UK

Climate activists stage protest against Shell at Science Museum

Sean Russell
Sun, June 20, 2021

(EPA)

Youth climate activists have continued a protest against oil giant Shell at the Science Museum on Sunday after being threatened with arrest on Saturday.

Members of the London branch of the UK Student Climate Network (UKSCN London) are demonstrating against the decision of the museum to accept sponsorship for the Our Future Planet exhibition, accusing Shell of “greenwashing.”

The exhibition will feature carbon capture and storage technologies and nature-based solutions to the climate crisis. Meanwhile Shell reportedly poured $25bn of investment into oil and gas in 2018 alone.

Izzy Warren, 17, an A-level student from west London, told PA: “The fact that Shell, an oil company, are sponsoring the exhibition is absurd. It's blatant greenwashing.”

UKSCN London said that, on Saturday evening, a team of police officers had arrived and threatened to arrest them when they tried to spend the night in the museum’s Kensington building.

“We hadn’t been given any warning that the police were coming, they just showed up,” Izzy said.

“They told us they ‘wouldn’t hesitate’ to arrest us all, they had the resources to arrest us all, and that they would arrest us all for aggravated trespass.”

The move prompted the group to abandon the protest for the night but return at 1pm on Sunday.

“(The Science Museum) continues to justify the sponsorship, and so the protest last night was us taking further action because further action needed to be taken,” Izzy said.

“It's really brought attention not just to the Shell sponsorship but also the lengths to which the Science Museum will go to protect that sponsorship deal.”

Groups such as Extinction Rebellion UK have come out in support of the protests tweeting: “London youth strikers are occupying the @sciencemuseum calling on them to drop @Shell. We along with @ScientistsX, @drop_BP and many others call on science museum to listen to the youth, and protect our future. There’s no future with #FossilFuels.”

Greenpeace UK have also shown support for the group asking the Science Museum to listen to UKSCN London and “Drop Shell immediately”.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences.Update your settings here to see it.

Lizzy added: “People are angry and rightfully so, and they will hopefully come and join us outside the museum now.”

An open letter to the museum published on UKSCN’s website said: “We condemn the Science Museum’s decision to accept this sponsorship and provide Shell with an opportunity for brazen greenwashing.”

It said Shell had a history of committing “horrific human rights violations” in the developing world.

The letter continued: “Solving the climate crisis goes beyond cutting carbon emissions; this must be a fight for climate justice.

“We stand alongside the activists in the Global South who face violence from fossil fuel corporations, such as Shell, and the communities who are and will be hit hardest by climate change, despite contributing the least to cause it.”

The Independent has approached the Science Museum for comment

From burgers to chocolate to beer: How climate change will affect what we eat

David Knowles
·Senior Editor
Sat, June 19, 2021

LONG READ

Unless climate change can be greatly minimized, rising temperatures will disrupt food production around the world and potentially alter the way we eat, a new study finds.

The continued buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could imperil "nearly one-third of global food crop production and over one-third of livestock production" by 2081-2100, the peer-reviewed study, published in May by researchers at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland, concludes.

The findings put a fine point on what climate scientists have warned for decades: that climate change will render certain parts of the globe incapable of producing food for the people who live there.

The study notes that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rate, the most vulnerable areas will be South and Southeast Asia, as well as Africa's Sudano-Sahelian zone. But the vast majority of land on earth will be affected.

There is hope, however: If the world's nations are successful in their goal of limiting global mean temperatures to warming between 1.5° and 2°C, the impacts on food production will be lessened.

Numerous other studies have looked at how climate change will affect individual crops or growing areas, and some have concluded that global warming is already wreaking havoc on food production. Others make the case that dietary changes are imperative to prevent temperatures from rising even further.

The following is a sample of the growing body of research on how climate change will affect the world's diet. As certain food industries feel the impact, their products won't go away, but prices could rise and change behaviors.

Wine

A worker picks grapes at a vineyard in California's Napa Valley. (Robert Galbraith/Reuters)

In early April of this year, following an unusually warm March, France experienced several days of severe frost that devastated grape crops, resulting in an estimated $1.7 billion to $2.3 billion in losses. A study released by the research consortium World Weather Attribution concluded that climate change had made the "false spring" event 60 percent more likely.

Previous studies have concluded that rising temperatures will shrink the area in California's Napa Valley and other vaunted wine-growing regions in the U.S. that will be able to continue producing premium grapes.

"Over the next century, the area suitable for premium wine grape production is likely to shrink and shift," a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists concluded. "According to the higher emissions projections, premium wine grapes could only be grown in a thin strip of land along the coast of California, with premium wine-producing regions shifting northward to coastal Oregon and Washington."

Beer

Beer mugs in Abensberg, Germany. (Michael Dalder/Reuters)

A 2018 study published in the journal Nature found that weather disruptions spurred by climate change will also affect the production of beer, thanks to the impact on barley crops.

"Beer is the most popular alcoholic beverage in the world by volume consumed, and yields of its main ingredient, barley, decline sharply in periods of extreme drought and heat," the study's authors wrote.

