EU

Socialist challenger slams von der Leyen’s aloof management style

Nicolas Schmit is ramping up criticism of his boss as the EU election nears.

Jobs Commissioner Nicolas Schmit has criticized European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for not involving commissioners enough in decision-making. | Sean Gallup/Getty Images

MAY 30, 2024 7
BY GIORGIO LEALI

PARIS — The lead socialist candidate in next week’s EU election — Jobs Commissioner Nicolas Schmit — has criticized European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for not involving commissioners enough in decision-making.

Over her five-year tenure, von der Leyen has often faced accusations of not consulting with the commissioners, but instead working with a close côterie of advisers. This go-it-alone approach has landed her in hot water with prosecutors who are looking into her disappearing text messages over major coronavirus vaccines contracts.

“I think collegiality is important, political debate is important, we are politicians, we are not super-technocrats who are there to manage their own affairs,” Schmit told a group of reporters over lunch at a Parisian restaurant on Thursday.

Schmit’s criticism is a sign that the election is entering the final stretch as he has so far proved somewhat reluctant to unleash against his boss.

During the lunch, someone mentioned POLITICO’s story that he’s not a serious rival to von der Leyen. Schmit answered: “I think they [POLITICO] had the evidence that this is not the case at all.”

The Luxembourgish socialist previously criticized von der Leyen for concluding a deal with Tunisia to curb migration to the EU — saying it was an arrangement with a “nasty dictatorship.”

“I made that criticism for example in a particular case that is very political by essence as it concerns migration and relations with a country, with a region,” he added on Thursday.

“I am not convinced by the method, and I will have a different one,” he said.

Over the past months, von der Leyen has been increasingly under the fire of other EU commissioners as a sign that pre-election tensions were mounting. In particular, she faced criticism for appointing as a representative for small business an MEP belonging to her German conservative party, despite other candidates performing better in the selection process.

Message to Macron

Schmit, who holds the commission’s jobs and social rights portfolio, also criticized von der Leyen’s party, the EPP, which is set to come first in the election.

He attacked the EPP for constantly complaining about an excess of rules at the EU level despite having played a large role making them.

“You govern for 20 years, you have the [Commission] presidency and the biggest group at the parliament, and then you discover that there is too much regulation,” he said. “There has been 20 years of EPP presidency. It seems to me that they let [over-regulation] happen, and now they suddenly discover it, they make it their first priority and they try to put the problem on us.”

But the socialist commissioner also had some criticism for French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for a “regulatory break” on EU environmental rules.

“I am a bit confused because there was a sort of idea, shared by the EPP, that we now need to slow down the pace, we need a regulatory break. If that’s the case, there’s a fundamental difference [of views with the French government],” Schmit said, adding he was looking forward to hearing more from French PM Gabriel Attal on France’s position on green files.

 

Statue unveiled at the site where Sojourner Truth gave her 1851 ‘Ain’t I a Woman?’ speech

A pillar at one entrance of the Sojourner Truth Legacy Plaza depicts the Universalist Stone Church that once sat on the grounds of the United Way of Summit and Medina in Akron, Ohio on Wednesday, May 29, 2024. Hundreds gathered in an Ohio city Wednesday to unveil the plaza and statue dedicated to women's rights pioneer Sojourner Truth at the very spot she gave a speech now known as "Ain't I a Woman?" 173 years earlier. (AP Photo/Patrick Orsagos)

By Patrick Orsagos, The Associated Press

Posted May 30, 2024 11:42:23 AM.

 

Last Updated May 30, 2024 01:56:56 PM.

AKRON, Ohio (AP) — Hundreds gathered in an Ohio city on Wednesday to unveil a plaza and statue dedicated to abolitionist Sojourner Truth at the very spot where the women’s rights pioneer gave an iconic 1851 speech now known as “Ain’t I a Woman?”

