Colombia truth commission gives scathing report on civil war


By Manuel Rueda | AP
June 28, 2022 

A man screams asking for information about missing people during the ceremony to release a truth commission report on the country’s internal conflict, in Bogota, Colombia, Tuesday, June 28, 2022. A product of the 2016 peace deal between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, the commission was tasked to investigate human rights violations committed by all actors between 

1958 and 2016. 

(AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

BOGOTA, Colombia — A Truth Commission presented its final report on Colombia’s armed conflict Tuesday, urging the government, military and rebel groups that are still fighting in the countryside to recognize the suffering victims have endured and ensure that political disputes are no longer solved through violence.

The commission is made up of academics and representatives of civil society groups and was set up as part of a 2016 peace deal between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that ended five decades of conflict in which at least 450,000 people were killed.

It was tasked with documenting war crimes and publishing its findings in a digital format that will be available to the public. The commission also issued a series of recommendations aimed at stopping future conflicts from taking root in Colombia, including changes to drug policy and transformations in the nation’s military forces.

The commission’s final report is based on interviews with 30,000 war victims, military leaders, former guerrilla fighters and five former Colombian presidents.

The 900-page report said 50,000 people were kidnapped between 1990 and 2018 as a result of Colombia’s armed conflict, often by rebel groups who kept hostages for ransom. It also mentioned that more than 7 million people were forced to flee their homes and that 56,000 civilians were killed by Colombia’s armed forces, including 6,300 people who were murdered in remote areas and presented to authorities as rebel fighters killed in action.

The report called for major changes to Colombia’s military and police forces, which have received more than $8 billion from the U.S. over the past two decades.

It said the military’s objectives should be re-evaluated and that all human rights violations committed by security forces should be tried by civilian courts.

The truth commission’s report also discussed drug related violence in Colombia and called on the nation’s government to regulate the drug trade so that its profits go to government agencies and not drug trafficking groups. It suggests that Colombia restart peace negotiations with the National Liberation Army, Colombia’s largest remaining rebel groups.

The Truth Commission’s recommendations are not legally binding. But some will likely be implemented by Colombia’s new government which will take over in August. President-elect Gustavo Petro attended the ceremony where the report was presented to the public and said its recommendations would “effectively become part of Colombia’s history.”

The leftist senator, who was once a member of a rebel group, said during his campaign that he will re-establish diplomatic relations with neighboring Venezuela whose socialist government is not recognized by the United States. Petro has also called for reforms to Colombia’s defense forces, suggesting he police should stop being used for military operations and be placed under greater civilian oversight.

The presentation ceremony was not attended by President Ivan Duque, who was in Portugal for the UN Ocean Conference. So the Truth Commission’s president, Jesuit priest Francisco de Roux, handed the report and its recommendations to Petro instead.

“We are confident that President Petro will incorporate these recommendations into institutional spaces of dialogue and debate, so that we can make the changes that are needed” De Roux said.

A separate war crimes tribunal called the Special Jurisdiction for Peace is also investigating crimes that happened during the armed conflict.

CLOSING THE BARN DOOR

WWF chief blasts plans to mine deep sea

"We simply don't know what we will unleash by going down hundreds, thousands of metres to the bottom of the ocean," says World Wildlife Fund's Marco Lambertini.

WWF's Lambertini says there would be consequences if plans to excavate mineral deposits from the deep seabed get a green light. (Reuters)

The World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) chief has warned the potential impact of mining the deep sea could be "terrifying" and called for strict regulations to avoid yet another environmental disaster.

"Have we not learned our lesson?" asked Marco Lambertini, WWF's director general on Tuesday, referring to the environmental impacts of digging for minerals on land.

"We simply don't know what we will unleash by going down hundreds, thousands of metres (feet)to the bottom of the ocean."

Speaking to the Reuters news agency on the sidelines of the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon, Lambertini said the WWF was confident there would be consequences if plans to excavate mineral deposits from the deep seabed get a green light.

He said it could potentially generate damaging sediment plumes and affect fish migration. Lambertini said authorities should instead look into the "great potential of recycling" e-waste for the materials needed for batteries.

There is growing interest in deep-sea mining but there is also pressure from some environmental groups and governments to either ban it or ensure it only goes ahead if appropriate regulations are in place.

Deep-sea mining would involve using heavy machinery to suck up off the ocean floor potato-sized rocks or nodules that contain cobalt, manganese, and other rare metals mostly used in batteries.

The International Seabed Authority (ISA), a UN body, is drawing up regulations governing seabed mining in the high seas ––areas outside any national jurisdiction.

Until global rules are in place, seabed mining is not allowed.

Global moratorium

WWF has called for a global moratorium on all deep-sea mining activities, and countries such as the Pacific islands of Palau and Fiji launched an "alliance" on Monday to back it.

But not all nations are against it.

