It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, September 19, 2024
UK
Labour conference 2024: Campaigners’ anger after CLP motion for ‘humane’ immigration policy blocked
Daniel Green
19th September, 2024,
Campaigners have criticised Labour for blocking a conference motion demanding “humane immigration policy” on procedural grounds, amid criticism of the Prime Minister’s recent meeting with his Italian far-right counterpart Giorgia Meloni.
The Rushcliffe constituency Labour Party (CLP) proposed the motion that would commit the party to guarantee safe and legal routes for asylum seekers, give asylum seekers day-one rights to work, education, social security and family reunion and abolish NHS charges for refugees by the time of the next party conference in 2025.
The motion also called on the government to grant all UK residents equal voting rights, end immigration raids, detention and deportations, and introduce a simple process for all residents to gain permanent residency by the next general election.
However, the CLP received an email on Monday from the Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC), which said their motion would be referred to the National Policy Forum, rather than be included on the priorities ballot for conference, “as it does not meet criteria in that it covers more than one subject”.
Rushcliffe CLP has appealed the decision and, in an email seen by LabourList, said: “The motion addresses one overarching goal; to create a fair humane immigration system. The sub-points are strategies or actions aimed at achieving that single goal of reforming immigration policies.”
Lewis McAulay, chair of Rushcliffe CLP, criticised the decision as “clearly politically motivated” and said: “It is disappointing that, in the same week the party leader chooses to promote far-right populism in Italy, the CAC have chosen to block our motion in a clearly politically motivated move.
“The CAC has a responsibility to give conference the opportunity to discuss how they would like to see the party dealing with immigration and not block discussion which might embarrass the leadership.”
Dora Polenta, conference delegate for the CLP, said: “It is imperative for this conference to debate this motion now, particularly within the context of recent racist riots and migrants losing their lives as they take unsafe routes.
“Labour should be offering hope by standing for fair and humane immigration reform. The motion includes proposals to end detention centres, ensure family reunification, extend voting rights and dismantle hostile policies. We need to stand firm and debate these crucial issues on the conference floor.”
The Labour Campaign for Free Movement had encouraged CLPs to file motions calling on the government to implement a more progressive approach towards refugees and asylum seekers.
Ewa PospieszyĆska from the campaign said: “It is urgent that Labour has a full and open debate about its immigration policy. This week, a Labour Prime Minister visited Rome to congratulate the far-right Italian government for its brutal border policy. Keir Starmer promised members he would champion migrants’ rights, but is now mirroring the racist, dehumanising policies of the Tories.
“We know that the vast majority of Labour members and supporters oppose this slide towards the far-right, and the motion we have prepared is in line with this.
“Motions like it have been accepted onto the agenda every year since 2017, and it is not tenable to claim that they are now out of order. If the CAC fails to reinstate it, we urge trade unions and CLPs to vote in favour of a ‘reference back’ to force it onto the conference agenda.”
The Labour Party was approached for comment.
From Brazil to India to Europe, free public transport is gaining momentum
From Brazil to India to Europe, free public transport is gaining momentum
By Simon Pirani,Fare Free London
SEPT. 17, 2024
Free public transport has been introduced, with striking success, in cities around the world in the past three years. Activists will report on how it was done at an event in London on Sunday 29th September.
Brazil has seen an especially rapid expansion of zero-fares transport. At the latest count, more than 5 million people in 116 municipalities have access to it.
Many smaller Brazilian cities introduced free public transport, in response to a decade of motorisation, policy support for private cars and decline of public systems, Daniel Santini, a researcher at the university of Sao Paulo, points out.
At the 29th September event, organised by Fare Free London, Santini will give an update (on a video link).
Zero-fares policies always and everywhere win support as a social justice measure.
In June last year, the state government of Karnataka, India, introduced free public transport for women, in the teeth of right-wing opposition – and recently registered the 2 billionth free journey.
An activist from Karnataka will also speak at the London event (by video).