Depending on the severity of drought and rising temperatures, barley yields are forecast to decline anywhere from 3 to 17 percent annually. As a result, the Chinese and American researchers concluded, beer prices could double in some parts of the world by the end of the century.

Coffee and chocolate

Coffee beans in the window of a store in Dublin, Ireland. (Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Alarm bells went off in Europe, which accounts for one-third of global coffee consumption, when research released this month found that 35 percent of the regions where the EU imports crops, including coffee beans, will be threatened by severe drought brought on by climate change that will likely disrupt food production.

An April study found that coffee production in Ethiopia will be especially vulnerable. "We conclude that depending on drivers of suitability and projected impacts, climate change will significantly affect the Ethiopian speciality coffee sector and area-specific adaptation measures are required to build resilience," wrote the authors of the study, published in Nature.

Cocoa beans, which are used to make chocolate, face a similar threat due to rising temperatures and drought. A 2018 study published in the journal PLOS One concluded that "drought effects on cocoa agroforestry could be a ‘canary in the coal mine’ warning of problems to come both in agriculture and in semi-natural and natural vegetation due to increased intensity and frequency."

Meat

Cattle at a ranch in Tomales, Calif. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, meat and dairy production accounts for 14.5 percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Citing deforestation that is carried out to create grazing land for livestock, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change included a section in its landmark 2019 special report that declared that the prospect of eating less meat could "present major opportunities for adaptation and mitigation while generating significant co-benefits in terms of human health."

“We don’t want to tell people what to eat,” Hans-Otto Pörtner, an ecologist who co-chairs the IPCC’s working group on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, told Nature. “But it would indeed be beneficial, for both climate and human health, if people in many rich countries consumed less meat, and if politics would create appropriate incentives to that effect.”

Beef is, by far, one of the worst food sources in terms of its impact on climate change, in part because of the methane gas that cows produce. Beef production generates 60 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of meat, more than double that of lamb, which ranks second, Forbes reported.

Wheat and corn

A damaged corn crop in Kansas in 2012. (Jeff Tuttle/Reuters)

A staple of the global diet that accounts for 20 percent of all calories consumed by people, wheat is one crop that humans need to ensure survives in the coming decades. While wheat yields have, in some countries, increased in the short term as the concentration of carbon dioxide has risen in the atmosphere, a major concern is the prevalence of drought in parts of the world where it is grown.

A 2019 study published in Science Advances found that unless global mean temperatures can be kept from rising, major droughts will affect 60 percent of areas where wheat is grown. That is dramatically higher than the current 15 percent of wheat-growing areas affected by drought conditions. The backdrop to the rise in the prevalence of drought, the study noted, is that demand for wheat was projected to increase 43 percent from 2006 to 2050.

A similar dynamic is at play with corn, 30 percent of the world's supply of which is grown in the U.S. Weather patterns resulting in drought or widespread flooding that can overlap with the growing season for corn are projected to reduce yields by 20 to 40 percent over the decade spanning 2046-2055, a study released in April concluded.

"That poor weather can take the form of extremes in temperature such as cold snaps or heat waves during the growing season," the authors wrote. "It can also be expressed as excessive variation in rainfall resulting in drought or flood, including floods before a crop’s growing season that prevent the planting of that crop in the first place."

Almonds

A field of dead almond trees next to a field of growing almond trees in California's Central Valley in 2015. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

California, which is currently in the grip of a mega-drought, is the world's leading producer of almonds, growing roughly 80 percent of the global supply. Thanks to rising temperatures and the drought, which has depleted groundwater and deprived the state of a robust snowpack, the future of the water-intensive crop has been made more precarious.

Yet, as with many other crops, climate change may present the opportunity for almonds to be grown in latitudes currently too cold to support them.

Researcher Lauren Parker of the University of California, Davis, is studying whether, as temperatures continue to rise, almond trees could thrive in states like Oregon and Washington.

"Under climate change, what we anticipate is seeing a reduction in the frost risk even for almonds, which bloom pretty early in the year," Parker told Yale Climate Connections.

Pet food

Fly larvae waiting to be harvested at a farm near Cape Town, South Africa. (Mike Hutchings/Reuters)

What people feed their pets, it turns out, also has a big impact on climate change. A 2020 study published in the journal Global Environmental Change found that the annual production of pet food worldwide resulted in average greenhouse gas emissions of 106 million metric tons of CO2. In terms of emissions, that is the equivalent of a country the size of the Philippines, the study noted.

In part, that's due to the rise in "premium" pet food, according to the study, which more closely mirrors a meat-heavy human diet. At present, pets consume roughly 20 percent of the meat and fish in a given country. But what if humans changed what they fed their pets, substituting insect protein for meat? While that idea may sound lifted from a dystopian science fiction film, it's already happening in many countries.

In fact, a 2017 study recommended that insect protein replace that of meat for humans, too, as a way to fight climate change, though with some caveats attached.

"Insect production has great potential with respect to sustainably providing food for the growing population," the study authors wrote. "However, further technological development of this sector and monitoring of the effects of these developments on the environmental impact of insect production are needed."

