COP29

Cop climate talks give ‘crumbs’ to Global South

Cop’s own economists say the Global South needs 2.4 trillion dollars to cope with extreme weather and switch economies away from fossil fuels

A climate march in London as the Cop talks too place

 (Picture: Guy Smallman)

By Camilla Royle
Sunday 24 November 2024  

 SOCIALIST WORKER   Issue

The international Cop29 climate talks have once again abandoned the billions of people around the world facing an environmental catastrophe.

Last year was the hottest on record—and 2024 looks set to break this record again. This will lead to flash flooding, storms and droughts. Temperatures already exceeded the target that was agreed at the Paris climate talks in 2015—1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels—for part of this year.

This was meant to be the “finance Cop”. Global South countries have been asking for a trillion dollars per year from the Global North to help them deal with the effects of climate change.

Yet the richer countries only agreed to pay £238 billion and this would only be delivered by 2035. Panama’s lead negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez said the amounts being offered were “outrageous, evil and remorseless”. He said, “They offer crumbs while we bear the dead.”

At one point, Global South delegates walked out of the talks in disgust. They included many representatives of small island states who fear being swamped by rising sea levels.

Cop’s own economists say the Global South needs 2.4 trillion dollars to cope with extreme weather and switch economies away from fossil fuels.

The Cop talks have provided an opportunity for oil-rich states to try to protect their domestic fossil fuel industries and water down agreements.

Last year the talks agreed to accelerate efforts towards “the phase-down of unabated coal power”. This came nowhere close to the rapid shutdown of all new fossil fuel extraction that is needed.

This year delegates have lobbied against even these weak proposals. Saudi Arabia opposed any inclusion of measures to “transition away from fossil fuels”.

Albara Tawfiq from the Saudi delegation said it “will not accept any text that targets any specific sectors, including fossil fuels”. Delegates from China also spoke out against specific pledges over fossil fuels.

Bolivia’s delegates opposed it on the basis that richer countries should cut their own emissions before telling the Global South not to develop fossil fuel industries.

A giant natural gas field has recently been discovered in Bolivia, which the country’s leaders hope will help revive the economy. But gas exploration in the Latin American country has angered environmental and indigenous groups.

Delegates from Colombia took a different stance. Susana Muhamad is the environment minister in the left wing government that came to office two years ago and pledged to phase out fossil fuel production. “What is the point of having an agreement and a convention if we cannot deal with the issue that creates the problem?” she asked.

The Cop talks took place in Baku in Azerbaijan, a centre of the fossil fuel industry. Azerbaijan plans to increase its exports of gas to countries in the West which no longer want to import gas from Russia.

But it also played a major role in supplying oil to the eastern Mediterranean via the BTS pipeline— including to Israel.

Labour energy secretary Ed Miliband gave a speech at the talks. He admitted that the Cop process is “imperfect” but added that it is “the best process we have got”.

Miliband said that an expansion of clean energy will lead to economic growth. He said, “It is right for tackling the climate crisis and for the face of future generations. And it is right economically for Britain because it will spur jobs and export opportunities and help businesses.”

The Labour government announced at the start of the Cop talks that it wants to cut emissions by 81 percent by 2035. That’s a slight increase on the 78 percent pledge from the previous Tory government. Miliband has said he wouldn’t issue new oil and gas licences to achieve this.

Yet while Labour make bold speeches about global ambition and deep emissions cuts, their plans involve massive investment in carbon capture and storage technologies. Experts say this will deepen Britain’s dependence on oil and gas.

And the government is committed to working with climate change denying United States president Donald Trump. Miliband has said that he wants to find “common ground” and “work with all countries to move forward on this really important issue”.

Labour is presiding over a fossil fuelled capitalist system that is driving us towards disaster.

WWIII

Labour opens Glasgow site to ramp up deadly arms race with China

The new site in Glasgow will help to supply Australia with nuclear submarines

The Aukus deal will develop nuclear submarines for Australia 

(Picture: NZ Defence Force)

By Tomáš Tengely-Evans
Friday 22 November 2024    

SOCIALIST WORKER Issue

The warmongers of the Labour Party have opened a new site in Glasgow as a “clear demonstration” of their “commitment to Britain’s nuclear deterrent”.

Labour defence minister Maria Eagle opened the Rolls Royce office near Glasgow Airport on Friday. It’s for specialists who will help to deliver the Aukus programme—a United States and British agreement to supply Australia with nuclear submarines.

Aukus is part of the deadly arms race between the West and China in Asia and the Pacific. Eagle said, “The opening of the new Rolls-Royce office in Glasgow is a clear demonstration of the government’s commitment to the UK’s nuclear deterrent.

“This investment is delivered alongside an important industry partnership and will support high-skilled jobs and economic growth that will benefit our prosperity and security for decades to come.”

Labour is pushing the lie that Aukus is good for working class people. Scottish Secretary, the odious Union Jack-waving Ian Murray, claimed, “Economic growth is the British Government’s top mission. I welcome the opening of this new Ministry of Defence funded office and the 120 high-skilled jobs it has created.”

Two of the biggest unions, Unite and GMB, go along with this pro-war, pro-arms argument. The STUC trade union federation’s conference in 2023 backed a motion slamming the Aukus deal as “heightening nuclear tensions in the Pacific”.

GMB opposed the motion saying Aukus would deter Chinese aggression, while Unite said it would put skilled jobs at risk. But the billions of pounds spent on Aukus could be invested into public services and green industries, as part of a just transition for workers in arms industries.

The British government has not provided an estimated cost of the Aukus programme, which will see submarines enter service in the late 2030s. But it did announce £3 billion in funding in March 2023. That’s a small fraction of what the final cost will be—yet this sum alone could pay for over 30,000 nurses.

The opening of the office came as the West ramps up tensions in Ukraine. Joe Biden authorised Ukraine to fire US-supplied missiles into Russian territory on Monday—and Keir Starmer quickly followed suit.

