NOTHING LASTS FOREVER
Solar panels are starting to die. What will we do with the megatons of toxic trash?

Grist / Amelia Bates

By Maddie Stone on Aug 13, 2020

Solar panels are an increasingly important source of renewable power that will play an essential role in fighting climate change. They are also complex pieces of technology that become big, bulky sheets of electronic waste at the end of their lives — and right now, most of the world doesn’t have a plan for dealing with that.

But we’ll need to develop one soon, because the solar e-waste glut is coming. By 2050, the International Renewable Energy Agency projects that up to 78 million metric tons of solar panels will have reached the end of their life, and that the world will be generating about 6 million metric tons of new solar e-waste annually. While the latter number is a small fraction of the total e-waste humanity produces each year, standard electronics recycling methods don’t cut it for solar panels. Recovering the most valuable materials from one, including silver and silicon, requires bespoke recycling solutions. And if we fail to develop those solutions along with policies that support their widespread adoption, we already know what will happen.

“If we don’t mandate recycling, many of the modules will go to landfill,” said Arizona State University solar researcher Meng Tao, who recently authored a review paper on recycling silicon solar panels, which comprise 95 percent of the solar market.

Solar panels are composed of photovoltaic (PV) cells that convert sunlight to electricity. When these panels enter landfills, valuable resources go to waste. And because solar panels contain toxic materials like lead that can leach out as they break down, landfilling also creates new environmental hazards.

Most solar manufacturers claim their panels will last for about 25 years, and the world didn’t start deploying solar widely until the early 2000s. As a result, a fairly small number of solar panels are being decommissioned today. PV CYCLE, a nonprofit dedicated to solar panel takeback and recycling, collects several thousand tons of solar e-waste across the European Union each year, according to director Jan Clyncke. That figure includes solar panels that have reached the end of their life, but also those that were decommissioned early because they were damaged during a storm, had some sort of manufacturer defect, or got replaced with a newer, more efficient model.

When solar panels do reach their end of their life today, they face a few possible fates. Under E.U. law, producers are required to ensure their solar panels are recycled properly. In Japan, India, and Australia, recycling requirements are in the works. In the United States, it’s the Wild West: With the exception of a state law in Washington, the U.S. has no solar recycling mandates whatsoever. Voluntary, industry-led recycling efforts are limited in scope. “Right now, we’re pretty confident the number is around 10 percent of solar panels recycled,” said Sam Vanderhoof, the CEO of Recycle PV Solar, one of the only U.S. companies dedicated to PV recycling. The rest, he says, go to landfills or are exported overseas for reuse in developing countries with weak environmental protections.

Even when recycling happens, there’s a lot of room for improvement. A solar panel is essentially an electronic sandwich. The filling is a thin layer of crystalline silicon cells, which are insulated and protected from the elements on both sides by sheets of polymers and glass. It’s all held together in an aluminum frame. On the back of the panel, a junction box contains copper wiring that channels electricity away as it’s being generated.

At a typical e-waste facility, this high-tech sandwich will be treated crudely. Recyclers often take off the panel’s frame and its junction box to recover the aluminum and copper, then shred the rest of the module, including the glass, polymers, and silicon cells, which get coated in a silver electrode and soldered using tin and lead. (Because the vast majority of that mixture by weight is glass, the resultant product is considered an impure, crushed glass.) Tao and his colleagues estimate that a recycler taking apart a standard, 60-cell silicon panel can get about $3 for the recovered aluminum, copper, and glass. Vanderhoof, meanwhile, says that the cost of recycling that panel in the U.S. is anywhere between $12 and $25 — after transportation costs, which “oftentimes equal the cost to recycle.” At the same time, in states that allow it, it typically costs less than a dollar to dump a solar panel in a solid waste landfill.

“We believe the big blind spot in the U.S. for recycling is that the cost far exceeds the revenue,” Meng said. “It’s on the order of a 10-to-1 ratio.”


If a solar panel’s more valuable components — namely, the silicon and silver — could be separated and purified efficiently, that could improve that cost-to-revenue ratio. A small number of dedicated solar PV recyclers are trying to do this. Veolia, which runs the world’s only commercial-scale silicon PV recycling plant in France, shreds and grinds up panels and then uses an optical technique to recover low-purity silicon. According to Vanderhoof, Recycle PV Solar initially used a “heat process and a ball mill process” that could recapture more than 90 percent of the materials present in a panel, including low-purity silver and silicon. But the company recently received some new equipment from its European partners that can do “95 plus percent recapture,” he said, while separating the recaptured materials much better.

Some PV researchers want to do even better than that. In another recent review paper, a team led by National Renewable Energy Laboratory scientists calls for the development of new recycling processes where all metals and minerals are recovered at high purity, with the goal of making recycling as economically viable and as environmentally beneficial as possible. As lead study author Garvin Heath explains, such processes might include using heat or chemical treatments to separate the glass from the silicon cells, followed by the application of other chemical or electrical techniques to separate and purify the silicon and various trace metals.

“What we call for is what we name a high-value, integrated recycling system,” Heath told Grist. “High-value means we want to recover all the constituent materials that have value from these modules. Integrated refers to a recycling process that can go after all of these materials, and not have to cascade from one recycler to the next.”

In addition to developing better recycling methods, the solar industry should be thinking about how to repurpose panels whenever possible, since used solar panels are likely to fetch a higher price than the metals and minerals inside them (and since reuse generally requires less energy than recycling). As is the case with recycling, the E.U. is out in front on this: Through its Circular Business Models for the Solar Power Industry program, the European Commission is funding a range of demonstration projects showing how solar panels from rooftops and solar farms can be repurposed, including for powering e-bike charging stations in Berlin and housing complexes in Belgium.

Recycle PV Solar also recertifies and resells good-condition panels it receives, which Vanderhoof says helps to offset the cost of recycling. However, both he and Tao are concerned that various U.S. recyclers are selling second-hand solar panels with low quality control overseas to developing countries. “And those countries typically don’t have regulations for electronics waste,” Tao said. “So eventually, you’re dumping your problem on a poor country.”

For the solar recycling industry to grow sustainably, it will ultimately need supportive policies and regulations. The E.U. model of having producers finance the takeback and recycling of solar panels might be a good one for the U.S. to emulate. But before that’s going to happen, U.S. lawmakers need to recognize that the problem exists and is only getting bigger, which is why Vanderhoof spends a great deal of time educating them.

“We need to face the fact that solar panels do fail over time, and there’s a lot of them out there,” he said. “And what do we do when they start to fail? It’s not right throwing that responsibility on the consumer, and that’s where we’re at right now.”

In a Move That Could be Catastrophic for the Climate, Trump’s EPA Rolls Back Methane Regulations

Several oil and gas giants opposed loosening restrictions on the ‘super-pollutant,’ a greenhouse gas 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the planet.

BY PHIL MCKENNA
AUG 13, 2020

A Trump administration rollback of methane emission regulations could result in a catastrophic increase in the release of a climate “super-pollutant,” at a time when global methane emissions from human activity are already rising. 

Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a long-anticipated rollback of methane emission regulations for the oil and gas industry on Thursday, marking the latest in a long series of attacks on federal climate policy by the Trump administration.

The move, which was opposed by several leading oil and gas companies, could result in a catastrophic increase in the release of a climate "super-pollutant," at a time when global methane emissions from human activity are already rising yet, to limit future warming, they must be quickly reduced.

A pre-publication draft of the rules released by the EPA on Thursday would weaken Obama-era rules requiring oil and gas companies to monitor and fix points where methane—the second largest driver of human-made climate change after carbon dioxide—leaks from wells and other infrastructure. The change in rules would result in the release of an additional 4.5 million metric tons of preventable methane pollution each year, according to an assessment by the advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).

Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is 86 times more effective at warming the atmosphere over a 20-year period than carbon dioxide. The additional release would equal the annual greenhouse gas emissions of about 100 coal fired power plants, nearly one third of all coal-fired power plants in the United States, according to an assessment by EDF.

"We are effectively telling the rest of the world we don't care about climate change," said Rob Jackson, an earth system science professor at Stanford University.

EDF President Fred Krupp said in a written statement on Thursday that the organization planned to sue the Trump administration over the rollback.

Reducing methane emissions makes economic sense for oil and gas companies because methane, the primary component of natural gas, is a valuable commodity. Leading oil companies BP, Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil have all urged the Trump administration to maintain strong methane emission regulations.

"We need to control methane emissions now to maximize the advantages of gas and secure a role for decarbonized gas in the future energy system," Joe Ellis, a vice president and head of U.S. government affairs at BP America, wrote in a November 2019 public comment on a draft of the rule. "Otherwise, we risk losing the confidence of investors, consumers, policymakers and other stakeholders."

But the American Petroleum Institute, an industry organization that represents both large and small producers, said it supported the new regulations. "Under these modified rules, operators will still be required to control emissions, and the industry continues to make progress in reducing methane emissions through new technologies," Frank Macchiarola, API's senior vice president of policy, economics and regulatory affairs, said in a written statement.

The rollback comes as global methane emissions caused by humans are rapidly increasing, fueled in part by an increase in emissions from the U.S. oil and gas industry, according to a study Jackson and others published in July in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Anthropogenic methane emissions have gone up by about 13 percent worldwide since the early 2000s, with roughly half the increase coming from fossil fuels in the United States and elsewhere, according to the study. Agriculture, including emissions from rice cultivation and methane emissions from cows and other animals, accounts for the other half of the increase and is a larger overall source of methane emissions, according to the report.

Jackson said the rollbacks would lower the bar for the oil and gas industry, allowing the worst performing companies to continue polluting as they have in the past.

"We want to reward the companies that are doing the most and bring the rest of the market to the same level of environmental stewardship, and that is what we are abandoning here," he said.

High Emissions from Many Sources

The rollback comes as recent studies show that methane emissions from the U.S. oil and gas sector are consistently higher than official EPA estimates.

For example, emissions from the Permian basin of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, the second largest natural gas production region in the country, are more than two times higher than federal estimates, according to a study published in April in the journal Science Advances.

Methane emissions from coal mines saw some of the largest growth from the early 2000s to 2017, according to the study Jackson and others published in July.

A 2019 report by the International Energy Agency found that coal mine methane emissions in 2018 were roughly equal to the annual emissions from international aviation and shipping combined.

Abandoned oil and gas wells that leak methane are another large source of emissions, and one that could increase as well operations are shuttered in response to plummeting oil demand as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. EPA data indicates that, as of 2018, there were already 2.1 million unplugged abandoned oil and gas wells in the United States, which emitted an estimated 280,000 tons of methane per year.

The April study looking at the Permian basin estimated that 3.7 percent of all the methane produced from wells in the region was released, unburned, into the atmosphere. While the leakage rate might seem small, methane's potency as a greenhouse gas means that even a small rate of emissions can have a big impact.

Climate scientists estimate that if as little as 3.2 percent of all the gas brought above ground leaked into the atmosphere rather than being burned to generate electricity, clean-burning natural gas could be worse for the climate over the near term than burning coal.

However, with the time left to address climate change quickly running out, the question of whether burning natural gas or coal is worse for the climate is increasingly irrelevant, said Drew Shindell, an earth science professor at Duke University.

To limit warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century—the more ambitious of two targets set in the Paris Agreement—developed countries need to reduce their emissions by 40 to 50 percent by the end of the decade, Shindell said.

"That is just inconsistent with building new fossil fuel infrastructure," he said. "Even if gas is better than coal, it still has a large enough CO2 footprint that it doesn't get you toward where you want to go."

Methane emissions also contribute to the formation of ground level ozone, or smog, which causes respiratory and cardiovascular disease, particularly in low income communities and communities of color where ozone levels are disproportionately high, Shindell said.

"While this rule hurts all of us, it will disproportionately impact Black, Hispanic and Indigenous communities, again putting those Americans most impacted by environmental racism at risk of dying prematurely from air pollution," Mustafa Santiago Ali, the National Wildlife Federation's vice president of environmental justice, climate, and community revitalization, said in a written statement. "This is another example of how this administration creates sacrifice zones across our country."

Methane emissions lead to approximately 165,000 premature deaths worldwide each year, according to a 2017 study Shindell published in the journal Faraday Discussions, looking at the societal costs of methane emissions. The study concluded that the social cost of methane—a tally of the overall damage to public health and reduced yields from farms and forests due to methane emissions—is 50 to 100 times greater than similar costs from carbon dioxide emissions.

"There is a compelling need to reduce emissions of methane," Shindell said earlier this month in testimony before a U.S. House committee in a hearing on "the devastating health impacts of climate change."

Ellis of BP America added that reducing methane emissions also made economic sense. "Simply, the more gas we keep in our pipes and equipment, the more we can provide to the market," Ellis said.

"Unlike many CO2 measures, which can be expensive and challenging, controlling methane is generally a gain financially, that's why this rollback is so disappointing," Shindell said.

He added, "Not only would it improve climate change, but it's actually good for the bottom line of companies that do it. If we can't even manage that, that's pretty pathetic and not very optimistic for our future."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Phil McKenna is a Boston-based reporter for InsideClimate News. Before joining ICN in 2016, he was a freelance writer covering energy and the environment for publications including The New York Times, Smithsonian, Audubon and WIRED. Uprising, a story he wrote about gas leaks under U.S. cities, won the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award and the 2014 NASW Science in Society Award. Phil has a master's degree in science writing from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was an Environmental Journalism Fellow at Middlebury College.

ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTING AGENCY EPA
Trump administration rolls back Obama-era methane regulations

The Trump administration on Thursday lifted restrictions on methane leaks, rolling back Obama-era regulations on the greenhouse gas. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

Aug. 13 (UPI) -- The Trump administration on Thursday rolled back Obama-era regulations limiting methane gas emissions from oil and gas fields.

The new rule rescinds authority to regulate methane granted to the Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama in 2016 and transfers regulation of methane to the Clean Air Act, as part of an ongoing effort by President Donald Trump to cut federal regulations.

"EPA has been working hard to fulfill President Trump's promise to cut burdensome and ineffective regulations for our domestic energy industry," EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said Thursday. "Regulatory burdens put into place by the Obama-Biden Administration fell heavily on small and medium-sized energy businesses. Today's regulatory changes remove redundant paperwork, align with the Clean Air Act and allow companies the flexibility to satisfy leak-control requirements by complying with equivalent state rules."

The rule exempts low production wells from "expending significant funds" to monitor methane leaks, reduces monitoring of leaks at gathering and boosting compressor stations from quarterly to twice a year and allows companies to comply with state requirements rather than EPA requirements.

RELATED Scientists say COVID-19 recovery plans should include climate change

The EPA first proposed loosening the regulations last year, saying it would save the natural gas industry "millions of dollars in compliance costs each year -- while maintaining health and environmental regulations on oil and gas sources that the agency considers appropriate."

The Obama administration took action to limit pollution related to methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming, as part of a package of climate change regulations aiming to cut 520,000 short tons of methane within the next decade.

On Thursday, the National Resources Defense Council said it would take legal action against the Trump administration over the rule.