Women protest Erdogan’s withdrawal from Istanbul Convention on gender-based violence

Issued on: 19/06/2021 - 

Text by: Lara BULLENS|
Video by: Shona BHATTACHARYY

Women in Istanbul took to the streets on Saturday to protest Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention, effective July 1. Established by the Council of Europe in 2011, the convention targets violence against women and domestic violence.

Protesters gathered on the streets of Istanbul on Saturday to voice their anger at the government’s decision to withdraw from the measure, which is aimed at protecting women from gender-based violence. Turkey was the convention’s first signatory in 2011, lending it the name of its commercial capital. Since then the convention has been signed by 45 countries, along with the European Union.

Erdogan issued a decree annulling Turkey’s ratification of the convention on March 20. Turkey will officially renounce its membership on July 1.

“People are really afraid that their rights, which are already at a very fragile point today in Turkey, will be further deteriorated [and that] the state will protect them even less,” said FRANCE 24’s Shona Bhattacharyya, reporting from Istanbul.

She says protesters are determined to keep fighting through July 1, and are asking for a law to be passed in parliament ensuring that women’s rights are further protected.



The convention requires signatory states to investigate allegations of violence and prosecute those responsible. Additionally, signatories agree to promoting gender equality through legislation and education.

Critics fear that the withdrawal will add to an already increasing number of femicides in Turkey. In May alone, 17 cases of confirmed femicides were reported and another 20 suspected cases were reported, according to a study published by women’s rights group Kadin Cinayetlerini Durduracagiz Platformu (We Will Stop Femicide Platform). Turkey does not log official figures on femicides.

“These murders often go unpunished,” said Marc Pierini, a visiting scholar from Carnegie Europe. This is why the Istanbul Convention was such a “crucial reassurance” for Turkish women, he said.

At the time the convention was ratified, the Turkish parliament agreed to act on eradicating violence against women. The Women and Democracy Association (Kadem), whose vice-chair is Erdogan’s daughter, also fully supported the move.

But views on the convention have since shifted. Conservatives in Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party) now claim the convention actually encourages violence by undermining Turkey’s traditional family structures.

Erdogan further justified his withdrawal in March by accusing the convention of “normalising homosexuality”.

XI THE ALL FATHER
Sun, June 20, 2021
BEIJING, June 20, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- A good example is the best sermon. For Chinese President Xi Jinping, words and deeds from his father Xi Zhongxun are a great family heirloom that runs deep in Xi's outlook on life, work and governance, inspiring him to solemnly honor his duties towards the nation and the people.

Over the years, Xi Zhongxun taught his son three important lessons: maintain close ties with the people; attach importance to investigation and research; and practice thrift and hard work.

File photo of Xi Zhongxun (R) with his sons Xi Jinping and Xi Yuanping.

Xi Jinping has vividly interpreted what is maintaining close ties with the people.


During one summer, Xi Zhongxun visited 21 counties in the scorching heat to familiarize himself with the local situation. Xi Jinping, then a student in Tsinghua University, went to the province with his father to take part in social practice activities. He was influenced by his father's down-to-earth working approach.

Xi Zhongxun (C) visits rural Huiyang, south China's Guangdong Province, August 1978.

File photo of Xi Zhongxun (R) talking to people in Guangdong Province, China.

On Nov 3, 2020, the proposal for formulating the 14th Five-Year Plan was published. To this end, Xi Jinping successively went to Jilin and other places for investigation, and presided over seven symposiums. He said "without investigation, there will be no right to speak, let alone decision-making."

What else Xi Jinping learned from his father is thrift and hard work.

Xi Jinping once recalled his childhood life and said his worn-out clothes were patched up instead of being thrown away and he and his younger brother used to wear clothes and shoes handed down from their elder sisters.

File photo of Xi Jinping (R, rear) with his father Xi Zhongxun (R, front), his wife Peng Liyuan (L, front) and his daughter (C, front).

While making inspection tours, Xi chose to spend the night in the train for several times to reduce the spending burden for local authorities. As for overseas trips, he said the living place should not be luxurious.

Xi said the spirit of hard work should be upheld although the living conditions have greatly improved nowadays. He called on all the Chinese people to pass on the treasure of staying frugal and abstaining from extravagance.

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fathers-day-xi-takes-father-as-role-model-in-life-work-governance-301316006.html

SOURCE CCTV+

Fauci pushes back against the 'craziness' of attacks on his evolving pandemic response, saying 'that's the way science works'

Tyler Sonnemaker
Sun, June 20, 2021


Dr. Anthony Fauci in Washington, DC, on February 25, 2021. Saul Loeb /AFP via Getty Images


Dr. Anthony Fauci pushed back against attacks on his evolving response to the pandemic, Axios reported.


Fauci said attacks on his shifting positions are "actually criticizing science."


Fauci has become a frequent punching bag among right-wing media and politicians.


Dr. Anthony Fauci is pushing back more pointedly against attacks criticizing his evolving response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Axios reported Sunday.

"The people who are giving the ad hominems are saying, 'Ah, Fauci misled us. First he said no masks, then he said masks,'" Fauci told New York Times columnist Kara Swisher, according to Axios. "Well, let me give you a flash. That's the way science works. You work with the data you have at the time," he said.