Truth, a formerly enslaved person, delivered the speech to a crowd gathered at the Universalist Old Stone Church in Akron for the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention. In the speech, Truth drew upon the hardships she faced while she was enslaved and asked the audience why her humanity and the humanity of other enslaved African Americans was not seen in the same light as white Americans.

Though the church no longer exists, the Sojourner Truth Legacy Plaza and the United Way of Summit and Medina Counties now stand in its place.

Towanda Mullins, chairperson of the Sojourner Truth Project-Akron, said the plaza will honor a piece of the country’s past and help to shape its future.

“It’s going to remind others to be the first one to speak up, to speak up for all, not just for some,” she said.

Before taking the name Sojourner Truth, Isabella Bomfree was born into slavery in or around 1797 in the Hudson Valley. She walked away from the home of her final owner in 1826 with her infant daughter after he reneged on a promise to free her. She went to work for the Van Wagenen family, and took their surname.

Truth is believed to be the first Black woman to successfully sue white men to get her son released from slavery, though it’s possible there were other cases researchers are unaware of.

The statue, created by artist and Akron native Woodrow Nash, shows Truth standing tall, holding a book. The monument sits on top of an impala lily, the national flower of Ghana, where Truth’s father traced his heritage.

“It was an opportunity to embed within the design of the memorial to uplift the overlooked contribution of Black women civic leaders that have sojourned in Truth’s footsteps,” said Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund and senior vice president at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Large, stone pillars stand guard around the plaza with words like “faith” and “activism” engraved at the top, with a quote from Truth below it.

One of Truth’s quotes on a pillar reads, “I will not allow my life’s light to be determined by the darkness around me.”

Dion Harris, the landscape architect who designed the plaza said he wanted to use natural materials from the northeast Ohio area that would have been used to construct the former church, including sandstone and stone.

“I wanted to show the industrial side of Akron,” Harris said. “I wanted to show every side of her and capture some of the time of the 1850s when she came.”

Akron’s statue and plaza isn’t the only place Truth is honored. A bronze statue depicting her and women’s rights pioneers Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony was unveiled in New York’s Central Park in 2020, becoming the park’s first monument honoring historical heroines. Another statue of Truth was unveiled in Angola, Indiana, in 2021, at the same place she gave a speech in June 1861, according to the city’s website.

The African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund opened the plaza. The project was funded by the Knight Foundation, United Way of Summit and Medina, the Sojourner Truth Project-Akron and the Akron Community Foundation, according to a release.

“This is not an African American story. This is an American story. History at its best for all people,” Mullins said.

___

This story has been corrected to show that Brent Leggs is a senior vice president at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, not the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Patrick Orsagos, The Associated Press

Sojourner raised herself to her full height.

"Look at me! Look at my arm." She bared her right arm and flexed her powerful muscles. "I have plowed, I have planted and I have gathered into barns. And no man could head me. And ain't I a woman? I could work as much, and eat as much as man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne children and seen most of them sold into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me. And ain't I a woman?

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Whose Family Values? 

TRIFECTA

Michigan reports another person working with cows got bird flu, the third US case this year

Health officials say another Michigan dairy worker has been diagnosed with bird flu

ByMIKE STOBBE Associated Press 

and JONEL ALECCIA Associated Press
May 30, 2024, 


Another Michigan dairy worker has been diagnosed with bird flu, the third human case associated with an outbreak in U.S. dairy cows, health officials said Thursday.

The patient reported a cough and eye discomfort, unlike the two workers, who had only eye symptoms, health officials said. The farmworker was quickly provided antivirals and is recovering from respiratory symptoms, Michigan health officials said.

The risk to the public remains low, although farmworkers exposed to infected animals are at higher risk, health officials said. The Michigan cases occurred on different farms and there are no signs of spread among people, officials said.

“Risk depends on exposure, and in this case, the relevant exposure is to infected animals,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.

In late March, a farmworker in Texas was diagnosed in what officials called the first known instance globally of a person catching this version of bird flu from a mammal.

