tour of U.N. Security Council permanent members. That underlined China’s longstanding support for the Palestinians and its growing geopolitical influence.

India, which also wants to be seen as a leader of the developing world, has long walked a tightrope between Israel and the Palestinians and historically has close ties to both.

South Africa has been fiercely critical of Israel over the war in Gaza and had already filed a request with the International Criminal Court to investigate it over alleged war crimes. South Africa has for years compared Israel's policies in Gaza and the West Bank with its own past apartheid regime of racial segregation.

Ramaphosa called for the International Criminal Court to “urgently” initiate prosecutions against those responsible for what he termed war crimes on both sides and said South Africa also wants to see a cease-fire and the deployment of a U.N. force to monitor the cease-fire.

Later Tuesday, a large majority of South African lawmakers voted in favor of a motion to shut down the Israeli Embassy and cut diplomatic ties with Israel until it agrees to a cease-fire in Gaza. Israel had recalled its ambassador for consultations before the vote took place.

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AP Israel-Hamas war coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war


How Israel-South Africa Relations Fell Apart Over Gaza

Armani Syed

TIME
Tue, November 21, 2023 

Supporters during the ANC KZN Palestinian Solidarity March on Oct. 26, 2023 in Durban, South Africa. The group is standing in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance against Israeli and over the war in the Gaza Strip.

 Credit - Darren Stewart—Gallo Images / Getty Images

Israel has recalled its ambassador, Eliav Belotserkovsky, to South Africa “for consultations,” as the African nation prepares to host a summit for world leaders and a vote on whether to shut down its Israeli embassy and sever diplomatic ties.

Belotserkovsky has been called to Jerusalem amid South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s criticism of Israel’s attacks on Gaza, according to Israel’s foreign ministry. “Following the latest South African statements, the Ambassador of Israel to Pretoria has been recalled to Jerusalem for consultations,” Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs posted late Monday on X.

South Africa has been vocal in reprimanding Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and filed a referral to the International Criminal Court, seeking an investigations into what Ramaphosa has described as Israel’s “war crimes” and “tantamount to genocide.”

Earlier in November, South Africa also recalled its ambassador to Israel and withdrew its diplomatic presence on the ground.

“Given that much of the global community is witnessing the commission of these crimes in real time, including statements of genocidal intent by many Israeli leaders, we expect that warrants of arrest for these leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, should be issued shortly,” South African minister in the presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, also told reporters on Monday.

South African diplomats have long identified likeness between life for Palestinians under occupation and those who lived under apartheid, the legal system for racial separation in South Africa from 1948 until 1994.

In July 2022, over a year before Hamas’ attacks on Oct. 7, South African diplomat Nalendi Pandor said, “For many South Africans, the narrative of the Palestinian people's struggle does evoke experiences of our own history of racial segregation and oppression."

Israel began striking the Palestinian enclave in response to Hamas attacks, in which 1,200 were killed and around 240 taken hostage.. Since then, at least 13,000 Gazans have died, among them thousands of children, U.N. workers, and journalists. At least 1.4 million people of Gaza’s 2.2 million population have been displaced by the war.

Ramaphosa’s ruling African National Congress party, among other smaller parties, will support a motion brought about by leftist opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters to close Israel’s embassy in the nation. South Africa’s parliament is set to vote on the matter Tuesday, which would take effect until Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza and further negotiations carried out by the U.N.

The move comes just as South Africa prepares to host a virtual summit with the BRICS, an economic bloc of nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) to discuss Israel’s war on Gaza. Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, will also join the group in January.

Among the leaders attending are Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has expressed his support for Palestinians and welcomed diplomats from Arab and Muslim nations in Beijing Monday.
More From TIME

Russia and India have taken a strategic approach to the conflict, keeping in mind longer term aims.

Putin has been accused of using the conflict to his political advantage, placing the blame with the U.S. "I think that many will agree with me that this is a clear example of the failed policy in the Middle East of the United States, which tried to monopolize the settlement process," Putin told Iraq's prime minister on Oct. 10. He offered condolences to Israel on the loss of lives six days after the attack, but said a Hamas delegation was in Moscow for talks on Oct. 17.

At the time of the Hamas attacks, Modi expressed “complete solidarity” with Israel. While Modi has since “strongly condemned” civilian deaths in the war, India also abstained from a U.N. assembly vote on a “humanitarian truce” on Oct. 27.

Ramaphosa is set to chair a meeting where leaders will deliver statements on Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, after which a joint statement will likely follow.

Write to Armani Syed at armani.syed@time.com.

South Africa to chair emergency BRICS summit on Gaza crisis

Melissa Chemam with RFI
Tue, November 21, 2023 

AP - Gianluigi Guercia

Tuesday's virtual meeting will be hosted by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the hope of drawing up a common response to the Israel - Hamas conflict, now entering its seventh week.

"Leaders of the BRICS countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China - will gather [under the South African presidency] for an emergency virtual meeting, inviting the leaders of the [new] BRICS countries - Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates," the South African president’s office said in a statement.

Hosted by President Cyril Ramaphosa, the members will discuss the situation in the Middle East, including the Gaza Strip.

South Africa said United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres would take part in the virtual meeting, and that it was expected to end with a joint statement.

The meeting comes days after leaders from the APEC group, which includes China and the United States, failed to agree on a joint response to the Israel - Hamas war.
Criticism

China's President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have both confirmed that they will take part in the virtual summit.

Russia has maintained historically close ties with both Israel and the Palestinians, and Putin has said Russia could play a mediating role.

Putin has criticised the West for allegedly stoking tensions in the region and Israel for its conduct in the conflict.

South Africa calls for UN force to protect civilians in Gaza

China has historically been sympathetic to the Palestinians and supportive of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Read more on RFI English

Opinion

Army veterans like me know that 'war is hell.' We must push for a cease-fire in Gaza.

Derek Duba
Updated Tue, November 21, 2023 

I am a U.S. Army veteran who served as an Arabic linguist and military intelligence collector.

Veterans like me around the country are raising our voices to put an end to the open-ended, unsustainable, immoral conflicts we’ve come to know as the “forever wars.”

Knowing all too well that ever-escalating violence can only beget more violence, I join the overwhelming majority of Americans demanding a cease-fire now in Gaza.

For those who haven’t spent their careers immersed in the conflict, history and politics of the Middle East, it’s important to understand that Gaza is only about twice the size of Washington, D.C., but with nearly triple the population.

It has been shelled daily for more than a month now using munitions supplied by U.S. government and defense contractors with the implicit consent of an administration and Congress that have thus failed to de-escalate the situation and instead moved to censure critics and approve additional funds for weapons and bombs.

People search through buildings, destroyed during Israeli raids a day earlier, in the southern Gaza Strip on Nov. 17, 2023 in Khan Yunis, Gaza.