After Ukrainian forces fired the missiles, Russia bombed the country with an intercontinental ballistic missile—the sort that can carry nuclear warheads. President Vladimir Putin broadened the state’s nuclear doctrine, meaning Russian forces could use nuclear weapons if attacked by a non-nuclear power that’s backed by nuclear-armed states.

Imperialist rivalry between the West and Russia has torn Ukraine apart—and now threatens nuclear war. But, as the West pours fuel onto the fire, the Scottish National Party (SNP) first minister John Swinney said he “supports the steps taken” by the US and Britain.

Stop The War Coalition Scotland, the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the STUC has called a national demonstration in Glasgow on Saturday. Jeremy Corbyn is set to speak at the demonstration, and it is backed by the RMT, PCS, UCU, EIS and FBU unions, Scottish Lebanese Society and others.

As the West ramps up the drive to war in Ukraine and the Middle East, it’s vital to build the Palestine, anti-war and anti-imperialist movements.National demonstration: Stop all arms sales to Israel, Hands off Gaza and Lebanon, No war with Iran, Welfare not Warfare. Saturday 23 November, 11.30am, Glasgow Green

Why incinerators should be in the dustbin of history

Incinerators produce the same greenhouse gas emissions per unit of energy as coal power

A protest against a planned incinerator in Edmonton, north London 

(Picture: Socialist Worker)

By Camilla Royle
Friday 22 November 2024  

SOCIALIST WORKER Issue


Three waste incinerator projects are expected to go bust in the next few days. Investors have poured £480 million into these projects over the past eight years. One of Britain’s biggest pension funds, Aviva Investors, will now lose over £350 million of the money it has invested.

Incinerating waste is one of the most polluting ways of producing power. The number of incinerators in Britain started to expand 15 years ago—and there are now around 60 energy-from-waste plants.

They were painted as a win-win solution, producing electricity for households while disposing of their rubbish.

Yet these plants only account for 3.1 percent of Britain’s energy production. And, according to research from the BBC, they produce the same greenhouse gas emissions per unit of energy as coal power.

The government is shutting down coal fired power plants, but new incinerators are still being built.

Incinerators are often in urban areas and more likely to be built in poorer rather than richer neighbourhoods.

Residents in Edmonton, north London, have been campaigning for years against a planned new incinerator which was meant to open next year.

Edmonton is a working class area that already has air pollution levels that exceed European Union limits. People are concerned about the pollution, noise and smell from incinerators burning plastics and other household waste. And they don’t want more traffic due to trucks bringing waste to the plant.

Now the project is delayed due to high costs and labour shortages.

Waste bosses plan an incinerator in Portland. Dorset council rejected the proposals last year, but the Labour government overturned the planning decision.


Climate protesters rage against Israel’s occupation of Palestine
Read More

Annika from Weymouth is part of the campaign against the planned Portland waste incinerator in Dorset. “People have defied this for so long. Everybody thought it was not going to go ahead so we had to revive the campaign,” she told Socialist Worker.

“We want to make sure people haven’t given up. Other incinerators have gone bust. They are not making enough money so it doesn’t make sense to have this one. Dorset has got a really good record of recycling so it’s not even our waste they would be incinerating.

“Any population that lives near an incinerator faces health issues and some people are motivated to oppose it because of the effect on the local community. They do target the communities that are the most neglected.

“But it’s also the environmental impact. It’s the fact that it is bad generally with carbon dioxide emissions, it’s not just a local issue.

“We had a humongous protest last Saturday with up to 1000 people. Weymouth was full of people making a lot of noise.”

The three projects that Aviva is set to lose money on are based in Hull in Yorkshire, Boston, Lincolnshire and Barry in South Wales. The Hull and Boston incinerators have not produced enough energy to meet their targets. Vale of Glamorgan Council rejected planning permission for the Welsh project.

The solution is not just a massive expansion of waste recycling. We also need a complete overhaul of how we package and transport goods to cut down on the amount of plastic produced.

A collective crime

Mike Phipps reviews Loot: How Israel Stole Palestinian Property, 

by Adam Raz, published by Verso.

 

HubMP2012

NOVEMBER 24, 2024

This is the first book whose primary focus is the plunder of Palestinian property, says the author says his Introduction. This looting was not out of compliance with some political order from above: “the looting of moveable assets was voluntary, and many people engaged in this criminal behaviour.”

While looting and theft are almost standard practice in wartime, the plundering that took place during the Independence War that created the State of Israel was different. The Jewish population plundered the property of neighbouring Arab inhabitants. “These were not abstract ‘enemies’… They were yesterday’s neighbours.”

The first half of the book documents in detail the scale of the looting of Palestinian property. In Tiberias, the fall of the city to the Zionist army meant the complete exodus of the Palestinian inhabitants, never to return. A huge amount of property was left behind and looting took place on a unprecedented scale. One Jewish National Fund official was appalled, writing in his diary: “Ten by ten, in groups, the Jews moved about and robbed Arab homes and stores… There was a competition between the different Haganah platoons… who arrived in cars and boats and loaded up all types of things… The soldiers assigned specifically to protect property ignored what was going on around them, and it is rumoured that they were accepting bribes. A moral collapse.”

Another observer noted: “‘These scenes were familiar to me, but I was always used to associating them with what others did to us during the Holocaust, during the world wars, and during all the pogroms…  And here – here we were doing these horrible things to others.”

Tiberias would serve as a model for other cities throughout the country. In Haifa, looters did not even wait for properties to be abandoned. A government minister reported that mostly Arab properties were targeted, but even Jewish homes were being attacked: “During the various home invasions, there were cases where the invaders used force, hit men and women, knocked down doors, gathered up the furniture that they removed from rooms, and took people from their homes and put them in the street… It is clear that the home invasions were organized by army officers. There were officers among the invaders who removed their rank insignia.”

Unrestrained looting also took place in Jerusalem. The pillagers had taken so much plunder from Palestinian homes that they needed to protect it from other Jewish civilians who had also come to loot: “Blood began to flow.” The plunder reportedly went on for days – even months – in both Arab and Jewish neighbourhoods. It stopped only when there was nothing left to steal. What could not be taken, or was considered valueless, was smashed up. Entire libraries were torched.