Closer to home, in France, 2 million people have access to 38 zero-fares schemes counted by the Observatory of Cities with Free Transport. Montpellier, with a population of half a million, became the largest fare-free city in December last year.
Jerome Serodio of the National Coordination of Collectives for Free Public Transport in France – which sees public transport as “a common good, fighting isolation and individualism” – will address the London event, too.
That is not all. Fares have also been abolished in two European capital cities (Tallinn, Estonia, and Luxemburg), and cities in the USA, China and elsewhere.
In 2021, researchers at the Rapid Transition Alliance attributed the international shift towards free public transport, in part, to a bounce-back from the Covid-19 pandemic, when health authorities had advised against using public transport.
Politically, free public transport is embraced by community groups and environmentalists who oppose the intensification of car use on social, health and climate grounds.
We launched Fare Free London in February, with the support of groups such as the Stop the Silvertown Tunnel coalition, Greener Jobs Alliance and Tipping Point, who have campaigned against road-building and for public transport investment, as a way to tackle climate change.
Once we started campaigning, we found common cause with people who are already demanding action to cut the exceptionally high cost of public transport in London (for example, £15.90 for a Zone 1-4 day travelcard).
Citizens UK, for example, are calling on City Hall to grant free bus travel to asylum seekers. In meetings with refugees, Citizens UK asked what their priority needs were: free transport came second to food for families.
“Mothers and young children have to walk long distances to go to primary school,” as children travel free by bus but their parents do not, the group reports. “People who are unwell have to walk long distances to access healthcare because of the cost of travel,” and English language classes have become inaccessible for some.
Extortionate fares are also an issue for students: a survey conducted last year by the student union at the University of the Arts in London found that the high cost of accommodation has driven students to live outside the city and commute – which costs £71 to100 a week.
As part of its cost of living campaign, the union has called on the university to fund 16-25 railcards for new students.
Unemployed people and other claimants are also trapped by high fares, a representative of Haringey Claimant Justice told a public meeting on the zero fares campaign, organised in July by the Haringey Solidarity Group.
Fare Free London has won the backing of trade union bodies representing workers on London Underground. The Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union’s London transport regional council voted in May to support the campaign for free public transport; so did RMT branches covering the Bakerloo line and the eastern section of the Central line.
Not only would free public transport open the city to all, regardless of income. Combined with effective policies to reduce car travel, it could strengthen London’s efforts to tackle air pollution and reverse its setbacks in tackling greenhouse gas emissions from transport.
In 2022, London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan announced that the volume of traffic, measured by vehicle-kilometres driven, needs to fall by at least 27% to meet climate targets.
Climate scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change research and Imperial College argue that this reduction is clearly insufficient, even if it is a step in the right direction.
Transport researchers have long insisted that, to decarbonise transport, free public services are the logical complement to measures that discourage excessive driving.
Fare Free London hopes to popularise that argument. And we hope to continue building links with campaigners elsewhere in the UK, which lag behind London in terms of investment in public transport and the level of services.
Since launching our campaign in February, amid the overwhelmingly positive responses, we often get asked: “how would you pay for that?”
Our short answer is: if the political will is there, the money can be found. After all, most of the world’s big cities rely far less on fare income than London does, to fund public transport: they use corporate taxes and levies to make businesses pay for systems that effectively subsidise them.
The longer answer, set out in our campaign briefing, is that there are sources of funding (i) that could be raised now by the London mayor, if he so decided, and (ii) that could be added with the support of national government.
Potential sources of funding in London listed in the briefing are: road user charging; land value capture (for example, the Community Infrastructure Levy used to finance the Elizabeth line); other property taxes; and a payroll tax similar to the one that provides about half of the Paris transport system’s revenue.
Measures national government could use, the briefing argues, include: legislation to widen local government’s revenue-raising powers; ending the freezing and cutting of fuel duty (which the Office for Budget Responsibility says cost the Treasury £80 billion in 2010-23); wealth taxes; and a clampdown on corporate tax evasion.