China is a major proponent and even smaller nations like the tiny Pacific island of Nauru, for instance, asked the ISA last year to fast-track the adoption of seabed mining regulations.

Speaking to Reuters, US climate envoy John Kerry said his country, which has not ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, has concerns regarding deep-sea mining and is "very wary of procedures that could disturb the ocean floor".

The United States is not a member of the ISA but has participated as an observer state in negotiations over the regulations.

"We are looking very closely at the proposals and procedures and we will continue to be involved," Kerry added.

'Common governance mechanism'

WWF's Lambertini also said it was "fundamental" that UN member states reach an agreement on a treaty to protect the open seas beyond national jurisdictions, which they failed to do in March this year.

"Today they are nobody's waters and we need to turn the concept on its head," he said, explaining that not having a treaty means the high seas are not regulated enough. "They need to become everybody's waters."

Member states will meet again in August to discuss the issue and although Lambertini believes there was a "general consensus" on some countries were likely to oppose the long-awaited treaty.

"Without having a common governance mechanism, I think it will be very difficult to coordinate action," he said.

Whole Foods workers lose appeal over 'Black Lives Matter' masks
By Jonathan Stempel - 5h ago

A Whole Foods Market store is seen in Santa Monica

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court said Whole Foods employees cannot sue the upscale grocery chain or its parent Amazon.com Inc after being sent home without pay or disciplined for wearing Black Lives Matter face masks on the job.

In a 3-0 decision on Tuesday, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the employees failed to show that Whole Foods' enforcement of a previously unenforced dress code by banning the masks amounted to racial discrimination or violated Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Boston-based court said it was "pure conjecture" to suggest that racial bias drove Whole Foods into selectively enforcing its dress code, which also covered visible slogans, logos and ads unrelated to the company.

Whole Foods' timing "may be explained by the obvious alternative explanation that Whole Foods did not want to allow the mass expression of a controversial message by employees in their stores," Circuit Judge Kermit Lipez wrote.

Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer for the employees, said they were disappointed and evaluating their options. She also represents workers in related proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board.

Whole Foods welcomed Tuesday's decision, saying its dress code has long promoted a "welcoming, safe, and inclusive shopping environment."

It has also called the code "facially neutral," and with Seattle-based Amazon expressed support for Black Lives Matter.

The proposed class action covered workers in Massachusetts, California, Georgia, Indiana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington.

A lower court judge had dismissed much of the case, on somewhat different grounds, in February 2021.

The Black Lives Matter movement started after several Black people were killed by police in the United States.

A video showing the May 2020 killing of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin sparked nationwide protests about racial injustice.

The case is Frith et al v Whole Foods Market Inc, U.S. District Court, 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 21-1171.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)

America’s Lapdog Britain Moves to Extradite Julian Assange | The Nation


If President Biden really cared about press freedom, he would have canceled the extradition request months ago.

Every investigative journalist rightly reveres Daniel Ellsberg, the former US Marine officer who exposed so many of the lies told by the US government about the Vietnam War.

By leaking the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times, Ellsberg revealed the illegal US bombing of Laos and Cambodia—and helped to end the war itself.

When Wikileaks founder Julian Assange fought his desperate battle in London’s Central Criminal Court to avoid extradition to the United States, Ellsberg tried to come to his rescue.

As well he might. Because the story of Julian Assange is an action replay of Ellsberg half a century later.

Ellsberg, like Assange, was put on trial for spying. Ellsberg, like Assange faced a lifetime in prison, only for the charges to be dismissed because of government misconduct against him.

He told the London Court that he felt an immense fellow feeling with the Wikileaks founder.

In an important statement, Ellsberg—the doyen of whistleblowers—explained that while he was serving in Vietnam, detailed knowledge of US war crimes remained confined to a tiny circle.

By contrast, he pointed out that more than 100,000 people had access to the Iraq and Afghan war logs leaked by Chelsea Manning.

This meant, said Ellsberg, “torture and assassination have been normalised.”

And it is certainly true that the Wikileaks revelations has shone a horrifying light on crimes casually committed by the US during the so called “War on Terrorism.”

Wikileaks published a video of US helicopter gunmenlaughing as they shot at and killed unarmed civilians in Iraq. Fifteen individuals were killed in the attack, including a Reuters photographer and his assistant.

The US military refused to discipline the perpetrators of this grotesque crime, who remain unpunished. But the US government has thrown the book at the man who revealed their crimes.

Wikileaks revealed that the total number of civilian casualties in Iraq was far greaterthan previously admitted by the US government. It disclosed the abuse meted out to the inmates at Guantanamo Bay, as well as the fact that 150 innocent inmates were held for years without charge.

Clive Stafford Smith, who has represented 87 prisoners from Guantánamo Bay, paid tribute to the importance of the Wikileaksrevelations in enabling him to prove that the charges against his clients had been false.

