SYRIA

Kurdish Party Slams Opposition as “Trojan Horse”

Monday August 15th, 2022 by NORTH PRESS (Kurdish agency)

           

The PYD said the opposition has become a bargaining tool for Turkey to compromise, according to North Press.

(NORTH PRESS)

Aldar Khalil, a member of co-presidency of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), emphasized on Saturday that the Syrian opposition “has always been a Trojan horse to pass on Turkish agendas though its failure is clear.”

Remarks of the Kurdish politician follow demonstrations in areas held by the Turkish-backed Syrian opposition factions, also known as the Syrian National Army (SNA), in northern Syria in response to recent statements by Turkey’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

On July 11th, the Turkish minister revealed that he had a short chat with his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad where he called for the necessity of reconciliation between the Syrian government and the opposition, in his words.

Cavusoglu called for reconciling between the two parties to fulfill “permanent peace,” as he claimed.
Khalil said, ”Turkey used the Syrian opposition factions when it occupied the Syrian territories such as Idleb, Jarablus, al-Bab, Azaz, Afrin, Tal Abyad and Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain),” according to the official website of PYD.

Read Also: Turkey Announces Killing of Prominent Kurdish Leader in N. Syria

The PYD was established on September 20th 2003, in northeast Syria.
It describes itself as believing in social equality, justice and the freedom of belief as well as pluralism and the freedom of political parties.

Responding to a question regarding the fate of the opposition in case of any agreement between Erdogan and Assad, Khalil indicated that Turkey would dispense with the ”opposition”, and its importance to Erdogan will wane after he gets what he wants from Assad, indicating that they have become a bargaining tool for Turkey to compromise.

Khalil added, ”The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) warned the opposition that their collaboration with Turkey channels into making money; however, they claimed and are still claiming to be national opposition.”

 

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.

After the latest clash with Israel, Gazans’ struggle continues

The killing of militant leaders sparked clashes that, for now, have ended in a shaky ceasefire.

By Ellen Ioanes 

 Aug 14, 2022, 

Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images

Battles between the Israeli military and the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) killed 49 Palestinians in the last week in Gaza, the territory where Palestinians live under often brutal conditions and repeated outbreaks of deadly violence.

Israeli forces launched a preemptive strike against PIJ targets on August 5, Reuters reported, after one of the group’s leaders Bassam al-Saadi was arrested in the Occupied West Bank. Israel claims to have hit a number of PIJ targets. However, several civilians, including 17 children, were killed in the clashes, both by Israeli weapons and possibly by errant PIJ rockets intended for Israeli targets. A ceasefire brokered by Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, the US, the UN, and the Palestinian Authority between Israel and the PIJ last Sunday has thus far held; however, an attack on worshipers in Jerusalem’s Old City late on Sunday could portend more violence. At least eight people, including US citizens, were injured in the attack, which was allegedly carried out by a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, according to Israeli authorities. They have not yet released his name, and there is no indication that he is affiliated with any larger group, according to Reuters.

Despite the ceasefire, the aftermath of even short-term hostilities in Gaza goes far beyond active bombardments and shelling; the combination of years of violence, a brutal blockade, and state repression has created an enduring crisis. What’s more, there’s little chance to recover before violence breaks out again.

According to initial UN reporting, 360 Palestinians have been injured in the fighting, and Gazans experienced a tightened Israeli blockade of goods and services that led to 20-plus hour rolling blackouts each day. There were no Israeli deaths or serious injuries, the Associated Press reported Friday.

Longstanding tensions between Israel and the PIJ led to the most recent conflict

While much smaller than Hamas, the PIJ, the militant Palestinian nationalist organization which controls Gaza, “is very efficient and highly organized,” according to Ibrahim Fraihat of the Doha Institute.

“There is a strong order within the party itself,” he told Al Jazeera last week. “Despite its small size, it has participated in all the confrontations with Israel.” Hamas was not involved in the latest conflict, possibly due to economic agreements with Israel that have eased Israel and Egypt’s 15-year blockade on the territory.

Founded in the late ’70s and early ’80s, the PIJ eschews negotiations with Israel, opting instead for armed struggle. Its goal is to create an Islamic Palestinian state that encompasses not only the occupied territories, but all of what is now Israel, according to the AP. Like Hamas, it’s designated a terrorist organization by many Western countries, including the US. However, unlike Hamas, it’s not part of the political leadership in Gaza or the West Bank, and makes no effort toward political activity within the occupied territories.

PIJ is also aligned with Iran, which contributed to Israel’s decision to launch preemptive strikes, Fraihat told Al Jazeera.

During last week’s fighting, Israeli forces killed two of the group’s leaders, Taysir al-Jabari and Khalid Mansour. Al-Jabari was a member of the group’s military council, and commanded the group in Gaza City and northern Gaza during last year’s outbreak of violence, while Mansour was in charge of military operations in the southern Gaza strip, according to Axios. The AP reported that Israel claimed al-Jabari was preparing an anti-tank missile attack, prompting Israel’s preemptive aerial bombardments on August 5. PIJ fighters retaliated using a barrage of rockets — 1,100, according to the Israeli military, a tactic Hamas and other groups have developed knowing that the Iron Dome defense system will likely take out a great number of projectiles fired at people or infrastructure. Stakeholders pushed for a ceasefire to keep the violence from escalating further.