War crimes do not justify more war crimes

Indiscriminate bombing can only serve to prolong and escalate this conflict, which is already growing into a regional crisis that threatens to drag the United States into yet another disastrous war in the Middle East.

The despicable acts of violence carried out by Hamas against more than a thousand Israeli civilians was horrific, period.

Nevertheless, war crimes and acts of terror do not justify more war crimes nor the killing of more civilians.

I asked President Biden for cease-fire. Now the world is asking with me.

The surest way to safely return hostages is to end the bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza to negotiate the release of hostages; those hostages are every bit as endangered by these indiscriminate attacks as the countless innocent Palestinian civilians trapped in Gaza.

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - NOVEMBER 20: The parents and relatives of children kidnapped on October 7th take part in a demonstration outside the UNICEF headquarters to protest their silence to 40 children held hostage in Gaza on World’s Children Day.

When I imagine what it must be like to be a human being trapped in a city that is walled on all sides, that is bombed nightly – that has less and less access to water, power, food and medical care – the geopolitical and economic nuance and history of the situation wilts in comparison with the immediate humanity of parents terrified they’ll be the ones pulling their kids from rubble each morning.

That we can only begin to mourn those senselessly lost human lives already is reason enough to demand a cease-fire now.

A man carries a child injured in an Israeli strike on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Nov. 20, 2023, amid continuing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Recognize humanity in Israel and Palestine

We’ve seen bad actors in our political system and media exploit these horrors to drive clicks by selling us the idea that somehow a cease-fire is akin to supporting a terrorist group.

I refuse to play into the false narrative that recognizing and fighting for the humanity of either Palestinians or Israelis means refusing the humanity of the other.

Israelis are humans, Palestinians are humans and no human deserves to live and die like this.

To those at home trying to make sense of the senseless all the way up to the White House, there is no path forward that is easy.:

It is not easy to disagree with your friends.


It is not easy to break with your party.


It is not easy to live with hate in your heart or to let it go.

It will not be easy to plant seeds of peace between people who have now known only conflict for generations, but no matter which of the thousand ways we can get there, not one of them will begin until the last bomb is dropped.

Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store.
We need a cease-fire, not a 'forever war'

No revenge, no ideology, no difference of faith or opinion can justify a new “forever war” in the Middle East.

Biden, US risk 'forever war': Biden's support of Israel makes US an accessory to apartheid. And risks another 'forever war.'

If you want to honor the service and sacrifice of veterans, I invite you to trust what too many of us have been forced to learn the hard way: War is hell. Peace and justice cannot be achieved by means that are not peaceful and just.

We must remember our shared humanity and do everything we can to end this cycle of violence and work collectively toward a lasting peace before more innocent blood is spilled.

I join with all who have found the courage and moral fortitude to elevate this demand for a cease-fire to the administration.

Derek Duba is the U.S. Western lead organizer for CommonDefense.us, a national grassroots organization of veterans.

Derek Duba is the U.S. Western lead organizer for CommonDefense.us, a national grassroots organization of veterans. He lives in Phoenix. This column first published in The Arizona Republic. Reach him at derek@commondefense.us

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Amid Israel-Hamas war, ceasefire is the only option. Ask vets like me

DRONE WAR

Israel’s secret air war in Gaza and the West Bank

Anna Schecter and Keir Simmons and Courtney Kube
Updated Tue, November 21, 2023 

Day and night, according to Palestinians, a sound echoes above Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza. The noise isn’t the detonation of a bomb dropped by an Israeli jet. It’s the low hum of Israeli drones circling overhead.

“They never leave the sky,” Tareq Hajjaj, a freelance Palestinian journalist, said via WhatsApp.

As civilians flee northern Gaza, the focus of international attention — and the fears of many Palestinians — is how Israel may wage war in southern Gaza. The focus, in particular, is on airstrikes.

Israeli officials, including two active-duty drone pilots, said they follow exacting procedures to minimize civilian casualties. An Israel Defense Forces military attorney must sign off on every strike after a review of intelligence. And pilots must conduct real-time analyses of potential civilian deaths.

“We preplan what happens if children enter into our area,” said one of the drone pilots, referring to calling off a strike. “We preplan what happens if the terrorists launch a rocket and then drive into a crowded area, as they so often do.”

Critics of Israel’s tactics say the sheer volume of airstrikes it has conducted in such densely populated areas is worrying. In the first week of the conflict, which began after Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack killed more than 1,200 Israelis, the IDF dropped 6,000 bombs in Gaza. In 2019, the U.S. dropped 7,400 bombs in Afghanistan over the course of an entire year.

Image: A fireball erupts above Gaza City after an Israeli airstrike on Oct. 9. (Mohammed Abed / AFP via Getty Images file)

Professor Janina Dill, a co-director of Oxford University’s Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, said she is concerned Israel might be violating international law.

She cited the number of airstrikes, the reported deaths of 13,000 Palestinians and statements by Israeli officials that she said suggested they believed that not all Palestinian civilians deserve protection.

“If we take these three things together,” Dill said, “then it’s really difficult to believe that all airstrikes here comply with international humanitarian law.”

Since disclosing the number of airstrikes it carried out during the war's first week, the IDF has declined to say how many bombings it has conducted. An Israeli official who asked not to be named said he couldn’t disclose whether jets or drones carry out the majority of the Israeli strikes.

“A lot of the things in Gaza are unmanned aircraft, and some of the things are not,” he said.

Last week, Human Rights Watch accused the Israeli military of "repeated, apparently unlawful attacks on medical facilities" and said they "should be investigated as war crimes." Israeli officials accuse Hamas of building command centers beneath hospitals.

The Biden administration, meanwhile, has provided little information regarding the accuracy of Israeli airstrikes, while closely monitoring and condemning Russian attacks that kill Ukrainian civilians.

With war crimes investigators and international journalists unable to operate independently in Gaza, United Nations officials and open-source data researchers say the full details of Israel’s bombing campaign remain largely unknown. “It’s really tricky,” said a researcher who asked not to be named. “It’s difficult to tell.”
‘War is terrible’

IDF officials granted NBC News access to an Israeli military drone base south of Tel Aviv and provided interviews with two active-duty Israeli drone pilots. Israeli officials requested that the pilots remain anonymous because the IDF considers their identities classified.

The pilots declined to discuss specific targets, but Israel's strikes in Gaza appear to be focused on two things: undermining Hamas capabilities, such as rocket launching, and killing the senior leadership of Hamas, which is more difficult because of the group’s extensive underground tunnel system.

The pilots described how they try to minimize civilian casualties when they carry out strikes. They also said they were aware of the controversy surrounding Israeli air attacks.

“War is terrible. It’s filled with chaos. And when the other side, Hamas, is using civilians as human shields, it makes our jobs 100 times worse,” said the first of the two pilots.

“We’re an integral part of the battle and the battlefield,” the first pilot added. “We take full responsibility for anything that goes on.”