Last week, Michigan officials announced the first case there. That worker caught bird flu developed eye symptoms after “a direct splash of infected milk to the eye,” Michigan health officials said in a statement.

Neither of the Michigan workers was wearing face shield or other personal protective equipment, which “tells us that direct exposure to infected livestock poses a risk to humans, and that PPE is an important tool in preventing spread among individuals who work on dairy and poultry farms,” Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, the chief medical executive of Michigan’s health department, said in a statement.

There are 100,000 to 150,000 workers on U.S. dairy farms, the United Farm Workers of America estimates.

Since 2020, a bird flu virus has been spreading among more animal species — including dogs, cats, skunks, bears and even seals and porpoises — in scores of countries.

As of Thursday, H5N1 has been confirmed in 66 dairy herds in nine states, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.


The new case marks the fourth time a person in the United States has been diagnosed with what’s known as Type A H5N1 virus. In 2022, a prison inmate in a work program picked it up while killing infected birds at a poultry farm in Montrose County, Colorado. His only symptom was fatigue, and he recovered. That predated the virus’s appearance in cows.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M

Mega mergers in US oil industry continue with latest $17bn deal

ConocoPhillips announces deal to acquire Marathon Oil as it expands operations in US

A Conoco petrol station in Brooklyn, New York, in 2021. ConocoPhilips' latest acquisition adds two billion barrels of resource to its portfolio. Reuters

Kyle Fitzgerald
Washington
May 30, 2024

The US oil and gas industry is continuing its wave of mega mergers, showing that companies in the sector are seeking to diversify their operation locations.

ConocoPhillips became the latest oil company to get in on the trend after it agreed to acquire Marathon Oil in an all-stock deal valued at $17 billion, the companies said on Wednesday. The deal has an enterprise value of $22.5 billion, with ConocoPhillips taking on $5.4 billion of net debt.

The companies said the acquisition would add more than two billion barrels of resource to Conoco's portfolio.

Should the deal go through, Conoco would take over operations in the Bakken Basin in North Dakota, as well as the Eagle Ford in Texas and the Permian Basin in New Mexico.

“The combined firm will instantly become a diversified powerhouse, with assets across several core tight oil regions of the Lower 48,” Rystad Energy wrote in a note referring to the lower 48 US states.

Rystad Energy added the deal shows a drive by Conoco to become a leader in shale across other regions apart from the Permian Basin.

Conoco also holds interests in Qatar, Libya and elsewhere.

The Permian Basin has become a point of particular focus for crude oil production in the US, which has become the global leader in production. The US hit a record 12.9 million barrels per day last year, a 9 per cent increase from 2022, the Energy Information Administration said.

Crude oil production exited the Permian Basin at a record more than 6 million barrels per day last year, East Daley Analytics reported, after accounting for 46 per cent of US oil production in 2022.

Matthew Bey, senior global analyst at Rane, does not believe there is a direct link between the mega deals and the US becoming the global leader in oil and gas production.

“We're in an era where the innovation and the need to have independent companies that are small start-ups, that are risk-taking companies, really isn't there any more. It's now a mature investment,” he told The National.
A marked shift in deal-making in the US M&A market

Rystad Energy said the deal marks a shift in “Shale 4.0" deal-making in the merger and acquisition market, where companies outside of the Permian Basin become primary targets for acquisition.

The agreement is the latest in a series of large acquisitions in the US oil and gas industry in recent years. The sector spent $234 billion on mergers and acquisitions in 2023 alone, according to the Energy Information Administration

“Now we are starting to see a lot of larger players trying to gain as many assets as they can, in order to take advantage of economies of scale,” Mr Bey said.

On Tuesday, Hess investors approved the company's $54 billion merger with Chevron. The announcement came weeks after the US Federal Trade Commission said it would not block Exxon Mobil's $60 billion acquisition of Pioneer.

“I think that all of them are trying to grow bigger in order to at least increase their own market share, increase their own size, increase their own revenue. But I'm not sure how much of it is solely about the idea of trying to outman one another,” Mr Bey said.