Many other revelations, though less horrifying, were almost as embarrassing for the US and its allies. I was in the Beirut ten years ago when Wikileaks revealed that the Lebanese defense minister had conspired with the United States to facilitate an Israeli invasion of his country in 2008.

Wikileaks cables revealed how, over a two and a half hour lunch with American diplomats, Elias Murr spelled out which parts of country areas that Israeli jets should hit. They also revealed that he had ordered the Lebanese army “not to get involved in any fighting and to fulfil a civil defence role.” This is just one example and thousands, and mercifully the 2008 assault never happened.

It’s not hard to imagine the fury and embarrassment within the United States defense and military establishment at disclosures like these. And it makes the US determination to prosecute and convict Assange totally rational. They have the strongest possible incentive to make an example of him in order to warn others of the consequences of doing the same.

Any story which depends on obtaining documents from US government sources will become impossibly dangerous. Any journalists concerned could find themselves subject to an extradition request.

The more serious the story, the greater the danger of extradition and prosecution.

A simple mental experiment demonstrates the damage the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States will do.

Let’s imagine that a foreign dissident was being prosecuted by Russian President Vladimir Putin on espionage charges.

Let’s further suppose that his true offense was bring to light war crimes committed by the Russian armed forces, including video footage of the slaughter of unarmed civilians and two Reuters journalists.

And that the UN special rapporteur on torture, after a long and scrupulous inspection of the evidence, had statedthat this dissident displayed “all the symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture.”

Now let’s stretch credulity beyond breaking point. Let’s suppose that President Putin was pressuring the United Kingdom to extradite the dissident to Russia to face trial on charges that could condemn that dissident to spend the rest of his life in a Russian maximum security prison.

There would be outrage in Britain. Prime Minister Boris Johnson would make a statement on the floor of the House of Commons declaring that he would never bow to Russian pressure. Powerful editorials in every British paper would denounce Putin, while setting out Britain’s respect for international law.

Yet Julian Assange in virtually in every respect faces identical circumstances to the fictitious Russian dissident I described above.

With one crucial difference: namely that it’s Joe Biden’s United States rather than Vladimir Putin’s Russian which demands his extradition.

With the natural result that British Home Secretary Priti Patel has timidly given in to the US demand.

Patel is a notoriously authoritarian home secretary, but in truth I can’t believe any of her predecessors—Labour or Conservative—would have reached a different decision. This is because Britain values beyond measure her security relationship with the United States.

Yet Britain and the United States love to boast about their commitment to media freedom. Patel’s judgement shows that this claim is fraudulent.

If President Biden truly cared about media freedom he would have cancelled the extradition request months ago.

Such deep hypocrisy is a propaganda gift to Vladimir Putin. The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova used Assange’s arrest three years ago to mock the double standards of the west. “The hand of ‘democracy’” she noted, “squeezes the throat of freedom.”

READ MORE: www.thenation.com
Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/article/world/britain-exradition-julian-assange/

Assange was stripped and placed in “suicide watch” isolation cell after British extradition announcement

Immediately after British Home Secretary Priti Patel announced on Friday last week that she had approved Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States, the publisher and journalist was stripped naked and placed in a bare cell of London’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison

Oscar Grenfell@Oscar_Grenfell

WSWS.ORG
23 June 202

A supporter of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange holds a placard after the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, at the High Court in London, Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021.

(AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

This latest abuse of Assange’s democratic and human rights was reported by his father John Shipton to a rally in Berlin last Tuesday and at other speaking engagements in Europe. The brutal treatment was meted out on the grounds of preventing Assange from taking his own life.

In reality, it is a continuation of what outgoing United Nations Rapporteur Nils Melzer has branded as the state torture of Assange by the British and US authorities.

The persecution of the journalist is proceeding along two tracks. On the one hand, there is the pseudo-legal extradition process, aimed at dispatching Assange to the US where he would face 18 Espionage Act charges and 175 years imprisonment for publishing true documents which exposed American war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On the other is the ongoing brutalisation of Assange, who has been subjected to different forms of arbitrary detention for more than a decade. This includes over three years imprisonment in Belmarsh Prison, a facility dubbed “Britain’s Guantanamo Bay,” the vast majority of that time without conviction.

On Twitter, Assange’s wife Stella Moris also reported that Assange had been denied visitors the entire weekend after Patel’s announcement. The extradition order will be subject to a further appeal through the British courts. But under conditions of a momentous decision, which has vast and potentially dire consequences for his life, Assange was deliberately isolated and left entirely alone.

The clear aim of the British authorities was not to prevent Assange’s suicide, but to intensify his suffering as much as possible. The implications of such treatment being meted out to a man with intense psychological issues, stemming from the protracted US-led persecution, are clear. The British state wants Assange dead.