"It is essential as a scientist that you evolve your opinion and your recommendations based on the data as it evolves," Fauci said, according to Axios. "And that's the reason why I say people who then criticize me about that are actually criticizing science."

As hospitals experienced a severe shortage of personal protective equipment, or PPE, during the early months of the pandemic, Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, along with the CDC and World Health Organization, initially told people not to wear masks.

But as PPE suppliers ramped up production and data emerged that asymptomatic carriers could spread the virus, Fauci and public health agencies reversed course, with the CDC saying in July that "universal masking" could help the US control the virus in four to eight weeks.

"It was not a change because I felt like flip-flopping. It was a change because the evidence changed, the data changed," Fauci told Swisher, according to Axios, in his latest defense of his position on masks.

Masks have been a political flashpoint for nearly the entire pandemic, while Fauci became a frequent punching bag for former President Donald Trump as well as right-wing media figures who repeatedly downplayed the virus and spread conspiracies and misinformation about everything from the health risks of COVID-19 to Fauci himself.

But Fauci, according to Axios, said he puts "very little weight in the adulation, and very little weight in the craziness of condemning me," and that what has bothered him the most is death threats against him and his family.

Read the original article on Business Insider

OBAMA WAS DRONE PREZ
The future of drone warfare


The Week Staff
Sun, June 20, 2021

The view from a military drone. Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Unmanned aerial weapons are reshaping the battlefield — and starting to think for themselves. Here's everything you need to know:

When were drones first deployed?

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been in use for decades. Radio-controlled B-24s were sent on bombing missions over Germany in World War II, and American forces used remote-controlled surveillance aircraft to snap photos during the Vietnam War. But the real breakthrough in drone warfare came in 1995 with the development of the Gnat — later renamed the Predator — an American UAV with a 49-foot wingspan that could stay airborne over a target for up to 12 hours, transmitting a live-video feed to a pilot who could be stationed hundreds or even thousands of miles away. On October 7, 2001, the first targeted strike by a remotely piloted aircraft took place in Afghanistan. A CIA Predator blasted a Hellfire-missile at a compound housing Taliban leader Mullah Omar; it missed and destroyed a nearby vehicle, killing several bodyguards. The U.S. drone program steadily expanded in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, and by 2014 the Air Force was training more drone pilots than airplane pilots. Some 20 countries now have UAVs in their arsenals, up from eight in 2015.

What advantages do drones have over warplanes?

Unlike fighter jets, which need to be refueled regularly and have crews that get tired, drones can loiter in the air for up to 24 hours while carrying out surveillance, probing air defenses, or waiting for a suitable target. While drones such as the Predator are armed with missiles, a new generation of low-cost "kamikaze" drones are flown into their targets and then explode. Pentagon officials worry that the spread of these cheap and deadly-effective drones could help shift the global strategic balance away from the U.S. "Our adversaries are already fielding technologies that will hold our legacy platforms at risk," acting Air Force Secretary John Roth recently told Congress.


Where are these drones being made?

NO MENTION OF ISRAEL
China is a top exporter. At least 10 countries — including Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates — have used Chinese-made UAVs to kill adversaries. Turkey has also emerged as a drone powerhouse. Its utilitarian Bayraktar TB2, a 21-foot-long UAV armed with four laser-guided missiles, first grabbed international attention in Syria in February 2020. After 36 Turkish troops were killed in a Syrian government airstrike, Turkey used a fleet of radio-guided TB2s — which are quiet and hard to spot on radar — to destroy Russian-made air defenses and kill hundreds, possibly thousands, of Syrian troops. TB2s also proved crucial in the Libyan civil war last year, helping the central government repel an assault on the capital, Tripoli, by the Russian-backed forces of rebel leader Khalifa Haftar. But the biggest demonstration of how drones are changing the nature of warfare was the 2020 conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan.

How were drones used there?

At the start of the war, Azerbaijan sent slow-flying Soviet-era aircraft that had been converted to drones to bait Armenian air defense units — tempting them to fire and expose their location, at which point they could be hit by TB2s or Israeli-made kamikaze drones. Having achieved aerial dominance, Azerbaijani drones then devastated Armenian forces, destroying at least 106 Armenian tanks, 146 artillery pieces, and scores of other vehicles. After six weeks of fighting, the Armenians had no choice but to sign a humiliating truce. Nagorno-Karabakh, said Malcolm Davis of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, was "a potential game changer for land warfare."

How else are drones changing warfare?

Experts worry that the proliferation of UAVs could make bloody conflicts more common, because countries that are reluctant to start a war and risk their soldiers' lives won't hesitate to send in drones. "For states that seek to break long-standing geopolitical deadlocks, the rise of relatively cheap, disposable, armed drones offers a tempting opportunity," says Jason Lyall, an expert in military technology at Dartmouth College. Others fear a rise in autonomous drones that don't need a human controller. The United Nations recently reported that a 15-pound Turkish-built quadcopter independently targeted and launched a suicide attack on retreating rebel forces in Libya. If anyone died in that March 2020 strike, said security consultant Zachary Kallenborn, it would be the "first known case of artificial intelligence–based autonomous weapons being used to kill."