“The oil and gas industry is one of those industries where there is competition between these majors, but at the same time, there's also plenty of … money to be made all around.”

Conoco's deal is still likely to face some scrutiny from the FTC, which has taken a more aggressive role in clamping down on anticompetitive behaviour.

The regulator said it only approved of Exxon's acquisition of Pioneer on condition that a former executive accused of trying to collude with Opec not serve on the company's board.

A group of senators led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer recently requested the Justice Department to investigate the industry after the FTC claims about former Pioneer chief executive Scott Sheffield.

Mr Sheffield denies that he tried to collude with Opec.

“These reports are alarming and lend credence to the fear that corporate avarice is keeping prices artificially high,” the senators wrote in a letter obtained by Politico.

“This is also a national security concern: this alleged collusion with Opec may have served to enrich countries like Iran and Russia that are actively seeking to undermine the United States and our allies.”

Updated: May 30, 2024

South Africa election: ANC losing majority in early results


Results from South Africa's general election are expected in the coming days© Provided by DW - South Africa

South Africa's governing African National Congress (ANC) on Thursday was on the path to losing its parliamentary majority for the first time in three decades since coming into power.

South Africans voted on Wednesday in the 7th general elections since the dawn of democracy, although since 1994, never before has the future of South Africa's political landscape looked so unclear.

What we know about the results

Partial election results with 42.8% of the votes counted had the ANC with 42.7%, far below the 50% threshold needed for a majority in parliament. The party won 57.5% of votes during the previous election in 2019.

The country's pro-business Democratic Alliance (DA) has 23.57%, while the left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) are neck and neck with the newly formed uMkhontowe Sizwe party (MK) of former President Jacob Zuma, with 9.53% and 10.08% respectively.

The potential loss of a parliamentary majority could result in the ANC being forced into a coalition for the first time since coming into power in 1994.
What we know about the counting process

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said that all votes had been counted by Thursday afternoon but most had yet to be validated.

The IEC said in a briefing that the process was "proceeding well," however it was going to take longer than the usual 24 hours to reach an 80% tally due to the new three-ballot system

The new system is comprised of a national ballot of the 52 parties vying for 200 National Assembly seats.

There is also a regional ballot of political parties and independent candidates contesting seats reserved for each province in the National Assembly.

This is followed by a provincial ballot, unique to each of the country's nine provinces and includes parties and candidates vying for seats in each provincial legislature.

The final results are expected in the next three days.
Elections 'a serious test for the ANC'

DW correspondent Dianne Hawker has been tracking developments in South Africa and said that Wednesday's vote was "a serious test for the ANC government," adding that there have been "a lot of concerns raised by citizens about how the ANC has managed the government over the last 30 years."


"We are seeing the result of that management in the results we are seeing coming from the IEC national results center at the moment," Hawker explained. The results seen thus far "can be taken almost as a referendum of their conduct up until this point."

Who the ANC chooses as an alliance partner if the current picture remains unchanged was anyone's guess Hawker said.

"There are so many parties participating in this election and to be quite honest it's quite difficult to give a prediction this early on as to who they could choose to get into a coalition with if they do."

"Part of the reason for that is that the ideological backgrounds of these parties varies significantly and everybody of course wants their own policies to come to the fore."

kb/fb (Reuters, AP)

An arresting picture of a child in Rafah that should end the supply of arms to Israel

The Guardian

Thu, 30 May 2024


Mike Godridge was transfixed by the look in this boy’s eyes and says ‘the UK should immediately cut off the supply of arms to this out-of-control regime in Israel’.Photograph: Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty

I was transfixed by the look in the eyes of the boy in the centre of the photo of devastation in Gaza (‘Bodies everywhere’: the horrors of Israel’s strike on a Rafah camp, 29 May). This is no “tragic mishap”, but an act of war. Instead of platitudes, the UK should immediately cut off the supply of arms to this out-of-control regime in Israel.
Mike Godridge
Brampton, Cumbria

Haaretz stories cast doubt on health of Israel’s ‘democracy’

Haaretz staffer says he was told by a senior official that he would ‘suffer the consequences’ if he publishes the story.