Violence between the Israeli state and Palestinian groups is far from uncommon; in April 2021, Israeli police interrupted Ramadan services at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and then attempted to evict Palestinian families from the city’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. By May 10, that escalated into bombing campaigns on the part of the Israeli military and rocket attacks by Hamas and the PIJ that killed at least 250 Palestinians, including approximately 128 civilians, and 12 Israeli civilians. Prior to that, Israel had been in frequent conflict with neighboring states like Lebanon and Syria, as well as Palestinian groups in the occupied territories and diaspora.

Israel’s caretaker prime minister, Yair Lapid, said in a speech August 8 that last weekend’s military operation had accomplished all of its goals and that “whoever tries to harm us will pay with their life,” warning against retaliation from PIJ or other groups. While he said that Israeli forces made ”special efforts” not to harm civilians, Israel “would not apologize for defending its people with force,” Haaretz reported.

Gaza’s particular characteristics make the violence uniquely devastating

While attacks and retaliation from Gaza certainly affect Israeli civilians — forcing them into shelter, destroying property, and sometimes killing innocent people — there is a notable asymmetry not only in the kinds of weapons both sides use, but also in the effect they have on civilian areas, for a number of reasons.

In Gaza, it’s incredibly difficult for people to rebuild their homes, not only due to military operations but because they cannot get the supplies to do so, as Diana Buttu, a Canadian-Palestinian attorney and former advisor to Palestinian Authority President and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, told Vox.

“It’s been ongoing now for 15 years — this tough, tough blockade,” in which both goods and people cannot move freely, she said.

Buttu said when she lived in Gaza in 2005, there were often bread rations, and “being able to get milk, fresh milk was a huge, huge feat.” Over time, she noted, the blockade got progressively worse; items like cement and other building materials have been heavily restricted by the authorities since they are ostensibly dual-use materials which can also be used for military purposes.

“One of the biggest challenges is to just be able to do simple things, like to get supplies in to rebuild the buildings that have been bombed, including glass. Glass is a huge challenge for them,” she said.

While some building materials were allowed into Gaza after sustained protest to lift the restrictions, Al Jazeera reported in May 2021, there are still buildings that were damaged in the 2008-2009 conflict that have not been entirely repaired, Buttu said. “For families in Gaza, they’re always living with a sense that, even after a building is bombed, that they don’t have the ability to rebuild it. Even if you’re trying to recover in some way, you’re still seeing all this rubble in your midst. It’s just a daily, constant reminder that you just went through a massive bombing campaign.”

Gazans’ inability to rebuild their homes and businesses means that many are internally displaced, living in makeshift housing. At the height of last year’s conflict, more than 117,000 Gazans were displaced from their homes and 10,500 remained internally displaced at the end of the year, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. There’s also less likely to be a safe place to take shelter during aerial bombing campaigns.

The blockade also means people have to negotiate access to medical equipment and access to care outside of Gaza, Buttu told Vox — even in dire situations.

“There’s always these negotiations that end up happening between the Israelis and Palestinian hospitals, usually with the World Health Organization, or Physicians for Human Rights as the middle person,” she said. “It’s so dehumanizing that you have to actually negotiate with them, in terms of the quantities of stuff that can come in — what’s allowed in, what’s not allowed in. They’re living in a constant, 24-hour state of trauma, and there’s no way to get past it.”

Ordinary life in Gaza is challenging enough, even without violent conflict

The Gaza strip is home to around 2 million Palestinians and has been governed by Hamas since 2007, when the group took control from the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank. The two groups have had no success in creating a unity government over the past 15 years, despite repeated attempts, weakening the Palestinian resistance and further disenfranchising ordinary Palestinians. Although Fatah and Hamas agreed to hold elections in 2021, which would be the first since 2006, those elections have been postponed indefinitely.

That’s on top of crushing restrictions imposed by the Israeli state. In addition to the blockade, the only Palestinians allowed to vote in Israeli elections are those that live within Israel’s borders as they were defined between 1948 and June 1967. There are also restrictions on Palestinians’ ability to move into Israel and between the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, as Human Rights Watch outlined in an April 2021 report. “People will resort to going to human rights organizations and NGOs to try to get some form of representation, but there’s no voice,” Buttu said.

Gazans are also subject to high rates of unemployment — around 50 percent, even before the Covid-19 pandemic — and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA, estimated that 80 percent of of the population depended on humanitarian assistance for basic necessities as of 2017.

The blockade has contributed to issues like poor wastewater management in Gaza, with wastewater flowing into the Mediterranean Sea, making it unsafe for people to swim or seek respite from heat. Though a wastewater facility is now up and running, according to NPR, the facility is running out of spare parts and chemicals to make sure the wastewater is clean because Israeli authorities haven’t complied with the facility’s requests.

“In two months from today, there will be no chemicals to test our quality,” Fahid Rabah, an engineer at the facility, told NPR in August. “We’ll be blind. We will not be able to know whether we are performing the environmental quality or not.”

Given Palestinians’ — and particularly Gazans’ — extremely limited political power, access to basic goods and services, and the curtailment of basic freedoms, not to mention routine, devastating violence, it’s challenging to see any possibility for change, either in Gaza or for Palestinians overall.