In Jaffa, it was British soldiers who began the looting of shops for days on end. Others soon joined them. Communist Party member Ruth Lubitz noted: “All along the way, there is not a home, a store or a workshop that has not had everything taken from it.” In a twelve-day period in June 1948, over 5,000 tons of goods were taken out of the city on trucks.

Around 550 Palestinian villages were conquered in the Independence War. In some, mass looting, involving “people from every social stratum”, took place. “Machines, work animals, homes, and granaries that could have been of use to the army itself and the state treasury were destroyed, killed, and burned,” complained one government department.

Mosques and churches were also targeted. Israel’s Foreign Minister, Moshe Sharett, described it in 1949 as “wild vandalism, desecration of holy sites worthy of savages, not Jews.” Notably, the Dormition Abbey of the Benedictine community, on Mount Zion, considered to be one of their holiest churches, was thoroughly looted. Monasteries and mosques were routinely destroyed.

A great moral failure

It could be argued that the stealing of furniture and household goods is trivial compared to the massacres perpetrated at the time, such as the execution of dozens of Palestinian prisoners in Ein Zaytun – an atrocity that was concealed for years. But the involvement of so many civilians – including children – in the pillaging had far-reaching consequences.

Some saw this: “I am afraid of the loss of innocence, the loss of the idea that man needs to live by his labour rather than by plunder and robbery, because there is something here that smacks of great moral failure.”

Another: “Booty does more than just destroy the victim. It damages the perpetrator’s soul; if its influence rears its head even slightly during wartime, much of its poison spreads through society’s arteries during subsequent times of peace.”

 Politically, the involvement of so many people in the pillaging was critical. It integrated them into a collective crime and made it easier to lock them into support for the ongoing atrocities committed by the nascent Zionist state. As Raz puts it, “It turned looters… into political collaborators.”  He goes on: “The plunderer became an unwilling advocate of a policy agenda that strove to create a condition of perpetual war between Israel and the Arab world.”

Moreover, inasmuch that the Israeli leadership appears to have ignored the warnings about mass looting expressed to it from within its own government and later granted a blanket amnesty, this may have been deliberate government policy: “It served Prime Minister Ben-Gurion’s policy of removing Arab residents from the State of Israel and helped him realize it.”

After the war, the Israeli Prime Minister appointed his Attorney General “to look into whether the army and its soldiers harmed the lives of Arabs in the Galilee and the south in ways that run counter to the rules of war.” To this day, the findings remain confidential. “Even though Israeli soldiers committed numerous atrocities,” notes the author, “only one, accused of murdering fifteen Arabs, was put on trial.” He received a one-year prison sentence and a short time later was pardoned.

Adam Raz has amassed an amazing amount of detail in his research of this subject. Given the ongoing efforts to erase Palestine’s past and conceal Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, this book is an important contribution to uncovering the reality on which the Zionist state was founded.

Mike Phipps’ book Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow: The Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn (OR Books, 2022) can be ordered here.

NAKBA 2.0

West Bank Christian woman leads resistance to settlers' seizure of family's land

(RNS) — Alice Kisiya leads an interfaith effort to defend her family’s land against encroachment by Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

Israeli activists surround Alice Kisiya, center, as they try to enter her family's land, after the Palestinian family was forcefully evicted by Israeli settlers backed by soldiers who declared it a closed military area, in the West Bank town of Beit Jala, Friday, Aug. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Heather M. Surls
November 18, 2024

AMMAN, Jordan (RNS) — A group of Israeli Jews said Sabbath prayers on a late October Friday as the sun set in Al-Makhrour, a valley outside of Beit Jala in the West Bank. Nearby, Palestinian Muslims faced Mecca and said their own magrib prayers.

After the prayers the two groups sat together on a woven plastic mat along with a few Christians and others, to share a meal, roast marshmallows and get to know one another in a peaceful vigil, joined by another 40 people online. They had all come to support Alice Kisiya, 30, whose family had been forcibly evicted from their 1.25-acre plot in July by Jewish settlers, backed by the Israel Defense Forces.

Walking through an olive grove, her face illuminated by her phone’s light in the darkness, Kisiya told the online attendees that IDF soldiers had come by earlier, but, apparently taken aback by the sight of Jews, Muslims and Christians picnicking in the middle of a war, they drove away. Evil, she said, fears unity

“An interfaith community is what this society needs to be united and to be strong to achieve justice and peace,” said Kisiya, a Palestinian Christian with Israeli and French citizenship. “Sharing different backgrounds and beliefs and learning how to love and accept each other is the way to a new age where everyone can live in peace and harmony.”

RELATED: How the Israeli settlers movement shaped modern Israel

A vast majority of the land in Al-Makhrour, known locally as “Bethlehem’s heaven,” is owned by Palestinian Christians, who comprise less than 2% of the West Bank’s population. Save Al-Makhrour, an online community that supports the Kisiyas’ cause, frames the family’s case as a fight for Christian presence in the Holy Land.

The Kisiya property in the West Bank prior to structures being demolished.

 (Photo courtesy Alice Kisiya)

“Christians in Israel and Palestine must stand together and not let families be picked off one by one,” read a Save Al-Makhrour statement. “Jews, Muslims and Christians must stand together for a vision of living in the Land alongside one another, thriving in freedom and equality.”

Civil Administration, Israel’s governing agency in the West Bank, began to threaten the Kisiyas shortly after Alice’s father, Ramzi, opened a restaurant on the land in 2002, she said. It hosted weddings and graduation parties as well as Christmas, Easter and Ramadan celebrations. The administration destroyed it in 2012, 2013 and 2015, always citing its lack of a building permit, though Alice Kisiya said the law didn’t require one since the restaurant, built from wood, was what she calls an “agricultural structure.” In 2019 the family’s home was jackhammered down too.

Kisiya said the family has legally owned the land since before Israel’s establishment in 1948, but in 2017, Himanuta, a subsidiary of the Jewish National Fund, claimed in court that it had bought the land in 1969. Recent reports by peace activists and in the Israeli press have called the JNF’s land acquisitions “dubious,” and the Kisiya family said a search of state archives turned up no sign of the transaction.