RELATED Microsoft announces plan to produce 'zero waste' by 2030

"Trump's EPA has given the oil and gas industry a green light to keep leaking enormous amounts of climate pollution into the air," said David Doniger, senior strategic director of NRDC's Climate and Clean Energy Program.

RELATED Carbon dioxide removal is critical in next decade, experts tell Congress

UK OPPS 

Huawei 5G ban: emergency services system compromised

13 August 2020

New concerns around the Government’s Huawei ban for 5G and how it could impact the Emergency Services Network programme for blue light emergency services, which ensures they can talk to each other during any incident, have been raised by the London Assembly Fire, Resilience and Emergency Planning Committee today.

The Emergency Services Network programme is set to change radically the way emergency services communicate with each other across the country by replacing the current outdated Airwave radio system based on existing 4G mobile data. The programme, overseen by the Home Office, already has a predicted overspend of £3.1 billion and a delay to completion from 2017 to 2022.

On top of that, the Emergency Services Network will retain the use of Huawei technology, which will need replacing soon, so there is a risk that the programme is based on technology with a short lifespan and security concerns.

The Chair of the Fire, Resilience and Emergency Planning Committee has written to the London Fire Brigade to ask what reassurance they have had from Government on the potential impact and implications on the Emergency Services Network without Huawei.

Andrew Dismore AM, Chair of the Fire, Resilience and Emergency Planning Committee said:

“The Government’s Huawei ban in 5G infrastructure in the UK potentially has serious implications for the Emergency Services Network upgrade. The London Fire Brigade needs to be open and transparent about the potential impact it will have on cost, timeframes, safety and security.

“A change of this magnitude within emergency communications needs to be handled extremely carefully and the Committee needs frank reassurance that Huawei’s 5G ban will not adversely affect the Emergency Services Network programme.

“The Emergency Services Network is already over budget and late. Lives cannot be put at risk and the Government needs to work closely with the London Fire Brigade and other emergency services to work through any potential impact and delay to this programme.”

Notes to editors

1. Andrew Dismore AM, Chair of the Fire, Resilience and Emergency Planning Committee, is available for interview. 
2. Find out more about the Fire, Resilience and Emergency Planning Committee.
3. As well as investigating issues that matter to Londoners, the London Assembly acts as a check and a balance on the Mayor.

In Scotland, Loyalists lead a Black Lives Matter backlash

Racist ideas have connected Scottish sectarians with the global far right

David Leask
13 August 2020

Protesters 'guard' statues in George Square, Glasgow |
Jane Barlow/PA Wire/PA Images

In the early days of this summer’s wave of Black Lives Matter protests, police in Glasgow put a statue under 24-hour guard.

The equestrian monument, first erected in 1735, was dedicated to “our glorious hero and deliverer (under God) from popery and slavery”; to William of Orange, the monarch revered to this day by Scottish Loyalists for guaranteeing, as they see it, their religious freedom from the Catholic Church.

By mid-June this horseback “King Billy” had been vandalised twice, his plinth daubed with pro IRA and Black Lives Matter graffiti.

Why? Because the monarch believed to have delivered protestants from ‘slavery’ was also a slaver; personally profiting from shares in the Royal African Company.

This was a not a new flashpoint; but it was a new flash issue. The fear among local authorities? That Black Lives Matter and statue rows, like Old Firm football or the independence debate, would become another proxy war for those on the extremes of Glasgow’s rival sectarian traditions.

These concerns proved well-founded. This summer police repeatedly had to intervene to prevent clashes between what they coyly called “football risk groups”, Rangers and Celtic hooligans, in Glasgow’s central George Square.

And all this while, as in England and around the world, BLM campaigners faced counter-protests from self-styled statue defenders with a firmly Loyalist edge.

This was a cultural and political cross-over moment, when the fringes of British unionism and loyalism in Scotland found themselves in lockstep with a broad alliance of ultra-conservative, chauvinistic, nationalistic and white supremacist forces in Europe and America.

The result: Scottish Loyalists, to the dismay of both mainstream unionists and Scottish nationalists, are increasingly echoing global far-right narratives and spreading racist disinformation.

In Glasgow statue defenders were at least partly organised by a group called Scottish Protestants Against Discrimination – or SPAD – forged amid heightened Glasgow sectarian tensions in 2018.

Initially aping the language of minority rights, SPAD focused on what it saw as discriminatory policies from Glasgow’s city council, since 2017 in the hands of Scotland’s ruling pro-independence national party, on Orange marches commemorating King Billy.

The SNP, SPAD argued, was biased against Loyalist or protestant groups – and for Irish Republicans and the IRA. So, its supporters claim, was the SNP government in Edinburgh and what they saw as a compliant Scottish media.

With each month of 2020 – a rare year with no sectarian marching – the SPAD rhetoric was ratcheted up.

By August its monthly Newsletter had become a diet of racist talking points.

BLM campaigners, it said, were “Marxist drones” whose “real purpose was the defamation of great men”.

Citing the African National Congress removing Apartheid- and colonial-era monuments in South Africa, SPAD said communists were using BLM “to tear down Christian civilisation”. This, it concluded, was a “demonic offensive”.

SPAD, citing anonymous police sources, went on to blame a rise in sex crime on what it called the ‘migrant crisis”. There is no evidence for this.

So far, so boilerplate.

But the same newsletter also published crude disinformation about asylum seekers that suggested it was trying to weaponise racism against its constitutional adversaries in SNP.

And this leap from sectarianism to anti-BLM bile into the politics of independence has got figures on both sides of Scottish politics worried.

Glasgow is one of the UK’s dispersal cities for asylum seekers. This is a scheme under which foreigners seeking protection – usually when they arrive in the UK in southern England – are bussed north for accommodation.

In Glasgow, Mears, a private firm acting on behalf of the Home Office, houses and supports foreign nationals claiming refugee status.

Local or Scottish authorities have little or no role in any of this. Yet SPAD links what it claims is a rise in asylum applications in Glasgow to local and Scottish SNP leaders.

It repeatedly and falsely claims that asylum seekers are housed by the SNP-run council.

“Despite Covid-19 European-wide travel restrictions being in place, there has been a noticeable increase in asylum seekers arriving, particularly, in Glasgow to be housed,” SPAD claimed. “Could this be the result of the SNP policy of welcoming ALL asylum seekers?”

It is quite easy to answer this question: Scottish authorities have no immigration powers. So, no.

Figures for UK asylum applicants bob up and down depending on what is happening in the wider world. They were higher in 2019 than in 2018 but remain way off their 2002 peak. Glasgow got around 4000 people under the dispersal scheme in the year through last summer, more than any other city. This programme, after two decades, has had a dramatic effect on the demographics of a city that was overwhelmingly white right till the end of the 20th century.

SPAD in its most recent August Newsletter made a series of untrue, unfounded or unsubstantiated claims about asylum seekers.

No city source was able to corroborate any of the reports in the SPAD newsletter, which were attributed to unnamed sources.

One said: “This cannot be insider information because whoever provided it so obviously has no understanding of asylum policy.”

There are specific reasons authorities are worried about asylum disinformation.
Death of a refugee

Last month a troubled Sudanese asylum seeker, Badreddin Abadlla Adam, was shot dead by the police after stabbing six people. He had been housed by Mears in a hotel in the centre of Glasgow.

This happened ahead of a weekend when more BLM protests and SPAD counter-protests were expected. Tensions were high. The last thing local authorities needed was some incendiary language about “aggressive” foreigners from Loyalists.

SPAD, in its newsletter said said that Adam’s death was the “culmination” of its own distorted view of asylum in Glasgow. In reality, it was a sad and isolated event.

