Israel urges caution on Gaza death toll after UN cuts figures
Jotam Confino

TELEGRAPH
Fri, 17 May 2024 

Palestinians attend a funeral in Gaza City - Khalil Hamra/AP


Israel has urged the West to treat death figures from Hamas more cautiously, after the UN began citing dramatically lower totals for the numbers of women and children killed.

Until May 8, the UN cited data from the Hamas-run Gaza Government Media Office with the last death toll before then at 35,000, including 9,500 women and 14,500 children.

But on that day, the UN shifted to providing information from the Gaza Health Ministry – also run by Hamas – which has fully identified 25,000 dead, including 4,959 women and 7,797 children.


The new figure is around half of the previous total of women and children who were reported dead.

The Health Ministry said it has the corpses of a further 10,000 people, but has not been able to secure information to meet its standard for identification, which includes full names and official ID numbers.

A UN official said that the international body believes the overall number of dead still stands at roughly 35,000, but is awaiting further information on 10,000 people.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has said that 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza in the war since Oct 7, with 14,000 of that number terrorists and 16,000 civilians.

Tal Heinrich, the spokeswoman for the office of Mr Netanyahu, told The Telegraph: “Hamas has a clear incentive to increase casualties and inflate the numbers in an attempt to encourage international pressure on Israel.

“It is proven beyond any doubt that the data of the Hamas Ministry of Health in Gaza is part of the Hamas fake propaganda apparatus.

“Only recently, the UN has significantly revised the number of women and children killed in Gaza and cut them by half.

Media outlets and organisations should take any numbers provided by Hamas with a grain of salt.”

On Friday, Martin Griffiths, the UN’s humanitarian aid chief, defended the organisation’s death toll figures, saying it was hard to find accurate information in a war zone.

He told the BBC: “I’d like to remind anybody listening to this that Gaza is a war zone and the collection of data and statistics, while admirable and necessary, is first of all secondary to actually delivering some aid, and secondly very difficult in cases of insecurity and violence.

“So, that’s my first point – be realistic, please, about what’s possible in the middle of what we’re seeing in Gaza.”

A Palestinian woman with bodies of people killed by Israeli shelling in Gaza - Said Khatib/AFP

Mr Griffiths added that he believes the UN is “very cautious with these figures and I think it’s not right to blame the messenger who is trying to get the truth out of what is a very complicated situation”.

The reduced totals of dead women and children cited by the UN provoked a storm of criticism within Israel.

The foreign ministry said: “Interestingly, the [UN] did not release any press releases or statements, almost as if this reduction was a secret.

“They recently had trouble explaining why there was such a disparity in the numbers in the first place.”

Israel Katz, the country’s foreign minister, called on António Guterres, the UN secretary general, to step down.

On Tuesday, Christian Lindmeier, a spokesman for the WHO, insisted that casualty figures from Hamas could still be relied on, despite the discrepancy revealed by the UN.

He said: “Nothing wrong with the data, the overall data [more than 35,000] are still the same. The fact we now have 25,000 identified people is a step forward.”
Death toll expected to rise

The UN has said it expects the death toll of women and children to rise as more identifying information is found.

Death figures provided by the Gaza Ministry of Health have proved accurate in previous rounds of fighting. However, they do not distinguish between civilians and Hamas members.

Meirav Eilon Shahar, ambassador and permanent representative of Israel to the UN and international organisations in Geneva, said on Twitter: “Seriously WHO? There is ‘nothing wrong with the data’ provided by the Hamas-run Health Ministry?

“What about the issue: Hamas does not differentiate between civilians and terrorists! Let alone relying on the figures of a terrorist organisation.

“For months, the WHO and the UN have continuously shared unverified information – one might say misinformation.”

Despite the UN changing its estimate in the latest report, the Palestinian Red Crescent issued a statement on Thursday claiming over 15,000 children had been killed in Gaza.

What We Know About the Death Toll in Gaza

Brian Bennett
Fri, 17 May 2024 


Boys watch smoke billowing during Israeli strikes east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 13, 2024 

The question of how many people have died in Gaza since Israel began a bombing and ground campaign in response to Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 attack has taken on renewed urgency as President Biden tries to forestall a full assault by Israel against Hamas’ leadership and remaining battalions into the densely-populated city of Rafah. A recent decision by the United Nations to change how it reported Gaza's death toll has further created confusion, prompting some to incorrectly claim that the U.N. had dramatically lowered its estimate of those killed in the conflict.

While Biden has kept his commitment to sell $1 billion in arms and ammunition to Israel, he announced on May 8 that he would pause a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs over concerns about their potential use inside Rafah. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said this week it “would be a mistake to launch a major military operation into the heart of Rafah that would put huge numbers of civilians at risk without a clear strategic gain." The Biden Administration has shared intelligence and tactics with Israel in an effort to prevent a large-scale bombardment in the city. All of those actions reflect growing concern within the U.S. government over the number of civilians who have been killed in the conflict.

Here’s what we know about Gaza’s death toll and where those estimates come from.

How many people have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7?

There is no independent source for the death toll in Gaza. The U.S. says it doesn’t keep its own count of fatalities in Gaza. Neither does the World Health Organization or the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, both United Nations agencies that track fatalities in war zones.

The United Nations has published and credited third-party estimates of the number of those killed and injured in the war. Those include estimates that more than 34,900 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and more than 1,200 people in Israel.

The number of dead in Gaza is based on information released by three Hamas-controlled entities: the Gaza Ministry of Health, Gaza’s government media office and the Gaza chapter of the Palestinian Civil Defense, which provides emergency response there. Critics question the U.N.’s use of estimates based on data coming from Hamas, an organization that has controlled Gaza since 2007 and is committed to the elimination of Israel. The figures don’t distinguish between civilians and fighters killed.

The U.N. agencies have provided several reasons for crediting the figures coming out of Gaza.

The agencies cite more than a decade of “generally accurate” numbers from the Gaza Ministry of Health through multiple mass-casualty conflicts there. U.N. officials say that the list of the dead compiled by the authorities in Gaza are used to issue death certificates that are in turn used for settling estates and land ownership. This creates an incentive for the ministry to accurately confirm the identities of those who have died, the U.N. says.