Peace talks between Israel and Palestine have repeatedly failed, Arab and Muslim states that had previously pledged solidarity with Palestine have normalized relationships with Israel, and the Israeli state has continued to push settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem, as well as lobby to have Jerusalem recognized as the nation’s capital by the US under the Trump administration.

However, Buttu said, there are some reasons to be hopeful about the future for Palestinians. She pointed to the increasing political activity of Palestinian Israeli citizens and their push to maintain their identity in the face of discrimination and the drive to sublimate into the broader Israeli population. “The second area is that, in the West Bank and in Gaza, despite everything, despite occupation and siege, there isn’t a sense of ‘Let’s throw in the towel,’” Buttu said.

“There’s a much more increased sense that there has to be pushback against Israel,” and against the old-guard Palestinian political parties like Fatah, she said. “They haven’t managed to break through, but there’s still that push there, there’s still that discourse that’s happening there ... there are people who are still pushing back and saying, ‘We’re not going to live like this.’”

A second Trader Joe’s just unionized. It could be the next Starbucks.

The grocery chain is now famous for Hawaiian shirts, frozen foods, and union jobs.

By Rani Molla@ranimolla Aug 13, 2022, 

A Trader Joe’s in Buffalo, New York, in 2015. 

Melissa Renwick/Toronto Star via Getty Images

A Trader Joe’s in downtown Minneapolis became the second unionized location in the US on Friday, less than a month after a Massachusetts location became the first. One in Boulder, Colorado, could be next, bringing the effort to unionize the grocery chain across the country. There will likely be many more in between.

This could be the start of a mass union effort at Trader Joe’s in which victory leads to victory, and unions become a reality for America’s retail and hospitality workers, who are among the lowest paid.

In other words, Trader Joe’s could be the next Starbucks.

After a Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, became the first company-owned location to unionize last December, more than 215 other stores around the country have done the same. That initial win set off a chain reaction of Starbucks workers working together to share notes on how more locations could organize. Workers explained the unionization process, shared tips with their colleagues, and told would-be union members what anti-union tactics to expect from the company. The strategy seems to be paying off, as more Starbucks employees join union ranks every week.

“That’s our vision. That’s what we want,” Sarah Beth Ryther, a worker at the Minneapolis Trader Joe’s, told Recode last week ahead of the union vote. “We really and truly are interested in creating a larger movement because we are all going through the same things.”

Trader Joe’s, a California-headquartered grocery chain known for outfitting employees in Hawaiian shirts and offering higher-end goods at lower-end prices, has more than 500 locations in more than 40 US states. Workers at the two newly unionized locations say they’ve heard from peers interested in unionizing in every state where there’s a Trader Joe’s.

There’s a reason, workers say, that more than 50 years after Trader Joe’s was founded, three separate stores all got the idea to unionize pretty much at once. The company’s retail employees nationwide are facing the same issues regarding worker safety, pay that’s no longer competitive, and benefits that aren’t as good as they used to be.

“Trader Joe’s earned the reputation they have for being a good place to work by taking care of us and listening to us,” said Woody Hoagland, who’s been at Trader Joe’s for 14 years and whose store in Massachusetts was the first to unionize. “Then it started to slowly get chipped away and it really took a pretty precipitous fall during the pandemic.”

Hoagland explained that making $24 an hour, which is near the maximum he can get at a Trader Joe’s store in his area, still makes it very difficult to pay rent on an apartment for himself and his two kids. As the cost of goods has risen much faster than wages, he says, Trader Joe’s is no longer offering a living wage. Meanwhile, in recent years the company has minimized its retirement benefits and raised requirements to receive health care, while their jobs have become more dangerous thanks to the pandemic.

The other big reason Trader Joe’s is unionizing now, of course, is the organizing activity at Starbucks. The recent spate of successful unionizations at the coffee giant showed workers at Trader Joe’s that it was possible for them too. And there are a lot of similarities between the two companies.

As people have historically done at Starbucks, many came to work for Trader Joe’s because of the reputation it had for being a good place to work. Like Starbucks workers, Trader Joe’s employees became inadvertent front-line workers, who forged tight bonds with coworkers over their shared experiences working in person during the pandemic. Trader Joe’s and Starbucks organizers both say they’re trying to hold their companies to the higher standard the companies themselves have set, lest they become just as bad as other retailers. Even their demands are similar: better pay, better benefits, more safety precautions, and a bigger say in how the store is run.

Trader Joe’s did not respond to a request for comment.

Workers at Trader Joe’s and Starbucks also say they need unions to claw back worker protections that eroded as the highly unionized manufacturing economy gave way to the low-paying service industry. The pandemic brought an already bad situation to a boiling point and spurred workers to fight back. A tight job market means workers have more leverage now than they have had in recent history. And pro-union sentiment makes now as good a time as any to change things.

Some 70 percent of non-union workers said they’d join a union at their primary workplace in a new survey by career services site Jobcase. Of these skilled and hourly workers, 41 percent said they’re more likely to do so now than they would have been three years ago. A Gallup poll last year found the highest approval rate for unions in nearly 60 years. And union filing petitions were up 57 percent in the first half of fiscal year 2022 compared with 2021, according to the National Labor Relations Board.