Now we have a Labour government, with a fiscal policy that looks like Austerity Mark Two, our battle over investment in public transport, and the potential to make it free, will merge with other battles about funding public services, and funding effective climate policies.
Let’s unite, and mobilise around these issues.
The Winning Free Public Transport event on Sunday 29th September is open to all, and free to attend. 11.0am-4.0pm at the Waterloo Action Centre, 14 Baylis Road, London SE1 7AA, and on zoom. Please register here.
In addition to the international speakers, we will hear from Lisa Hopkinson (Transport for Quality of Life); Daniel Randall (RMT, London underground, in a personal capacity); Ellie Harrison (Get Glasgow Moving); Drew Pearce (co-author of key article in Nature on London transport sector decarbonisation); and activists from Fare Free London, trade unions, community groups and others; plus plenty of time for discussion.
Simon Pirani is honorary professor at the University of Durham, and writes a blog at peoplenature.org.
At the time of writing, Israel’s military assault on Gaza has killed over 45,000 Palestinians, injured more than 70,000 and displaced over 75% of Gaza’s population. The illegal war has destroyed – and is every day still destroying – housing, hospitals, schools and universities.
This is the context to a major development at this year’s TUC Congress in September, when delegates took the historic decision of unanimously passing a motion that reveals in its entirety the utter inadequacy of the new government’s approach to Israel’s illegal war.
In particular, the union movement further upped the pressure on an issue where public campaigning has already led to limited moves from the Government, namely that of arms sales to Israel – by calling for an end to all licenses for arms traded with Israel.
This was a welcome and much needed rebuke to the decision of Foreign Secretary David Lammy to suspend just 10% of arms export licenses – a decision which also, as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) pointed out, crucially excluded indirect exports of components for the F-35 combat aircraft known to have been used to massacre civilians.
The motion also recognised Israel’s war on Gaza amounts to a plausible case of genocide and should be met with a principled foreign policy, that under the Genocide Convention requires all steps be taken to prevent genocide and punish those responsible. It called for sanctions against individuals and entities that have incited genocide. Again, the PSC commented that this was in “marked contrast to Labour’s position of treating Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu as a key ally.”
The motion further recognised Palestinians are subjected to a system of apartheid. As was the case with South African apartheid, this requires a concerted effort from the labour movement to dismantle it. The TUC therefore called for sanctions and building boycott and divestment campaigns.
This is an opportunity to further ramp-up our amazing Palestinian solidarity movements. This means that those who support Palestinian rights within and beyond the Labour Party should now echo the concluding calls of the motion on the British Government in their entirety, namely calling on the Government to:
“a. immediately recognise the State of Palestine, contributing to a two-state solution
b. end all licences for arms traded with Israel, meeting international law
c. demand a permanent ceasefire and the release of all hostages and Palestinian political prisoners
d. ensure safe access to essentials including water, electricity, and food, and restore funding to UNRWA
e. following the ICJ and ICC statements, impose sanctions upon individuals and entities who have made statements inciting genocide against Palestinians
f. revoke the 2030 Road Map for UK-Israel bilateral relations.
g. ensure decent work and quality public services are embedded in the reconstruction of Gaza.”
Central Liverpool venue. Saturday September 21st, 16.30. Register here
With the Palestinian Ambassador to the UK: H.E Husam Zomlot. Plus: Richard Burgon MP, Kim Johnson MP, John McDonnell MP, Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, Hugh Lanning (Labour & Palestine,) Fraser McGuire (‘Arise,’) Jess Barnard (Labour NEC member,) Maryam Eslamdoust (TSSA General Secretary,) Mick Whelan (ASLEF General Secretary) & Matt Wrack.(FBU General Secretary.)
On the eve of Labour Conference, join us in-person in Liverpool in solidarity with the Palestinian people and discuss the next steps in building our movement and putting our demands on the new UK Government.