The other pilot said, “Our job is to make sure that whoever needs to be eliminated is taken out exclusively and no one else.”

mourners palestinians funeral (Jaafar Ashtiyeh / AFP - Getty Images)

A strike in the West Bank

Drone strikes in the conflict aren’t limited to Gaza. On Saturday, NBC News visited a damaged Palestinian Authority Fatah party building in the Balata refugee camp, near Nablus, in the West Bank. The drone strike Friday appeared to have created a hole in its ceiling.

The IDF said it had targeted a “hide-out used by terrorists,” and both the IDF and residents said a member of the armed wing of Fatah was killed. Residents said five people, in all, died in the bombing.

One of them was a man walking by the building, according to witnesses. Another was a 15-year-old boy who died inside it. An interview with his mother that was posted online said he was at his grandfather’s house and then went to the Fatah center before the strike occurred. “My fate,” his mother said, “was to become the mother of a martyr.”

On Saturday, the bodies of the dead were covered in flags and carried through the streets by crowds of men, some masked and firing automatic weapons in the air. A mobile sound system played songs celebrating Palestinian fighters.

During the funeral, a drone could be seen flying overhead. “Even after the bombing, it’s still roaming around,” a man said. “It monitors everything in the area.”

‘I see children’

It takes two people to fly a weaponized drone: the pilot of the drone and a second person who operates the “ball,” handling the signals intelligence and imagery.

IDF officials gave NBC News exclusive access to five videos showing what Israeli drone pilots saw surveilling possible targets in Gaza during the first weeks of the war.

In the videos, two IDF pilots discuss whether or not to strike. They talk about people, sometimes children, walking close enough to targets that they choose to cancel the strikes or delay them until civilians have left the area.

“There are at least six or seven people wandering the area of the school wearing black. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,” an IDF pilot counts in Hebrew. The black and white video shows dark gray images that appear to be people moving on the ground below.

Another IDF pilot refers to an area that comes into view and says in Hebrew, “I estimate there are 10 here at least, even 20 or 30. I am mentioning again, we think this is not within the policy.”

In a second video, an IDF pilot is heard saying, “I see children right beside the building.” Later in the video, another pilot asks, “Could you show me where the children are?” The first pilot replies: “Now it’s out of our eyesight. We can’t see, but in the area that I’m marking, in that space, there are many people, including children.” At the end of the video, a pilot says: “We are leaving this target. It isn’t approved.”

One of the drone pilots interviewed by NBC News said such conversations were common. “We have to stay sharp,” he said. “That’s why we are constantly speaking about the children at the scene and whoever or whatever gets into our picture and why we have to abort airstrikes and call off airstrikes.”

The principles of war

U.S. Army Lt. Col. Paul Lushenko, a co-author of the forthcoming book “The Legitimacy of Drone Warfare: Evaluating Public Perceptions,” reviewed the five Israeli drone videos for NBC News.

“First and foremost, this is a complicated business set against the sort of terrain that we’re operating within,” he said, referring to Gaza. “You can see how congested, contested and built-up it is.”

He said international humanitarian law requires combatants to abide by the principles of distinction (between civilians and combatants), proportionality (the use of commensurate force) and military necessity (the need to achieve a legitimate military objective). The rules apply to both ground operations and airstrikes, including drone attacks.

Lushenko said drone strikes conducted by Israel have most likely resulted in civilian casualties — though probably fewer than would be caused by large bombs dropped by planes — and that the deaths may have been unintentional.

A Palestinian man carries an injured child in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on Nov. 7, 2023. (Said Khatib / AFP - Getty Images file)

“Make no mistake: International humanitarian law is put in place to minimize collateral damage, especially the killing of women and children,” Lushenko said. “But it doesn’t preclude it in the event that you have an overriding military objective.”

Israeli ethicists, professors and experts said international humanitarian law is integrated into IDF operations: commanders’ and soldiers’ guidelines and orders, their training and real-time legal advice.

“There are on-site, hands-on military attorneys who operate at every level from the Israeli chief of staff to the units that operate on the ground,” said Netta Barak-Corren, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a fellow at Princeton University. “They are there to assist the military commander by giving advice in real time about whether a specific operation is legal under international humanitarian law or not.”

The IDF’s code of ethics also includes a clause explicitly stating that members of the military will not use their weapons to harm civilians.

One of the authors of the IDF code of ethics, Moshe Halbertal, an adviser to the IDF, said the code applies to drones. “Drones are operated by humans, and they have to take care while operating a drone,” said Halbertal, a professor at Hebrew University and New York University Law School.

Dill, the Oxford University professor, said she worried that commanders may rely too heavily on drone strikes in order to minimize their own troop losses. They may also attempt attacks they would not conduct on the ground.

“The disadvantage is that they give commanders the notion that ... they can target anywhere, and so maybe sometimes they bring targets within reach that would otherwise not have been attacked,” she said. “The ethical and legal upside is that they allow the commander to keep their own forces out of harm’s way.”
‘War is messy’

The Israeli drone pilots acknowledged the dangers of their strikes. “I can say that war is messy, and we can train all day and all night not to hit civilians,” one said. “When it happens, we as IDF soldiers take it very hard, understanding that we have to be better next time and be more precise. And that’s what we train to do.”

The other pilot said: “Our moral code and moral high ground only takes us to some point. And it’s hard; it’s difficult. It’s unbelievably tricky.”

Hajjaj, the Palestinian freelance journalist in southern Gaza, said people there fear what comes next. He said it seemed that larger targets like buildings were being hit with bombs dropped by Israeli F-16s or other planes. Drones, meanwhile, continue to circle overhead, emitting a low hum.

“The noise prevents us to sleep, prevents us to speak and prevents us to hear well,” Hajjaj said.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Gaza health officials say they lost the ability to count dead as Israeli offensive intensifies

ISABEL DEBRE
Updated Tue, November 21, 2023
JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinian health officials in Gaza said Tuesday that they have lost the ability to count the dead because of the collapse of parts of the enclave's health system and the difficulty of retrieving bodies from areas overrun by Israeli tanks and troops.

The Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, which carefully tracked casualties over the first five weeks of war, gave its most recent death toll of 11,078 on Nov. 10. The United Nations humanitarian office, which cites the Health Ministry death toll in its regular reports, still refers to 11,078 as the last verified death toll from the war.

The challenges involved in verifying the number of dead have mounted as Israel's ground invasion has intensified and at times severed phone and internet service and sown chaos across the territory.

“Unfortunately, the Ministry of Health has not yet been able to issue its statistics because there is a breakdown in communication between hospitals and disruption to the internet,” ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra told The Associated Press. The electronic database that health authorities use to compile casualties from hospitals “is no longer able to count the names and tally the statistics," he said.

Al-Qidra said the ministry was trying to restart the program and resume communication with hospitals.