It’s a long journey, though, from filing for a union to actually getting one. First, a majority of workers at a particular store need to vote in favor of a union, which itself isn’t an easy task since the company can use workers’ time on the job to convince them otherwise. And if the workers organizing do win the vote, the union and company then have to negotiate a contract, which both have to agree to — a process that can be lengthy if it happens at all.

And while Trader Joe’s bears many similarities to Starbucks — both progressive companies that have resorted to union-busting tactics, their employees say — there are differences, too. Trader Joe’s stores are typically much larger than Starbucks. The unionized Trader Joe’s locations, for instance, have about 80 employees, while a typical Starbucks has around 25. Union organizers say it’s much easier to organize small groups because it’s more intimate and easy to connect one-on-one.

The first two Trader Joe’s unions have organized under an independent union, Trader Joe’s United, similar to how Amazon workers in Staten Island founded their own union. That independent status helps avoid criticism that these union movements are being forced from the outside. (The Trader Joe’s location in Boulder has joined forces with a much larger existing union, the United Food and Commercial Workers). Meanwhile, Starbucks stores are unionizing under the umbrella of Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. Still, these Starbucks employees say their union is very much worker-led, even if it leans on another union for help.

The differences, however, aren’t stopping Trader Joe’s and Starbucks workers from trying to support each other’s efforts. Unionized workers at a nearby Starbucks showed up to support Minneapolis Trader Joe’s workers at their rally last week, and Trader Joe’s United has been broadly supportive of Starbucks’ organizing efforts.

“They showed up for us, and we’ll show up for them,” Ryther said.

More importantly, Trader Joe’s workers around the country are reaching out to one another, offering advice, exchanging tips, and hoping their union effort catches on as fast as Starbucks’.

These Trader Joe’s victories are one of several high-profile union wins this year at places people don’t normally expect unions. Stores as far afield as Apple stores or outdoor apparel retailer REI are taking advantage of a unique point in time to eke out better conditions for American workers.

Of course, their leverage might only last as long as hiring remains difficult and the economy is good. But for now, it’s looking strong.

Caste in California: Tech giants confront ancient Indian hierarchy

HINDUTVA ARYANISM IS CASTEISM & RACISM 

By Paresh Dave


Guests arrive for at the Steve Jobs Theater for an Apple event at their headquarters in Cupertino, California, U.S. September 10, 2019. REUTERS/Stephen Lam/File Photo


OAKLAND, Calif, Aug 15 (Reuters) - America's tech giants are taking a modern-day crash course in India's ancient caste system, with Apple (AAPL.O) emerging as an early leader in policies to rid Silicon Valley of a rigid hierarchy that's segregated Indians for generations.

Apple, the world's biggest listed company, updated its general employee conduct policy about two years ago to explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of caste, which it added alongside existing categories such as race, religion, gender, age and ancestry.

The inclusion of the new category, which hasn't been previously reported, goes beyond U.S. discrimination laws, which do not explicitly ban casteism.

The update came after the tech sector - which counts India as its top source of skilled foreign workers - received a wake-up call in June 2020 when California's employment regulator sued Cisco Systems (CSCO.O) on behalf of a low-caste engineer who accused two higher-caste bosses of blocking his career.

Cisco, which denies wrongdoing, says an internal probe found no evidence of discrimination and that some of the allegations are baseless because caste is not a legally "protected class" in California. This month an appeals panel rejected the networking company's bid to push the case to private arbitration, meaning a public court case could come as early as next year. read more

The dispute - the first U.S. employment lawsuit about alleged casteism - has forced Big Tech to confront a millennia-old hierarchy where Indians' social position has been based on family lineage, from the top Brahmin "priestly" class to the Dalits, shunned as "untouchables" and consigned to menial labor.

Since the suit was filed, several activist and employee groups have begun seeking updated U.S. discrimination legislation - and have also called on tech companies to change their own policies to help fill the void and deter casteism.

Their efforts have produced patchy results, according to a Reuters review of policy across the U.S. industry, which employs hundreds of thousands of workers from India.

"I am not surprised that the policies would be inconsistent because that's almost what you would expect when the law is not clear," said Kevin Brown, a University of South Carolina law professor studying caste issues, citing uncertainty among executives over whether caste would ultimately make it into U.S. statutes.

"I could imagine that parts of ... (an) organization are saying this makes sense, and other parts are saying we don't think taking a stance makes sense."

Apple's main internal policy on workplace conduct, which was seen by Reuters, added reference to caste in the equal employment opportunity and anti-harassment sections after September 2020.

Apple confirmed that it "updated language a couple of years ago to reinforce that we prohibit discrimination or harassment based on caste." It added that training provided to staff also explicitly mentions caste.

"Our teams assess our policies, training, processes and resources on an ongoing basis to ensure that they are comprehensive," it said. "We have a diverse and global team, and are proud that our policies and actions reflect that."

Elsewhere in tech, IBM told Reuters that it added caste, which was already in India-specific policies, to its global discrimination rules after the Cisco lawsuit was filed, though it declined to give a specific date or a rationale.

IBM's only training that mentions caste is for managers in India, the company added.