The newsletter concluded: “It has not escaped our notice that these sinister events have more or less been conveniently covered up by the Scottish media and those responsible for the running of the city.”

In fact, the shooting received wall-to-wall news coverage. So too did its aftermath, including criticism of Mears for using hotels for asylum seekers during lockdown, and widespread concern about mental health services for asylum seekers.

Martin Docherty-Hughes, an SNP MP who has campaigned on refugee and immigration issues, said: “The links between the far right and Loyalist groups have been an open secret for some time, and it is now concerning to see that they have adopted this type of slick political messaging to appeal to disaffected mainstream unionist voters.

“We are proud of Scotland’s reputation as a welcoming place for the most vulnerable people, while not being ignorant to the possibility that these messages may find a receptive audience. It’s time for all political parties in Scotland to be clear that, while there may be legitimate criticisms to make, aping the language of the far right cannot be allowed to be mainstreamed in our discourse.”

But it is not just the SNP which is concerned about SPAD rhetoric. So are mainstream supporters of the British union.

Pamela Nash is chief executive of Scotland in Union, a cross-party unionist umbrella group. Asked to respond to SPAD language, she said: “Seeking to divide communities goes against everything that the campaign for remaining in the UK stands for.

“Those of us who passionately believe we are stronger together do so because of our beliefs in solidarity and unity. In contrast, it is nationalism that seeks to divide people.

“Fringe groups like this with their intolerant views could not be further removed from mainstream Scotland.”

Glasgow Labour MSP Anas Sarwar has a track record of setting aside partisanship to challenge racism. He echoed Nash. “In recent years we have seen the rise of Scottish exceptionalism – the idea that somehow we’re less intolerant than our neighbours. It is not talking Scotland down to expose this as a myth,” he said.

“Intolerant groups like this do not speak for the majority of people in Scotland, and their distasteful, extreme and hurtful views are polar opposite to the beliefs held by those who support Scotland’s future in the UK based on solidarity and togetherness.

“But we can’t be complacent, and we need to challenge hatred and prejudice wherever it is found.”

openDemocracy asked SPAD to comment. It did not respond.

The organisation has emerged just as Scottish Loyalist tradition hits an historic low.

Polls suggest enduring support for independence and rising interest in Irish re-unification. More widely, sectarianism is believed to be on the wane, even on the Clyde.

SPAD is a product of this weakness, as well as a contributor to it. The idea of “Loyalist bigot” has long been an easy trope – but not always a fair one. SPAD plays up to this stereotype. It is the perfect bogeyman for independence supporters.

But SPAD, above all, marks an assault on the main Loyalist and unionist marching organisations, especially the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland. It lives off what the staunchest Loyalists see as the failures of classical Orangeism.

Disaffected Loyalists think the Orange Order was too “kumbayah’, explained one city insider, because it entered into negotiations on parades.

There is no suggestion that SPAD is behind violence in Glasgow. Yet it is SPAD which is most openly lacing Loyalist narratives with anti-BLM ones. And this concatenation of Scottish and wider global Culture War issues has impact on the street.

Speaking during the central Glasgow clashes earlier this summer, the Scottish government’s sectarianism adviser, Michael Rosie, summed up this new street leadership role for what was once very much a fringe.

“The Orange Order is not in George Square but there is the same cast of characters, the same extras who are bystanders to a big Orange parade, Rangers football hooligans,” he told The Herald.

“Nobody is forcing them to be violent racists but they are encouraged by the other lot who are knocking about and vandalising pubs and statues.

“There is a lot of nasty provocation going on at the moment, and it is around football, but football in Glasgow is never just about football.

“Part of me is very concerned that Black Lives Matter, which is really important, is being used now as a political football between Rangers and Celtic hooligans.”

As Docherty-Hughes said, there has long been a far-right fringe among the most nationalistic defenders of the union forged between Scotland and England in 1707, just five years after William of Orange’s death.

BLM protesters in Edinburgh focused on the 150ft Melville Monument to Henry Dundas, the 18th century politician most historians blame for prolonging the slave trade. They were countered by a rally from the ultra-unionist group A Force for Good. Its leader Alistair McConnachie is a rightist agitator thrown out of UKIP for Holocaust denial.

But there is extra spice in Glasgow Loyalists rallying behind King Billy and spewing the international buzzwords of race hate.

Because in Glasgow sectarian history is not just academic; it is visceral and it is now. And that makes the aftermath of even a perceived Black Lives Matter threat to a monument to a dead king so much more dangerous.

“The statues we’re seeing pulled down elsewhere don’t really have any current resonance, outside of people’s position on the Black Lives Matter campaign,” a senior Glasgow local authority source told The Times earlier this summer. “But King William does; there are people to whom he really matters, for good or ill, and I can’t think of a parallel for this anywhere else.”
The myths about asylum pushed by Scottish Loyalists
SNP Council behind a rise in asylum applications in Glasgow.

The council does not provide asylum services, the UK Home Office does, via private contractor Mears. Immigration is controlled by Westminster. Applicants for asylum are distributed around Britain in a centralised system.

A spokesman for Mears acknowledged that lockdown had delayed some asylum claims.

He said: “The number of asylum seekers arriving in Glasgow is not rising significantly. “However the ability to process asylum claims has been slowed by the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown.”

He added: "Asylum seekers in Glasgow are provided accommodation by Mears at the direction of the UK Home Office.

“Glasgow City Council is not responsible for asylum seeker accommodation.”
Council asylum workers are abused by activists

Mears has had disagreements with refugee support groups but said claims its asylum staff (the council has no role) had been abused by such critics were “unfounded”.

The firm acknowledged lockdown had been difficult. It said: “Any serious abuse will be reported to the police. This is an unprecedented set of circumstances and we thank our staff in Glasgow, who as key workers have maintained asylum accommodation and support working across the city throughout this difficult time for all concerned.”
Asylum seekers threaten to kill themselves to get housing

SPAD has claimed a young male asylum seeker with a rucksack repeatedly demands preferential treatment by saying he will end his life.

Mears said it was unaware of any such incident.
Adult men posing as children are housed with or next to vulnerable children

Mears said “did not recognise” such claims.

It added: “If it was brought to Mears’ attention that an asylum seeker had been placed in an unsuitable location, Mears would review moving the individual on a case by case basis.”
Council puts up asylum seekers in hotels, next to homeless people and released prisoners

This is false. The Mears spokesman said: “The asylum seekers Mears are supporting in hotels are not sharing accommodation with homeless people.

“Glasgow’s homeless are being housed by Glasgow City Council in separate hotels.”
Council is about to empty asylum seekers from hotels on to the streets of Glasgow with ‘nowhere to go”.

This is false. A spokesman for Mears, the housing provider, said:

“Mears has begun moving asylum seekers from hotels into private housing.

SPAD also in Glasgow there was “a ticking time bomb of aggressive male asylum seekers with clear mental health/addiction issues being evicted from their temporary place [of] residence to walk free among normal citizens”. That is not how asylum accommodation works.
The SNP is bullying its council asylum workers

In the alternative reality created by SPAD, not only does the SNP run asylum services, but it bullies council workers who criticise an imagined influx of foreigners. “A great number of staff are very unhappy with the whole asylum situation,” it said. “All are too frightened to disclose these feelings, for fear of being branded racist, by management and….staff members who openly support the SNP and all of its policies.”

SPAD even suggests whistleblowers are frightened to lose their jobs and pensions, which it describes as a “tactic used at by the SNP”. This is imaginary. The SNP does not run asylum services and has no power over those who do.