Medics say it's far too dangerous now to recover the untold scores of dead bodies in Gaza City, where Israeli bulldozers have blocked streets and tanks fire at anything in their path.

Officials at the Health Ministry, long seen as the most reliable local source for casualties, said they believe the death toll has jumped sharply in the past week based on doctors' estimates after airstrikes on densely populated neighborhoods and reports from families about missing loved ones. But they said it had become virtually impossible to arrive at a precise number of victims.

“No one has correct numbers, that’s not possible anymore,” Health Ministry official Mehdat Abbas said. “People are thrown in the streets. They’re under the rubble. Who can count the bodies and release the death toll in a press conference?”

Abbas' comments appeared to be a dig at the Health Ministry in the occupied West Bank, where the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, a rival of Hamas, administers autonomous enclaves.

The West Bank ministry in Ramallah gave similar casualty counts to its counterpart in Gaza over the first five weeks of war. But after the Gaza ministry stopped counting, health authorities in Ramallah kept releasing regular reports with death tolls — most recently 13,300 — without discussing their methodology. U.N. agencies said they could not verify the West Bank ministry's numbers.

The Health Ministry in the West Bank stopped providing its own count Tuesday without giving a reason. Because of that, and because officials there declined to explain in detail how they tracked deaths after Nov. 11, the AP decided to stop reporting the West Bank count.

Authorities in Gaza said they could not account for how the West Bank’s Health Ministry tallied the numbers. Al-Qidra described the figures released by the Ramallah-based ministry as “personal statistics” unrelated to Gaza's ministry.

“If someone is sitting in an air-conditioned office, he can say whatever he wants,” Abbas said. "But if you come to the field here, no one can work between tanks to count how many people are killed.”

Last week, the Health Ministry in Gaza vacated its headquarters in Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, as Israeli forces besieged and raided the facility, which they accuse Hamas of using to conduct militant operations. Hamas and health officials have denied the allegations.

Employees responsible for tallying the dead have been scattered across the southern Gaza Strip and struggle to coordinate with each other and with hospitals due to frequent communication outages.

Every hospital in the northern strip has shut down except for the Awda Hospital, a private facility in the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya, just north of Gaza City, where doctors conduct surgery with flashlights and treat patients on blood-slicked floors.

“It's chaos. There are bombs all around us, air attacks, tank attacks, snipers and gunshots,” said hospital Director Ahmad Muhanna. “We are trying to keep the best estimates we can, but with each second, more patients come and it gets harder.”

In many cases now, death certificates are nonexistent, he said.

Without a clear tally of the deaths, advocates worry that the conflict will grind on without accountability. They say the numbers matter because they can have a direct impact on policy and the global sense of urgency.

“We have to get these numbers for history,” said Shawan Jabarin, director of the Palestinian human rights group al-Haq. “The accountability is one thing and to teach the next generations exactly what happened. It's important for transitional justice, for peace.”

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Associated Press Writer Jack Jeffery in Cairo contributed to this report.

Bosses thought they won the return-to-office wars by imposing rigid policies. Now they’re facing a wave of legal battles

Gleb Tsipursky
Wed, November 22, 2023

Getty Images


After seemingly having won the return-to-office wars, employers may be walking into a legal storm by enforcing rigid return-to-office (RTO) mandates.

The post-pandemic era presents a unique challenge as employers grapple with shifting workforce dynamics. The insistence on a full return to the office, without considering individual circumstances, could lead to a surge in legal issues, particularly discrimination claims. This concern is not mere speculation–it's a reality backed by a significant uptick in workforce discrimination charges.

Rigid RTO policies are disproportionately impacting disabled employees, mothers, and older workers–and could even, in certain cases, breach the law.
The disability discrimination dilemma

One of the most pressing issues is disability discrimination. With many employees having worked remotely for over two years without a dip in productivity or performance, employers face a challenging legal landscape when justifying the need for in-person work.

Thomas Foley, executive director of the National Disability Institute, noted that he has “great concerns” over RTO for people with disabilities, including transportation to and from work, workplace accessibility, and the potential to encounter micro (or larger) aggressions. Brandalyn Bickner, a spokesperson for the EEOC, said in a statement that the ADA's reasonable accommodation obligation includes “modifying workplace policies” and “might require an employer to waive certain eligibility requirements or otherwise modify its telework program for someone with a disability who needs to work at home.”

In a notable legal settlement, a facility management company agreed to pay $47,500 to settle an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) lawsuit for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The case, EEOC v. ISS Facility Services, Inc., involved the company's refusal to allow a disabled employee at high risk for COVID-19 to work part-time from home, despite previously allowing a rotating schedule during the pandemic. The company's denial of the employee's request for accommodation, followed by her termination, was deemed a violation of the ADA. The settlement also required the company to permit EEOC monitoring of future accommodation requests. This case emphasizes the importance of ADA compliance and the need for employers to be flexible and consistent in accommodating employees, especially in changing work environments.

In a lawsuit against Electric Boat Corp., Zacchery Belval, a resident of Enfield, Conn., claimed discrimination for the company's failure to provide reasonable accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Act. Belval, who has multiple health issues, including a heart defect and severe anxiety, argued he was at increased risk for COVID-19. He had worked from home during the pandemic, but faced challenges when the company encouraged a return to the office. The physical demands of returning and poor office conditions led him to seek continued remote work, which the company partially granted. However, Belval deemed this accommodation insufficient. When he did not return to work under these conditions, Electric Boat considered him resigned. This case underscores the complexities employers face in implementing return-to-office policies while also needing to provide ADA-compliant reasonable accommodations, particularly for employees with significant health risks.

Mental health issues have become increasingly prominent in the context of workplace accommodations. The pandemic has led to a 25% increase in cases of depression and anxiety in the U.S., underscoring the need for employers to consider remote work as a reasonable accommodation. Companies are facing a rise in mental health disability discrimination complaints from employees who view remote work as a reasonable accommodation. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has observed a 16% increase in such charges between 2021 and 2022, particularly for conditions like anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress syndrome. This trend is indicative of a broader challenge where mental health disorders have become a prominent reason for disability complaints. Employers who fail to make an effort to accommodate such requests risk facing EEOC actions. In September, the agency filed a complaint against a Georgia company after it fired a marketing manager who requested to work remotely three days a week to accommodate anxiety.
Impact on older workers

Older workers are particularly impacted by RTO mandates. A recent survey from Carewell has illuminated this trend, revealing that as many as 25% of workers over the age of 50 are contemplating retirement more seriously in light of RTO mandates. This statistic is particularly striking when compared to the 43% who expressed a reduced likelihood of retiring if given the option to work remotely. Such figures not only highlight the preferences of older workers but also underscore the potential unintended consequences of inflexible RTO policies.