After their house was destroyed, the Kisiyas lived on the property in a tent until July 31, when a group of armed settlers supported by the Jewish National Fund barred the family’s entrance by installing a padlocked gate emblazoned with the Star of David. Asked for comment, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, a unit of the Defense Ministry of Israel, cited the disputed acquisition and said it backed the lockout due to “friction,” COGAT told RNS, “between settlers and the Israeli citizen who was ruled not to own the place.”

A couple of weeks later, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced Israel’s plan to build Nahal Heletz, a settlement adjacent to Al-Makhrour that would connect settlements southwest of Bethlehem with Jerusalem. The settlement will sit in Battir, which, with Al-Makhrour, was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2014. Currently, about 700,000 settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem live in settlements, which are considered illegal under international law.

The Nahal Heletz settlement site, red, within a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the West Bank. (Image courtesy Peace Now)

For now, the Kisiyas have rented an apartment in nearby Al-Walaja, and Alice, who has worked as a journalist and fitness trainer, has resolved that it’s her turn to lead the family’s struggle for their land. Believing that God placed her where she is for a reason, she plans to proceed through patient, nonviolent resistance. “My parents taught me a lot (about) how to be strong and how not to lose hope, and that by following Jesus’ teaching we shall overcome evil,” she said.

Ofer Cassif, a member of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, said such land grabs have become routine under the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In September, the International Crisis Group reported that settlement activity and settler violence had increased dramatically since 2022, when Netanyahu’s far-right government came to power. The report noted more than 1,000 incidents of settler violence since the war in Gaza began, including 21 fatalities and 643 injuries, 1,300 Palestinians driven from their homes and thousands of acres of West Bank land stolen.

In February, Cassif, the only sitting Jewish lawmaker in the Hadash-Ta’al Party, was nearly expelled from the Knesset for supporting South Africa’s genocide case against Israel. Last week, the body agreed to suspend him for six months. Sometimes, he said, death threats force him to stay home. Yet Cassif, who identifies as an atheist, said he walks in the footsteps of the Jewish prophets, who stood firm against evil.

“For me to struggle for the rights of the Palestinians is because it’s just and justice is universal. … I need not be a Palestinian to support Palestinian liberation,” he said.

In late September, an interfaith group constructed the tiny Church of Nations near the Kisiyas’ land. Among those who worked on the building was Munther Amira, a Palestinian Muslim activist recently released from administrative detention in an Israeli prison. Volunteers framed the 260-square-foot structure with raw beams and walled it in with wooden sheeting painted to resemble stones. A cross, crescent and Star of David were painted on an inner wall.

That evening a vigil took place in the church as IDF soldiers stood watch nearby. Attendees included the Rev. Munther Isaac, a Lutheran pastor and academic dean of Bethlehem Bible College, as well as representatives from Rabbis for Human Rights and the World Council of Churches.

Two days later, the IDF returned with an excavator to disassemble the church.

The Church of Nations is constructed in late Sept. 2024, near the Kisiya family land in the West Bank. (Photo by Ahmad Al-Rajabi)

On Nov. 3, Kisiya was arrested and briefly detained after settlers on the land accused her of hitting a settler and stealing something. A video shows one of the settlers attacking Kisiya inside her car and attempting to strangle her.

“If it’s happening with Alice today, it might happen to my neighbor tomorrow, and the next day it’s me,” said Haytham Salameh, a Palestinian university student and volunteer medic who has joined Kisiya’s supporters. A resident of Bethlehem, Salameh had only encountered Israelis at border crossings and checkpoints until he came to the campfire picnic. “If it’s not going to be us who stand up with and for Alice, who’s it going to be?”

The morning after the picnic, Kisiya and a dozen others walked to her family’s land, but before they reached the Kisiyas’ road, the IDF met them.

Amira Musallam, Kisiya’s sister-in-law whose 9-year-old son will eventually inherit rights to the family land, said that to deter their entrance, the soldiers presented the group with a map and an order designating the land as a closed military zone — the third such order. Musallam said the documents actually applied to a piece of land about 4 kilometers away.

“We can’t do anything about it,” Musallam said. “They are the IDF, they are in control. … Even if we want to go to court, the court will not help because now everything is under the war emergency time.”
RELATED: Israeli settlers ‘expelled’ from Gaza in 2005 say it’s time to return

Kisiya remains hopeful, convinced she will return to her land. She is planning an international solidarity campaign in which participants will plant trees in the name of Al-Makhrour — a riff on the Jewish National Fund’s popular tree-planting project, whose proceeds go to support settlers and settlement building.

She also dreams of building Al-Makhrour’s first church to replace the Church of Nations, where Christians of all denominations will be able to unite in prayer. When settlers steal land, she said, she’ll ring the bell to remind them she is still there.

“We will keep our faith and will not give up,” Kisiya posted on Instagram on Oct. 7. “We will be united and defeat the evil. Love will win and the light will rise over the darkness. Justice and peace are not earned, they are made, and we the people together — Christians, Muslims and Jews and non-believers who believe in humanity — will achieve that.”

 UK

If Keir Starmer wants to cut the benefits bill, he could crack down on service charge abuse

By the Social Housing Action Campaign

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged to crack down on benefit fraud. In order to fulfil this promise, SHAC is urging him to eliminate the blank cheque that landlords are able to write when it comes to Housing Benefit (HB) in respect of service charges.

 Starmer is reported in the Mail on Sunday on government plans: “We will crack down hard on anyone who tries to game the system, to tackle fraud so we can take cash straight from the banks of fraudsters … There will be a zero-tolerance approach to these criminals. My pledge to Mail on Sunday readers is this: I will grip this problem once and for all.”

SHAC asserts that housing associations across the country are ‘gaming the system’ when it comes to the HB collected from its tenants.

Housing Benefit Service Charge Abuse

HB covers payments for both service charges and rents. For some renters, the cost of services such as communal cleaning is included in their rental payments. However, for a proportion of tenants, rents and service charges are billed separately and both can be covered by HB.