UPDATED
Belarusian government issues rare apology as thousands form human chain

People greet each other waving flowers and balloons as they protest in the Belarus capital on 13 August. Source: AAP

VIDEOS
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/belarusian-government-issues-rare-apology-as-thousands-form-human-chain

The Belarusian government has issued a rare public apology in a bid to quell nationwide street protests.

An ally of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has issued a rare public apology in a bid to quell nationwide street protests that pose the biggest challenge to the strongman leader's 26-year rule.

At least two protesters have died and thousands have been detained this week in a crackdown following President Lukashenko's contested re-election that has prompted the West to consider new sanctions on Minsk.

The emollient tone used in statements by two top state officials underscored the vulnerability of his hold over a country seen by neighbouring Russia as a strategic buffer against NATO and the European Union.


Protest rally against the results of voting in the Belarusian presidential election in Minsk.
Sipa USA Kommersant

Authorities have also begun releasing protesters, some of whom had bruises and described being tightly packed inside cells. They complained of mistreatment, including beatings.

"I take responsibility and apologise for injuries of random people at the protests who got it in the neck," said Minister of Internal Affairs Yuri Karayev on Thursday.

The protesters accuse President Lukashenko of rigging last Sunday's presidential election to win a sixth term. The president, alleging a foreign-backed plot to destabilise the country, has dismissed the demonstrators as criminals and unemployed.

But another presidential ally, the head of a national state council Natalya Kochanova, said on Thursday that Lukashenko had ordered an urgent review of the detentions.

"We don't fight, we don't need war," she said. "By this evening more than a thousand people have been freed under an obligation of not taking part in unsanctioned events."
Thousands form human chains

Several thousand men and women, many wearing white and holding flowers and balloons, held hands and walked through the capital Minsk to protest against police brutality during four nights of unrest since Sunday's vote.

The mood was more relaxed than on previous days as protesters strolled along a central street and lined main roads with drivers honking horns in support.

Supporters gave out free hot drinks and biscuits and police kept a low profile.


READ MORE

Belarus opposition leader fled to Lithuania 'for the sake of her children'


Similar human chains formed in half a dozen other cities, local media reported, while activists called for further protests at night.

People came out to contest the vote results and police used stun grenades, rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannon and, in at least one case, live fire to disperse the crowds.

At least two people have died and hundreds have been wounded in the violence while nearly 7,000 have been arrested.

'Change!'

On Thursday, demonstrators held placards reading "Change!" and "No violence" and wore white bracelets, one of the symbols of the opposition movement.

"We want to show that we, the women of our country, are against violence," said Yekaterina, a 38-year-old hairdresser wearing a white sweater and jacket and holding a bunch of white flowers.

Maria, a 35-year-old sales assistant, said she came out in her lunch break.



A woman holds flowers as people, some of them ethnic Belarusians, gather to support Belarusian opposition in Moscow, Russia, on 13 August.
AAP

"We want people to be able to protest peacefully, after all they didn't want anything bad, just a fair count of the votes."

A religious procession of various Christian denominations also took place in Minsk while workers at a several factories reportedly held strikes.
'What can we do to help?'

Russia's foreign ministry on Thursday denounced what it called "clear attempts at outside interference" aiming to destabilise its neighbour.

It said it was "concerned" at the "violations of public order."

The leaders of neighbouring Poland and the Baltic states urged Mr Lukashenko to "terminate the use of force against your people immediately."

European Union foreign ministers are set to discuss possible new sanctions on Belarus at an extraordinary meeting on Friday.

"What can we do to help?" US entrepreneur Elon Musk said on Twitter in response to a call to help Belarusians.


READ MORE

Women rally in Belarus as thousands are detained in government crackdown

Prominent Belarusians including Nobel Prize-winning author Svetlana Alexievich have condemned the violence and urged Mr Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron grip since 1994, to step down.

The interior ministry said it arrested 700 people at protests on Wednesday, bringing the total number detained since Sunday to more than 6,700.

A senior politician on Thursday said Mr Lukashenko had ordered an investigation into the mass detention of protesters.

Senate Speaker Natalya Kochanova said on state television that Mr Lukashenko told officials to "get to the bottom of all cases of detentions", adding that "as of this evening, more than 1,000 people have been freed."

After large-scale gatherings in Minsk and other cities on Sunday, the protests have become scattered and smaller as police cordoned off city centres and shut down public transport.
'Inhumane actions'

The interior ministry said Wednesday that police opened fire on a group of protesters armed with metal rods in the southwestern city of Brest, wounding one.

Officials also confirmed a second death in the unrest, after police said one protester died on Monday when an explosive device went off in his hand.

The Belarusian Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said a 25-year-old man died after he was detained on Sunday in the southeastern city of Gomel and sentenced to 10 days in prison.

His mother told local media he had heart problems and had gone out to see his girlfriend, not to take part in protests.



People wave flowers as they gather to protest during sunset in Minsk, Belarus, on 13 August.
AAP

People detained in recent days have told the Guardian of beatings, of being packed into small cells, and of men being kept in stress positions for hours.

One woman named Kristina said she was arrested and taken to a holding centre on the outskirts of Minsk, where she and 10 other women were forced to strip naked on camera.

She told the Guardian she was later taken to a room where 10 naked men were made to kneel while being beaten.

In an interview with RFE/RL, Ms Alexievich, winner of the 2015 Nobel Literature Prize, spoke of her shock at the "inhumane, satanic" actions of riot police and urged Mr Lukashenko to go peacefully.
Foreign-controlled 'sheep'

Other prominent Belarusians have joined calls for the violence to end.

Four-time Olympic biathlon champion Darya Domracheva wrote on Instagram: "Stop the violence. Do not allow this unjust horror to continue on the streets".

Several prominent journalists and presenters on state channels have tendered their resignations.

The protests broke out after authorities said Mr Lukashenko won 80 percent of the vote in Sunday's election to secure a sixth term.



People demonstrate in support of Belarus protesters in Warsaw, Poland, on 13 August.
AAP

Mr Lukashenko, 65, has dismissed the demonstrators as foreign-controlled "sheep".

The protest movement arose in support of Ms Tikhanovskaya, a 37-year-old political novice who ran for president after potential opposition candidates including her husband were jailed.

The official results gave her 10 percent of the vote, but Ms Tikhanovskaya said the election was rigged and claimed victory, demanding that Mr Lukashenko hand over power.

She left for neighbouring Lithuania on Tuesday as allies said she came under official pressure.

SOURCE AFP - SBS, AAP


'We don't need war': Belarus releases detainees in bid to quell protests

Andrei Makhovsky, Vasily Fedosenko

MINSK (Reuters) - The Belarusian leadership began releasing thousands of detainees and issued a rare public apology on Thursday in a bid to quell nationwide street protests that pose the biggest challenge to strongman President Alexander Lukashenko’s 26-year rule.

People greet each other during an opposition rally to protest against police violence and to reject the presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus August 13, 2020. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko

Hundreds of friends and relatives, many of them in tears, stood outside a detention centre in Minsk waiting to give food, water and blankets to people emerging from inside in the early hours of Friday.

Some of the protesters had bruises and described being tightly packed inside cells and complained of mistreatment. Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Barsukov denied the prisoners were abused and said all detainees would be freed by morning.

At least two protesters have died and around 6,700 were detained this week in a crackdown following Lukashenko’s contested re-election that has prompted the West to consider new sanctions on Minsk.

The detainees’ release and the emollient tone used by two top state officials underscored the vulnerability of Lukashenko’s hold over a country seen by neighbouring Russia as a strategic buffer against NATO and the European Union.