Hosted by Labour & Palestine, with Arise – a Festival of Left Ideas. Refreshments provided. Sponsored by over 200 individual donations – thanks to all! Free event but solidarity donations essential to hosting costs.
National March: End the Genocide in Gaza – Stop Arming Israel
Saturday 21st September – 12pm –Liverpool: St. George’s Plateau (Outside Lime Street Station). Coach details here.
Image: David Lammy and Keir Starmer. https://www.flickr.com/photos/190916320@N06/53188920677 Creator: Labour Party | Credit: Labour Party Copyright: Labour Party. Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
UK
Industrial action works – Mick Whelan, ASLEF #Lab24
“The truth is that strikes do work. They always have. And they always will.”
Mick Whelan describes how strong unions continue to defend workers’ rights.
Strikes work
Strikes, they say, don’t work. Well, that’s what the Tories – and right-wing commentators in papers like The Sun, Daily Mail, and Daily Telegraph – would like you to believe. But the truth is that strikes do work. They always have. And they always will. That’s why employers – and the Tories that stand behind the bosses – don’t like them.
Our dispute with 16 train operating companies began back in June 2022 when we first balloted our members for industrial action because they hadn’t had a pay rise since April 2019. It was only six and a half months later and, more pertinently, after six oneday strikes that the train companies finally made us an offer. Then Secretaries of State for Transport Grant Shapps, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, and Mark Harper have all walked through the revolving door at the Department for Transport in the last two years and the Rail Minister, whether Wendy Morton, Kevin Foster, or Huw Merriman, kept parroting the party line that ‘ASLEF should come to the table’. Well, we did. But the table was bare. The companies put nothing on the table until we showed our collective determination to win a rise by going on strike.
It’s that solidarity – collective action – which employers hate. Because, at heart, many bosses are Victorian mill owners who would like to hire and fire as they see fit. They love the idea of the foreman walking along the wharf in the morning saying, “You, you, and you are hired. There’s no work for the rest of you.” They don’t like the ‘burden’, as they see it, of employing men and women. Of paying proper wages. Taxes. National Insurance and pensions. They love the gig economy, false self-employment, and zero hours contracts which the Labour Party in its New Deal for Working People has promised to ban. Bosses like to claim that ‘Zero hours contracts offer workers flexibility.’ But not decent terms and conditions, employment rights, or proper, and secure, jobs.
Fighting MSLs
Because our strikes were successful – in bringing the railway to a standstill – the Tory Government rushed through its Minimum Service Levels (MSL) Act at the end of last year. It had nothing to do with providing a minimum service to the public and everything to do with providing maximum problems for trade unions. Threatening us with fines if we put a foot wrong and, fundamentally, trying to undermine the effectiveness of industrial action and our ability to protect our members.
That’s why we fought so hard – and, so far, so successfully – against the implementation of MSLs on the railway. When LNER said it intended to issue work notices to members, for the day we were due to strike, we immediately put on another five days of strikes – more industrial action, as we have promised, to ensure the same effect – which prompted the company to see sense and back down.
We did it not just for train drivers, but for every worker here in Britain. Because we don’t believe in forced labour. We believe in the right to strike. And that strikes are effective.
Earlier this year, the train operating companies reached out to us for ‘talks about talks’ to try to resolve our pay dispute. They would not have done that if we had not taken industrial action. Yes, that’s right. Strikes work.
Time to repeal anti-union legislation
The tectonic plates of British politics shifted on 4th July with the Labour landslide, and the opportunity to give hope, inspiration, and aspiration to millions cannot be underestimated. There is, of course, a massive task, with 14 million in poverty after 14 years of Tory economic incompetence.
We now need to make sure this Labour government will make work pay, grow the economy, and give ordinary people their voice back after the headlong rush to authoritarian autocracy.
We look forward to the railways being brought back into public ownership – a manifesto pledge which the new Labour Government is already intent on delivering – and we look forward to Keir delivering A New Deal for Working People (see p8). That means MSLs will be gone, ‘fire and rehire’ will be gone, zero-hours contracts will be gone, agency workers will be gone, political fund ballots will be gone, and workers will have employment rights from day one, and the right to organise that is so important in a democratic, civilised, and socialist society.