Housing associations collect around £1.7 billion in respect of service charges annually. Approximately half of this is paid through HB.

The Housing Benefits Bill

The housing benefits bill is at its highest level since records began, and is pushing overall government spending to record amounts. The distribution of housing spend between benefits and building and maintenance has also changed dramatically.

The UK Housing Review 2024 notes that government spending on housing in 2021/22 was £30.5 billion compared to £22.3 billion in 1975/76 (not adjusted for inflation). However, 88% of this is used to fund housing benefits, with only 12% of government spending used to build or improve homes.

• No-one is scrutinising the legitimacy of service charge demands from landlords in respect of tenants in receipt of HB.

 Scrutinising the service charges for a single resident in a single year involves hours of work, even when the landlord fully cooperates and provides the statement and an invoice pack.

 Akin to an audit, it requires the reconciliation of multiple invoices against statements in the service charge bill, and sometimes checks to identify whether works being invoiced have actually been carried out. It would be impossible for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) or staff in local authorities to conduct the scrutiny needed for the hundreds of thousands of service charge payments made through HB annually.

• Service charge accounts are riddled with inaccuracies.

Over the last three years, SHAC has collated evidence to support this assertion. Recent media coverage such as the BBC’s The Leasehold Trap and The True Cost of Leasehold provides further validated case studies and quantitative analysis of this form of financial abuse. The First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber)  also regularly rules in favour of tenants and residents (shared owners and leaseholders) who claim to have been overcharged by their landlords.

• Inaccuracies have been identified in the service charge accounts of members on mixed-residency estates, where some tenants are paying the charge directly, and others are paying via the benefits system.

Those who are paying directly are incentivised to challenge inaccuracies. By contrast, those whose charges are paid via benefits risk losing those benefits if they alert the DWP to the inaccuracies without the landlord acknowledging and removing overcharged items from their bills. Tenants are therefore left with a shortfall to cover. This makes it impossible for tenants in receipt of Housing Benefit to report inaccuracies even if they become aware of them.

• It is clear that the benefits system is being defrauded by millions of pounds annually through service charge abuse.

This is not an issue that can be addressed by individuals, or simply by cutting HB. This would penalise the victims of service charge abuse rather than the perpetrators. The Prime Minister needs to address the issue at source to prevent the inaccurate service charges. This issue demands a major inquiry into service charge abuse by councils, housing associations and private landlords.

SHAC is a campaign group linking tenants, renters, shared owners, and leaseholders living in homes owned by housing associations, councils, and private landlords. We campaign to improve housing conditions and to reduce the commercialisation of public housing. Web: www.shaction.org

Starmer vows ‘sweeping changes’ to tackle ‘bulging benefits bill’

James Moules  24th November, 2024

Keir Starmer has vowed to implement “sweeping changes” to deal with the “bulging benefits bill blighting our society” in a move that could anger many MPs on the Labour left.

Writing in The Mail on Sunday, the Prime Minister pledged to clamp down on benefit fraud in what he says will be the “biggest overhaul of employment support in memory.”

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall is expected to announce a major overhaul to the benefits system this week. She told Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips that people who repeatedly refuse to take up training and work will face benefits sanctions.

It comes as the number of people claiming incapacity benefits is expected to rise over the coming decade in trends partly driven by a growing number of people out of work due to mental health conditions.

Starmer wrote: “In the coming months, Mail on Sunday readers will see even more sweeping changes. Because make no mistake, we will get to grips with the bulging benefits bill blighting our society.

“Don’t get me wrong – we will crack down hard on anyone who tries to game the system, to tackle fraud so we can take cash straight from the banks of fraudsters.

“There will be a zero-tolerance approach to these criminals. My pledge to Mail on Sunday readers is this: I will grip this problem once and for all.”

A benefit clampdown risks angering some MPs on the left of the parliamentary party, many of whom have already shown disgruntlement over the government’s reluctance towards reforms such as a scrapping the two-child benefit cap.

 

UK Postal workers facing attacks on two fronts

By Pete Firmin

NOVEMBER 23, 2024

HubMP201

On  13th November the Post Office announced its intention to close 115 post offices, which would mean 1,000 redundancies. This is the latest in a long programme of closures, though a much bigger tranche than previously.

The announcement came as a result of a review by Nigel Railton, Chair of the Post Office, conducted since May. It was leaked to the London Evening Standard before the official announcement, meaning not just the public, but also those who work in those post offices heard the news first from the media. Worse, a management briefing for staff held the day of the announcement didn’t even mention the closure programme.

The union representing post office staff, the Communications Workers Union (CWU), was not invited to participate in the review, nor has it been permitted to date to see the accounts to check the Post Office’s claim that it is losing £60 million a year.

The Post Office had the cheek to say that the closures were for the benefit of staff: “The Post Office has a 360-year history of public service and today we want to secure that service for the future by learning from past mistakes and moving forward for the benefit of all postmasters.

“We can, and will, restore pride in working for a business with a legacy of service, rather than one of scandal.

“The value postmasters deliver in their communities must be reflected in their pockets, and this Transformation Plan provides a route to adding more than £250million annually to total postmaster remuneration by 2030, subject to government funding.”

The scandal referred to is, of course, the Horizon scandal where Post Office management bullied, harassed and prosecuted post office workers over claims they had stolen money which had in fact disappeared into the faulty computer system. To claim that the closures is somehow to the benefit of postmasters takes an enormous amount of chutzpah.

At the same time, there is a government review of the future of the Post Office. Clearly the announcement by Railton is meant to pre-empt this.

The closures of post offices that have taken place in the part have either meant complete closure, or a post office counter in the corner of a shop. Many former post offices have been left empty, blighting high streets for years. Even when a private company takes over the running of post office business, there is no compulsion for them to continue indefinitely, 

The CWU has called on the government to stop the closures and look at innovative ways to develop the network of post offices. The Post Office, unlike Royal Mail, is still publicly owned. For the government to allow these closures to go ahead would be yet another sign that it is continuing with austerity and privatisation.