“I take responsibility and apologise for injuries of random people at the protests who got it in the neck,” said Minister of Internal Affairs Yuri Karayev.


Tens of thousands of protesters on Thursday were joined by workers from some state-run industries that are the pride of Lukashenko’s Soviet-style economic model, including the Minsk Automobile Plant (MAZ) that makes ‎trucks‎ and ‎buses.

Footage showed them chanting “elections” and “go away”. Local media also reported protests at the state-run haulage and earthmoving equipment manufacturer BelAZ in a town northeast of Minsk, and at the Grodno Azot chemical plant.

Protesters formed human chains and marched in the capital, backed by at least 10 television presenters and reporters from the tightly controlled state media who resigned in solidarity.

The protesters accuse Lukashenko of rigging last Sunday’s presidential election to win a sixth term. The president, alleging a foreign-backed plot to destabilise the country, has dismissed the demonstrators as criminals and unemployed.

But another presidential ally, the head of a national state council Natalya Kochanova, said on Thursday that Lukashenko had ordered an urgent review of the detentions.

“We don’t fight, we don’t need war,” she said.

RUSSIA ALLEGES MEDDLING

In Minsk, ambassadors from EU countries laid flowers at the site where one protester died, as a crowd cheered and chanted.

“We are here to mourn the loss of life and also to show solidarity with the victims of the violence and abuse that has taken place over many Belarusian towns and cities over the last few days,” EU envoy Dirk Schuebel told reporters afterwards.

Lukashenko has sought better relations with the West amid strained ties with traditional ally Russia.

The EU partially lifted sanctions, imposed over Lukashenko’s human rights record, in 2016, but could introduce new measures as early as this month. Germany called on the EU to put pressure on Lukashenko.

Russia, which has nudged Lukashenko into accepting closer political and economic ties, expressed concern over what it depicted as attempts by external forces to destabilise Belarus.

A former Soviet collective farm manager, the 65-year-old Lukashenko has faced increasing anger over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic - which he dismissed as a “psychosis” - a sluggish economy and human rights.

Sergei, one of the freed detainees, said there had been 28 people in a cell that would normally contain five. Prisoners took turns to sleep, he said, and were given a single loaf of bread to share out over two days.

Reuters could not independently verify his account.

“They did not beat me in the cell, they took me out of the cell and beat me there,” said Sergei, who declined to give his last name.


Reporting by Andrei Makhovsky and Vasily Fedosenko in Minsk; Additional reporting by Anton Zverev and Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow and Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Alex Richardson, Giles Elgood, Grant McCool and Michael Perry

Protestors form 'solidarity chains' to condemn post-vote crackdown in Belarus

Issued on: 14/08/2020

People hold flowers while lining up along a traffic way during a demonstration against violence following recent protests to reject the presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus August 13, 2020. © Vasily Fedosenko, Reuters

Tens of thousands of Belarusians staged a wave of peaceful protests on Thursday against President Alexander Lukashenko's disputed re-election and an ensuing brutal police crackdown

In apparent concessions on Thursday evening, Belarus announced the release of more than 1,000 detained protesters and the interior minister apologised to injured bystanders.

This came as European countries condemned the police violence and the European Union was set to discuss possible sanctions on Friday.

On Thursday evening in central Minsk crowds stood on the street cheering as cars drove past honking horns in support without any detentions, an AFP journalist saw.

Earlier an AFP journalist estimated tens of thousands of people, many wearing white and holding flowers and balloons, lined roads and filed through the capital Minsk to protest against police brutality during four nights of unrest since Sunday's vote.


Similar human chains formed in half a dozen other cities, local media reported.

Official statements suggested a more conciliatory approach following public outrage at extreme police violence including shootings and beatings.

Senate Speaker Natalya Kochanova said on television that Lukashenko had ordered officials to review detentions and more than 1,000 detained at protests had been released.

The interior ministry has said it has detained some 6,700 people at daily protests since Sunday.

Interior Minister Yury Karayev said on state television: "I apologise for the injuries of random people at protests who got caught in the middle."

Lukashenko's opponents accuse him of rigging the election to defeat his main rival, popular opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who has left the ex-Soviet country for neighbouring Lithuania.

People came out to contest the vote results and police used stun grenades, rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannon and, in at least one case, live fire to disperse the crowds.

At least two people have died and hundreds have been wounded in the violence while nearly 7,000 have been arrested.

'Change!'

On Thursday, demonstrators held placards reading "Change!" and "No violence" and wore white bracelets, one of the symbols of the opposition movement.

"We want to show that we, the women of our country, are against violence," said Yekaterina, a 38-year-old hairdresser wearing a white sweater and jacket and holding a bunch of white flowers.

Large groups of workers at several major factories staged walk-outs, local media reported.

Russia's foreign ministry on Thursday backed Lukashenko, claiming it knew of "clear attempts at outside interference" and saying it was "concerned" at the unrest.

The leaders of neighbouring Poland and the Baltic states urged Lukashenko to "terminate the use of force against your people immediately."

European Union foreign ministers were set to discuss possible new sanctions on Belarus at an extraordinary meeting on Friday and Germany summoned the Belarusian Ambassador.

Prominent Belarusians have condemned the violence and urged Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron grip since 1994, to step down.

In an interview with RFE/RL, writer Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the 2015 Nobel Literature Prize, spoke of her shock at the "inhumane, satanic" actions of riot police and urged Lukashenko to go peacefully.

'Inhumane actions'

The interior ministry on Wednesday acknowledged police deliberately fired on a group of protesters, wounding one.

Officials have confirmed two deaths of protesters.

Police said a protester died on Monday when an explosive device went off in his hand, while his widow told local media he was unarmed.

The Belarusian Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, on Wednesday said a 25-year-old man died after he was detained on Sunday in the southeastern city of Gomel and sentenced to 10 days in prison.

His mother told local media he had heart problems and had gone out to see his girlfriend, not to take part in protests.

Foreign-controlled 'sheep'

The protests broke out after authorities said Lukashenko won 80 percent of the vote in Sunday's election to secure a sixth term.

Lukashenko, 65, has dismissed the demonstrators as foreign-controlled "sheep".

The protest movement arose in support of Tikhanovskaya, a 37-year-old political novice who ran for president after potential opposition candidates including her husband were jailed.

The official results gave her 10 percent of the vote, but Tikhanovskaya said the election was rigged and claimed victory, demanding that Lukashenko hand over power.

She left for neighbouring Lithuania on Tuesday as allies said she came under official pressure.

(AFP)

Defiance in Belarus as ‘Europe’s last dictator’ wins reelection, TV anchors quit and police crack down

BY YURAS KARMANAU
ASSOCIATED PRESS |
AUG 13, 2020

People with flowers and old Belarusian national flags gather to protest against the results of the country's Election (Sergei Grits/AP)

MINSK, BELARUS — Crowds of protesters in Belarus swarmed the streets and thousands of workers rallied outside industrial plants Thursday to denounce a police crackdown on demonstrations over a disputed election that extended the 26-year rule of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Beginning in the morning, hundreds of women formed long “lines of solidarity” in several areas of the capital, Minsk. Many were dressed in white and carried flowers and portraits of loved ones who have been detained during protests that began shortly after Sunday’s vote, which they said was rigged.

The human chains grew throughout the day, filling the main central squares and avenues as motorists honked in support. In Minsk and many other cities, thousands of factory workers also rallied against the police violence, raising the prospect of strikes in a new challenge to the government.

Amid growing public dismay, dozens of military and police veterans posted videos in which they dumped their uniforms and insignia in the trash. Several popular anchors at Belarus’ state TV stations have quit.