“Unfortunately, we have the sad experience of coordinating with the Ministry of Health on casualty figures every few years for large mass-casualty incidents in Gaza; and in past times, their figures have proven to be generally accurate,” Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, said on May 13 during a press briefing with reporters.

The U.N.’s World Health Organization also credits the data provided by Gaza’s health ministry, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters in Geneva on May 14. Lindmeier said that the WHO has been told by the Gaza Ministry of Health that about 24,000 dead people had been formally identified and about 10,000 remained missing and had yet to be identified. The WHO believes thousands of those missing could still be buried under the rubble in active combat zones, Lindmeier said.

Both Israeli and U.S. officials have said that Hamas' tactics, including its use of civilian facilities like hospitals and schools for military purposes, have contributed to the war’s civilian death toll.

Why did the U.N. lower its death toll of women and children in Gaza?

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) caused confusion in early May when it changed how it reported the number of women and children killed in Gaza.

For months, the agency had been regularly updating an estimated total death toll in Gaza and breaking that total down by gender and age. Those figures were based on information provided to the U.N. by three Hamas-controlled entities: the Gaza Ministry of Health, Hamas’s government media office, and the Gaza chapter of the Palestinian Civil Defense, which provides emergency response in Gaza.

On May 6, the U.N. agency published the Gaza government media office’s latest estimate that 14,500 children and 9,500 women had been killed. Two days later, OCHA reported a much lower number of Palestinian women and children killed in the conflict based on those who the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health claimed had been specifically identified by name. The new figures were 7,797 children and 4,959 women killed and subsequently identified.

OCHA did not change its overall estimate that more than 34,900 Palestinians have died. That larger total includes both those whose identities have been confirmed, and an estimate that 10,000 additional dead are missing and have not been accounted for. OCHA opted to change how it broke down the deaths after it began receiving more detailed information on verified, identified victims from the Gaza Ministry of Health, an OCHA official said.

The changed numbers drew attention to the continuing reliance by the U.N. and the U.S. government on Hamas-controlled entities for information about the conflict in Gaza.

“These numbers are having a profound influence on U.S. policy,” says David Adesnik, senior fellow and director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Adesnik is skeptical of the Gaza health ministry’s methods that rely on media reports to estimate how many are dead beyond those whose remains have been identified and says that Hamas-controlled entities “have shown they are willing to distort the truth.” The death toll has already shaped American foreign policy, says Adesnik. “There is strong evidence that the Biden Administration’s faith in numbers from the Gaza health ministry is one of the main reasons it has begun to put so much pressure on Israel,” Adesnik says.

How does the U.S. government describe the death toll?

The U.S. government has cited the same figures that Hamas-controlled entities have provided to the U.N. During his March 7 State of the Union speech, President Biden said that “more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed — most of whom are not Hamas.” Biden did not provide a source for that number, but the White House later confirmed that it was based on the Gaza Ministry of Health numbers.

The U.S. government again relied on the same tally in early May in a public State Department memo about whether U.S. weapons are being used to violate international laws of war. “The Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health is the primary source for these numbers, which international organizations generally deem credible, but do not differentiate between Hamas fighters and civilians,” read the report.

How many of those killed in Gaza were Hamas fighters?

The U.S. hasn’t been able to independently verify how many Hamas fighters have been killed in Gaza. The Israeli government has said that about half of those killed there have been fighters. Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu repeated this claim on May 12. During the “Call Me Back” podcast hosted by the former U.S. government advisor Dan Senor, Netanyahu said that about 30,000 people had been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, of those he said 14,000 were “combatants” and “around 16,000 civilians have been killed.” There has not yet been any independent confirmation of Israel's estimates. News outlets have previously cited Hamas officials estimating between 6,000 and 8,000 of their fighters have been killed.

In war zones, the percentage of civilians killed can vary widely. Studies have shown that more civilians die during fighting in urban areas. In a U.N. Security Council report titled, "Protection of civilians in armed conflict”, the U.N. examined the rate of civilian casualties in populated areas during conflicts in the year 2021. It found that 89 percent of deaths in urban areas were civilians. In non-urban areas that year, the civilian death rate fell to 10 percent.

#BDS

Cambridge graduation ceremonies forced elsewhere by pro-Palestine camp

Ewan Somerville
Fri, 17 May 2024 

Negotiations are set to begin with the Cambridge pro-Palestine protesters next week - Getty/Martin Pope


Students at the University of Cambridge have been forced to graduate in a less traditional venue because of pro-Palestine disruption.

Activists pitched tents outside Senate House, the grand venue where Cambridge graduations have been held since the 18th century, earlier this week in an attempt to force bosses to meet their demands on the Israel-Gaza war.

It led to Friday and Saturday’s ceremonies being moved by university chiefs to Downing College – which was announced to all students due to graduate but not publicly – with security patrols stepped up.


By Friday morning the protesters had ended their occupation of the lawn at Senate House, claiming that bosses had now agreed to start negotiations with them next week, but the graduations were not moved back in time.

In a statement, the camp organisers Cambridge for Palestine said: “The university has agreed to negotiate and met a number of our preconditions.

“Our goal from the Senate House yard occupation has been accomplished, in a step towards distancing our university from genocide.

“This small victory paves the way for our demands to be met in future negotiations.”
Camp remains standing

The Telegraph understands the university has agreed that students taking part in talks will not be disciplined and that faculty members will be used as observers and mediators rather than third parties.

Cambridge’s main pro-Palestine camp, outside King’s College, remains standing along with others at dozens of universities across Britain, as activists try to copy the occupations that swept US universities last month.

The demands of the main Cambridge camp, which still numbers at least 30 tents on King’s Parade, are similar to those on campuses nationwide.

They are for bosses to disclose financial investments, divest from companies with links to the war in Gaza, reinvest in Palestinian academia and become a “university of sanctuary” for “all forced migrants”.

The university did not answer questions about whether it would cave into the demands, but denied it was a negotiation.