Most of those listed for closure are busy ones in town centres that would be a real loss to the community. Petitions against closure have already started in some places, and a campaign could take off in the same way that the one about the threat to close ticket offices at stations did. The CWU has previously campaigned against such closures with mixed success, but the size of this programme should make it easier to have a national, not just a localised, campaign, linking trade union, users and local Councillors.

A few days after the announcement of post office closures, the owners of Royal Mail, International Distribution Services, announced they were considering further job cuts and an increase in the  – already exorbitant – price of stamps, despite having achieved an operating profit this year.

While there are no concrete plans yet for redundancies – though Royal Mail has been losing large numbers of staff in recent years through resignations – the CWU needs to draw up plans for resistance rather than go with the usual ‘no compulsory redundancies’ approach. Postal services around the country are already collapsing due to lack of staff; further cuts would only make things worse.

This only makes more obvious the mistake the CWU leadership is making in dropping the call for the government to bring Royal Mail back into public ownership, instead hoping that any new owner will treat the workforce nicely. Apparently this is because Keir Starmer has turned his back on renationalisation, but the answer to that ought to be building a campaign with public support, rather than self-censorship.

One of the problems this dual attack highlights is how much of a mistake it is to have Royal Mail and the Post office as separate entities. Apparently, Britain is the only country which has done that. Renationalisation could be accompanied by bringing them back together as one public service.

Pete Firmin is a retired postal worker and CWU member.

Image: Uplands Post office, Stroud … on the closure list! (2008). Author: BazzaDaRambler https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Uplands_Post_office,_Stroud_…_on_the_closure_list!_%282315011976%29.jpg, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

LGBTQ+ community feels increasingly unsafe in Britain, analysis shows

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead 

Yesterday
LEFT FOOT FORWARD

“Transgender issues have been heavily discussed by politicians, the media and on social media over the last year, which may have led to an increase in these offences, or more awareness in the police in the identification and recording of these crimes.”

LGBTQ+ individuals are feeling increasingly unsafe in Britain, according to recent research. A survey conducted by the trans-inclusive underwear brand Zoah showed that 72% of transgender and non-binary respondents do not feel safe in the UK due to their gender identity.

The survey, which included 400 transgender men, transgender women, and non-binary people, found that young people and students were particularly vulnerable, with less than half feeling secure in school or college compared to their cisgender peers.

Almost half (49%) of those surveyed reported negative experiences in various aspects of their lives, including employment and access to healthcare.

These findings come amid rising hate crimes against transgender individuals. The Home Office’s 2023 hate crime report noted a significant increase, with 4,732 hate crimes against transgender people recorded in the year ending March 2023, an 11% rise from the previous year. The report suggested that inflammatory comments from politicians and the media may have contributed to this increase. It read:

“Transgender issues have been heavily discussed by politicians, the media and on social media over the last year, which may have led to an increase in these offences, or more awareness in the police in the identification and recording of these crimes.”

The LGBTQ+ advocacy group Stonewall has criticised political leaders for their inadequate response to hate crimes, arguing that many have perpetuated harmful language that dehumanises LGBTQ+ individuals.

In April, the Cass Review, a report on gender services for children and young people, was published. It highlighted a lack of research on the use of puberty blockers and hormones, noting that children have been let down by inadequate evidence. Led by Dr Hilary Cass, former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the review was commissioned by NHS England and NHS Improvement in 2020 to assess NHS services for gender-questioning youth. But numerous nonprofits and activists have raised concerns that the review’s recommendations may further restrict access to trans healthcare.

An open letter signed by hundreds of experts in October expressed a “deep lack of confidence” in the Cass Review, criticising it for failing to include the perspectives of trans individuals. The letter stated that a trustworthy government review should involve members of the affected community and those with extensive experience in the field, rather than dismissing their insights as bias.

An open letter signed by hundreds of experts in October expressed a “deep lack of confidence” in the review, which it said had failed to consider trans people.

Concerns have been heightened by the health secretary, Wes Streeting, whose track record on trans rights includes controversial statements, such as his belief that trans women are not women. He has been accused of catering to anti-trans groups and has repeatedly extended a ban on puberty blockers in England and Wales, with intentions to make this ban permanent.

Opinion

Christians mobilize to pray for all the persecuted

(RNS) — Those facing persecution need Christians to speak up, working across faith and theological lines for those living in danger everywhere.

(Image by Tep Ro/Pixabay/Creative Commons)
Knox Thames
November 22, 2024

(RNS) — This November, many Christian congregations have been pausing to pray for those who share their faith and are persecuted for it around the world. These prayers are needed, as it is undoubtedly dangerous to be a Christian in many countries, especially where Christianity is a minority faith. Open Door’s World Watch List tracks the worst places to follow Christ, most recently naming Somalia, Eritrea and Nigeria among the top 10, along with Iran, Pakistan and India.

But Christians are not alone. Many different faith traditions are also subject to violent oppression somewhere in the world in what might be called a pandemic of persecution.

The Pew Research Center reports that religious restrictions affect almost two-thirds of people on the planet. China commits genocide against Uyghur Muslims while destroying Tibetan Buddhism and crushing independent churches. Iran goes after Baha’is with a vengeance while arresting evangelical Christian leaders. Boko Haram in Nigeria murders Christians, but also fellow Muslims who dare disagree with Boko Haram’s violent theology. The list could go on.

RELATED: State Department criticizes religious persecution: But will it act?

In response, a new movement is working to inspire Christians to pray and advocate for anyone persecuted for their beliefs.

In late October, Christians gathered at Dallas Baptist University to discuss their responsibility to intercede for others, praying for persecuted Christians and their oppressed non-Christian neighbors. Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, told in the Gospel of Luke, provided the framework for discussion: A traveler attacked and left for dead by bandits on a lonely road is spotted by first one, then another member of the religious establishment, but both “passed by on the other side.” The hero is a Samaritan, a foreigner and a heretic to Jesus’ listeners, who stopped at a risk to his own security, took him to safety and paid two days’ wages to put him up in an inn.