Mick Whelan is General Secretary of ASLEF, the train drivers’ trade union, a member of the Labour Party NEC, and Chair of Labour Unions.
This article was originally published in CLPD’s Campaign Briefing Newsletter. Read it in full here.
You can also read Labour Outlook’s 2024 Autumn Conference bulletin here.
Strike shows challenge to Boeing 'reset' of labor relations
Portland (AFP) – In his first day at Boeing, Kelly Ortberg visited the factory floor to speak with workers on the 737 MAX program, part of the new CEO's effort to "reset" labor relations.
But as a strike of Boeing's 33,000 Seattle-area workers enters its second week, Ortberg is quickly discovering the challenges involved in realizing that goal.
Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751 voted overwhelmingly on September 12 to reject a new contract, walking out hours later in a stoppage that has shuttered assembly plants for the 737 MAX and 777.
Chief among the workers demands is a wage hike of 40 percent, much above the 25 percent increase touted by Boeing, a figure workers view as misleading because the deal would also eliminate an annual bonus.
Union members complain of more than a decade of near stagnant pay, a problem exacerbated by the consumer inflation of recent years and by the elevated living costs in the Seattle region, a growing tech hub.
The union also wants Boeing to reinstate a pension and strengthen a pledge to build the next new plane in the Puget Sound region beyond the four-year life of the contract.
Ortberg "was in a tough position coming in," Jon Holden, head of the IAM's Seattle district, told reporters at a September 12 news conference.
The strike isn't a reflection of "(Ortberg) or the relationship," Holden said.
"It's really what has happened to our members at the Boeing company by leadership of this company for close to 20 years." Hard bargain
During the 2008 strike -- which was the IAM's fourth stoppage in less than 20 years -- then-CEO James McNerney argued that strikes were undermining Boeing's reputation for reliability as he touted the rise of southern US states as manufacturing hubs.
After the 57-day strike ended, McNerney took moves that weakened the Seattle union's leverage.
He announced plans to base a manufacturing line for its new Dreamliner 787 in Charleston, South Carolina, committing to adding 3,800 jobs in the southern state within seven years.
In 2011 and 2014, a profitable stretch for Boeing in which it paid shareholder dividends and compensated McNerney and other executives with millions in pay, Boeing reached contract extensions with meager pay hikes for line workers.
These deals involved an uneasy truce in which workers agreed not to strike in exchange for Boeing committing to build new aircraft in the Seattle region.
The fight over the 2014 contract was particularly bruising, with a sharply divided union voting 51-49 percent in favor of a deal that included a $10,000 signing bonus but eliminated the pension.
Boeing pledged to build the new 777X in Everett, a move that solidified the job base for decades to come. Boeing also dropped a plan to move outside Seattle. Turnaround takes time
Since the strike began, Boeing officials have signaled they hope for a quick resolution. But on Wednesday, the company announced it would start furloughs of professional and white-collar staff as it seeks to conserve cash.
The union, meanwhile, said the two sides made "no meaningful progress" after two days of talks with federal mediators, adding that "there are no additional dates scheduled."
Boeing watchers expect the company to raise its offer.
"They (Boeing) have to take another financial hit and try to rebuild their reputation and develop a better reputation with the workforce," said Leon Grunberg, co-author of two books on Boeing's workplace relations.
"It's possible to create a better relationship, but it's going to take a lot of hard work," said Grunberg, an emeritus professor at the University of Puget Sound.
Staff turnover means Boeing has lost a lot of skilled, seasoned workers.
But the upside is that there are more young staff less familiar with past battles who have a more "transactional" approach, Grunberg said.
"Boeing is going to have to raise its offer and the workers are going to have to lower their expectations," said Cornell University labor relations expert Harry Katz.