Nearly 7,000 people have been detained and hundreds injured in the clampdown on demonstrators protesting the official results that said Lukashenko won 80% of the vote and his top opposition challenger got only 10%. Police have broken up protests with stun grenades, tear gas, rubber bullets and severe beatings.


A woman fights with a police officer as other officers detain an opposition supporter protesting election results in Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 11, 2020. (AP photo)
MINSK, PORTLAND, BEIRUT, CHILE, HONG KONG, THE STRUGGLE IS THE SAME

“Belarusians have seen the villainous face of this government. I argued with my husband and voted for Lukashenko. And this is what I got in the end — I can’t find my relatives in prisons,” said Valentina Chailytko, 49, whose husband and son were detained in protests Sunday. She has been unable to get any information on their whereabouts.

One protester died Monday in Minsk after, the Interior Ministry says, an explosive device he tried to throw at police blew up in his hand. Some media reports have challenged that official version. Neither the ministry nor the media outlets have provided evidence.

Thousands of people converged Thursday on the place where he died, many carrying flowers. European ambassadors also laid flowers at the site earlier in the day.

The authorities also confirmed that a detainee died in the southeastern city of Gomel, but the circumstances of his death weren't immediately clear.

Hundreds of medical workers joined the demonstrations Thursday in Minsk and many other cities.

“There is a feeling that a war is going on, but it’s a war against us,” said Mikhail Portnov, a 33-year old general practitioner. “We, doctors, see the price of this war as no one else. We were ready for violence, but the brutality of it has crossed all limits.”


About 200 women march in solidarity with protesters injured in the latest rallies against the results of the country's presidential election in Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 12, 2020. (AP)

The unprecedented public opposition and unrest has been driven by the painful economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and Lukashenko’s swaggering dismissal of the outbreak as a “psychosis.” The vote and the brutality of the subsequent crackdown — remarkable even for Lukashenko’s iron-fisted rule — have made the anger boil over. The 65-year-old former state farm director has been in power since 1994 and was nicknamed “Europe’s last dictator” by the West for his suppression of dissent.

“You can see the election result in the streets,” said 32-year old engineer Andrei Gubarevich, who joined a demonstration in Minsk. “Lukashenko has already lost.”

Belarus’ Investigative Committee launched a criminal probe into the organization of mass rioting — an indication authorities may start leveling those charges against some detainees. The charges could carry prison terms of up to 15 years for those found guilty.


People help a wounded demonstrator during a mass protest following the presidential election in Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 10, 2020. (AP)

The ministry said 103 police officers have been injured since Sunday, and 28 of them were hospitalized. In Minsk and the western city of Baranovichi, people ran over traffic police with their vehicles on Wednesday before being detained.

The brutal suppression of protests drew harsh criticism in the West.

The European Union foreign ministers are set to meet Friday to discuss a response, and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the 27-nation bloc would “increase the pressure” on Belarus. “The brutal actions and the arrest of peaceful protesters and even journalists in Belarus isn’t acceptable in Europe in the 21st century,” he told reporters in Berlin.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the election wasn't free or fair and urged the government to refrain from violence against peaceful protesters.

“I’m confident that EU and the United States fully share the same concerns about what has taken place and what is taking place in Belarus and I’m very hopeful that we can collectively work in a way that gets a better outcome for the people of Belarus,” Pompeo said Thursday on a visit to Slovenia.

Police appeared to scale back their response on Wednesday. In many parts of Minsk, the all-female “lines of solidarity” stood unchallenged for some time before police dispersed some of them without violence. Similar peaceful demonstrations were seen across the capital and other cities Thursday, but police refrained from dispersing them immediately.

Also Thursday, hundreds of workers at plants across the country, including the huge truck factories in Minsk and Zhodino, held rallies to protest the clampdown and demand a recount of the vote. Many shouted “Go away!” to demand Lukashenko’s resignation.

During a meeting with workers of a plant in Grodno, near the border with Poland, the local police chief apologized for the violent crackdown, according to tut.by news portal.

ANARCHY IN ACTION, SELF ORGANIZATION,

 NO LEADERS, DIY
The demonstrations have spread even though the protest lacks leaders. The top opposition challenger in the vote, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, suddenly emerged Tuesday in neighboring Lithuania and called on her supporters to stop protests in a video that her associates said was recorded under pressure from law enforcement officials before she left. The 37-year-old former teacher joined the race to replace her husband, an opposition blogger, who has been jailed since May.

Lukashenko has derided the political opposition as “sheep” manipulated by foreign masters and vowed to continue taking a tough position on protests.

But that has not deterred many.

“Protests will only grow,” said 25-year-old demonstrator Anna Shestakova in Minsk. “They can cheat some, but they can’t cheat the entire people.”


People wave flowers as they gather to protest against the results of the country's presidential election in Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 13, 2020. (Sergei Grits/AP)

Daria Litvinova and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Matthew Lee in Bled, Slovenia and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed.

WAGE THEFT PAS DEUX
Ladbrokes owner refuses to hand back furlough millions despite cashing in on an online gambling boom

FIRST AS PROFIT FROM WAGES

THEN AS PROFIT FROM TAXES (PAID BY WORKERS)
By MATT OLIVER FOR THE DAILY MAIL 13 August 2020 

Ladbrokes owner GVC is refusing to hand back money it took to furlough staff, despite cashing in on an online gambling boom and expanding into the US.

The FTSE 100 company said it used the taxpayer-funded furlough scheme to temporarily sideline 14,000 shop staff, helping it to cut costs.

But GVC, unlike one of its biggest rivals, would not commit to returning the money to the Government.
-
Surging profits: Ladbrokes owner GVC is refusing to hand back money it took to furlough staff, despite cashing in on an online gambling boom

William Hill said it would repay £24.5million earlier this month following a 'robust recovery', while Paddy Power owner Flutter did not use the scheme.

When asked if GVC would follow suit, a spokesman insisted that a 'fair amount of uncertainty regarding further lockdowns and retail closures' still existed.

'We will keep the position under review,' she added. GVC, however, boasted it had seen 'double-digit growth' and rising profits from online gambling.

Online profits surged 53pc to £368.6million in the first half of the year, with growth in both sports and gaming categories. Online sales jumped by almost a fifth.

With the return of televised sport after a hiatus during the pandemic, GVC said it was now 'well placed' for the rest of 2020.

It also informed investors it is jointly investing £344million into expanding its US operations. Boss Shay Segev decribed it as an 'encouraging performance'.

The company's refusal so far to return furlough cash comes despite calls from campaigners for big businesses to hand back the grants if they can afford to do so.

The Taxpayers' Alliance has urged businesses to 'do the right thing', because of the huge strain the pandemic has placed on public finances.


Government figures show the cost of supporting 9.6billion jobs across the country is just shy of £35billion so far.

Companies including housebuilders Barratt, Taylor Wimpey and Redrow, retailers Asos, Ikea and Games Workshop, as well as The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator magazine, Bunzl and Dr Martens have vowed to give the money back.

But GVC said its revenues shrunk to £1.6billion in the first half of the year, down 11 per cent compared to the previous year.

The firm, which also scrapped its interim dividend, blamed betting shop closures and sport event cancellations during the virus lockdown.

It also revealed it shut down more than 200 shops permanently during this period.

GVC now expects full-year profits to be between £720million and £740million, down from the £761million it reported last year but above a previous forecast by analysts.

Shares in the gambling group rose 1.9 per cent, or 14.6p, to 800p after the announcement.