A similar abuse was inflicted on Assange during the initial British court hearings for his extradition in January, 2020. After the first day of proceedings, he was inexplicably handcuffed eleven times and stripped twice, while guards confiscated his legal papers without justification.

In other words, there is a clear pattern of the Belmarsh authorities seeking to humiliate and degrade Assange, and to heighten his feelings of powerlessness, at key moments of the US-British extradition operation.

The report that Assange was placed on suicide watch is also a damning indictment of the court rulings allowing his extradition to the US. After the initial District Court proceedings, Judge Vanessa Baraitser blocked extradition, on the narrow grounds that Assange’s poor health and the brutal conditions in American prisons meant he would die if sent to the US.

That ruling was overturned by the High Court last December, on the basis of bogus and self-contradictory assurances from the US government that Assange’s treatment would not be as bad as claimed by his defence lawyers. The assurances were accepted, despite a Yahoo! News report in September alleging that the Trump administration and the CIA had discussed kidnapping or assassinating Assange In 2017.

But while the High Court has ruled that Assange’s extradition would not be oppressive, or a risk to his life, Belmarsh Prison, if its actions are taken on face value, acknowledges that there is an imminent risk of Assange’s death.

The British authorities will make no attempt to square the contradiction. They have ignored warnings from hundreds of doctors of Assange’s deteriorating health and the need for his immediate release, for the past three years.

Meanwhile, Patel’s announcement has been met with a massive wave of opposition, from press freedom groups, legal experts and prominent public figures. These condemnations of the US-led pursuit of Assange reflect a groundswell of support for the WikiLeaks founder among workers and young people, millions of whom regard him as an heroic figure whose only “crime” is to have exposed the illegal wars and diplomatic conspiracies of American imperialism.

On Wednesday, fifteen journalists’ and publishers’ associations from six different countries met in Geneva, Switzerland. They condemned Patel’s decision and demanded Assange’s immediate freedom.

Dominique Pradalie, president of the International Federation of Journalists, which represents 600,000 media workers in 140 countries, said: “Julian Assange is a journalist, a political prisoner who is facing a death sentence. We are demanding that Julian Assange be freed, he returned to his family, and finally permitted to live a normal life.”

Pierre Ruetschi, head of the Swiss Press Club, pointed to the broader implications of the US attempt to prosecute a journalist for his publishing activities. Ruetschi warned that “democracy is being taken hostage. This attempt at criminalizing journalism is a serious threat.”

Patel’s announcement has also been denounced by several governments. On Tuesday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador convened a press conference, where he played excerpts from the Collateral Murder video released by Assange and WikiLeaks in 2010. It shows US soldiers in an Apache helicopter gunning down unarmed civilians and two Reuters journalists in Baghdad.

“He is the best journalist of our time in the world and has been very unfairly treated, worse than a criminal,” López Obrador stated, branding the persecution of Assange as “an embarrassment to the world.” The Mexican president said he would demand that Biden end the attempted prosecution, when they meet next Tuesday, and said that his country would “open its doors” to the WikiLeaks publisher.

López Obrador is a capitalist politician, whose government has imposed austerity measures and other right-wing policies. His statements nevertheless provide a glimpse of the real public opinion concerning the US persecution of Assange, which is persistently buried by the corporate media. It is widely viewed as an illegitimate operation, aimed at covering up war crimes and attacking fundamental democratic rights.

The Mexican statements are also an indictment of Australia’s new Labor government. It has rejected calls, including from his family, to intervene in defence of Assange, who is an Australian citizen. Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has refused to demand that Biden end the prosecution.

Senior Labor ministers have stated that they will not exercise their legal and diplomatic powers to free the WikiLeaks founder, as Australian governments have when citizens have been subjected to persecution in other countries.

The most significant development of the past week has been the outpouring of support for Assange from working people, expressed in hundreds of thousands or even millions of posts on social media.

This is occurring under conditions of a major upsurge of the class struggle, directed against austerity, the soaring cost of living and wage suppression. In Britain, some 50,000 rail workers have taken powerful strike action this week, against the very government that holds the key to Assange’s cell door. There is also widespread hostility to the eruption of militarism, expressed most sharply in the US-led proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

As the World Socialist Web Site has explained, the working class is the constituency for the fight to free Assange, defend democratic rights and end imperialist war. We urge workers and young people to take up this struggle, including by sharing information on Assange’s persecution and passing resolutions at your schools and workplaces opposing it and calling for a mass fight for his freedom

"Cradle of Humankind" Fossils May Be Over a Million Years Older Than Previously Thought

Published: June 28, 2022
Original story from Purdue University


The earth doesn’t give up its secrets easily – not even in the “Cradle of Humankind” in South Africa, where a wealth of fossils relating to human evolution have been found.