Katz said Boeing's long-term prospects are "very solid" because it is part of a duopoly with Airbus, though it faces long-term financial stress.
Boeing could introduce more participatory programs that create a sense of teamwork among the staff.
"It takes time for people to believe they really want to change," Katz said.
Boeing Should Stop Making Weapons for Genocide and Fix Their Planes
As Boeing workers decide to go on strike for better pay and working conditions, the company continues to cut corners domestically and enable Israel’s genocide against Palestine abroad.
Recently, Boeing employees, members of the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers (IAM), voted overwhelmingly to not only turn down a terrible union backed tentative agreement, but go out on strike. These workers are showing they are willing to fight for more and are tired of being forced to cut corners on production, putting the public in danger to maximize profits for Boeing’s executives. If cutting corners wasn’t bad enough, Boeing’s leadership has focused on continuing to supply weapons to Israel supporting its genocidal campaign on Palestine. Boeing needs to stop making weapons for genocide and start fixing their planes.
Even prior to — and perhaps in anticipation of — the strike, reports show Boeing had been using overtime to unsafely ramp up production, pushing partially built planes through the assembly line in order to have them completed by scabs at a later date if needed. One would think that with a history of the commercial passenger planes literally falling out of the sky — such as the Max 737 jets crashing in 2018 and 2019 — or doors falling off planes mid-flight, Boeing executives would want to avoid cutting corners on production. But executives continue to put profits over safety. Workers have rightfully brought their concerns to the public, but they have been criminalized and targeted by Boeing’s leadership. Additionally, a number of individuals who have come forward as whistleblowers with concerns conveniently died after doing so, leading to fewer details being shared with the public.
Boeing, the only U.S. aircraft producer, focuses on cramming more and more people into planes and cutting corners even if it means a decrease in safety for those traveling. At the same time, companies like Boeing are given huge government subsidies by capitalist politicians claiming they will benefit the public, but instead we see executives pushing workers to maximize profits at the expense of public safety.
But maybe Boeing is working to fix these issues, right? Maybe they are trying to “trim the fat” and “streamline” production to both maximize profits and benefit the public? Wrong: While Boeing cuts corners, it also exports products for killing and destruction. Boeing is the world’s fourth largest arms manufacturer and is currently a key piece in assisting Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestine. In October 2023, Boeing even expedited a shipment of 1,800 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) and 1,000 Small Diameter Bombs to Israel to be used in its campaign against Palestine. Boeing is willing to rush arms to Israel for a genocide, but not willing to improve planes so they stop falling out of the sky and killing people.
These type of shipments have continued throughout the genocide. Boeing’s munitions were used by Israel in May to kill 45 people in the Rafah tent massacre and another 33 people, including 9 children, during the UN school massacre in June. Earlier this year, Boeing JDAMs were used to kill 43 people in a home, including 19 children. And it’s not just the recent genocide: Boeing has supplied aircraft and munitions to the Zionist military since Israel’s founding in 1948.
These dynamics are unsurprising under an economic system in which the maximization of profit is always the most important. During their fourth quarter earnings call this January, Chief Financial Officer Brian West stated that Boeing’s revenue was $22 billion, a 10 percent increase year-over-year, $6.7 billion of which came from defense contracts. Boeing invests in genocide because it makes them more money then actually fixing planes and focusing on public safety would.
And because this is so important, the company needs to find whatever ways possible to portray itself in a better light. So while it enables genocide instead of investing in workers and public safety, the company engages in pink-washing funding pride parades in cities like St. Louis, Missouri. Could Boeing’s next public relation’s ploy be adding pride flags to the next missiles they sell to Israel to kill palestinian children?
But what if workers controlled Boeing? Certainly, workers would not cut corners on domestic aircraft as they watched planes fall out of the sky, all so the heads of a company, along with its wealthy shareholders, can buy themselves another yacht or property. If Boeing were nationalized under worker control, would the working class choose to dedicate funding and research into producing more machines of death to kill innocent kids around the globe? Of course not.