Several companies do not specifically reference caste in their main global policy, including Amazon (AMZN.O), Dell (DELL.N), Facebook owner Meta (META.O), Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Google (GOOGL.O). Reuters reviewed each of the policies, some of which are only published internally to employees.

The companies all told Reuters that they have zero tolerance for caste prejudice and, apart from Meta which did not elaborate, said such bias would fall under existing bans on discrimination by categories such as ancestry and national originon policy.

CASTEISM OUTLAWED IN INDIA

Caste discrimination was outlawed in India over 70 years ago, yet bias persists, according to several studies in recent years, including one that found Dalit people were underrepresented in higher-paying jobs. Debate over the hierarchy is contentious in India and abroad, with the issue intertwined with religion, and some people saying discrimination is now rare.

Government policies reserving seats for lower-caste students at top Indian universities have helped many land tech jobs in the West in recent years.

Reuters spoke to about two dozen Dalit tech workers in the United States who said discrimination had followed them overseas. They said that caste cues, including their last names, hometowns, diets or religious practices, had led to colleagues bypassing them in hiring, promotions and social activities.

Reuters could not independently verify the allegations of the workers, who all spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they feared harming their careers. Two said they had quit their jobs over what they viewed as casteism.

Some staff groups, including the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) at Google's parent company, say explicit mention of caste in corporate rules would open the door to companies investing in areas such as data collection and training at the same levels as they do to protect other groups.

"Significant caste discrimination exists in the United States," said Mayuri Raja, a Google software engineer who is a member of the AWU and advocates for lower-caste colleagues.

Over 1,600 Google workers demanded the addition of caste to the main workplace code of conduct worldwide in a petition, seen by Reuters, which they emailed to CEO Sundar Pichai last month and resent last week after no response.

Google reiterated to Reuters that caste discrimination fell under national origin, ancestry and ethnic discrimination. It declined to elaborate further on its policies.

'NOT GOOD FOR BUSINESS'

Adding caste to a general code of conduct is not unheard of.

The World Wide Web Consortium, an industry standards body partly based in Massachusetts, introduced it in July 2020. California State University and the state Democratic Party have followed over the past two years.

In May this year, California's employment regulator, the Civil Rights Department, added caste to its example equal employment opportunity policy for employers.

Yet the move by Apple, a $2.8 trillion behemoth with more than 165,000 full-time employees globally, looms large.

The iPhone maker's fair hiring policy now states that Apple "does not discriminate in recruiting, training, hiring, or promoting on the basis of" 18 categories, including "race, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, religion, creed, age" plus disability, sexual orientation and gender identity.

By contrast, many employers are hesitant to go beyond laws with their primary policies, according to three employment attorneys including Koray Bulut, a partner at Goodwin Procter.

"Most companies simply quote from the federal and state statutes that list the protected categories," Bulut said.

Some companies have, however, gone further in secondary policies that govern limited operations or serve only as loose guidelines.

Caste is explicitly written into Dell's Global Social Media Policy, for example, and in Amazon sustainability team's Global Human Rights Principles and Google's code of conduct for suppliers.

Amazon and Dell confirmed they had also begun mentioning caste in anti-bias presentations for at least some new hires outside India. They declined to specify when, why and how broadly they made the addition, though Dell said it made the change after the Cisco lawsuit was filed.

The companies' presentations include explanations of caste as an unwanted social structure that exists in parts of the world, according to a Reuters review of some of the online training, with the Dell material referencing a recent lawsuit "from the headlines."

John-Paul Singh Deol, lead employment attorney at Dhillon Law Group in San Francisco, said that only including caste in training and guidelines amounted to "giving lip service" to the issue because their legal force is questionable.

This characterization was rejected by Janine Yancey, CEO of Emtrain, which sells anti-bias training to about 550 employers, and a longtime employment attorney.

"No company wants to have employee turnover, lack of productivity and conflict - that's just not good for business," she said.

Yet explicitly referencing caste would likely invite an increased number of HR complaints alleging it as a bias, Yancey added.

"Whenever you're going to call out something specifically, you're exponentially increasing your caseload," she said.

Apple declined to say whether any complaints had been brought under its caste provision.

South Carolina law professor Brown expects no immediate resolution to the debate over of whether companies should reference caste.

"This is an issue that ultimately will be resolved by the courts," he said. "The area right now is unsettled."


Reporting by Paresh Dave; Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Sudarshan Varadhan in New Delhi; Editing by Kenneth Li and Pravin Char

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Paresh Dave
Thomson Reuters
San Francisco Bay Area-based tech reporter covering Google and the rest of Alphabet Inc. Joined Reuters in 2017 after four years at the Los Angeles Times focused on the local tech industry.


LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Hinduism Is Fascism 

“Nobody’s waters” must become “everybody’s waters” for world leaders to reverse nature loss in the high seas, says WWF


Posted on 15 August 2022

WWF calls on UN member states to adopt, this year, a legally-binding global ocean treaty to protect marine life in currently underregulated high seas

This ocean treaty can add guardrails to protect nature from harmful activities like unsustainable fishing and deep sea mining

 
Fifty nations have pledged support for an ambitious and robust ocean treaty – what will it take to get remaining UN member states on board and what must this treaty look like?