Are other nations making AI drones? 

NO MENTION OF ISRAEL

The U.S., China, Russia, and India are all experimenting with AI-driven drone swarms, in which dozens or hundreds of UAVs act in concert to overwhelm enemy forces. Some human rights organizations and AI researchers are calling for a ban on killer robots, saying that even if this technology does not result in the nightmare scenario from the Terminator movies — in which intelligent bots turn on their human inventors — drone proliferation is dangerous. "Lethal autonomous weapons cheap enough that every terrorist can afford them are not in America's national security interest," says MIT physicist Max Tegmark. But the major countries developing intelligent drones have shown no interest in a ban that they believe their rivals would not honor. "We're moving toward a situation with cyber or autonomous weapons," said German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, "where everyone can do as they please."

Defending against drones

The drone arms race has sparked an anti-drone arms race. In 2019, the U.S. Army began using the Raytheon-developed Howler system, which can be attached to tanks and other vehicles and scans for enemy UAVs with radar. If it detects an incoming UAV, the Howler launches a 3-foot interceptor drone called the Coyote that detonates on impact, destroying itself and the threat. But using such a defense in a heavily populated area carries a high risk of civilian casualties, and so researchers are examining less explosive options. One interceptor drone created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) blasts what appears to be silly string at the UAV, gumming up its rotors and causing it to fall from the sky. China, meanwhile, has developed a 20-barrel Gatling gun, which weapons experts believe is intended to counter the threat of drone swarms by throwing up a wall of bullets. But anti-drone research is still in its infancy, says Dartmouth's Lyall. "The defense is playing catch-up, while the offense marches downfield."

Profile: Who is Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s next president?


A supporter of Ebrahim Raisi displays his portrait during a celebratory rally for his presidential election victory in Tehran, Iran June 19, 2021. (Reuters)


Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English

THE SAUDI VIEW
Published: 20 June ,2021

Ultraconservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi won Iran’s presidential election with 61.95 percent of the votes in an election that saw the lowest turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic.

The interior ministry announced the result on Saturday, saying voter turnout was at 48.8 percent, the lowest turnout for a presidential election in the history of the Islamic Republic. Raisi garnered close to 18 million votes.

The senior judge will leave his current post as head of the judiciary in early August to replace President Hassan Rouhani.

With all serious rivals barred from running by the Guardian Council – an unelected body that answers to the supreme leader only – his victory came as no surprise.

Ebrahim Raisi looks on at a polling station during presidential elections in Tehran, Iran June 18, 2021. (Reuters)

“For Iranians, the contest was yet another indicator of the irreconcilable chasm that exists between the state and society in their country. The lackluster turnout cannot be divorced from the past three years of nationalist protest in the country,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies,

https://www.fdd.org/  told Al Arabiya English.

Who is Ebrahim Raisi?

Raisi was born in 1960 in the northeastern city of Mashhad into a religious family.

He received a doctorate degree in law and jurisprudence from Mottahari University in Tehran, according to his campaign website.

Raisi has been a key figure in Iran’s judiciary since the early 1980s.

In 1981, when he was 20 years old, Raisi was appointed the prosecutor of the city of Karaj near Tehran. Two years later, he was appointed the prosecutor of Hamedan – a city over 180 miles away from Karaj – while keeping his job as prosecutor of Karaj.

A supporter of Iranian President-elect Ebrahim Raisi walks past a Raisi poster at one of his campaign offices in Tehran on June 19, 2021. (AFP)

He served as the prosecutor of both cities simultaneously for several months until he was promoted to prosecutor of Hamedan province.

In 1985, Raisi moved to the capital Tehran, where he served as deputy prosecutor.

Other senior positions Raisi served in include deputy chief justice from 2004 until 2014, and attorney-general from 2014 until 2016.

1988 mass executions

Raisi’s name is tied to Iran’s mass execution of political prisoners in 1988, when he was allegedly a leading member of what came to be known as the “death committee,” a group of Iranian judiciary and intelligence officials put together by then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini to oversee the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners at the time.

Most of the victims were leftist activists and members of the dissident group Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK). Rights groups estimate that as many as 5,000 people were executed, while MEK puts the number at 30,000 without offering evidence to support their claim.

Iran has never fully acknowledged the executions, and Raisi himself has never publicly addressed the allegations against him.

MIDDLE EASTIsrael says Iran’s new President Raisi extreme, committed to nuclear program

In 2019, the United States sanctioned Raisi for human rights abuses, including the 1980s executions.

Rights group Amnesty International said on Saturday Raisi must be investigated for crimes against humanity.

“That Ebrahim Raisi has risen to the presidency instead of being investigated for the crimes against humanity of murder, enforced disappearance and torture, is a grim reminder that impunity reigns supreme in Iran,” Amnesty Secretary General Agnès Callamard said in a statement.
Rise since 2016

While he has been a key figure in Iran’s judiciary for decades, Raisi is a fairly new player in the Islamic Republic’s political arena.