At the same time, the technology and the facilities owned by Boeing used for war could be converted into factories that work to improve the public transportation systems, encouraging the use of less polluting means of transportation as climate crisis intensifies around the globe.
We need to take over Boeing, and similar companies, and run them for ourselves. We must not let the capitalists make the poor and working class around the globe die while they continue to make profits at all of our expense.
Mike Pappas Mike is an activist and medical doctor working in New York City.
EU chief announces $11 bn for nations hit by 'heartbreaking' floods
Wroclaw (Poland) (AFP) – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday announced 10 billion euros ($11 billion) in funds for member nations reeling from "heartbreaking" devastation after the floods caused by Storm Boris.
Issued on: 19/09/2024 -
Strong wind and heavy rains struck the region last week, including in Poland
The death toll from the storm which struck central and eastern Europe last week rose to 24 on Wednesday and some areas are still under threat from rising waters.
Von der Leyen spoke in the Polish city of Wroclaw alongside the leaders of four countries from the flood-hit region.
"It was for me on the one hand heartbreaking to see the destruction and the devastation through the floods," she told reporters.
"But I must also say it was on the other hand heartwarming to see the enormous solidarity between the people in your countries," she added.
Von der Leyen said the European Union had two sources -- cohesion funds and the solidarity fund -- that it could use to "help with funding to repair and reconstruct" the damage.
"At first sight 10 billion euros are possible to mobilise from the cohesion funds for the countries that are affected. This is an emergency reaction now," she added.
Strong wind and heavy rains struck the region last week, killing five people in Austria, seven in Poland, seven in Romania and five in the Czech Republic.
Von der Leyen met in Wroclaw -- a city also struck by devastating floods in 1997 -- with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, his Czech counterpart Petr Fiala, Slovakia's Robert Fico and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer.
Russia's Kadyrov accuses Musk of 'remotely disabling' his Cybertruck Moscow (AFP) – Ramzan Kadyrov, the powerful leader of Russia's Chechen Republic, accused Elon Musk on Thursday of disabling a Tesla Cybertruck that he claimed to have received from the billionaire last month.
Kadyrov, who has ruled Chechnya with an iron fist for over 17 years, shared a video in August of him driving around in the electric vehicle with what appeared to be a machine gun mounted on its roof.
Kadyrov said he received the vehicle from Musk, a claim that the Tesla owner called a lie on his social media platform X.
"Now, recently, Musk remotely disabled the Cybertruck," said Kadyrov in a post on his Telegram account.
"That's not a nice thing for Elon Musk to do. He gives expensive gifts from the bottom of his heart and then remotely switches them off," he said.
The Cybertruck is an electric pick-up truck that was first unveiled by US carmaker Tesla in 2019 before going into production last year.
Kadyrov claimed in his social media post that the vehicle he received was used in combat and sent to Ukraine, where it "performed admirably".
The son of a former rebel warlord, Kadyrov is now one of Putin's most vociferous backers and has long referred to himself as the president's "footsoldier".
The 47-year-old Chechen leader says he has deployed thousands of troops to help the Kremlin with its Ukraine offensive.
US accuses social media giants of 'vast surveillance'
San Francisco (AFP) – A years-long analysis shows that social media titans engaged in "vast surveillance" to make money from people's personal information, according to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Issued on: 19/09/2024 -
US Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan says that targeted ads, while lucrative for social media companies, threaten privacy and expose people to potential harm such as stalking
A report based on queries launched nearly four years ago aimed at nine companies found they collected troves of data, sometimes through data brokers, and could indefinitely retain the information collected about users and non-users of their platforms.
"The report lays out how social media and video streaming companies harvest an enormous amount of Americans' personal data and monetize it to the tune of billions of dollars a year,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a release.
"Several firms' failure to adequately protect kids and teens online is especially troubling."
Khan contended that the surveillance practices endangered people's privacy and exposed them to the potential of identity theft or stalking.