The resistance to RTO mandates among older workers isn't just a matter of preference; it brings to the forefront concerns about age discrimination. If RTO policies disproportionately affect older employees, either by forcing them into early retirement or by making their work conditions less favorable compared to their younger counterparts, employers could face age discrimination claims. These concerns are amplified by the fact that losing older workers en masse could mean a significant loss of experience, skills, and institutional knowledge for organizations.

Employers, therefore, need to carefully consider the impact of RTO mandates on their older workforce. Offering flexibility, whether through remote work options or hybrid models, could be crucial in retaining older employees. Additionally, engaging in dialogue with this segment of the workforce to understand their specific needs and concerns can help in formulating policies that are inclusive and considerate of all age groups.
Working parents and gender disparities

The legal risks associated with RTO policies are further highlighted by their impact on working parents, especially mothers. The transition from remote to office work brings into sharp focus the balancing act that working parents, especially mothers, must perform between their professional responsibilities and childcare obligations. The legal implications of these policies stem from the potential for indirect discrimination and unequal treatment of working parents.

Studies have consistently shown that working mothers are disproportionately affected by the lack of flexibility in work arrangements. The data reveals that nearly twice as many working mothers as fathers have considered leaving their jobs due to the stress associated with childcare. This statistic is alarming and points towards a deep-seated issue in the current work environment where the needs of working mothers are not adequately accommodated. Furthermore, 30% of mothers, compared to 17% of fathers, report difficulties in finding working hours that align with their childcare needs. This disparity not only highlights the challenges faced by working mothers but also raises concerns about potential gender discrimination in the workplace.

The lack of flexible working options can exacerbate existing inequalities. Mothers often bear a larger share of domestic and childcare responsibilities, and inflexible work schedules can intensify these demands, leading to increased stress and potential burnout. This situation is particularly challenging for single mothers or those without access to external childcare support. The inability to balance these demands can lead to mothers being forced to choose between their careers and their family responsibilities, a choice that fathers are less likely to face to the same extent.

From a legal standpoint, these disparities could give rise to discrimination claims under various employment laws. Employers who fail to provide reasonable accommodations or flexibility to working parents, particularly mothers, might be seen as engaging in indirect discrimination. Such practices can be construed as creating an unfavorable work environment for certain groups of employees, thereby violating equal employment opportunity laws.

To mitigate these risks, employers must take proactive steps to provide equitable support to all working parents. This could include offering flexible work schedules, remote work options, or part-time arrangements that allow parents to manage their work and childcare responsibilities more effectively. Additionally, employers should consider implementing policies that specifically support working mothers, such as extended maternity leave, breastfeeding breaks, and facilities, or support for childcare.

Instituting these changes requires a cultural shift within organizations to recognize and value the diversity of employees' needs. This shift involves not only policy changes but also a broader understanding and empathy toward the challenges faced by working parents. By fostering an inclusive work environment that accommodates the unique needs of working mothers, employers can not only avoid potential legal challenges but also enhance employee satisfaction and retention.
Additional discrimination considerations in remote setups

The evolving legal landscape, shaped by advancements in legal technology and updated guidelines on harassment, presents new challenges and complexities for employers, particularly in the context of remote and hybrid work environments. The EEOC has recently published important updates in its guidance that address the nuances of remote work and discrimination.

One of the key aspects of this new EEOC guidance is the clarification it provides on legal standards and employer liability in the context of remote work. As the workplace extends beyond the traditional office environment into remote and hybrid models, the definition and scope of harassment have also expanded. This expansion necessitates a reevaluation of existing policies to ensure they adequately address the unique challenges and scenarios presented by remote work settings. For instance, harassment in virtual meetings or through digital communication platforms presents different challenges compared to in-person interactions, requiring tailored responses and preventive measures.

The guidance also underscores the importance of accommodating the needs of diverse employee groups, with specific attention to LGBTQ+ employees. This focus is critical in fostering an inclusive work environment and ensuring that harassment policies are sensitive to the needs of all employees, regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression. Employers are encouraged to review and update their policies to ensure they provide clear, specific protections against harassment of LGBTQ+ employees, which is essential in maintaining a respectful and inclusive workplace culture.

Additionally, the guidance highlights the need for updated policies related to video meetings and lactation accommodations. As video conferencing becomes a staple in remote and hybrid work models, employers must establish clear guidelines to prevent and address harassment that may occur in these virtual settings. This includes setting standards for professional conduct during video calls and ensuring that employees' privacy and dignity are respected. Similarly, the guidance on lactation accommodations reflects an understanding of the changing needs of working parents, particularly mothers, in remote work scenarios.

Furthermore, the EEOC emphasizes the importance of training for employees on these new aspects of workplace conduct. Training programs should be updated to include scenarios and examples relevant to remote and hybrid work environments, ensuring that employees understand their rights and responsibilities under the new guidelines. This training should also cover how to report harassment in remote work settings and the resources available to employees who experience or witness such behavior.

In response to these challenges, I tell my clients that they would benefit from adopting a flexible approach to RTO mandates.

A one-size-fits-all policy may not only lead to legal repercussions but also overlook the diverse needs of a modern workforce. Companies need to consider individual employee circumstances, including disability, age, and parental responsibilities, to navigate this new landscape successfully. Inflexible RTO mandates not only risk alienating key segments of the workforce but also invite a host of legal challenges.

By embracing flexibility and inclusivity in return-to-work strategies, employers can mitigate legal risks, foster employee engagement, and build a more inclusive and productive work environment.

Gleb Tsipursky, Ph.D. (a.k.a. “the office whisperer”), helps tech and finance industry executives drive collaboration, innovation, and retention in hybrid work. He serves as the CEO of the boutique future-of-work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts. He is the bestselling author of seven books, including Never Go With Your Gut and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams. His expertise comes from over 20 years of consulting for Fortune 500 companies from Aflac to Xerox and over 15 years in academia as a behavioral scientist at UNC–Chapel Hill and Ohio State.


EY is considering closing one of its major HQs because of remote working and climate change

Ryan Hogg
Tue, November 21, 2023

Jack Taylor—Getty Images


The corporate world’s post-COVID era has been defined by a tug-of-war between staff and employers over returning to the office. Amid a wave of new mandates from major companies, it looks like the bosses have been winning.

Now, though, Big Four accounting firm EY could be pulling the balance back towards long-term worker flexibility by potentially committing to long-term hybrid working.

The partnership is reportedly looking to give up its London Bridge office—its home for the last 20 years—in the latest blow for corporate real estate as companies adapt to worker demands.

The Telegraph and Bloomberg reported that the accountancy firm is considering vacating its massive 10-story building near London Bridge that houses 9,000 employees, citing people familiar with the matter.

EY launched a property review of its U.K. headquarters at More London under the belief that fewer people are working in the office, the publications reported.