For decades, scientists have studied these fossils of early human ancestors and their long-lost relatives. Now, a dating method developed by a Purdue University geologist just pushed the age of some of these fossils found at the site of Sterkfontein Caves back more than a million years. This would make them older than Dinkinesh, also called Lucy, the world’s most famous Australopithecus fossil.

The “Cradle of Humankind” is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in South Africa that comprises a variety of fossil-bearing cave deposits, including at Sterkfontein Caves. Sterkfontein was made famous by the discovery of the first adult Australopithecus, an ancient hominin, in 1936. Hominins includes humans and our ancestral relatives, but not the other great apes. Since then, hundreds of Australopithecus fossils have been found there, including the well-known Mrs. Ples, and the nearly complete skeleton known as Little Foot. Paleoanthropologists and other scientists have studied Sterkfontein and other cave sites in the Cradle of Humankind for decades to shed light on human and environmental evolution over the past 4 million years.

Darryl Granger, a professor of earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences in Purdue University’s College of Science, is one of those scientists, working as part of an international team. Granger specializes in dating geologic deposits, including those in caves. As a doctoral student, he devised a method for dating buried cave sediments that is now used by researchers all over the world. His previous work at Sterkfontein dated the Little Foot skeleton to about 3.7 million years old, but scientists are still debating the age of other fossils at the site.

In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Granger and a team of scientists including researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa and the University Toulouse Jean Jaurès in France, have discovered that not only Little Foot, but all of the Australopithecus-bearing cave sediments date from about 3.4 to 3.7 million years old, rather than 2-2.5 million years old as scientists previously theorized. That age places these fossils toward the beginning of the Australopithecus era, rather than near the end. Dinkinesh, who hails from Ethiopia, is 3.2 million years old, and her species, Australopithecus africanus, hails back to about 3.9 million years old.

Sterkfontein is a deep and complex cave system that preserves a long history of hominin occupation of the area. Understanding the dates of the fossils here can be tricky, as rocks and bones tumbled to the bottom of a deep hole in the ground, and there are few ways to date cave sediments.

In East Africa, where many hominin fossils have been found, the Great Rift Valley volcanoes lay down layers of ash that can be dated. Researchers use those layers to estimate how old a fossil is. In South Africa – especially in a cave – the scientists don’t have that luxury. They typically use other animal fossils found around the bones to estimate their age or calcite flowstone deposited in the cave. But bones can shift in the cave, and young flowstone can be deposited in old sediment, making those methods potentially incorrect. A more accurate method is to date the actual rocks in which the fossils were found. The concrete-like matrix that embeds the fossil, called breccia, is the material Granger and his team analyze.

“Sterkfontein has more Australopithecus fossils than anywhere else in the world,” Granger said. “But it’s hard to get a good date on them. People have looked at the animal fossils found near them and compared the ages of cave features like flowstones and gotten a range of different dates. What our data does is resolve these controversies. It shows that these fossils are old – much older than we originally thought.”

Granger and the team used accelerator mass spectrometry to measure radioactive nuclides in the rocks, as well as geologic mapping and an intimate understanding of how cave sediments accumulate to determine the age of the Australopithecus-bearing sediments at Sterkfontein,

Granger and the research group at the Purdue Rare Isotope Measurement Laboratory (PRIME Lab) study so-called cosmogenic nuclides and what they can reveal about the history of fossils, geological features and rock. Cosmogenic nuclides are extremely rare isotopes produced by cosmic rays —high-energy particles that constantly bombard the earth. These incoming cosmic rays have enough energy to cause nuclear reactions inside rocks at the ground surface, creating new, radioactive isotopes within the mineral crystals. An example is aluminum-26: aluminum that is missing a neutron and slowly decays to turn into magnesium over a period of millions of years. Since aluminum-26 is formed when a rock is exposed at the surface, but not after it has been deeply buried in a cave, PRIME lab researchers can date cave sediments (and the fossils within them) by measuring levels of aluminum-26 in tandem with another cosmogenic nuclide, beryllium-10.

In addition to the new dates at Sterkfontein based on cosmogenic nuclides, the research team made careful maps of the cave deposits and showed how animal fossils of different ages would have been mixed together during excavations in the 1930s and 1940s, leading to decades of confusion with the previous ages. “What I hope is that this convinces people that this dating method gives reliable results,” Granger said. “Using this method, we can more accurately place ancient humans and their relatives in the correct time periods, in Africa, and elsewhere across the world.”

The age of the fossils matters because it influences scientists’ understanding of the living landscape of the time. How and where humans evolved, how they fit into the ecosystem, and who their closest relatives are and were, are pressing and complex questions. Putting the fossils at Sterkfontein into their proper context is one step towards solving the entire puzzle.