Cohen served as the Mossad chief from 2016 to 2021 under the previous term of Netanyahu as prime minister [File: Gali Tibbon/AFP via Getty Images]

Published On 30 May 2024

Israeli newspaper Haaretz has published two eyebrow-raising pieces in a row that cast doubts on Israel’s democratic norms.

On Wednesday, it published an opinion piece by Jonathan Pollak with chunks of text redacted, referencing a standing gag order preventing media from discussing “administrative detention” – a system under which Israeli forces hold Palestinians indefinitely without charge or due process.

The following day, it published a story detailing how, two years ago, the Israeli government prevented it from publishing an investigation using “emergency powers” and threats. This story later became the subject of an explosive report by +972 Magazine and the Guardian, alleging intimidation efforts by its intelligence agency, Mossad, against an International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor.
Obscuring/redacting truth

The “redacted” opinion piece was marked up deliberately by Haaretz staff, a stark visual representation of the opacity of the “administrative detention” system.

The headline read: “Israel’s Cause for Detention: …” with everything after the colon obscured by black squares reminiscent of the black marker used by censors of old.

And so the piece continued, describing the plight of those Palestinians caught up in an indiscriminate Israeli dragnet that would rather hold massive numbers of people indefinitely than follow due process.

Wherever the writer referred to police statements or anything to do with process or vague charges, the dreaded black marks appeared again, frustrating the reader and doubling down on reminding them of the perils of censorship.

The writer, Jonathan Pollak, is a longtime Israeli anti-Zionist activist who has had several run-ins with the Israeli security establishment, having been arrested several times in the past and convicted on at least four occasions on protest-related charges.
His most recent arrest was in January 2023, charged with throwing stones at a Border Police jeep. As his trial date approached, he took the unusual step of demanding that his trial be held not in a civil court but in a military court, the opaque justice system inflicted on thousands of Palestinians every year.
Exposure at a difficult time for Israel

In a piece by Gur Megiddo, Haaretz said on Thursday that it had been ready to publish a story about alleged Mossad pressure on the International Criminal Court prosecutor as long as two years ago.

Instead, Megiddo’s piece said, “Israeli government officials had used emergency powers to prevent the story from being published at the time.”

It is a revelation that has amplified accusations that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not above subverting the freedom of Israel’s media to block damaging stories.

Megiddo, who was the author of the earlier investigation, said that before he published that investigation, he received a call from a senior security official summoning him to his office.

During his meeting with the official, he was told that if he published, he “would suffer the consequences and get to know the interrogation rooms of the Israeli security authorities from the inside”, he said.

The report by +972 and the Guardian, published on Tuesday, centred on allegations that then-Mossad head Yossi Cohen attempted to extort then-ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, to force her to drop an investigation of alleged war crimes committed by Israel in Palestine.

“One of the investigation’s key findings would have been known to readers of Haaretz a long time ago if Israel was the democratic state it claims to be,” said Megiddo.

“Now the affair has been exposed at a difficult time for Israel.

“Instead of being exposed in an Israeli newspaper, the investigation has now appeared in a newspaper with global circulation. Instead of contending with the story during peacetime, it must now deal with it in the midst of the war.”



Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a wreath-laying ceremony marking Holocaust Remembrance Day in Jerusalem, on May 6, 2024 [Amir Cohen/Pool/Reuters]

Cohen’s covert contact to pressure Bensouda took place in the years leading up to her decision to open a formal probe into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestinian territory, the Guard report said.

Last week, Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, applied for an arrest warrant for Netanyahu partly based on that probe launched in 2021.

Khan announced his office had “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu and his now-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant bear “criminal responsibility” for “war crimes and crimes against humanity”.