Prof Bhaskar Vira, pro-vice-chancellor for education, said: “We were glad to meet our students as we have been willing to do from the first day of the protest. While we understand some will see it as a negotiation, we see it as a constructive dialogue with our students.”

On Friday, pictures showed lines of students in gowns processing from their individual colleges to the new venue. They were allowed to take photographs of each other in their robes outside Senate House afterwards with security officers patrolling the gates.
‘Alternative arrangements’

In an earlier statement on Tuesday, the university said: “We regret that due to the ongoing presence of protesters on Senate House lawn, we have taken the very difficult decision to make alternative arrangements for the degree congregations this weekend.

“All students who want to graduate this weekend will still be able to attend their degree congregation at an alternative location that is fitting of the occasion.

“We are confident that ceremonies will be a memorable and enjoyable experience for students and their guests.”

Former home secretary Suella Braverman paid a visit to the Cambridge King’s College camp on Thursday, where she was met with a wall of silence when she asked the protesters questions about Israel and the hostages seized by Hamas.

“I’m very concerned about this anti-Semitism on campus. We have a lot of Jewish students feeling very intimidated and harassed on campus,” the MP told the student newspaper Varsity.

Meanwhile, at the University of Oxford, where another pro-Palestinian camp has been erected, a letter from staff and students this week claimed that when when some had raised concerns about anti-Semitism to their heads of programmes, they were “simply advised to leave Oxford”.

Oxford said it was “unequivocal in its position that there is no place for anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or unlawful discrimination of any kind”.

Demonstrators at the London School of Economics became the latest to occupy part of a campus this week, joining peers in Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield, Leeds, Warwick and Bristol.

Protestors camp outside University of York in show of support for Palestine

Alice Kavanagh
Fri, 17 May 2024

Pro Palestine protestors camp out at the University of York (Image: Newsquest)


A PRO-PALESTINIAN encampment at the University of York has been set up with no end date in sight.

As The Press reported earlier this week, York Palestine Solidarity Encampment has been set up outside Heslington Hall at the University of York where students and staff plan to remain until they feel the university has done enough to stand in solidarity with Palestine.

With the first day of their camp scheduled for the 76th anniversary of Nakba, the group told reporters that they were there as they felt their list of demands had not yet been met.

READ MORE:

‘We have got to keep hope in our hearts’: York protesters call for ceasefire in Gaza


'Free Palestine' protesters march through York

Whilst the university announced last month that they will no longer invest in companies that primarily make or sell weapons and defence-related products or services, those in the encampment believed they were still offering indirect support through research partnerships, sponsors, and some administrative facilities.

According to protestors, one such example of this is £11 million given to The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) AI Centres for Doctoral Training, who reportedly partner with BAE Systems.

One member of the camp said: “This sets a precedent of the University not investing personally but still accepting it.”

Another demand on their list was cut ties to Israeli universities and offer scholarships to Palestinian students. Linked to this is support for Fadi Hania – a Gazan student who had to flee the country with his family, something that pro-Palestinian groups helped him raise funds for – reportedly without the support of the University itself.

When The Press arrived on the site, around 4pm on the first afternoon of their encampment (May 15), the mood was relatively positive with ten to fifteen people dotted across the camp – studying, eating, and chatting.

Few were keen to speak openly, fearing negative repercussions (as have reportedly occurred at other universities), and others wore face coverings.

York Press: 
Signs at the encampment protest (Image: Newsquest)

According to the protestors, the reaction from university staff so far had been positive with campus security staff coming onto the site to chat with protestors about access arrangements and the Vice Chancellor paying a visit on the first morning on the encampment.

That being said, not all of those at the site were impressed with this – one person saying of the Vice Chancellor’s visit: “We’re waiting to see action on our demands, not just words.”

As of the first day, there is no end date planned for the encampment – whilst students will come and go as exam season progresses, there will be a presence on the campsite ‘indefinitely’ with designated study spaces set up and food donations given.

A GoFundMe, set up on the first morning, had raised around £600 in 5 hours at the time of our visit – this will go towards sustaining those on the campsite with any excess donated directly to groups that support those in Palestine.

A spokesperson for the University said in response to the encampment: “Our campus is a place where difficult issues can be discussed openly and through lawful protest and free speech. We need to make sure we listen and learn from each other, whilst together rejecting all forms of violence, intimidation and harassment.”

Australia's richest woman Gina Rinehart 'demands' portrait removed from exhibition

Jacob Phillips
Fri, 17 May 2024 

Gina Rinehart and her painting on display at the National Gallery of Australia (ES Composite)


Australia’s richest woman has reportedly demanded that her portrait be removed from an exhibition after being painted in what some may describe as an unflattering light.

The painting of Gina Rinehart is currently on display at the National Gallery of Australia as part of a collection of works by artist Vincent Namatjira, and features a prominent double chin.

Mr Namatjira, whose satirical paintings are known for their dry wit, told reporters in Australia that he “paints the world as he sees it”.


He said in a statement: "People don't have to like my paintings, but I hope they take the time to look and think, 'why has this Aboriginal bloke painted these powerful people? What is he trying to say?'

"I paint people who are wealthy, powerful, or significant - people who have had an influence on this country, and on me personally, whether directly or indirectly, whether for good or for bad.

"Some people might not like it, other people might find it funny, but I hope people look beneath the surface and see the serious side too.”

Vincent Namatjira in front of the exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia (Vincent Namatjira (Western Aranda people) with Vincent Namatjira: Australia in colour at the National Gallery of Australia)

Ms Rinehart has not commented publicly on the painting, Australian media reports.

The exhibition includes portraits of King Charles and Queen Elizabeth II as well as a self-portrait of the artist.

Mr Namatjira won the Ramsay Art Prize in 2019 and was the first indigenous artist to win the Archibald Prize in 2020.

He also received the Medal of the Order of Australia for his contribution to indigenous visual arts the same year, Sky News reports.

Lisa Slade, assistant director of artistic programmes at the Art Gallery of South Australia - where the work was on display until early this year - told ABC Radio Adelaide that Ms Rinehart did not complain when the item was first revealed.