Elevating a Samaritan to the role of hero was a huge twist for first-century Palestine, where religious and ethnic differences were considered an excuse not to help someone in need. Asking no questions about the victim’s beliefs, party affiliation or favorite sports team, the Samaritan took action. Jesus concluded the parable by saying, “Go and do likewise.”

To explore this call and what it means, the conference at Dallas Baptist brought together Christians committed to leading the charge in helping everyone. Cosponsored by Christians Against All Persecution Network and the university’s Institute for Global Engagement, the conference heard from formerly imprisoned Christians Mariam Ibraheem and Andrew Brunson, among other speakers. Open Doors was represented, as were other evangelical organizations involved in advocating for their faith communities, including Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Stefanus Alliance, 21Wilberforce, the Religious Freedom Institute and the Baptist World Alliance.

But importantly, the conference organizers invited non-Christians to talk about the plight of their community. Activists and survivors from Uyghur Muslim, Yazidi and Baha’i groups spoke about their co-religionists’ suffering in China, Iraq and Iran. After hearing from these speakers, the conference paused to pray that those in danger would receive protection and rescue. Theological debates were set aside out of a concern for human suffering.

RELATED: For Iranian converts claiming religious persecution, European courts require proof of faith

The conference in Dallas was the start of a new beginning to inspire Christ followers to become vocal advocates for our own and the rights of everyone everywhere. It was an important first step, and hopefully more of this kind of consciousness-raising will follow. Those facing persecution need Christians to speak up, working across faith and theological lines for those living in danger everywhere. These modern-day “least of these,” locked in forgotten prisons or attacked for their beliefs, need prayer and advocacy as much as followers of Jesus Christ.


(Knox Thames is a former diplomat who served in the Obama and Trump administrations as a special envoy for religious minorities in the Middle East and South Asia and the author of “Ending Persecution: Charting the Path to Global Religious Freedom.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

On women deacons, the Catholic Church has to remember its own history

(RNS) — The church depends on donations from nations whose better off have been educated on the baptismal equality of all persons.

Advocates for women’s ordination hold banners during a protest in Rome just in front of the Vatican, where Pope Francis is holding the Synod of Bishops, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Phyllis Zagano
November 22, 2024


(RNS) — Winston Churchill famously said, “Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.” If the Catholic Church forgets history, it is simply doomed.

Pope Francis recently issued a letter “On the renewal of the study of the history of the Church.” No matter: Francis himself seems to have forgotten the history of women ordained as deacons.

When he spoke with CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell in an interview last spring, she asked if young girls would be able to become deacons someday. He answered, “No. If it is deacons with holy orders, no. But women have always had, I would say the function of deaconesses without being deacons, right?”

Wrong.

For more than 1,000 years, women served as deacons (or deaconesses), depending on the language. The only person in Scripture called a deacon is St. Phoebe, who traveled to Rome as an emissary of Saint Paul, carrying his Letter to the Romans.
RELATED: Advocates for women deacons ‘in it for the long run,’ despite Vatican pushback

As the church matured, women deacons were ordained during Masses, just as men deacons were. The ordination liturgies bishops used over the centuries to ordain women to the diaconate meet the standards for sacramental ordination decreed by the 16th-century Council of Trent. These women are named in literary documents and their names are inscribed on tombstones across the lands of early Christianity.

What happened? The church eventually stopped ordaining anyone to the diaconate as a permanent vocation, because the diaconate of men had become a stumbling block to ambitious priests. By the early Middle Ages, deacons and archdeacons managed church funds and charity, and with their administrative expertise often succeeded their bishops. More than 30 popes in the early church were never ordained a priest!

The solution was a requirement that any man ordained a deacon had to be on the path to priesthood. Because women were never priests, women were ineligible for the diaconate.

Participants attend a session of the 16th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops at the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Oct. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Many delegates to the recently ended Synod on Synodality, the Vatican summit on the church’s future, made it clear that they believed the diaconate should be opened to women. The best they were offered was a promise that the subject was open for further study. Yet there is a pontifical brick wall ahead. As Francis told O’Donnell, “Women are of great service as women, not as ministers. As ministers in this regard. Within the Holy Orders.”

He seems to have slammed shut the door to recovering the church’s tradition on deacons, simultaneously enabling the international walkout of women and men from Catholicism.
RELATED: If women cannot be deacons, we should stop ordaining men deacons

Yes, the Catholic population is growing in developing countries, but church government and charity are supported by donations from nations where people of wealth and even moderate means have been educated to the baptismal equality of all persons. They are leaving the Church.

What to do?

Francis’ own words must be applied here: “A proper sense of history can help each of us to develop a better sense of proportion and perspective in coming to understand reality as it is and not as we imagine it or would prefer reality to be.

Abuse survivors urge the Vatican to globalize the zero-tolerance policy it approved in the US

ROME (AP) — The U.S. norms, adopted at the height of the abuse scandal there, say a priest will be permanently removed from church ministry based on even a single act of sexual abuse that is either admitted to or established under church law.

FILE - Dave West, left, and his brother Larry West, both of Fort Worth, Texas, demonstrate outside the hotel where the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are meeting in Dallas on June 14. 2002. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

Nicole Winfield
November 20, 2024

ROME (AP) — Survivors of clergy sexual abuse urged the Vatican on Monday to expand its zero-tolerance policy that it approved for the U.S. Catholic Church in 2002 to the rest of the world, arguing that children everywhere should be protected from predator priests.

The U.S. norms, adopted at the height of the abuse scandal there, say a priest will be permanently removed from church ministry based on even a single act of sexual abuse that is either admitted to or established under church law.

That “one strike and you’re out” policy in the U.S. has long stood out as the toughest in the church. It is held up by some as the gold standard, by others as excessive and by still others as imperfect but better than most. It was adopted by U.S. bishops as they scrambled to try to regain credibility following the revelations of abuse and cover-up in Boston documented by the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” series.

Since then, the church abuse scandal has erupted globally, and survivors from around the world said Monday there’s no reason why the U.S. norms couldn’t and shouldn’t be applied universally. They called for changes in the church’s in-house canon law and reasoned they could be approved since the Holy See already approved the norms for the U.S. church.