The reported review comes ahead of the end of the group’s 25-year lease at More London in 2028. The review is in its early phases and is expected to take into account occupancy levels, according to the publications.

EY moved to a hybrid model in the U.K. in 2021. This gave staff the freedom to work remotely at least two days a week, with an expectation that they would work at client sites or in the office the rest of the time.

It’s understood that the More London office now operates at 88% occupancy on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the publications reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Bloomberg reported that EY was considering moving to an environmentally friendly building to help towards its goal of being carbon neutral by 2025, citing one person.

A representative for EY told Fortune: “As a growing business with over 20 offices across the U.K., we continually review our real estate footprint. We do not comment on speculation.”
Office space shrinking

Pricey real estate has been a big motivator for companies trying to get their workers back into the office, particularly those that took up long leases before the pandemic struck. But other major companies have begun vacating their office space as they either embrace hybrid working or spy opportunities to cut costs.

In June, global banking giant HSBC said it was planning to move out of its iconic Canary Wharf headquarters, the Times of London first reported.

The group, which housed nearly 8,000 staff in the 45-story building, said it expected to move to the center of London in 2027 amid a drive to reduce global office space by 40%.

In September, Meta ended a lease on office space in the center of London 18 years ahead of schedule, citing an inability to fill it. The move cost Mark Zuckerberg’s company an eye-watering £149 million ($181 million).

Plans to shrink office space or leave it altogether have been the source of major headaches for London’s corporate real estate operators, who face years of painful adjustment to the new future of work.

In September, investment bank Jefferies said London was in a “rental recession” as office vacancies in the city hit a 30-year high, Reuters reported.

A June report by Capital Economics predicted a 35% plunge in office values by 2025, a decline that is unlikely to be recovered until 2040.

The consultancy’s predictions are far from an outlier. The head of real estate brokerage CBRE said commercial real estate value in the U.S. could decline by another 10% on top of an initial decline of 15% to 20%.

Gary Shilling, an economist who predicted the 2008 housing crash, described commercial real estate as a bubble on the verge of bursting.

“This isn’t of the magnitude of the subprime-mortgage bonanza, but I think it is a bubble which is beginning to crack,” Shilling said on investing podcast The Julia La Roche Show.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

CHEMICAL INDUSTRY LOBBY
A 'black day' for the EU Green Deal: lawmakers reject proposal to cut use of chemical pesticides

SAMUEL PETREQUIN
Updated Wed, November 22, 2023 

FILE - European Union flags wave in the wind as pedestrians walk by EU headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023. EU lawmakers have rejected a proposal from the bloc’s executive arm to set legally binding targets to reduce the use of chemical pesticides by 50% by 2030 and a ban on all pesticide use in areas such public parks, playgrounds and schools.

 (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)More

BRUSSELS (AP) — In a blow to the European Green Deal, EU lawmakers on Wednesday rejected a plan to reduce the use of chemical pesticides by 50% by 2030 and to ban all pesticide use in areas such as public parks, playgrounds and schools.

After a series of amendments watered down the proposal of the EU's executive Commission, the bill was rejected in a 299 to 207 vote, with 121 abstentions. It buried the bill for good and any new proposal would need to start from scratch after June elections for members of the European Parliament.

The vote came less than a week after the use of the controversial chemical herbicide glyphosate in the 27-nation bloc was extended for 10 more years.

“This is a very black day for the health of society and for the environment, and also for farmers who need to be free from the agro-industry," said Sarah Wiener, a Green lawmaker who was rapporteur for the proposal. “To put it bluntly, the majority of MEPs put the profits of big agri over the health of our children and the planet.”

“There is not going to be a new sustainable use of pesticides regulation,” Wiener added.

The European Commission said last year that current rules limiting the use of pesticides were too weak and had not been applied consistently across the EU.

The EU’s main agricultural group, COPA-COGECA, welcomed the rejection of the bill and called for an improved dialogue between farmers and the 27-nation bloc's institutions.

“Let’s not forget that this proposal was ideological from the outset, with no connection to the realities of agriculture, proposing unrealistic transitions without the necessary funding,” the group said. “Let’s not forget that all this polarization could have been avoided and solutions found without the ideological obstinacy of a few decision-makers.”

As part of its plan to become climate neutral by 2050, the European Union has adopted a wide range of measures, from reducing energy consumption to sharply cutting transportation emissions and reforming the EU’s trading system for greenhouse gases. But with next year's elections for the European Parliament looming, some leaders and lawmakers are concerned about antagonizing voters with binding legislation and restrictive requirements.

The Left group at the Parliament blamed Christian Democrats, Liberals, and far-right parties for weakening the proposed legislation and removing binding goals to such an extent that it was impossible for their MEPs to support it.

“The obligation to reduce agricultural pesticide use by at least 50% by 2030 and the requirement to reduce the use of hazardous agricultural pesticides by at least 65% by 2030 were voted down,” the group said in a statement. “Restrictions on toxin use in sensitive natural areas were completely removed from the law by the right-wing bloc.”

Madeleine Coste, a campaigner with the Slow Food organization promoting biodiversity and support for small-scale farmers, rued that “a majority in the Parliament has decided to side with the agroindustry and its allies, who have lobbied against this proposal over the last two years, ignoring the scientific consensus on the need to transform our current food system.”

UK
Great Climate Fight: Show sparks viewer anger at government 'gaslighting'

Kevin McCloud's new Channel 4 documentary was hailed by viewers for bringing climate awareness to primetime television - but at the same time left many furious over the flaws in legislation.

Albertina Lloyd
·Contributor
Wed, November 22, 2023 

Kevin McCloud was one of the presenter of The Great Climate Fight. (Channel 4) (Channel 4/The Great Climate Fight)

What did you miss?

Kevin McCloud's The Great Climate Fight has sparked an outpouring of anger at the government for avoiding legislation to tackle climate change.

The Grand Designs star joined Mary Portas and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to present the new Channel 4 documentary about global warming and the government’s commitment to achieve carbon net zero by 2050.

The show was hailed by viewers for bringing climate awareness to primetime television, but at the same timer left many furious at what some called government "gaslighting".

Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had pledged to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 . (AFP via Getty Images) (JUSTIN TALLIS via Getty Images)
What, how, and why?

In the show, retail consultant Portas looked at the Sixth Carbon Budget, an official document which sets out how the UK can reach zero carbon by 2050.

The Secret Shopper presenter asked why Rishi Sunak's government isn’t working harder to hit those targets.

Property expert McLoud highlighted how poor-insulation in homes results in high gas bills and questioned why housing secretary Michael Gove and construction companies are doing nothing to work towards building new homes to be greener.

And celebrity chef Fearnley-Whittingstall called for an end to the effective ban in England on onshore wind farms, brought in by David Cameron's Conservative government eight years ago.

Viewers were outraged by what they saw.