In a post on X, Esther Solomon, editor-in-chief of Haaretz described Megiddo’s account as “chilling”.

Niall Stanage, associate editor of the American political newspaper, The Hill, described the report as a “new twist on Mossad intimidation of the ICC”.

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said “it is to the credit” of Bensouda that despite Israeli threats against her, “she opened a formal investigation of Israel in March 2021 as her term was ending rather than leave it to her successor.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

Israeli attacks against UNRWA ‘must stop,’ says head of agency

'These attacks must stop and the world must act to hold the perpetrators accountable,' says Philippe Lazzarini

Servet Günerigök |30.05.2024 - 

A view of destroyed clinic belonging to the United Nations Relief Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) after Israeli attack on Gaza City, Gaza on May 17, 2024.


WASHINGTON

The head of the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said Thursday that Israeli attacks against the agency have to stop.

Philippe Lazzarini said the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip "has produced a blatant disregard for the mission" of the UN, including attacks on employees, facilities and operations of the UNRWA.

"These attacks must stop and the world must act to hold the perpetrators accountable," he wrote in an opinion piece published in the New York Times.

He said UNRWA staff are regularly harassed and humiliated at Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Lazzarini noted that at least 192 UNRWA employees have been killed in Gaza and more than 170 UNRWA premises have been damaged or destroyed.

"UNRWA is not the only U.N. agency that faces danger. In April, gunfire hit World Food Program and UNICEF vehicles, apparently inadvertently but despite coordination with the Israeli authorities," said Lazzarini.

He said Israeli officials are threatening the work of the agency and delegitimizing it by "effectively characterizing it as a terrorist organization that fosters extremism and labeling U.N. leaders as terrorists who collude with Hamas.

"By doing so, they are creating a dangerous precedent of routine targeting of U.N. staff and premises," said Lazarrini. "If we tolerate such attacks in the context of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, we cannot uphold humanitarian principles in other conflicts around the world," he said.

He also said after the attacks of Oct. 7, Israel unleashed a campaign to equate UNRWA with Hamas and depict the agency as promoting extremism.

"In a new dimension to this campaign, the Israeli government made serious allegations that UNRWA staff were involved in the Hamas attack," said the UNRWA chief. "We must meaningfully defend U.N. institutions and the values they represent before the symbolic shredding of the charter establishing the United Nations. This can only be achieved through principled action by the nations of the world and a commitment by all to peace and justice.”

Israel has launched a brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, killing more than 36,170 people and injuring 81,400 others.

Nearly eight months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Lava continues to flow from Iceland volcano but not at powerful level as eruption

Lava flows from a volcano in Grindavik, Iceland, Wednesday, May 29, 2024. A volcano in southwestern Iceland erupted Wednesday for the fifth time since December, spewing red lava that once again threatened the coastal town of Grindavik

By Marco Di Marco - Associated Press - Thursday, May 30, 2024

GRINDAVIK, Iceland — Lava continued to spurt from a volcano in southwestern Iceland on Thursday but the activity had calmed significantly from when it erupted a day earlier.

The eruption Wednesday was the fifth and most powerful since the volcanic system near Grindavik reawakened in December after 800 years, gushing record levels of lava as its fissure grew to 3.5 kilometers (2.1 miles) in length.

Volcanologist Dave McGarvie calculated that the amount of lava initially flowing from the crater could have buried Wembley Stadium in London, which seats 90,000 people, under 15 meters (49 feet) of lava every minute.

“These jets of magma are reaching like 50 meters (165 feet), into the atmosphere,” said McGarvie, an honorary researcher at Lancaster University. “That just immediately strikes me as a powerful eruption. And that was my first impression … .Then some numbers came out, estimating how much was coming out per minute or per second and it was, ‘wow.’”

The activity once again threatened Grindavik, a coastal town of 3,800 people, and led to the evacuation of the popular Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, one of Iceland’s biggest tourist attractions.