Gina Rinehart is the richest woman in Australia (REUTERS)

She told the broadcaster that she suspects that Ms Rinehart has not personally seen the show.

Ms Slade said: "I think if you have seen the show you’ll have a different reading of the show but you will have a context for the way in which Gina is depicted and for the kind of storytelling inherent in the show.

“Ms Rinehart has not been subject to an aesthetic treatment, let’s say, that is any different to the way he has treated the other 20 Australians that are depicted in the series.”

She added: "Portraiture is not a photographic art, it is an art of expression, an art of creating a sense of identity, a sense of an individual."

A spokesperson for the National Gallery told Australia’s ABC News it “welcomes the public having a dialogue on our collection and displays".


Gina Rinehart’s Unflattering Portrait—and Reputation With Indigenous Australians

Koh Ewe

TIME
Thu, 16 May 2024 



Left: A close-up of a portrait of mining magnate Gina Rinehart from an exhibition by indigenous artist Vincent Namatjira. Right: Rinehart at a mining conference in Melbourne in 2015. Credit - Courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia | Carla Gottgens—Bloomberg/Getty Images

Gina Rinehart, Australia’s wealthiest person, is less than thrilled about a recent painting of her being exhibited at one of Australia’s largest art museums. But her reported attempts to get the unflattering portrait taken down is backfiring: the piece, part of a collection of portraits by an acclaimed indigenous artist, has been defended by the museum, the arts industry, and—perhaps worst for her—social media users, who have given it more attention than ever.

The portrait features Rinehart, who is 70 years old, with a misshapen head, downturned lips, and a double chin. It is part of an exhibition titled “Vincent Namatjira: Australia in colour,” which opened at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in Canberra in March and is set to run until July 21.

The exhibition of portraits by Namatjira, a 40-year-old Aboriginal Australian who has won the prestigious Archibald Prize for portraiture, also contains depictions of other famous people—including Queen Elizabeth II, former Australian soccer player Adam Goodes, and former Prime Ministers Julia Gillard and Scott Morrison—all in Namatjira’s signature style that often employs humor and exaggerated features to interrogate the rich and powerful.

Portraits from “Vincent Namatjira: Australia in colour.”Courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia

“I paint the world as I see it,” Namatjira said, in response to Reinhart’s reported attempts to have her portrait taken down, in a statement shared with TIME by the NGA on Thursday. “People don’t have to like my paintings, but I hope they take the time to look and think, ‘why has this Aboriginal bloke painted these powerful people? What is he trying to say?’”

“I paint people who are wealthy, powerful, or significant—people who have had an influence on this country, and on me personally, whether directly or indirectly, whether for good or for bad,” he said.

According to Namatjira, who explained his intention behind the exhibition at a panel discussion organized by the NGA in March, the portraits are meant to convey that “we are all equal in Australia, no matter where you’re from, no matter what you do or what background you’re from, or what heritage you’re from, we’re all Australian.” He added that the choice of wall colors—red, black, and yellow—represents the Aboriginal flag.


Namatjira, left, looks at the installation of his exhibition at the NGA.Courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia

This is not the first time Rinehart has featured in Namatjira’s paintings. In his 2017 paintings Gina Rinehart and Me and Gina Rinehart and Me II, she’s portrayed standing beside the artist himself; she was also painted as a standalone portrait in his 2017 series “The Richest.”

Rinehart, who took over mineral extraction company Hancock Prospecting from her father and whose net worth is estimated at over $30 billion, is known for her financial support of the country’s sporting scene. She’s also listed on the NGA’s website as a “friend” of the gallery for donating between A$4,999 (over $3,000) and A$9,999 (under $7,000) in the most recent fiscal quarter.

Rinehart directly contacted NGA council director Nick Mitzevich and chair Ryan Stokes to ask for the removal of her portrait, and associates of her company have lodged more than a dozen complaints to the gallery, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on Wednesday. A group of 20 Australian swimmers—a sport for which she’s known to provide vital funding—have also campaigned against her portrait on display, calling it “offensive to a great Australian.”

Rinehart, contacted through Hancock Prospecting, did not immediately respond to TIME’s request for comment.

The gallery is not backing down, saying in a statement on Wednesday that it “welcomes the public having a dialogue on our collection and displays.”

“Since 1973, when the National Gallery acquired Jackson Pollack’s Blue Poles, there has been a dynamic discussion on the artistic merits of works in the national collection, and/or on display at the gallery,” the NGA said. “We present works of art to the Australian public to inspire people to explore, experience and learn about art.”

The National Association for the Visual Arts also published a statement backing the right for artists to “create art about any subject and by any means.”

“While Rinehart has the right to express her opinions about the work,” the association’s executive director Penelope Benton said on Thursday, “she does not have the authority to pressure the gallery into withdrawing the painting simply because she dislikes it.”

Read More: An Australian Art Museum Is Installing a Toilet to Keep Its ‘Ladies Lounge’ Off Limits to Men

Rinehart has courted controversy before with Indigenous Australians. In 2022, Hancock Prospecting withdrew A$15 million (about $10 million) in sponsorship funding from Netball Australia after the national team voiced its support for Donnell Wallam, an Indigenous netballer who had refused to wear a uniform with the mining company’s logo. Wallam cited concerns about racist comments Rinehart’s late father had made against Aboriginal Australians, including that those who hadn’t “assimilated” should be sterilized—which Rinehart has long remained silent over, even as she faced growing public calls to apologize.

Now, instead of shielding the unflattering depiction of herself from public view, Rinehart finds herself the victim of the so-called Streisand effect—the phenomenon whereby attempts to quash attention to something ironically only cause it to get amplified—as news of her dissatisfaction with the art exhibition has inspired international coverage, which has resurfaced her family’s unsavory history, as well as widespread memes and mockery on social media.

Contact us at letters@time.com.

Thames Water’s biggest investor cuts value of its stake to zero

Jillian Ambrose
Fri, 17 May 2024

Thames Water supplies about a quarter of the UK’s population.

Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Thames Water’s biggest investor has slashed the value of its stake in the company to zero in the latest sign of an escalating financial crisis for Britain’s biggest water supplier.

The Canadian pension fund Omers issued a “full writedown” of its 31.7% stake in Thames’s troubled parent company in its annual report published on Friday, signalling that it believes its share is worth nothing.

The latest blow to the water supplier, which serves about a quarter of the UK’s population, marks a precipitous decline for a company that Omers valued at £700m at the end of 2022 and £990m at the end of 2021.

Related: The Guardian view on Britain’s dirty waterways: a failure of industry and regulation | Editorial

Omers signalled that Thames is now worthless a day after Michael McNicholas, a managing director at Omers Infrastructure, quit his role as non-executive director of Thames Water.

The decision to raze the value of Thames has emerged weeks after Omers, and the company’s other shareholders, refused to give the company £500m of emergency funding after branding its business plan “uninvestable”.

Alongside Omers, Thames shareholders include the British university staff pension scheme USS and the BT Pension Scheme manager Hermes. None have taken a dividend from Thames since they bought into the business in 2017.

The water company is now racing to avoid a multibillion-pound taxpayer-backed bailout after its parent company, Kemble, defaulted on its debt, raising fears that the company could face a significant restructure or even collapse.

Thames could be placed into special administration, which would result in the government stepping in and temporarily renationalising the company. This outcome would probably fuel critics of the Conservative government who argue the water company’s plight represents the failure of Margaret Thatcher’s privatisation agenda.

The Guardian revealed last month that under radical plans being drawn up in Whitehall, codenamed Project Timber, ministers would turn Britain’s biggest water company into a publicly owned arm’s-length body.

The plans, overseen by Defra and the Treasury, a new public corporation would be formed to hold the water monopoly, modelled on the company that built the £18.8bn Crossrail project, while Thames’s vast liabilities would be assumed into the government’s debt pile.

The water regulator, Ofwat, is reportedly working on rescue plans for Thames that could lead to the water company’s regional monopoly being dismantled and sold off to neighbouring rival suppliers under a scheme codenamed Project Telford.

Ofwat has tasked the former private equity banker Adrian Williams with overseeing the rescue bid, according to the Telegraph, in a last-ditch attempt to save the company from collapsing under the weight of a more than £15bn debt pile.

Under the plan, Thames could be split into two smaller suppliers: one covering London and the other supplying water services to Thames Valley and Home Countries regions. The company may end up being split up into as many as “a dozen” smaller companies, according to the report.

An Ofwat spokesperson said: “Safeguards are in place to ensure that services to customers are protected, regardless of issues faced by the shareholders.”

The strain on Thames’s finances was laid bare last month in a revised plan submitted by the water company to Ofwat, which revealed that the annual interest bill on its borrowings is expected to rise to about £3bn by 2030.

Thames was privatised in 1989 with no debt. In the decades since the water supplier has taken on more debt to help fund its infrastructure projects while paying large dividends to investors, most notably the Australian investment bank Macquarie.

The government was approached for comment.

 Post-Brexit rules on antibiotic use on farms water down EU laws, experts say

Fiona Harvey

 Environment editor

THE GUARDIAN
Thu, May 16, 2024 

One concern is that it will still be possible to give antibiotics prophylactically to large groups of animals.Photograph: David Tadevosian/Alamy


New rules intended to reduce the use of antibiotics in farming in the UK have been criticised as too lax and weaker than their equivalent under EU laws.

The updated regulations come into force on Friday. They ban the routine use of antibiotics on farm animals, and specifically their use to “compensate for poor hygiene, inadequate animal husbandry, or poor farm management practices”.

Experts, however, say there are loopholes in the legislation that are closed off under EU laws in place since 2022, and by which the UK would be bound if it were still a member state.

Ministers repeatedly promised, before and after Brexit, that farming and food standards in the UK would not be watered down after leaving the EU. The Guardian, however, has revealed numerous examples of environmental rules that have been weakened, from regulations on air pollution and water quality to pesticide use and agricultural emissions.

This latest divergence is of particular concern because the overuse of antibiotics in farming has dire consequences for human health. The UK’s former chief medical officer Sally Davies said in an interview with the Guardian earlier this week that antibiotic overuse was leading to the rise of near-invincible superbugs that pose a severe threat to human health, making previously minor ailments deadly and threatening to make routine operations unsafe.

About two-thirds of antibiotics globally are used on farm animals, and they are often used indiscriminately either to promote growth or to try to prevent infections that arise from overcrowding, poor management and insanitary conditions on factory farms.

The EU has taken strong steps to clamp down on overuse on its farms. Prof Roberto La Ragione, the head of the school of biosciences at the University of Surrey and a fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists, said preventing overuse was of vital importance.

“Antibiotics are critical to human and animal medicine, but the emergence of resistance is a global concern,” he said. “Therefore we must reduce their use to help stop the emergence and spread of resistance.

“We know that animal health and welfare are inextricably linked with our own, so it is vital that antibiotic resistance is tackled in humans and animals, and we can all play a part, from the scientific community to pet owners, vets, doctors, pharmacists, companies, farmers and the government.”

Under the new rules, it will still be possible to feed antibiotics prophylactically to large groups of animals, a practice campaigners say is effectively the same as, and just as dangerous as, routine use. The guidelines say this prophylaxis should only be “in exceptional circumstances”, but questions in parliament by the shadow minister Daniel Zeichner elicited a response from the farming minister Mark Spencer that this would include “where there would be a risk of infection or severe consequences if antibiotics were not applied”.

Coílín Nunan, a scientist adviser at the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, said this meant widespread prophylactic use on large groups of animals would still occur frequently, because when animals are kept in highly intensive conditions there is often significant risk of infection.

EU rules ban antibiotics for group prophylaxis, which is limited to an individual animal only.

Nunan said: “Unfortunately the government has deliberately weakened the legislation in comparison to the EU, and this will allow some poorly run farms to keep on feeding large groups of animals antibiotics, even when no disease is present.