Reference: Granger DE, Stratford D, Bruxelles L, Gibbon RJ, Clarke RJ, Kuman K. Cosmogenic nuclide dating of Australopithecus at Sterkfontein, South Africa. PNAS. 2022;119(27):e2123516119. doi:10.1073/pnas.2123516119

RIP

Depeche Mode reveal Andy Fletcher’s cause of death in new statement

By Cerys Kenneally / 28 JUNE 2022


Depeche Mode have shared a new statement about their late keyboardist Andy Fletcher, revealing his cause of death following his passing a month ago.

Last month Depeche Mode shared a statement on socials announcing the passing of their keyboardist Andy Fletcher. "We are shocked and filled with overwhelming sadness with the untimely passing of our dear friend, family member, and bandmate Andy "Fletch" Fletcher," Depeche Mode wrote. "Fletch had a true heart of gold and was always there when you needed support, a lively conversation, a good laugh, or a cold pint."

Yesterday (27 June) the band's Martin Gore and Dave Gahan shared a new post about Fletcher, thanking fans and peers for "the outpouring of love for Andy that we’ve seen from all of you over the last few weeks. It’s incredible to see all of your photos, to read your words, and to see how much Andy meant to all of you."

They also revealed Fletcher's cause of death, writing, "A couple weeks ago we received the result from the medical examiners, which Andy’s family asked us to share with you now. Andy suffered an aortic dissection while at home on May 26. So, even though it was far, far too soon, he passed naturally and without prolonged suffering."

"We had a celebration of Andy’s life in London last week, which was a beautiful ceremony and gathering with a few tears, but filled with the great memories of who Andy was, stories of all of our times together, and some good laughs," Gore and Gahan wrote. "Andy was celebrated in a room full of many of his friends and family, our immediate DM family, and so many people who have touched Andy’s and our lives throughout the years. All being together was a very special way to remember Andy and see him off."

They concluded, "So thank you for all of the love you’ve shown Andy and his family and friends over the last few weeks. It honestly means the world to all of us. Andy, you’ll be missed, but certainly not forgotten."

In 2020 Depeche Mode were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Their latest album was 2017's Spirit.

Scrapping the NI protocol is just the start. Johnson’s trade wars are Trumpism in action

Brexit has left Britain out on a limb. Yet the PM seems hellbent on alienating our trading partners to boost his own position

‘Like all populist leaders, Johnson views his actions in terms of their capacity to promote his own person.’ Johnson at the G7 summit in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, on 28 June 2022. Photograph: Getty Images

Simon Jenkins

THE GUARDIAN

Tue 28 Jun 2022 

Britain’s foreign policy is now at the mercy of Boris Johnson’s reckless quest for survival. At home he grasps for votes with Irish border controls, protectionist tariffs and immigrant quotas. Abroad, he tours Europe demanding total victory in someone else’s war while promoting the most intense economic disruption in the continent’s peacetime history. Every visit is treated as a photo opportunity. An absurd “bromance” is even staged with the equally embattled French leader, Emmanuel Macron. Never was machismo so synthetic.

Yesterday’s Commons vote on a bill which would allow him to scrap the Northern Ireland protocol was a classic. It was motivated by a desire to appease the province’s fast-disintegrating Unionist majority. The price is to be a predictable standup row with the EU, but one that Johnson thinks will bolster him with his party’s Brexiter right wing. The government’s suggestions for a “soft” border with Ireland are actually quite sensible. But Downing Street’s three years of anti-EU rhetoric have exhausted any wish in Brussels to be co-operative.

The Brexit cry that “Europe needs us more than we need it” was never emptier. Johnson last night had his own backbenchers, including his predecessor Theresa May, dismissing his Northern Ireland policy as illegal, unattainable and damaging to Britain’s global reputation. At the very moment when he is wandering Europe’s capitals demanding they all refuse to trade with Russia, he is fashioning a trade war with the EU. This must be madness.

00:46Theresa May: Northern Ireland protocol bill will ‘diminish UK in eyes of the world’ – video

As if two trade wars were not enough, Johnson is also set on another. Trade with the “rest of the world” was predicted as set to boom as a result of Brexit liberation. Now the prime minister wants to embed protectionism with tariffs on steel imports from China, India, Turkey and other countries. These are precisely the countries with which Johnson boasted he would do “world-beating trade deals”. The World Trade Organization has warned that such action would be illegal, while Downing Street’s ethics adviser, Lord Geidt, said he was put in an “impossible and odious” position over the issue. But Johnson cares only for votes in “red wall” industrial seats. Such a trade policy is not Toryism but Trumpism.

Meanwhile the government frantically adjusts migrant quotas worthy of the most socialist planning regime to meet post-Brexit crises in agriculture, construction, health and social care. The ironic result is that the stifling of European immigrants is more than countered by a 25% rise in migration from Africa and Asia. Is that what the Brexiters promised?