Raisi owes his prominence today to a campaign – seemingly being driven by the highest centers of power in Iran – that has aimed over the past six or so years to portray him as a humble, anti-corruption, and no-nonsense figure.

In 2016, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appointed Raisi as the custodian of Astan-e Qods-e Razavi, a multi-billion dollar religious conglomerate encompassing businesses and endowments that oversees the holy Shia shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad, the home city of both Khamenei and Raisi.

MIDDLE EASTIran’s Khamenei hails election win as victory over ‘enemy propaganda’

Raisi then ran for president in 2017, losing to Rouhani. But his rise within Iran’s ruling establishment went on uninterrupted. In 2019, Khamenei appointed him head of the judiciary, one of the most senior positions within the Islamic Republic.

During his tenure, the judiciary “has granted blanket impunity to government officials and security forces responsible for unlawfully killing hundreds of men, women and children and subjecting thousands of protesters to mass arrests and at least hundreds to enforced disappearance, and torture and other ill-treatment during and in the aftermath of the nationwide protests of November 2019,” Callamard said.

Under his watch, Iran executed wrestler Navid Afkari in September 2020, and three months later, journalist Ruhollah Zam – two cases that drew international condemnation.
What to expect

Iran’s foreign policy is set by the supreme leader, not the president, and is therefore unlikely to undergo major change with Raisi as president.

“Abroad, Raisi is poised to implement Khamenei’s vision. Raisi himself is no visionary, nor does the Iranian president have the power to deviate from a pre-ordained path,” Ben Taleblu said.

A handout picture provided by the Iranian presidency on June 19, 2021, shows outgoing President Hassan Rouhani (L) taking in part in a press conference with President-elect Ebrahim Raisi (R) during his visit to congratulate the ultraconservative cleric on winning the presidential election. (Reuters)

The Islamic Republic’s core policies “will largely remain the same” with Raisi in office, Jason Brodsky, a senior Middle East analyst at Iran International TV, told Al Arabiya English.

The United States and Iran have engaged in indirect talks in Vienna for months to revive the 2015 nuclear deal that Washington withdrew from under former President Donald Trump in 2018.

Raisi said during a televised presidential debate earlier this month that he is not opposed to the nuclear deal, and Iran’s top nuclear negotiator said Thursday the presidential election would have no impact on the ongoing negotiations in Vienna.

While Raisi is unlikely to obstruct a revival of the deal, having him as president, given his human rights record, could lessen the benefits from having sanctions lifted for Iran, Brodsky said.

“A Raisi presidency may impact the degree to which any sanctions relief under the nuclear deal will be effective in boosting the Iranian economy. This is because despite the sanctions relief, there will remain severe reputational risks for countries and companies who choose to do business with the Islamic Republic,” he said.

“Ebrahim Raisi's bloodstained record won’t exactly be a selling point.”

Domestically, Brodsky said, Raisi will likely “seek to implement the supreme leader’s vision of a resistance economy, focusing more on enhancing local production rather than on attracting foreign investment.”

“An Islamic Republic with Raisi at the helm means the mask has come off. Moreover, it means that Iran has less of a compunction about hiding its spots,” Ben Taleblu said.
Next supreme leader?

Raisi is frequently mentioned as a possible successor to Khamenei and winning the election could boost his chances of becoming Iran’s next supreme leader, analysts say.

The Guardian Council’s decision to disqualify all serious rivals to Raisi from running in the election – a decision the council could not have taken without Khamenei’s approval – added to the speculation that Raisi is being groomed to become the next supreme leader.

“It is too early to definitively say whether Raisi will become supreme leader,” said Brodsky. “But it is safe to assume he is a leading contender. At the very least, if Khamenei were to pass away during his tenure as president, Raisi would be playing a critical role during the transition, including the possibility of serving on an interim leadership council.”

Ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi succeeds reformist Rouhani as Iran's president

Issued on: 19/06/2021 - 

Ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raissi was named the winner of the Islamic republic's presidential election on June 18, 2021. © Atta Kenare, AFP

Text by: FRANCE  Video by:Douglas HERBERT

Ultraconservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi has been elected Iran's new president with more than 61.95 percent of the vote, Interior Minister Aboldreza Rahmani Fazli announced on Saturday. Voter turnout was estimated at 48.8%, the lowest ever recorded for a presidential election after reformists called for a boycott.

Ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi unsuccessfully challenged moderate reformist President Hassan Rouhani in the 2017 elections but proved victorious this time, with Rouhani ineligible to run for a third term. Raisi will take over from Rouhani in August.

Raisi is a trusted confidant of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was one of his seminary instructors. Raisa is not an ayatollah but a Hujjat al-Islam, a lower rank of the Shiite clergy, and is also a sayyid – considered a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed in Shiite Islam. This entitles him to wear the black turban, a distinction among the pious.