“We are also concerned the ban on using antibiotics to compensate for inadequate animal husbandry and poor farm management practices may not be properly implemented.”

The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics wants the government to ban group prophylaxis, introduce mandatory data collection from farms on their use of antibiotics, set tougher targets for the reduction of farm antibiotic use and improve animal welfare and husbandry standards.

UK farming and veterinary oversight continue to be in turmoil after Brexit. There is a shortage of vets, and higher workloads as a result of the changes to animal certification and increased bureaucracy related to animal exports and imports.

A spokesperson for the Veterinary Medicines Directorate said: “We do not support the routine use of antibiotics, including where antibiotics are used to compensate for inadequate farming practices. However, a blanket ban of prophylaxis could be harmful to animal health and welfare, while also increasing the risk of diseases spreading.”

Governments must back plant farming — there's no two ways about it

Dr Carys Bennett
Fri, May 17, 2024 


As sea levels and temperatures rise, weather events worsen, and an increasing number of species face extinction, it’s more important than ever that we do more than pay lip service to reducing our environmental footprint — and that we do it without meat in our mouths.

We could have once been forgiven for not realising that animal agriculture — which encompasses not only meat but also egg and dairy production and co-products like leather and wool — is a leading driver of climate destruction, second only to fossil fuels.

But now it seems that every second scientific study warns us of the huge environmental toll that comes with commodifying animals.

Just recently, a first-of-its-kind report by researchers at Harvard, New York, Leiden, and Oregon State universities that surveyed 210 climate specialists from 48 countries revealed that experts agree: to meet climate goals, we must rapidly reduce livestock emissions and globally shift to a plant-based diet.

Yet despite the writing on the wall, world leaders continue to prop up the meat industry.
You're not just harming animals, you're harming farmers

Prior to Brexit, UK farmers were dependent on massive EU subsidies, and the government has been quick to reassure them that this level of support will continue.

But such crutches don’t just harm animals and the planet; they also hobble farmers by perpetuating reliance on a food system that contributes to the destruction of a dying planet — which cannot sustain such a system — preventing them from future-proofing their livelihoods.


This isn’t about being anti-farm but anti-harm. The world needs farmers. But we don’t need to farm animals.

Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during the annual National Farmers' Union (NFU) conference, at the ICC in Birmingham, February 2024 - Adrian Dennis/ Pool Photo via AP

A 2022 survey revealed that 80% of Scottish farmers were receptive to moving beyond farming animals, but they needed financial support to do so.

More than 1 billion animals are slaughtered for food annually in the UK. Even if we choose to turn a blind eye to the suffering those individuals endure on filthy factory farms and at blood-soaked slaughterhouses, there’s no denying that farming animals are wasteful.

To protect caged animals, we are suing the European Commission


How we treat animals is — and will be — key to our own survival

The National Food Strategy shows that 85% of agricultural land in the UK is used to grow crops to feed farmed animals — not humans.

Considering that it takes around 25 calories of grain to produce one calorie of beef, it’s clear that animal agriculture is inherently inefficient.
Change starts on our plates

Research shows that a global shift to a plant-based diet would reduce land use for agriculture by 75%, allowing for a more efficient farm-to-human pipeline as well as a decrease in deforestation.

It would also encourage rewilding and stem biodiversity loss. One analysis found that even just lowering meat consumption in the UK would offer a climate benefit equivalent to taking 8 million cars off the roads, while another study revealed that ending animal farming entirely could sequester the equivalent of up to 10 years of greenhouse gas emissions from all human activities.

This isn’t about being anti-farm but anti-harm. The world needs farmers. But we don’t need to farm animals.

As conscientious consumers, we must not ignore the importance of what — or rather who — is on our dining table.

The UK has one of the world’s most inventive vegan markets, where an abundance of everything from locally grown apples to meatless steaks is widely available. There is still time to turn the climate catastrophe around — and change starts on our plates.

Dr Carys Bennett is Senior Corporate Projects Manager at PETA UK.

euronews.com 

 Loblaw's participation in grocery code 'a big step in the right direction': Trudeau

The Canadian Press
Fri, May 17, 2024 



WINNIPEG — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says with the biggest Canadian grocer now on board, the grocery code of conduct is much more likely to succeed.

"The fact that Loblaws is now on board means that there's a lot more chances that it's going to move forward, which is what this government has been pushing for for a long time," said Trudeau on Friday, speaking to media after a news conference in Winnipeg.

On Thursday, Loblaw said it would sign on to the grocery code of conduct after months of negotiations to clarify parts of the agreement.

"The code now is fair, and it will not lead to higher prices," Loblaw CEO Per Bank said.

The code is meant to level the playing field for suppliers and smaller retailers in the Canadian food industry.

Seeing the grocers sign on to the code is "a big step in the right direction," Trudeau said.

Last December, Loblaw said it wouldn’t sign the code as it stood then over concerns it would raise prices for Canadians.

In recent months, pressure has mounted for governments to make the code, which is meant to be voluntary, into law so that all the grocers have to participate.

The grocers, including Loblaw, have pushed back on allegations that they profited off of food inflation.

Metro and Empire, the other two big Canadian grocers, have already committed to the code, but they have also said that it won't work unless all major players are on board.

Walmart Canada, which also expressed concern last December that the code would raise prices for Canadians, has not committed to signing it. The company said Thursday that it's reviewing the latest version.

Michael Graydon, the chairman of the interim board for the code, said Thursday that Costco has had "some inquiries around certain aspects" of the code, but he hopes it will also sign on.

In February, Pierre Riel, chief operating officer of Costco Wholesale Corp.’s international division, told a House of Commons committee studying food prices that if the code is well-defined and its principles are consistent with the wholesaler’s own principles, it will participate.

But at that time, Riel said Costco didn’t have enough detail on how the code would work.

The news of Loblaw's participation in the code came amid a month-long boycott by some shoppers of all stores owned by the company, as frustration over food prices and industry concentration climbs.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 17, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:L)

The Canadian Press

Ottawa to make pathway for newcomers who lack official status, speed up deportations

The Canadian Press
Fri, May 17, 2024 



OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says some immigrants to Canada who lack official status need a pathway to help them stay, while in other cases Ottawa must speed up deportation procedures.