Business models that typically involve targeted advertising incentivized mass collection of user data at many of the companies, pitting profit against privacy, according to the report.
"While lucrative for the companies, these surveillance practices can endanger people's privacy, threaten their freedoms, and expose them to a host of harms, from identify theft to stalking," Khan said.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau countered that internet users understand that targeted ads pay for online services enjoyed free of charge and pointed out that the industry group "vehemently" supports comprehensive national data privacy law.
"We are disappointed with the FTC's continued characterization of the digital advertising industry as engaged in 'mass commercial surveillance,'" IAB chief executive David Cohen said in a post responding to the report.
"Nothing could be further from the truth, as countless studies have shown that consumers understand the value exchange and welcome the opportunity to have access to free or highly subsidized content and services."
Data not deleted?
The findings were based on answers to orders sent in late 2020 to companies including Meta, YouTube, Snap, Twitch-owner Amazon, TikTok parent company ByteDance, and X, formerly known as Twitter.
"Google has the strictest privacy policies in our industry –- we never sell people's personal information and we don't use sensitive information to serve ads," Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda told AFP.
Castaneda added that Google prohibits ad personalization for users younger than 18 years of age and does not personalize ads for those watching "made for kids content" on YouTube.
The report found data collection practices "woefully inadequate" and that some companies did not delete all of the data users asked them to remove.
Sharing of data by companies also raised concerns about how well they were protecting people's data, according to the report.
Along with maintaining that social media companies were lax when it came to protecting children using their platforms, the FTC staff cited a report that such platforms were found to harm the mental health of young users.
The report called for social media companies to rein in data collection practices and for the US Congress to pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation to limit surveillance of those using such platforms.
Titan sub had to abort a dive days before fatal implosion: testimony
New York (AFP) – The Titan submersible had to abort a dive just days before the implosion that killed its five passengers as they explored the wreck of the Titanic, an ex-employee of the company that operated the vessel testified on Thursday.
The testimony from former OceanGate scientific director Steven Ross came as the US Coast Guard began a two-week hearing on Monday into the 2023 catastrophe, which will feature evidence as to what went wrong and whether physical or design failure contributed to the accident, which garnered worldwide attention.
Ross told the hearing that the earlier dive had to be aborted due to a valve malfunction that left at least one passenger hanging upside down, and took "considerable time" to correct.
He said that when the privately-owned and operated submersible surfaced during that dive, it tilted so its bow was pointing upwards at a 45 degree angle.
Ross, who was inside along with four other passengers, explained that "there's nothing to hold on to inside this submersible."
The pilot that day -- OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who died in the implosion days later -- "crashed into the rear bulkhead," Ross said.
"The rest of the passengers tumbled about. I ended up standing on the rear bulkhead," he continued.
"One passenger was hanging upside down, and the other two managed to wedge themselves into the the bow end cap."
He said no one was injured in the incident, but that inside the cramped and confined space "it was uncomfortable and unpleasant, and it took considerable time to correct the problem" -- at least an hour, by his reckoning.
Rush, he said, was "upset" by the incident.
Rush and four passengers descended in the submersible on June 18, 2023, to observe the wreck of the Titanic.
But contact was lost less than two hours after their departure. A vast rescue operation was launched in hope that the passengers had simply lost power and were drifting helplessly in the ocean's depths.
However, within days it became clear that the sub had been destroyed in a cataclysmic implosion.
Victims are presumed to have died instantly in the disaster, which occurred under the crushing pressure of the North Atlantic at a depth of more than two miles (nearly four kilometers).
Apart from Rush, the four others on the Titan were British explorer Hamish Harding, French submarine expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani-British tycoon Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman.
The family of Nargeolet has taken OceanGate to court, claiming $50 million for negligence.
A debris field was found 1,600 feet (500 meters) from the bow of the Titanic, which sits 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
The Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in 1912 during its maiden voyage from England to New York, with 2,224 passengers and crew on board. More than 1,500 people died.