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Like the supreme leader, Raisi comes from the holy city of Mashhad in northeast Iran. In 2016 Khamenei appointed him to head the powerful religious foundation Astan Quds Razavi, which manages the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad. This major Shiite pilgrimage site attracts billions of euros in donations controlled by Astan Quds Razavi. The foundation, which functions as both a charity and a holding company, owns a multitude of real estate properties, farmland and businesses in fields as diverse as construction, tourism, agriculture and food.

Raisi ran the foundation for three years before Khamenei appointed him to head the Iranian judicial authority in March 2019, tasked with aggressively fighting corruption.

As Khamenei's loyal soldier, Raisi has expanded the number of widely publicised corruption trials, at times targeting state dignitaries and also, on occasion, judges themselves.

These trials have also allowed him to oust political opponents, such as his predecessor at the head of the judiciary, Sadeq Larijani, whose close adviser was embroiled in one of these corruption scandals. Larijani is also the brother of Ali Larijani, whose candidacy for the 2021 presidential election was banned by the Guardian Council.

Raisi fits Khamenei vision of 'young, pious' Iranian govt, says Atlantic Council's Holly Dagres

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Raisi made the fight against corruption one of his central campaign slogans, presenting himself as "the opponent of corruption, inefficiency and aristocracy". He has also promised to fight relentlessly "against poverty".

But Raisi's name causes anxiety among human rights organisations and the Iranian diaspora.

As a member of the judiciary for more than two decades, including as deputy prosecutor of the Tehran revolutionary court in the late 1980s, he served as a judge in a series of political trials in 1988. By the end, hundreds of imprisoned opponents had been executed. Raisa’s critics still reproach him for his role in the executions today, but his past gives him legitimacy in the eyes of Iran’s powerful conservative population.

Successor to the ayatollah?

With Iran still struggling under economic sanctions imposed by the West, Raisi is not expected to advocate opening up the Iranian economy to foreign investors. "Iran under Raisi is most likely to continue to invest in infrastructure, water, electricity and health, with an economy dominated by the foundations he knows well and the Revolutionary Guards (who also own many companies)," said economist and Iran specialist Thierry Coville in an interview earlier this month.

Researchers estimate that these semi-public financial interests currently represent more than 50 percent of the Iranian economy, but the phenomenon remains difficult to quantify because such companies do not have "clear traceability" and operate in a system that protects them.

As for the Iranian nuclear agreement currently being renegotiated, although Raisi strikes a defiant tone towards the West he is not expected to be explicitly opposed to it, according to Coville, who noted that it is the supreme leader "who sets the tone for these negotiations".

Raisi has the support of the hardliners on the morality questions Iran is grappling with. His father-in-law is none other than Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda, the supreme leader's representative in the northeastern province of Khorasan. Known for his austerity, Alamolhoda distinguished himself in 2016 by banning concerts in the city of Mashhad even as musical events had been experiencing a resurgence in other major cities of a modernising Iran.

Raisa has even been considered a likely successor to the supreme leader. He was recently elected vice president of the Assembly of Experts, the body responsible for selecting a new supreme leader in the event of Khamenei's death. And Khamenei, now 82, was himself president of Iran when he was asked to serve as supreme leader in 1989 after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Given Khamenei’s advanced age, a presidential victory could serve as Raisi’s springboard to the position of supreme leader.

This article has been translated from the original in French

  

IMF proposes carbon price floor among large emitters to limit global warming

19 June 2021 



The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday proposed to set up an international carbon price floor to help limit global warming and achieve the transition toward low carbon growth over this decade, Trend reports citing Xinhua.

"Gradually increasing price on carbon encourages innovation and transition to renewable energy, clean mobility, and low carbon technologies," IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in prepared remarks at an event hosted by the Brookings Institution.

"Limiting global warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees will require emissions to be cut by a quarter to a half by 2030, and this is unlikely to happen without measures equivalent to a global carbon price of around 75 dollars per ton by the end of this decade," she said, noting that the current global average emissions price is only 3 dollars per ton.

Noting that there has been progress, with over 60 national and subnational carbon pricing schemes around the world, Georgieva said "we have long way to go."

Georgieva said IMF staff is publishing a proposal on Friday that sets out how an international carbon price floor can help achieve the goal of accelerating the transition to low carbon growth over the course of this decade.

She highlighted three crucial elements of such a price floor: it would focus on a small number of large emitters, such as some or all Group of Twenty (G20) countries; the agreement would be anchored on a minimum carbon price - a single, efficient parameter - that would allow "simultaneous action" across different countries; a carbon price floor agreement would be "flexible, pragmatic, and equitable" and account for different responsibilities across countries with different pricing based on different development levels and historical emissions.

The IMF chief noted that a carbon price floor arrangement does not mean carbon taxes per se. "While taxes are an efficient mechanism, a price floor can work through other policy measures - such as regulation or emissions trading - that achieve equivalent outcomes," s

Eyewitness
COVID-19: Bolsonaro doesn't believe in social distancing, masks or vaccines. That wasn't lost on those protesting

Tens of thousands of marchers from all walks of life have taken to the streets and they all want the same thing - "Bolsonaro Out!"