His comments come as advocates for gender and sexual minorities say the lack of a regularization program is leaving people without official status in Canada subject to exploitation.

"People who aren't here regularly need to be supported and taken care of," Trudeau told reporters Friday in Winnipeg.


"There needs to be either a pathway towards regularization and citizenship, which I know the (immigration) minister is working on. In some cases, we need to accelerate deportation proceedings,"

The Liberals pledged in late 2021 to "explore ways of regularizing status for undocumented workers who are contributing to Canadian communities." Trudeau said he had no timeline for when this will actually be put into effect.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada defines undocumented people as those who have overstayed a temporary visa, remained in Canada following a rejected asylum claim, or arrived in Canada without contacting authorities

The office of Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Friday he is on track to present a proposal to his fellow cabinet ministers before Parliament rises for its summer break next month.

"There's a balance in making sure that the integrity of our immigration system holds," Trudeau said.

"That's one of the reasons why Canadians are, unlike so many other countries in the world, continuing to be positive towards immigration — because our immigration system is rigorous."

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says there is no accurate count of how many undocumented immigrants reside in Canada, though it notes academic sources have estimated the number to be as many as 500,000 or as few as 20,000.

"Undocumented migrants live in fear of being detected and removed, and many are extremely vulnerable due to their very limited access to health care and social services," reads briefing material the department prepared for November 2022 testimony to Parliament.

The Migrant Rights Network raised the issue Friday to mark International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, noting that gender and sexual minorities are disproportionately represented among foreigners who don't have legal status in Canada.

Swathi Sekhar, a lawyer with the advocacy group Rainbow Railroad, said this is in part due to discrimination within legal systems and volunteer groups created to protect refugees.

"There are LGBTQI+ people that are being deported to places where they may be killed," she said at a news conference in Toronto.

"This kind of regularization scheme could literally be life-saving for many LGBTQI+ migrants who are in this country."

Sarom Rho of the group Migrant Workers Alliance for Change called for a regularization program without a cap on the number of eligible people, adding that Trudeau should "immediately stop all deportations."

She said people are being abused by employers and denied healthcare. "Queer, undocumented people are facing deportation to countries where same-sex relationships are criminalized, conversion therapy still exists, and in some cases death penalties are legalized."

Charles Mwangi, a bisexual man from Kenya, said he has lived in Canada for just under five years despite having a refugee claim and appeal denied. He is slated for his last appeal next month.

"I fear for my life back home because I will be killed," said Mwangi, who has worked off the books in a care home and suddenly lost his job with no recourse. He said he's also faced arbitrary rent hikes, because he can't seek help from authorities.

An undocumented healthcare worker from Uganda who goes by the name Jane said she cannot return to her country, which passed a law last year that jails people who identify as gender and sexual minorities, and calls for the death penalty for certain same-sex acts.

"When I walk down the streets and I see police, my heart starts racing because I'm afraid to be stopped and deported," said the woman, who withheld her last name for safety reasons.

She said she's lived in Canada for seven years but is still abused by colleagues who have legal status, because they assign her more work than what she's paid for. "They used my situation to exploit me. They had the right to talk to their bosses because of their status, but I didn't," she said.

The Immigration Department has already run short-term pilot projects, such as a Guardian Angels program during the COVID-19 pandemic that allowed 8,500 pending and failed refugee claimants who worked in direct patient care, or their family members, to get permanent residency.

Another program for the Greater Toronto Area called the Public Policy for Out-of-Status Construction Workers, had allowed 441 workers and 588 dependants to access permanent residency as of last August.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 17, 2024.

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press

Posthaste: Canada's standard of living on track for worst decline in 40 years


Pamela Heaven
Thu, May 16, 2024

Measuring a country’s growth can be contentious.

Measure Canada’s gross domestic product by aggregate and it doesn’t look so bad, but measure it by person or per capita and it’s dismal.

For example, between 2000 and 2023 Canada had the second highest rate of aggregate GDP growth in the G7, but one of the lowest growth rates per person.

When a country has had a population surge as Canada has, economists say measuring by person gives a better picture of its standard of living, and according to a new study by Fraser Institute that standard is headed for its biggest decline in 40 years.

The study by Grady Munro, Jason Clemens, and Milagros Palacios looks at the three worst periods of decline and recovery of real GDP per person in the country since 1985. They are between 1989 and 1994, years that included a recession, between 2008 and 2011, the aftermath of the great financial crisis, and this last that began in 2019.

This latest period is unique because even though GDP per person recovered for one quarter in mid-2022, it immediately began to decline again, and by the end of 2023 was well below where it was in 2019.

“This lack of meaningful recovery suggests that since mid-2019, Canada has experienced one of the longest and deepest declines in real GDP per person since 1985,” said the study’s authors.

Between April of 2019 and the end of 2023, when the last data was available, inflation-adjusted per-person GDP fell 3 per cent from $59,905 to $58,111. That is surpassed only by the declines in 1989 to 1992, when GDP per person fell 5.3 per cent and in the financial crisis, when it fell 5.2 per cent, says the study.

The latest decline has lasted 18 quarters, making it the second longest in the past 40 years. Only the decline of 1989 to 1994, which lasted 21 quarters, was longer.

Key, though, are signs that it is not over yet. GDP per person in the fourth quarter of 2023 was down 0.8 per cent from the quarter before, suggesting it is still on a downward track, said the study.

“The decline in incomes since Q2 2019 is ongoing, and may still exceed the downturn of the late 1980s and early 1990s in length and depth of decline,” said the authors.

“If per-capita GDP does not recover in 2024, this period may be the longest and largest decline in per-person GDP over the last four decades.”

Fraser Institute is not alone in flagging this problem. In a recent article for the Financial Times, Ruchir Sharma, chair of Rockefeller International, identified Canada as one of the countries that has suffered a steep decline in real per-capita income growth and a drop in their share of global GDP.