Conservatives must search in vain for ideological consistency in these policies. They are the kneejerk reactions of an embattled economy that has declared itself at odds with the outside world. Six years ago Britain made a terrible mistake, to cut itself off from its neighbouring single market, a mistake that the government exacerbates month by month. The Office for Budget Responsibility calculates this is costing the British people a debilitating 4% in annual growth. Sooner or later that mistake will have to be reversed.

Like all populist leaders, Johnson views his actions in terms of their capacity to promote his own person. A sure sign is his innovation of inviting news cameras to witness him addressing his own cabinet. It measures success in biceps rather than brain power and is borrowed from a certain Vladimir Putin. It is not democratic government.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

Independent inquiry into treatment of asylum seekers during lockdown in Scotland

An independent inquiry has been launched to look at the treatment of asylum seekers in Scotland during the pandemic.

By The Newsroom

THE SCOTSMAN
Sunday, 26th June 2022

Police, alongside a floral tribute, at the scene in West George Street, Glasgow, after

 Badreddin Abadlla Adam, 28, from Sudan, was shot dead by police

Campaigning organisation Refugees for Justice called for a review in the wake of stabbings at the Park Inn hotel in Glasgow which was being used to house asylum seekers during lockdown in 2020.

On Sunday June 26, the second anniversary of the incident, Refugees for Justice announced that it has commissioned an independent inquiry, which will be led by Baroness Helena Kennedy QC.

An inquiry report published on Sunday focused on events in Glasgow at the start of the first major Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, when 321 people seeking asylum were moved from their homes into hotels by Home Office contractors.

Badreddin Abadlla Adam


Badreddin Abadlla Adam, 28, from Sudan, was shot dead by police after his knife attack at the Park Inn Hotel in Glasgow in June 2020, which injured six people including 42-year-old police constable David Whyte.

The Home Office said it has undertaken a number of “significant changes to keep asylum seekers safe” since the incident.

The report also mentions the case of Adnan Elbi who died in one of the hotels in May 2020.

Baroness Kennedy said: “In the absence of a public inquiry, this independent Commission of Inquiry (the Inquiry) seeks to make sense of the decisions that led up to these events and to provide recommendations to improve provision of asylum accommodation and support and to stop future tragedies occurring.”

She added: “Importantly, this report is published two years after the tragic events at Park Inn.

“There is precious little evidence of changes in policy or practice as a result of this tragedy, despite the elapsed time.

“It is therefore also in pursuit of dignity for the lost lives of Adnan Elbi and Badreddin Abdalla Adam, and for those who sustained injuries and trauma at the time, that this report has been produced.”

The first part of the inquiry comprises a report summarising the evidence relating to the events.

Baroness Kennedy said that part two of the inquiry will include the convening of a panel of experienced experts and campaigners and will “consider these themes and unanswered questions further, through analysis of written and oral evidence and taking a human rights-based approach.”

It is expected that part two will be published in November this year.

Refugees for Justice tweeted: “Today is a historic day. 26 June 2022, second anniversary of Park Inn tragedy, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC is launching an independent inquiry into the handling of asylum support and accommodation in Glasgow during Covid. We are going to be heard, finally.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “Since this horrific incident we have undertaken a number of significant changes to keep asylum seekers safe, including how we, our contractors and charities spot vulnerable individuals and provide them with wraparound support and appropriate accommodation.

“Due to the pandemic the Home Office had to use an unprecedented number of hotels for asylum seekers, including in Glasgow.

“The use of hotels is unacceptable and we are working hard to find appropriate accommodation for asylum seekers but local authorities must do all they can to help house people permanently.”

Do elephants grieve? Maybe, though not in the ‘human’ sense of the word

The apparent emotionality and the wide-ranging individual differences in the responses of elephants to their dead do indeed deserve further study

By Seema Lokhandwala, Mihika Sen
Published: Tuesday 28 June 2022

An adult male elephant caresses the remains of another male 

in Kaziranga National Park, Assam

Human grief is often described as a natural response to the loss of someone or something that’s significant. We may feel a variety of emotions, like sadness or loneliness. But can such emotions ever be experienced by non-human animals as well?

We feel an inexplicable connection with large, charismatic mammals such as the elephants. There may be several reasons behind this, such as their intelligence, playfulness and closeness to family. However, a trait that stands out in particular is their capability of experiencing complex emotions, such as grief.

Numerous instances have been recorded across the world wherein these gentle giants were found to react when coming across the remains of other elephants, regardless of the strength of relationships they might have shared with the deceased individuals.

Some caressed the remains by touching them gently with their trunks and feet, while others smelled and tasted them and even attempted to lift and carry them around. Interestingly, some elephants have been found to carefully cover the bodies with soil, leaves and branches, almost as if performing burial rituals.

Studies have also suggested that certain elephants specifically visit the bones of their deceased relatives. However, the common aspect in all these incidents is the eerie stillness of the elephants while inspecting the remains.