GLAND, Switzerland (15 August 2022) – UN member states must agree this year on how to protect and manage the high seas, which cover half the planet. The high seas play a vital role in supporting fisheries, providing habitat for hundreds of thousands of species and mitigating climate change impacts, but are currently severely underregulated resulting in widespread exploitation.

WWF calls on UN member states to agree on an ambitious, legally-binding global treaty to protect marine life in the two-thirds of the ocean that lie beyond national jurisdiction, when they meet at the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Conference this August.

“The high seas epitomize the tragedy of the commons. Because they don’t ‘belong’ to anyone, they have been treated recklessly with impunity. We need a common governance mechanism for our ocean to ensure that nobody’s waters become everybody’s waters – and everyone’s responsibility,” said Marco Lambertini, Director General, WWF International.

“Fifty nations have already pledged to achieve an ambitious ocean treaty that would lay the groundwork for protecting 30% of the ocean and assess the environmental impact of activities on the high seas. We call on remaining UN member states to do the same and bring home a resounding result to years of negotiations. Leaders must deliver a robust and equitable biodiversity treaty for the high seas that can help us reverse nature loss this decade and secure, for all, a healthier and sustainable future.”

The ocean treaty can be a game changer in protecting the exceptional natural values of the high seas and building the resilience of economically important fisheries. But this requires negotiators to step up significantly to heed global ambitions.

Global ambitions to protect 30% of our ocean by 2030 cannot be achieved without a framework to designate and manage protected areas beyond national jurisdiction. The ocean treaty under negotiation aims to spell out for nations, through a robust and equitable governance mechanism, how to conserve and sustainably use the shared resources of the high seas.

At the same time, such a mechanism can benefit those who depend on fishing for food security and livelihoods by putting in place restrictions in protected areas that prevent overfishing and other destructive practices, paving the way for healthier fish populations.

The ocean absorbs more than 90% of the world’s excess heat caused by human-induced global warming, and this stressor is exacerbated by overfishing and pollution. A robust ocean treaty can mitigate some of these threats and give our ocean, the planet’s largest carbon sink, a chance to recover.

For the new treaty to live up to its game-changing potential, WWF is calling on negotiators to resolve key issues*, namely in providing for enhanced cooperation; ensuring the designation and monitoring of marine protected areas in the high seas; subjecting all planned high seas activities to an environmental impact assessment process; clarifying the choice of regime for handling marine genetic resources; and putting in place and strengthening capacity-building, technology transfer, and reporting mechanisms.

“The ocean is under pressure from increasing human activities, and a new ocean treaty is essential to alleviate that pressure by ensuring all these activities are managed holistically, with marine biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services to humanity at its heart. Only then can we set the ocean on a path to recovery and sustainability,” said Jessica Battle, Senior Global Ocean Governance and Policy Expert, WWF.

“Leaving half our planet a poorly regulated free-for-all benefits no one in the end. This negotiating session must aim for the most ambitious compromise attainable. It’s time to set aside self-interest and make the right choices for the future of our ocean, our climate and our communities.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

*Key issues to be resolved:

1. Enhanced cooperation: In 2011, the UN General Assembly outlined the main issues to be addressed by the ocean treaty, and states clearly wanted a robust and ambitious agreement. WWF believes that this ‘high ambition’ needs an ‘enhanced cooperation’ regime that fills gaps in existing arrangements, elaborates and operationalises the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea general duty to cooperate, and facilitates cooperation to implement the many obligations and commitments set out in existing treaties and relevant decisions of international bodies.

2. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs): The treaty needs to fill the legal gap under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to set out a globally recognised mechanism for establishing MPAs in areas beyond national jurisdiction. This would include a Conference of the Parties in charge of designating MPAs in such areas.

3. Environmental Impact Assessment: Operationalising the obligation set out in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to subject all planned activities in areas beyond national jurisdiction to an environmental impact assessment process, regardless of their projected environmental impact, as part of states’ duty to protect and preserve the marine environment, was also identified as a key implementation gap. Strategic Environmental Assessments would help reduce the cumulative impacts upon the ocean.

4. Marine Genetic Resources: States remain keen to resolve the diplomatic standoff over choice of regime for handling marine genetic resources issues. The last round of negotiations should prove helpful in framing the decisions that need to be made by negotiators.

5. Capacity Building and Transfer of Marine Technology: In adopting the Sustainable Development Goals and associated targets, states committed to doing more to help and support each other, including through capacity building and technology transfer arrangements. There is much that can and should be done through implementing an ambitious ocean treaty – including proper reporting so that progress can be followed.

For more details on what needs to be done and why, please refer to this briefing note WWF has prepared for leaders and ocean treaty negotiators.

For further information, please contact news@wwfint.org.

About WWF

WWF is an independent conservation organization, with over 30 million supporters and a global network active in over 100 countries. WWF's mission is to stop the degradation of the Earth's natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by conserving the world's biological diversity, ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable, and promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption. Visit www.panda.org/news for the latest news and media resources and follow us on Twitter @WWF_media.

Could the EV boom run out of juice before it gets started?

The Economist

Aug 15 2022

OPINION: Electric vehicles (EVs) seem unstoppable. Carmakers are outpledging themselves in terms of production goals. Industry analysts are struggling to keep up. 