A leader among the so-called “breakdown nations,” Canada’s GDP per capita has been falling 0.4 per cent a year since 2020, the worst rate among 50 developed economies.

“Widely admired for how it weathered the global financial crisis of 2008, [Canada] missed the boat when the world moved on, driven by Big Tech instead of commodities,” wrote Sharma. “New investment and job growth are being driven mainly by the government.”

Not only does Canada lag most developed economies, Canadian provinces also fall far behind almost all U.S. states, said Trevor Tombe, a professor of economics at the University of Calgary, in a column last year for the Hub.

Ontario last year had a per-person level of economic output similar to Alabama, said Tombe. The Maritimes were below Mississippi, and Quebec and Manitoba lag West Virginia.

Canada’s strongest economy, Alberta beat the U.S. average, but ranked 14th overall.

“It’s roughly comparable to New Jersey and Texas, but 13 per cent below California and nearly one-quarter below New York,” wrote Tombe.

'Huge increases': Economists sound alarm over impact of Canada population growth on housing market

Working population in first 4 months this year surpassed already unprecedented numbers for 2023

John MacFarlane
·Senior Reporter
Fri, May 17, 2024 

Toronto’s population increase from January to April was 67 per cent higher in 2024 than in 2023. In Vancouver and Montreal, population growth this year was more than double last year’s.

 (Photo by Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Canada’s working population has increased dramatically in the first four months of 2024, obliterating the unprecedented numbers recorded in 2023 and threatening to raise pressure on a housing market already strained by rapid population growth.

Statistics Canada labour force data show the country’s working-age population grew by 411,400 people in the first four months of 2024, a 47 per cent increase over the same period in 2023 and nearly quadruple the average for those four months from 2007 to 2022.

Canada’s population boom in 2023 amplified concern about the country’s housing crisis, prompting the federal government to introduce plans to significantly reduce new arrivals. Economists at the National Bank, who pointed to the population increase in a note on Wednesday, say the 2024 trend is likely to make things worse before they get better.

“With that kind of population growth, perhaps we're going to see some resilience in home prices in the country,” said Matthieu Arseneau, the bank’s deputy chief economist. “And we expect the vacancy rate — already at the record low in Canada at the end of 2023 — to decrease further, perhaps to be lower than or close to the one per cent level.”

Arseneau says he and other economists found the population data even more surprising than the unexpectedly strong job numbers in labour market data last week. The bank’s best guess, he says, is that Ottawa’s various plans to reduce population growth have prompted many people to come to Canada before they take effect.

“We suspect that by announcing some measures down the road perhaps you have a boom in demand in the short term because of that,” Arseneau said.

Huge growth in major cities

The labour force data are striking. The monthly increase in national working-age population in January was the highest on record at 125,500, while April reached 111,800, the second highest. To put those numbers in perspective, the average growth for the first four months of the year from 2007 to 2022 was just over 110,000.

In Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, the growth is even higher. Toronto’s population increase from January to April was 67 per cent higher in 2024 than in 2023. In Vancouver and Montreal, population growth this year was more than double last year’s.

“Those are huge increases,” said Arseneau. “We know that those cities are the main entrance for immigration. So that explains why it's higher than the national average.”

The 3.2 per cent increase in Canada’s population in 2023 marked the fastest pace of growth since 1957. It has been a flashpoint of recent political and economic debate, particularly its impact on housing, prompting a number of policy measures this year. In January, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller reduced the number of international student visas by 35 per cent. In March, he announced a first-ever cap on temporary residents, with the intention of reducing their share of the overall population from 6.2 per cent to around five per cent.

In an emailed statement, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) says it could not comment on population data originating from another government department, but that "it would be too early to see any data stemming from recently announced changes to temporary resident policies."

The statement notes that "application processing can also vary over the course of a year and as a result, there can be periods of higher processing which would cause an increase in landings for a particular timeframe.

"While population growth through immigration increases demand for housing, infrastructure and services, it also contributes significantly to the supply of labour, including to the construction sector to build new homes and support the healthcare sector. Temporary and permanent economic immigration pathways play a complementary role in helping address Canada’s labour market shortages."

Pressure on housing, rent, inflation

Sales data released Wednesday by the Canadian Real Estate Association had some positive signs for affordability, with slower sales keeping prices down and increasing the number of homes on the market. But accelerated population growth will not be a helpful factor, Arseneau says, noting that “the affordability problem for first-time home buyers is already very acute.”

“We are expecting rate cuts in the second half of this year,” he said. “We doubt that's going to improve affordability given the magnitude of the population growth.”

The growth spurt is also creating a more challenging picture for interest rate cuts, Arseneau says. Increased demand for rental units, which are already in short supply, could drive rental prices higher, and rising rents would consequently push Consumer Price Index numbers higher. Data released in April showed rent jumping by 8.5 per cent in March, Arseneau notes. “So that's the tricky part,” he said. “That's a difficult situation for the central bank to cope with — inflation coming from the housing sector.”

The IRCC statement acknowledges the "acute challenges related to housing" and says the agency is "pursuing strategies that support Canada’s continued need for immigration while leading the national effort to solve Canada’s housing crisis.

"We need all levels of government at the table with us on this," the statement continues. "At the federal level, we are aligning our immigration policies with measures taken to address housing and infrastructure challenges. To this end, the 2024-2026 Levels Plan strikes the right balance between supporting Canada’s economic prosperity, staying true to our humanitarian tradition, and developing a more sustainable approach to levels planning with our partners."

National Bank’s economists say they now expect the working-age population to grow by three per cent in 2024, exceeding the 2.3 per cent rise in 2023. The bank’s projection sees the explosive growth in the first four months of 2024 tapering off as the year goes on, before the government’s measures to slow growth take hold. But the effects of strong population growth in 2023 and 2024 are likely to resonate beyond 2025, Arseneau says.

“I think that for the next five years in Canada, the big challenge will be to cope with this housing shortage that we have,” he said. “And it will take several years to alleviate pressure on the housing market given this population boom over two years.”

John MacFarlane is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jmacf. Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.