One wrote on social medial platform X, formerly known as Twitter: "Oh dear, turns out there is an evidence base that some Tory politicians monumentally stupid about the climate crisis, their leaders gaslighting liars, probably corruptly linked to anti-green lobbyists. Who’d have thought so easy for Channel 4 to make The Great Climate Fight?"

Another fumed: "Just watched part one of the Great Climate Fight on @Channel4. Just made me angry that the government are just gaslighting us. They have the plans and technology to transition us away from fossil fuels, they are just unwilling to do it."

Another declared: "The Great Climate Fight @Channel4 Hear how activists like Just Stop Oil are on the right side of history, our government is lying to us & themselves. We have the solution but our government is blocking them! Be angry, be brave, join us on the streets"

And another viewer posted: "Powerful stuff on The Great Climate Fight tonight. Episode 2 tomorrow night on Channel 4. Why can't the governement pay attention to what needs to be done by following the advice of experts & just be open & honest to help take us all on the 'journey' with them? Have a look."

Kevin McCloud had planned to confront Michael Gove at a book launch. (Channel 4 screengrab) (Channel 4 screengrab)

What else happened on The Great Climate Fight?

McCloud was outraged himself during filming for the show when he learned he had been reported to the Met Police.

The TV presenter planned to confront Gove at a book launch, for which he had obtained a press ticket.

Her revealed he had had an email from the organisers of the event saying his ticket had been cancelled and they had informed the police of his plan to attend.

McCloud revealed: “He goes onto say, not only has he cancelled my ticket, he’s also reported me to the Met Police. For what? For impersonation of myself?

“On properly checking, they said I can come. I now have my press pass. For God’s sake! I just want to ask somebody a question.”

The Great Climate Fight part two airs on Channel 4 on Wednesday at 9pm and is available to stream now
Read more: The Great Climate Fight

Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud's shock at being reported to Met Police


Carbon removal is the latest way to fight climate change


World has 14% chance of keeping warming below 1.5C in best case (Bloomberg, 3 min read)

Scotland’s only oil refinery to shut amid fears of Starmer-led crackdown

LABOUR IS NOT THE GOVERNMENT,YET

Jonathan Leake
Wed, November 22, 2023 

Grangemouth refinery is to halt operations by 2025 - Jane Barlow/PA

Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s energy and chemicals empire is to shut Scotland’s only oil refinery amid surging energy costs and fears that a Labour crackdown on the North Sea will make it unviable.

Grangemouth refinery is to halt operations by 2025, putting hundreds of jobs at risk and leaving Scotland and the north of England dependent on imports for its fuel. Analysts said the closure is likely to raise forecourt costs for drivers.

Petroineos, the joint venture between PetroChina and Sir Jim’s Ineos that runs the refinery, on Wednesday announced plans to stop refining at Grangemouth and turn the complex into a fuel import terminal.

It means the site will stop processing crude oil in early 2025, wiping out the jobs and skills associated with the refining side of the business. As many as 500 roles are feared to be at risk.

The announcement comes a month after Andrew Gardner, the chairman of Petroineos, warned that Labour’s plans for the North Sea put Grangemouth at risk.

Mr Gardner told The Telegraph that Sir Keir Starmer’s promise to ban new oil and gas projects in the North Sea risked leaving Grangemouth without enough fuel to refine.

He said: “We want to keep jobs and manufacturing here but Labour hasn’t understood that we need supplies. I need natural gas, ready, cheap and available as a feedstock.”

In an email to staff on Wednesday, Petroineos said it would “soon be unable to compete effectively with bigger, more modern and efficient refineries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa”.

The announcement comes as Labour are 20 points ahead in the polls, with an election looming next year.

Grangemouth is the only fuel refinery in Scotland and one of only six remaining in the UK. It supplies 80pc of Scotland’s fuel and has been a vital piece of national infrastructure for the past century.

It also supplies raw materials to the adjacent petrochemical and plastics plant run by Ineos Olefins and Polymers (Ineos O&P) whose raw plastics and polymers go into UK products ranging from construction materials to clothing.

Last year Ineos Grangemouth, which owns Ineos O&P, reported a loss of nearly £300m, compared with a £10m profit in 2021, which it blamed largely on the surging cost of energy.

The refinery operation also faces its own high energy bills.

Such costs are compounded by political uncertainty. Grangemouth is fed by the Forties Pipeline network, which links it to 80 of the UK’s offshore oil and gas fields. Most of those fields are in decline but would normally be replaced by new wells. However, Labour plans to ban new drilling if it wins power.

Ashley Kelty, a director and energy analyst at Panmure Gordon investment bank, said the decision to close the facility would “impact fuel security for the UK and will potentially lead to higher costs on the forecourts as imported fuel costs will have to be passed onto consumers”.

He said: “This is another sign of a lack of governmental support for key industries – mainly through an ignorance of the energy transition and belief that renewables are able to fill the gaps.”

Douglas Lumsden, the Scottish Tories’ shadow energy secretary, said: “This is devastating news for the workers at Grangemouth and will be a hammer blow for the local and national economy if it goes ahead.

“The hostile attitude shown towards Scotland’s oil and gas industry from the SNP-Green government – as well as Keir Starmer and Labour’s betrayal of the sector – will have been a factor behind this decision.

“They all fail to recognise the need for oil and gas – such as the refinery at Grangemouth – to be part of Scotland and the UK’s energy mix for years to come.”

Franck Demay, chief executive of Petroineos Refining, said: “As the energy transition gathers pace, this is a necessary step in adapting our business to reflect the decline in demand for the type of fuels we produce.”

Grangemouth accounts for 4pc of Scottish GDP and 8pc of the country’s manufacturing base.

In its email to staff, Petroineos said: “We operate in a global industry that is highly competitive and Grangemouth – like many other refineries – will soon be unable to compete effectively with bigger, more modern and efficient refineries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

“The energy transition is also well underway and demand for road fuels we produce has started to decline and is expected to reduce steadily over the coming years.”

Mr Kelty said: “The anti-business Scottish government and militant trade unions have made it very difficult for Ineos to make improvements in the past, so they would be partly to blame for this decision.”

Sharon Graham, general secretary of trade union Unite, said: “This proposal clearly raises concerns for the livelihoods of our members but also poses major questions over energy supply and security going forward.”

Derek Thomson, Unite Scottish secretary, said: “Unite continues to engage with Petroineos, and we urge other stakeholders such as the Scottish and UK governments to do the same due to the implications that this proposal will have for the economies of the devolved and reserved administrations.

“Every option must be on the table in order to secure the hundreds of highly skilled jobs based at the Grangemouth complex for the long-term.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat economy spokesman Willie Rennie called on the UK and Scottish governments to “step up”, calling it a “dark day for the workers at Grangemouth”.