“Despite Pope Francis’ repeated calls for zero tolerance on abuse, his words have yet to lead to any real action,” said Gemma Hickey, a transgender survivor of abuse and the president of the global survivor network Ending Clergy Abuse.

The proposal launched at a press conference was hammered out during an unusual meeting in June in Rome between survivors and some of the Catholic hierarchy’s top priestly experts on preventing abuse. It was described by participants at the time as a “historic collaboration” between two groups that often talk past one another, given victims’ deep distrust of the Catholic hierarchy.

The priestly participants in that meeting included the Rev. Hans Zollner, who heads the church’s main academic think tank on safeguarding; the No. 2 at the Vatican’s child protection advisory board, Bishop Luis Manuel Ali Herrera; and the Gregorian University’s canon law dean, the Rev. Ulrich Rhode as well as diplomats from the U.S., Australian and other embassies.

However, there was apparently no one from the Vatican legal office, secretariat of state or the discipline section of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which processes all abuse cases worldwide and largely sets policy on applying the church’s canon law — albeit in secret since its cases are never published.

As a result, it was unclear what would become of the proposed policy changes, given the U.S. norms only came about because U.S. bishops pushed the Vatican to approve them, driven by their outraged flocks and insurance companies.

Nicholas Cafardi, a U.S. canon lawyer who was an original member of the U.S. National Review Board that provided input to the 2002 U.S. norms, said globalizing that policy into universal church law “would be one of the logical next steps” for Francis to take to continue the fight against abuse.

But Cafardi, author of “Before Dallas,” about the lead-up to the 2002 Dallas bishops’ meeting that approved the norms, said that some bishops today bristle at how the policy limits their authority and freedom. And in a telephone interview, he noted that even in the U.S., the norms are only still in place because the U.S. bishops keep formally asking to keep them, which he acknowledged was a “weakness” in the system.

“It seems to me that a good protection would be ‘Let’s just make it universal law,’” said Cafardi. “Once you have that law, you don’t have to worry about the bishops asking for it in country after country. It’s just the law.”

However, the proposal faces an uphill battle since the Vatican in recent years has repeatedly insisted on “proportionality” in its sentences for abuse, refusing to apply a one-size-fits-all approach and taking into account cultural differences in countries where abuse isn’t as openly discussed as it is in the West.

That has resulted in seemingly light punishments for even confirmed cases of abuse which, in the U.S., would have resulted in a priest being permanently removed from ministry.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

For the sake of disabled students, don't destroy the US Department of Education

(RNS) — Making America great must include defending vulnerable families with special needs.

(Photo by RDNE Stock Project/Pexels/Creative Commons)

Charles C. Camosy
November 20, 2024

This month’s column was co-authored with Sherif Moussa, who writes with expertise as a civil rights attorney and a professor of law and lecturer in philosophy at City University of New York Baruch College.

(RNS) — Legitimate, wide-ranging and foundational concerns regarding the U.S. Department of Education have been around for a long time. Calls to abolish it go back to 1980, when it was barely a year old and members of the incoming Ronald Reagan administration and the GOP quite seriously considered eliminating it. This year, President-elect Donald Trump and many in his MAGA circles have made eliminating the DOE a central plank of their campaign.

Trump and his backers obviously believe they now have a mandate to make these kinds of dramatic moves. We argue that cooler heads should prevail, especially for Catholics concerned about vulnerable disabled children who bear the face of Christ. Eliminating the DOE would have a deep and wide-ranging impact on this population. All Catholics, we believe, should push for reform of the DOE, not its destruction.

Pope Francis has emphasized the importance of “every Christian community [being] open to the presence of our brothers and sisters with disabilities.” The roots of this idea go back nearly a millennium, as the disability advocate Pamela Christensen has observed. Thomas Aquinas, the medieval philosopher and doctor of the church, “believed that a person’s disability … did not affect the imago Dei in that person nor arrest the work of God in them.”

Today, the U.S. bishops insist that the same cry Christ heard from the disabled people in ancient Judea and Samaria calls Catholics to “embrace our responsibility to our own disabled brothers and sisters in the United States.”

American Catholics and other Christians have helped to make sure our duty to the disabled is reflected in our public education system, primarily through educational law and the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The latter requires public schools to provide disabled children with a free appropriate public education. Previously known as the Education for Handicapped Children Act, the IDEA seeks to protect the rights of disabled children, who had long been “warehoused” or segregated from mainstream schools in a dark reflection of the abhorrent “separate but equal” doctrine overruled in the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.

Since Jimmy Carter separated the department from its former home in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in 1979, the DOE has played an important role in enforcing and safeguarding the civil rights of disabled students such as those guaranteed under the IDEA. While it doesn’t appear that the incoming Trump administration intends to repeal the IDEA, the successful abolition of the DOE may render the IDEA toothless.

Some Trump aides have stated their desire to hand some of the responsibilities of the department itself back to the states, where, if the dark past of education for children with disabilities is any guide, they would disappear, or at least put basic civil rights for disabled children at serious risk.

One might think that progressive cities such as New York would continue to lead on this front, but there is reason to think that wouldn’t be the case even there. In late 2021, New York transferred the adjudication of impartial hearings to OATH, the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, making the city effectively both the judge and the defendant at impartial hearings in which parents of disabled children seek funding for tuition and services. Before resigning last month, the city’s top official chancellor expressed interest in cutting funding for private schools for students with disabilities.

The system under the federal DOE is not perfect. Many families of disabled children are not served well by the current arrangement, which sometimes brings families to the breaking point before they can recover reimbursement. The Trump administration would be right to focus on significant reform, as long as its reform keeps the welfare of children — and especially marginalized disabled children — front and center.

With two months to go before it becomes a reality, the Trump administration may well fail to follow through on its threat to scrap the DOE, but its survival depends on how aggressive the just-named co-commissioner of the new Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, who seems to be agitating for it, is allowed to be.

But there are others in the incoming administration — such as Vice President-elect JD Vance, who has worked to help families with disabled children — who may see that making America great must include defending vulnerable families with special needs. Here’s hoping that they prevail.