Grindavik, which is about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, has been threatened since a swarm of earthquakes in November forced an evacuation in advance of the initial Dec. 18 eruption. A subsequent eruption consumed several buildings.

Protective barriers outside Grindavik deflected the lava Wednesday but the evacuated town remained without electricity and two of the three roads into town were inundated with lava.


“I just like the situation quite well compared to how it looked at the beginning of the eruption yesterday,” Grindavik Mayor Fannar Jónasson told national broadcaster RUV.

McGarvie said the eruption was more powerful than the four that preceded it because the largest amount of magma had accumulated in a chamber underground before breaking the earth’s surface and shooting into the sky.

The rapid and powerful start of the eruption followed by it diminishing quickly several hours later is the pattern researchers have witnessed with this volcano, McGarvie said. The unknown question is when it will end.

“It could go on for quite some considerable time,” McGarvie said. “We’re really in new territory here because eruptions like this have never been witnessed, carefully, in this part of Iceland.”

Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic, sees regular eruptions. The most disruptive in recent times was the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which spewed huge clouds of ash into the atmosphere and led to widespread airspace closures over Europe.

None of the current cycle of eruptions have had an impact on aviation.

___

Associated Press writer Brian Melley contributed from London.

Tens of billions of dollars worth of gold flows illegally out of Africa each year, a new report says
 PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL

Miners extract mud they hope contains gold at a gold mining site at which adults and youth work in the village of Mawero, on the outskirts of Busia town, in eastern Uganda 

By Jessica Donati - Associated Press - Thursday, May 30, 2024

DAKAR, Senegal — Billons of dollars in gold is smuggled out of Africa each year and most of it ends up in the United Arab Emirates, where it is refined and sold to customers around the world, according to a report published Thursday.

Over $30 billion worth of gold, or more than 435 metric tons, was smuggled out of the continent in 2022, according to the report published by Swissaid, an aid and development group based in Switzerland. The main destinations for African gold were the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Switzerland.

The authors of the report said their goal was to make the trade in African gold more transparent and put pressure on industry players to do more to make gold supplies traceable and supply chains more responsible.

“We hope that this will improve the living conditions of local populations and the working conditions of artisanal miners throughout Africa,” Yvan Schulz, one of the report’s authors, told The Associated Press.

The report found that between 32% and 41% of gold produced in Africa was not declared. In 2022, Ghana was the largest gold producer in Africa, followed by Mali and South Africa, it said.

The UAE was by far the main destination for smuggled gold, the report said, with some 405 metric tons of undeclared output from Africa ending up there. During a 10-year period between 2012-2022, that amount summed up to 2,569 metric tons of gold, worth around $115 billion. The report said the gap between UAE imports and exports from African countries has widened over the years, meaning that the amount of gold smuggled out of Africa appears to have increased over the past decade. For example, it widened from 234 metric tons in 2020 to 405 in 2022.

Switzerland, another main buyer of African gold, imported some 21 metric tons of undeclared gold from Africa in 2022, the report said. The real figure could be much higher if African gold imported through third countries was taken into consideration, the report said, but once gold is refined, it is virtually impossible to follow its flow to it final destination.

The United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database, which contains detailed imports and exports statistics, shows that Switzerland is the main buyer of gold from the UAE. “Sourcing gold from the UAE is notoriously risky,” the report said, describing the difficulty in ascertaining the origins of the refined gold.

A official within the UAE government’s media office said the country has taken significant steps to address concerns around gold smuggling and the risks it poses. The continued growth of the UAE’s gold market reflected the confidence of the international community in its processes, the official said, responding on behalf of the country’s press office without providing further identification.

“The UAE remains steadfast in its efforts to combat gold smuggling and ensure the highest standards of transparency and accountability within the gold and precious metals sector,” the official said.

The Swiss government said it was aware of the challenges identifying the origins of gold and that it had introduced measures to prevent illegal flows.