 Massive find made by seafloor mapping team in Pacific Ocean, scientists say

Mark Price
Wed, November 22, 2023 at 9:38 AM MST·2 min read

A Pacific seafloor mapping project has located a mountain “twice as high as the Burj Khalifa” in Dubai, which is the world’s tallest building, according to the Schmidt Ocean Institute.

The 5,249-foot-high seamount covers a massive 5.4 square miles and hides 1.5 miles below sea level in international waters, the institute reports.

It was discovered by a team aboard the research vessel Falkor (too), about 84 nautical miles outside the Guatemalan Exclusive Economic Zone, officials said.

“A seamount over 1.5 kilometers tall which has, until now, been hidden under the waves really highlights how much we have yet to discover,” Schmidt Ocean Institute Executive Director Jyotika Virmani said in the release. “It’s exciting to be living in an era where technology allows us to map and see these amazing parts of our planet for the first time!”

“The seamount is located in the Guatemala basin ... in an area of the seafloor that is roughly 20 million years old,” the institute said.

Seamounts are underwater mountains that typically begin as volcanoes, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says.

“Most seamounts are remnants of extinct volcanoes. Typically, they are cone shaped, but often have other prominent features such as craters and linear ridges and some, called guyots, have large, flat summits,” NOAA reports.

“The number of seamounts that are at least 1,000 meters high is thought to be greater than 100,000. Despite their abundance, however, less than one-tenth of a percent of the seamounts in the world have been explored.”

Seamounts are of interest to scientists because they serve “oases of life,” hosting deep sea corals, sponges and “a host of invertebrates,” experts say.

The newly discovered seamount “has a classic volcano appearance,” marine technician Tomer Ketter told McClatchy News in an email.

This includes “a round shape with steep round sides and a generally flat top dotted by a secondary, discrete peak and a crater which is a remnant of its volcanic origin and activity.”

“The seamount is located in the Guatemala basin ... in an area of the seafloor that is roughly 20 million years old and most likely not exhibiting volcanic activity anymore,” Ketter said.

The Falkor (too) has made a series of seafloor discoveries since launching in March, including “two additional uncharted seamounts in the Galápagos Islands Marine Reserve, three new hydrothermal vent fields, a new ecosystem underneath hydrothermal vents, and two pristine cold-water coral reefs,” the institute said.

Identity of massive WWII shipwreck confirmed when team finds name still etched on bow

‘Geological wonder’ in seafloor canyon off Hawaii resembles a wall of sunken columns

‘Lost cities.’ New hydrothermal vent towers found billowing in Mid-Atlantic, team says

Is OpenAI Melting Down Because It Secretly Created Something Really Scary?
Victor Tangermann
Tue, November 21, 2023 



Everyone's still scrambling to find a plausible explanation as to why OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was suddenly fired from his position last Friday, a decision that has led to absolute carnage at the company and beyond.

Beyond some vague language accusing him of not being "consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities," the company's nonprofit board has stayed frustratingly quiet as to why it sacked Altman.

And at the time of writing, the company's future is still in the air, with the vast majority of employees ready to quit unless Altman is reinstated.

While we await more clarity on that front, it's worth looking back at the possible reasoning behind Altman's ousting. One particularly provocative possibility: there's been plenty of feverish speculation surrounding Altman's role in the company's efforts to realize a beneficial artificial general intelligence (AGI) — its stated number one goal since it was founded in 2015 — and how that may have led to his dismissal.

Was the board cutting Altman out to rescue humanity from impending doom, in other words? It sounds very scifi, but then again so does the whole company.

Making matters even hazier is that we still haven't fully agreed on a single definition of AGI, a term that roughly equates to a point at which an AI can conduct intellectual tasks on a level with us humans.

OpenAI's own definition states that AGI is a "system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work," but that doesn't quite capture the way some of OpenAI's own leaders are talking about the notion. Just last week, days before he was ousted, Altman himself described AGI as a "magic intelligence in the sky" during an interview with the Financial Times, invoking a borderline God-like entity — language echoed by the company's chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who was instrumental in kicking Altman out of OpenAI.

But how close is OpenAI really to achieving that goal? Some have speculated that OpenAI's board rushed to dump the former CEO because he was acting recklessly and didn't sufficiently consider the risks of developing an AGI.

That line of reasoning could suggest the company may be closer than it's letting on, especially considering the apparent urgency surrounding Altman's firing (even major investor Microsoft was blindsided).

However, telling with any degree of certainty when we've actually come to the point where an AI algorithm is better at completing a given task than a human is far trickier than it sounds.

Some researchers have offered up possible frameworks to gauge if any given algorithm has achieved levels of AGI performance, but other experts argue it's a transition that won't simply happen overnight.

Earlier this year, Microsoft researchers claimed that OpenAI's GPT-4 is showing "sparks" of an AGI, comments that were quickly criticized by their peers.

After Altman published a blog post about the topic in February, fleshing out his company's goal of creating an AGI that "benefits all of humanity," experts were left unimpressed.

"The term AGI is so loaded, it's misleading to toss it around as though it's a real thing with real meaning," Bentley University mathematics professor Noah Giansiracusa argued in a tweet at the time. "It's not a scientific concept, it's a sci-fi marketing ploy."

"Your system isn't AGI, it isn't a step towards AGI, and yet you're dropping that in as if the reader is just supposed to nod along," added University of Washington linguistics professor Emily Bender.

In short, we still don't know how close OpenAI is to realizing its goal, and given what we've seen so far — heck, GPT-4 can't even reliably tell truth from fiction — it's likely going to take a lot more research to get there.

Under Altman's leadership, OpenAI's own core priorities have notably shifted. Last month, Semafor reported that the firm changed its purported "core values" on its website to focus them on AGI, swapping values on a job openings page from "Audacious," "Thoughtful," "Unpretentious," and "Impact-driven" to "AGI focus" — the first on the list — "Intense and scrappy," "Scale," and "Team spirit."

The timing of Altman's firing could also offer clues. Early last week, the company proudly announced a new, more efficient version of its large language model called GPT-4 Turbo, as well as tools that allow users to create their own chatbots using its tech.

It's still technically possible Altman's moves to capitalize on the company's financial successes, most notably ChatGPT, may have instilled fear among OpenAI's board. The announcements last week triggered a frenzy, with OpenAI being forced to temporarily pause new sign-ups to its paid ChatGPT Plus service due to "overwhelming demand."

For now, we're reading tea leaves left by a deeply weird group of people.

Considering OpenAI chief scientist and board member Ilya Sutskever almost immediately regretted his central role in the board's move to discharge Altman, it's likely that the situation is far more complex than the company is letting on.

"I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions," he tweeted. "I never intended to harm OpenAI."

"Why did you take such a drastic action?" SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who cofounded OpenAI alongside Altman but left the company in 2018 over core disagreements and has since rung the alarm bells over the tech, replied.

"If OpenAI is doing something potentially dangerous to humanity, the world needs to know," he added.

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