Battery-powered cars could zoom from 8% of global vehicle sales in 2021 to 40% by 2030, according to BloombergNEF.

 Depending on whom you ask, that could translate to anywhere between 25 million and 40m EVs.

They, and the tens of millions manufactured between now and then, will need plenty of batteries. Bernstein reckons that demand from EVs will grow nine-fold by 2030, to 3200 gigawatt-hours (gWh). Rystad puts it at 4000gWh.

Such projections explain the frenzied activity up and down the battery value chain. The ferment stretches from the salt flats of Chile’s Atacama desert, where lithium is mined, to the plains of Hungary, where on August 12 CATL of China, the world’s biggest battery-maker, announced a €7.3 billion (NZ$11.6b) investment to build its second European “gigafactory”.

It is, though, looking increasingly as though the activity is not quite frenzied enough, especially for the Western car companies that are desperate to reduce their dependence on China’s world-leading battery industry amid geopolitical tensions. Prices of battery metals have spiked and are expected to push battery costs up in 2022 for the first time in more than a decade.

In June BloombergNEF cast doubt on its earlier prediction that the cost of buying and running an ev would become as cheap as a fossil-fuelled car by 2024. Even more distant targets, such as the eu’s coming ban on new sales of carbon-burning cars by 2035, may not be met. Could the EV boom run out of juice before it gets started?

Giga-ntic promises

On paper, there ought to be plenty of batteries to go around. Benchmark Minerals, a consultancy, has analysed manufacturers’ declared plans and found that, if they materialise, 282 new factories should come online worldwide by 2031. That would take total global capacity to 5800gWh. It is also a big “if”.

Bernstein calculates that current and promised future supply from the six established battery-makers–BYD and CATL of China; LG, Samsung and SK Innovation of South Korea; and Panasonic of Japan–adds up to 1360gwh by the end of the decade The balance would have to come from newcomers–and being a newcomer in a capital-intensive industry is never easy.

The optimistic overall capacity projections conceal other problems. Matteo Fini of S&P Global Mobility, a consultancy, notes that factories take three years to build but require longer–possibly a few extra years–to manufacture at full capacity. As such, actual output by 2030 may fall short. Moreover, manufacturers’ unique technologies and specifications mean that cells from one factory are usually not interchangeable with those from another, which could create further bottlenecks.

JASON DORDAY/STUFF
An electric vehicle being charged.

Most troubling for Western carmakers is China’s dominance of battery-making. The country houses close to 80% of the world’s current cell-manufacturing capacity. Benchmark Minerals forecasts that China’s share will decline in the next decade or so, but only a bit–to just under 70%. By then America would be home to just 12% of global capacity, with Europe accounting for most of the rest.

Americans’ slower uptake of EVs may ease the crunch for carmakers there. Deloitte, a consultancy, expects America to account for just under 5m vehicles of the 31m EVs sold in 2030, compared with 15m in China and 8m in Europe. Big American carmakers already have joint ventures with the big South Korean battery producers to build domestic factories.

In July Ford and sk Innovation finalised a deal to build one in Tennessee and two in Kentucky, with the carmaker chipping in US$6.6b (NZ$10.2b) and the South Korean firm US$5.5b. The same month the Detroit giant struck a deal to import catl batteries. General Motors and lg Energy are together putting over $7b towards three battery factories in Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.

It is Europe’s carmakers that seem most exposed. Volkswagen, a German giant, plans to construct six gigafactories of its own by 2030. Some, such as BMW, are teaming up with the South Korean firms. Others, including Mercedes-Benz, are investing in European battery-making through a joint-venture called ACC. A number of European startups, such as Northvolt of Sweden, which is backed by Volkswagen and Volvo, are also busily building capacity.

SUPPLIED
A BMW model electric vehicle.

Yet the continent’s car industry looks likely to remain quite reliant on Chinese manufacturers. Some of those batteries will be manufactured locally: CATL’s first investment in Europe, a battery factory in Germany, is set to begin operations at the end of the year. Some packs or their components may, however, still need to be imported from China.

That is not a comfortable position to be in for European carmakers. It may become even less so if the eu introduces levies based on total lifecycle carbon emissions from vehicles, including electric ones. Northvolt’s chief executive, Peter Carlsson, reckons that proposed EU tariffs on carbon-intensive imports could add 5-8% to the cost of a Chinese battery made using dirty coal power.

That could be roughly equivalent to an extra US$500, give or take, per pack. Such rules would boost his firm’s prospects, since it runs on clean Nordic hydroelectricity. It would also severely limit European carmakers’ ability to source batteries from abroad.

What’s mined isn’t yours

These manufacturing bottlenecks, serious though they are, look more manageable than those at the mining end of the battery value chain. Take nickel. Thanks to a big production increase in Indonesia, which accounts for 37% of global output of the metal, the market seems well supplied. However, Indonesian nickel is not the high-grade sort usable in batteries.

TAFADZWA UFUMELI/GETTY IMAGES
A lithium mine in Zimbabwe.

It can be made into battery-compatible stuff, but that means smelting them twice, which emits three times more carbon than does refining higher-grade ores from places like Canada, New Caledonia or Russia. Those additional emissions defeat the purpose of making EVs, notes Socrates Economou of Trafigura, a commodities trader. Carmakers, particularly European ones, may shun the stuff.