“Switzerland is and stays committed to improve the traceability of commodity flows, the transparency of statistics and the quality of controls,” Fabian Maienfisch, spokesperson for Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, said.

The report compared export data from African countries with import data from non-African countries, along with other calculations, to extrapolate the data. Among its recommendations, it called on African states to take steps to formalize artisanal and small scale mining and reinforce border controls. It also called on non-African states to publish the identity of the countries of origin and the countries of dispatch of imported gold, and to work with authorities to identify illicit gold flows.

___

Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.



Copyright © 2024 The Washington Times, LLC.

Kenyan MPs probe alleged British Army crimes

May 30, 2024 
By Mohammed Yusuf

A general view shows Kenyan lawmakers inside the Parliament building in Nairobi, Kenya, June 15, 2023.

NAIROBI, KENYA —

A Kenyan parliamentary committee is visiting central Kenya to hear from locals about the conduct of a British Army training unit that is accused of human rights violations, including the unresolved death of a woman more than ten years ago. The Kenya National Human Rights Commission prompted the inquiry by petitioning parliament to hold the British army accountable for alleged human rights abuses.

Kenya's Parliamentary Committee on Defense and Foreign Affairs is visiting Laikipia and Samburu counties. They're there to hear people's complaints and look into reported abuses by the British army in the area.

The committee, which started its inquiry on Tuesday, listened to families who blame the deaths of their relatives on unattended explosives around British training camps.

The lawmakers also heard complaints of abuses at the hands of British officers, including mistreatment, torture, and unlawful detention and killings.

The committee chair, Nelson Koech, outlines explains some of the other complaints they heard from Laikipia and Samburu residents.

"We've listened to people from different areas, to Lolldaiga Hills, where it's believed that officers from British Army lit fire, were burning vegetation and an entire conservancy, and driving animals out of the conservancy to where the human population is because many people have been maimed or killed by animals that now are under distress because of the training that is happening in those grounds, to many other allegations of water becoming heavily polluted. People are now starting to get effects from the fire and having chest problems," Koech said.

In March 2021, a British training exercise caused a fire in the Lolldaiga Conservancy that lasted for several days.

Local activist James Mwangi wondered why the British army was allowed to train in water catchment areas with dangerous weapons.

"Lolldaiga supports so many water streams. Why are they allowing the army to train with chemical and poisonous weapons that they don't know how to use," Mwangi said.

The inquiry was prompted by a petition to the parliament from the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR).

Kenya has a defense cooperation agreement with the British government that allows up to 10,000 soldiers per year to conduct exercises in the East African nation.

According to the Kenyan government, the presence of the British Army Training Unit in Kenya, or BATUK, provided 3,000 people with jobs and contributed $45 million to the economies of Isiolo, Laikipia, and Samburu.

Koech says the parliamentarians will listen to all those who allegedly suffered from British Army activities and other government agencies to verify any abuses and human rights violations.

"You must remember this is one side of the story we have listened to. We will be visiting BATUK, and we will be going there personally to get information from the British army. This inquiry is important to mention that in an inquiry of this nature, the verdict of this inquiry is equivalent to the verdict of a high court of Kenya," Koech said.

A spokesperson for the British High Commission in Kenya told the French news agency AFP that they intend to cooperate with the inquiry.

In 2012, Agnes Wanjiru was killed, allegedly by a British soldier. An investigation did not begin until 2019 and the findings of that probe were never made public.

In 2021, the Sunday Times reported that a British officer confessed to killing a 21-year-old in central Kenya to a colleague. Afterward, Kenyan police said they were reopening the inquiry. Wanjiru’s family told the parliamentary committee to take her killing seriously and remove obstacles that may stop the prosecution of the British soldier.

The killing of Wanjiru has led to tensions between Kenya and Britain regarding the jurisdiction of British soldiers who commit crimes in Kenya. The committee found that while some victims received compensation, it was usually less than what they were promised.

The committee will present its findings to the full parliament and also closely examine the Kenya’s defense cooperation agreement with the British government.