Locals in Mauritius are going to great lengths to help clean up a devastating oil spill off the country’s southeastern coast. A Japanese tanker ran aground late last month, and then started leaking more than a thousand tonnes of oil into the ocean. Residents have accused the government of not doing enough to contain the spill, but instead of tearing their hair out in frustration, they’re putting their tresses to good use. Yashini Padayachee explains. #Mauritiusoilspill #oilspillinMauritius #Mauritius




SEE
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/locals-in-mauritius-are-going-to-great.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/mauritian-prime-minister-seeks.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-oil-spill-at-mauritius-is-disaster.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/update-mauritius-battles-devastating.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/mauritius-oil-spill-locals-scramble-to.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/oil-spill-off-mauritius-is-visible-from.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/france-offers-aid-as-mauritius-declares.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/mauritius-facing-catastrophe-as-oil.html

All-female ranger team in Kenya challenge gender stereotypes and protects the wildlife in the country’s vast National Park from poachers. #Kenya #NationalPark #Wildfire

Israel planned to transfer Palestinians to Paraguay in late 60s


The Latin American state had agreed to ‘absorb’ 60,000 Palestinian Muslims as a counterweight to Communists.

Israeli intelligence officials planned to transfer tens of thousands of Palestinians to the Latin American nation of Paraguay as part of a secret plan to tighten Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, according to newly discovered documents.

A journalist from Israel’s state broadcaster, KAN, made the discovery in minutes of an Israeli cabinet meeting in 1969.

Just two years earlier Israel had emphatically defeated three Arab states during the Six-Day War, conquering East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights.

While Israel has occupied the territories ever since and built settlements in them to further tighten its grip, the areas contained huge Palestinian and Arab populations that were the responsibility of Israel.

Addressing ministers in the meeting, Israel’s prime minister at the time, Golda Meir said: “We have to make a decision...it is very important that everyone agrees on it.”

Under the plan, the Palestinians would be given $100 each for living costs for their new lives in Paraguay, whose government would receive $33 per arrival in addition to an initial lump sum of $350,000.

‘Not communists’

As part of a deal agreed to by the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, and Paraguayan President Alfredo Stroessner, 60,000 people would arrive in the Latin American state as part of the plan.

Stroessner wanted Palestinian Muslims as they were not inclined towards the communist ideology he was fighting at home.

Those Palestinians who agreed to come would have been given Paraguayan citizenship within five years. Israel was not ready to accept the return of all of those who were resettled.

Despite a $33m budget, only 30 Palestinians ended up moving and the programme was scrapped after the killing of an Israeli embassy worker by two Palestinians who had moved to Paraguay as part of the programme in 1970.

All the territories captured by the Israelis in 1967 remain under their effective control. With the exception of Gaza, which has been besieged by Israel since 2007, all host considerable Israeli settlements.

The founding of Israel led to the permanent expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians from land that is now recognised as Israel proper.

Those expelled and their descendants now number around 7.2 million people, the majority of whom live as refugees in the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Jordan, and other states.

Source: TRT World

US election: Donald Trump suggests Kamala Harris, a US citizen, is ineligible to be vice president

14 Aug, 2020

Donald Trump has turned birther again, suggesting the Democratic Party's nominee for vice president, Kamala Harris, might be ineligible for the job.

Joe Biden chose Harris, a serving US Senator and former prosecutor, to be his running mate earlier this week. She is the first black woman in US history to be picked for a presidential ticket.

After that decision was announced, law professor John Eastman published an article in Newsweek, claiming there were "some questions for Kamala Harris about eligibility".

Sen. Kamala Harris was born in the United States. Photo / AP

"The fact that Senator Kamala Harris has just been named the vice presidential running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has some questioning her eligibility for the position," Professor Eastman wrote.

"The 12th Amendment provides that 'no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president shall be eligible to that of vice president of the United States'. And Article II of the Constitution specifies that 'no person except a natural born citizen ... shall be eligible to the office of President'.

"Her father was, and is, a Jamaican national, her mother was from India, and neither was a naturalised US citizen at the time of Harris' birth in 1964.

"That, according to these commentators, makes her not a 'natural born citizen', and therefore ineligible for the office of the president and, hence, ineligible for the office of the vice president."

During today's White House media briefing, Mr Trump was asked about Prof Eastman's article.

"I just heard that. I heard it today, that she doesn't meet the requirements," Mr Trump said.

Kamala Harris, former Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate, is eligible to serve as U.S. president, contrary to the false claims of viral posts on Facebook. Her mother is from India and her father from Jamaica — but Harris was born in Oakland. https://t.co/XnWfM9N8IL— FactCheck.org (@factcheckdotorg) August 11, 2020

"And by the way, the lawyer that wrote that piece a very highly qualified, very talented lawyer.

"I have no idea if that's right. I would have assumed the Democrats would have checked that out before she gets chosen to run for vice president.

"But that's a very serious – you're saying that, they're saying that she doesn't qualify because she wasn't born in this country?"

"No, she was born in this country, but her parents did not – the claims say that her parents did not receive their permanent residence at that time," a reporter told him.

"Yeah, I don't know about it, I just heard about it. I'll take a look," said the President.
There is nothing to look at.

Harris was born in Oakland, California in 1964. Legal precedent is that anyone born in the United States is a citizen, and therefore eligible to be president.

"All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States," the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution reads.

Nevertheless, one of Trump's campaign advisers, Jenna Ellis, told CBS News today Harris' eligibility was an "open question, and one I think Harris should answer so the American people know for sure".

CBS also spoke to constitutional law expert Erwin Chemerinsky, who is the dean of Berkeley Law School. He called it a "truly silly argument".

"Under Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, anyone born in the United States is a United States citizen. The Supreme Court has held this since the 1890s," he said.

"Kamala Harris was born in the United States."

Before he became president, Trump was one of the most prominent people pushing the racist "birther" conspiracy theory.

That theory claimed Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, was born outside the United States, and therefore ineligible for the presidency.

Obama was born in Hawaii.

An 'extremely credible source' has called my office and told me that @BarackObama's birth certificate is a fraud.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2012

"Why doesn't he show his birth certificate?" Trump asked during an appearance on The View in 2011.

"I would like to have him show his birth certificate," he told NBC's Today Show around the same time.

"Because if he can't, if he can't, if he wasn't born in this country, which is a real possibility – then he has pulled one of the great cons in the history of politics."

Trump famously claimed he had sent investigators to Hawaii.
"You have people now, down there searching. I mean in Hawaii?" Today Show host Meredith Vieira asked him.

"Absolutely. And they cannot believe what they're finding," Trump replied.

Let's take a closer look at that birth certificate. @BarackObama was described in 2003 as being "born in Kenya." http://t.co/vfqJesJL— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 18, 2012

There has never been any evidence that the investigators in question existed.

Read this--@BarackObama's birth certificate "cannot survive judicial scrutiny" because of "phantom numbers" http://t.co/DIv9sLI2— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2012

When Obama did eventually produce his long-form birth certificate in an effort to stamp out the theory, Trump claimed it was fraudulent.

He continued to promote the conspiracy theory for five years, and didn't acknowledge Mr Obama had been born in the US until his 2016 presidential campaign.

"President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period," Trump said.

He claimed the birther theory has been started by Hillary Clinton.

In her 2018 memoir Becoming, former first lady Michelle Obama said she would "never forgive" Trump for spreading the lie about her husband.

"The whole thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed," she wrote.

"But it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks. What if someone with an unstable mind loaded a gun and drove to Washington? What if that person went looking for our girls?

"Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family's safety at risk. And for this, I would never forgive him."

SEE
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/aoc-tears-into-trump-over-white.html 

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/08/trump-promotes-false-conspiracy.html