Cobalt has become less of a pinch point. A price spike in 2018 prompted battery-makers to develop battery chemistries that use much less of it. Planned mine expansions in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), home to the world’s richest cobalt deposits, and Indonesia should also tide battery-makers over until 2027.

After that things get trickier. Getting more of the stuff may require manufacturers to embrace the DRC’s artisanal mining, the formalisation of which has yet to bear fruit. Until it does, many Western carmakers say they would not touch the sector, where adults and many children toil in harsh conditions, with a barge pole.

Most uncertainty concerns lithium. A shortage is forcing manufacturers unable to get their hands on enough of the metal to cut production. For now consumer-electronics firms are bearing the brunt. But the smaller batteries in electronic gadgets only represent a fraction of demand. EV-makers, whose battery packs use a lot more, could be next.

GETTY IMAGES
EV batteries require metals such as lithium.

By 2026 the lithium market is projected to tip back into surplus, thanks to planned new projects. However, most of these are in China and rely on lower-grade deposits which are much costlier to process than those of Australia’s hard-rock mines or Latin America’s brine ponds. Economou estimates that a price of US$35,000 per tonne of the battery-usable form of lithium carbonate is required to make such projects worthwhile–lower than today’s lofty levels, but three times those a year ago.

The high-grade stuff due to come from elsewhere should not be taken for granted, either. Chile’s new draft constitution, which will be put to referendum in September, proposes nationalising all natural resources. Changes to the tax regime in Australia, which already has some of the highest mining levies in the world, could deter fresh investments in “green”-metal production. In late July the boss of Albemarle, the largest publicly traded lithium producer, warned that, despite efforts to unlock more supply, carmarkers faced a fierce battle for the metal until 2030.

Because building mines takes anywhere from five to 25 years, there is little time left to get new ones up and running this decade. Big mining firms are reluctant to get into the business. Markets for green metals remain too small for mining “majors” to be worth the hassle, says the development boss at one such firm.

Despite their reputation for doing business in shady places, most lack the stomach to take a gamble on countries as tricky as the DRC, where it is hard to enforce contracts. Smaller miners that usually get risky projects off the ground cannot raise capital on listed markets, where investors are queasy about the mining industry, which is considered risky and, ironically, environmentally unfriendly.

The resulting dearth of capital is attracting private-equity firms–often founded by former mining executives–and manufacturers with a newfound taste for vertical integration. LG and CATL are among the battery producers which have backed mining projects. Since the start of 2021 carmakers have made around 20 investments in battery-grade nickel, and five others in lithium and cobalt. Most of these projects involved Western firms.

In March, for example, Volkswagen announced a joint venture with two Chinese miners to secure nickel and cobalt for its ev factories in China. Last month General Motors said it would pay Livent, a lithium producer, US$200m upfront to secure lumps of the white metal. The American EV champion, Tesla, is signing deals left and right.

Mick Davis, a coal-mining veteran now at Vision Blue Resources, an investment firm that invests in minor miners, doubts that all this dealmaking will be enough to plug the funding gap. Recycling, which usually makes up a quarter of supply in mature metals markets, is not expected to help much before 2030. Tweaks to battery designs may moderate demand for the scarcest metals somewhat, but at the risk of lower battery performance. Lithium in particular will remain hard to substitute. Technologies that do away with it entirely, such as sodium-based cathodes, are a long way off.
Helter-smelter

Even if the West’s EV industry somehow managed to secure enough metals and battery-making capacity, it would still face a giant problem in the middle of the supply chain, refining, where China enjoys near-monopolies. Chinese companies refine nearly 70% of the world’s lithium, 84% of its nickel and 85% of its cobalt. Trafigura forecasts that the shares for the last two of these will remain above 80% for at least the next five years.

RICK BOWMER/AP
The American EV champion, Tesla, is signing deals left and right.

And as with battery manufacturers, Chinese refiners gobble up dirty coal-generated electricity. On top of that, according to Trafigura, both European and North American firms are also expected to rely on foreign suppliers, often Chinese ones, for at least half the capacity to convert refined ores into the materials that go into batteries.

Western governments say they understand the urgent need to diversify their suppliers. Last year Joe Biden, America’s president, unveiled a blueprint to create a domestic supply chain for batteries. His mammoth infrastructure law, passed in 2021, set aside US$3b for making batteries in America. The Inflation Reduction Act, which Congress passed on August 12, also includes sweeteners for the battery industry, contingent in part on mining, refining and manufacturing components at home or in allied countries.

The EU, which created a bloc-wide battery alliance in 2017 to co-ordinate public and private efforts, says €127b was invested last year across the supply chain, with an additional €382b expected by 2030. Most of this is likely to land downstream, helping Europe and America to become self-sufficient in the production of finished cells by 2027.

That is something. And it remains possible that enough discoveries of new deposits, more efficient mining technology, improved battery chemistry and sacrifices on performance all combine to bring the market into balance. More likely, as Jean-François Lambert, a commodities consultant, puts it, the EV industry is “going to be living a big lie for quite some time”.

© 2020 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist published under licence. The original article can be found on www.economist.com.