Play Video - 'Bolsonaro out!' - Protesters descend on Sao Paulo

Stuart Ramsay
Chief correspondent @ramsaysky

SKY NEWS
Sunday 20 June 2021 

The thud of drums and chanting filled streets across Brazil. A day of protest on the day official figures recorded over 500,000 deaths from COVID-19.

The infection rates are officially between 80,000 and 100,000 people every day. But that is the recorded cases, experts say the real figure could be two, three or even four times higher.

At current rates, Brazil will surpass the US for the greatest death totals; epidemiologists are warning Brazil could lose 800,000 people.

They've been demonstrating on Brazil's streets for over two years now, but COVID has upped the ante - the protests are getting bigger and bigger.

Brazilian protesters are holding their president responsible for the huge number of COVID deaths in the country

This one took in at least 457 events in over 400 cities here in Brazil and abroad. The organisers say more than 750,000 people took part - with 100,000 in Sao Paulo alone.

The centre of the city heaved with people consumed with their hatred of their president Jair Bolsonaro, who is into his third year of a four-year presidency.

He faces an election next year, with polls showing his popularity is plummeting in the midst of the COVID-19 surge.

More on Brazil

COVID-19: Protesters call for Brazil's president to resign as experts fear up to 800,000 will die from coronavirus

COVID-19: Pregnant women and their unborn babies dying in Brazil as deaths set to pass 500k mark

Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro fined for not wearing mask at Sao Paulo bikers' rally

COVID-19: Thousands protest across Brazil over President Bolsonaro's handling of coronavirus crisis

The protesters, unlike their president, believe masks can help slow the spread of the virus

For many people we met, the fact that half a million people have died and the country still isn't in lockdown or increasing its vaccination program is too much to take. They want Mr Bolsonaro out and a rethink on how to deal with the pandemic.

Tens of thousands of people marched in Sao Paulo in well-organised groups watched on by police, many in riot gear.

They started gathering before the official time from all walks of life, rich and poor, young and old.

We didn't meet a single person that hadn't lost friends or family to COVID.

I met Rita Guimaraes on the street between giant banners being unfurled before the march began.

"We have to fight because it's ridiculous, and our families are dying, people that we love are dying, I can die tomorrow and nothing's being done, so, unfortunately I have to be here," she said.

Marchers on the streets have been fighting to save their loved ones

Everywhere around us we saw people carrying posters and waving flags with slogans criticising the president, the main theme was "Fora Bolsonaro!" - it means "Bolsonaro Out!"

Much of the organisation of the events was done by opposition political parties, trade unions, and student unions, but ordinary people turned out in huge numbers as well.

Crucially, they all want the same thing - Bolsonaro out - and they all agree he isn't listening.

Lucas Ferreira is a civil servant. The 27-year-old told me that they just can't stand by anymore and not do anything - he has lost four close friends to COVID.

"Now people are starting to get angry and start to mobilise to show everyone that we don't want this, we don't want to live under the Bolsonaro government."

Lucas Ferreira said he can't just stand by and do nothing

I asked if he thought Mr Bolsonaro was listening. "No, no, Bolsonaro, he's now very authoritarian and he doesn't listen to people," he said, stifling a laugh.

At the heart of all this is a president who doesn't believe in vaccines, or wearing masks, or social distancing, or lockdowns, or, it seems, anything that might slow the death rate down.

And that's not lost on people here. One woman with her two young children passed me in the crowd.

She told me: "Our government decided that there is no virus and that we don't have to wear masks, that we can use that medicine (hydroxychloroquine) that's not good for the people, and he said it's no matter, it's just the flu."

Cambridge scientists discover extinct elephant shrank by 85% in 'intriguing' evolution



Sunday 20 June 2021, 11:37am

The 'Palaeoloxodon mnaidriensis' became extinct around 19,000 years ago.

Credit: PA

A new study by a team of researchers, including scientists from Cambridge, has found that a now-extinct species of dwarf elephant halved in height and shrank by nearly 85 percent on the island of Sicily.

The evolution, which researchers have described as "truly striking" took place over a period of 350 thousand years.

Scientists analysed molecular and fossil evidence to make the discovery and say it's comparable to modern humans dwarfing to the size of a Rhesus monkey.

The research team included scientists from Cambridge University, Nottingham Trent, the University of York, and the Natural History Museum.Credit: ITV News

The 'Palaeoloxodon mnaidriensis' became extinct around 19,000 years ago. The species lost more than 8,000kg in weight and almost 2m in height after diverging from the much larger straight-tusked elephant Palaeoloxodon antiquus, which was almost 4m tall and weighed 10,000kg.

The magnitude of dwarfing resulting from this rapid evolutionary process is truly striking, resulting in a loss of body mass of almost 85% in one of the largest ever terrestrial mammals.< "As the descendants of giants, the extinct dwarf elephants are among the most intriguing examples of evolution on islands.Dr Axel Barlow, an expert in palaeogenomics and molecular bioscience

For their study, the team analysed the remains of a dwarf elephant unearthed from Sicily's Puntali Cave, thought to be between 175,000 and 50,000 years old.

They examined a piece of petrous bone - part of the skull that holds the inner ear - which is known to preserve DNA better than other parts of the skeleton.