In elephant researcher Joyce Poole’s words, “It is their silence that is most unsettling. The only sound is the slow blowing of air out of their trunks as they investigate their dead companion.”

When a 55-year-old matriarch, Victoria, passed away in June 2013 at Kenya’s Samburu National Park, several elephants, related and unrelated, came and huddled around her body. Ecologist Shifra Goldenberg observed that Malasso, Victoria’s 14-year-old son, was one of the last to leave.

On a later observation of Victoria’s remains, two fresh cuts were found, one in her cheek and the other at the top of her mouth, both of which seemed to have occurred after death. Goldenberg explained, “We think possibly [Malasso] tried to lift her, because he has these long tusks.”

Another elephant that lingered near the body was Victoria’s youngest daughter Noor. When she finally left the remains, liquid was streaming out of her temporal glands, a reaction that has been associated with fear, stress and aggression in African elephants.

Like their African counterparts, Asian elephants too have been found to experience distress in response to dead or dying individuals.

An important aspect which may shed some light on these happenings is that both African and Asian elephants form strong social bonds and complex social structures, characteristics which scientists have often pointed out to be existent in highly conscious living beings.

Most family groups consist of related females and their young exhibiting strong social ties; males generally leave their family groups after reaching adolescence, sometimes going on to become part of all-male groups with certain long-lasting relations.

Elephant interactions being essential for the passing down of knowledge through generations. Hence, some researchers suggest that elephants inspect their dead in an attempt to glean important information through touch and smell, which could aid in their own survival.

In particular, matriarchal knowledge may prove to be critical to the survival of individuals. Social relationships and consequently social communication, therefore play a crucial role in an elephant’s life and may thus significantly impact the elephant’s interactions even during and beyond death.


The Elephant Acoustics Project focuses on studying acoustic communication of Asian elephants along the Kaziranga-Karbi Anglong landscape in North East India.

On January 17, 2020, a day when we were observing elephant behaviour in the Kaziranga National Park, around early evening we came upon an adult male elephant who stood still for a long time, caressing the skull of a deceased elephant.

He then also tossed around with his feet what seemed to be pieces of leftover skin from the ears of the dead elephant. During our prolonged observation, he did not feed or drink despite both food and water being easily accessible in his immediate surroundings.

His tail was frequently raised, a behaviour commonly seen in disturbed Asian elephants. He would attempt to move away from the remains yet keep coming back to them every time as if strangely drawn to them. Subsequent discussions with the Park staff revealed that the deceased elephant had also been a male, suspected to have died of natural causes.

The question then remains: Can we really say that elephants grieve? In an attempt to answer this, we could perhaps turn to anthropologist Barbara J King’s definition of the emotion: “To qualify as grief, surviving individuals who knew the deceased must alter their behavioural routine. They might eat or sleep less, or act listless, or agitated. They might attend their friend’s corpse”.

Grief in itself may mean something different to each individual, but according to Charles Darwin, there is a certain universality to it that may potentially connect us and our mammalian relatives.

We may not be able to determine as of now whether elephants “grieve” in the human sense of the word, but some things are certain: Elephants display a significant interest in their dead and their behaviour in such situations is markedly different as compared to that under normal circumstances.

Can they comprehend or anticipate death? Do they mourn? Or are these complex ways of responding to death that are beyond our current understanding? All of these are things we are yet to decipher.

“Witnessing elephants interact with their dead sends chills up one’s spine, as the behaviour so clearly indicates advanced feeling,” said elephant researcher George Wittemyer. “This is one of the many magnificent aspects of elephants that we have observed, but cannot fully comprehend.”

The apparent emotionality and the wide-ranging individual differences in the responses of elephants to their dead do indeed deserve further study. It is hoped that such endeavours in the future would conclusively reveal the answers to the long-debated questions which surround them.

The authors are associated with the Elephant Acoustics Project

Views expressed are the authors’ own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth

Europe hypocrisy: Amid shift to coal, what about climate goals?

Europe is buying coal, firing up plants amid Russian sanctions to meet electricity demand pushed up by heatwaves

By Binit Das
Published: Tuesday 28 June 2022

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/

British colonisation weakened India’s ancient civilisation. Bengal was

 starved to feed London by the colonisers who extracted India’s wealth.

In the same way, Africans were taken as slaves to North America. Western industrialisation was enabled by colonial extraction.

As colonies, India and Africa contributed to the development of the West. Although these regions are independent now, the West continues to colonise them in a different way: Carbon Colonization.

The same Europe that lectures others on coal use and browbeat developing countries on their climate goals has conveniently shifted to coal because it needs energy.

Let's start with what happened in Germany earlier this month. The 56th session of the subsidiary bodies was held in Bonn. It was the United Nations Climate Change Conference

.
Representatives from nearly 200 countries and regions were there; European diplomats were also present.

They faced two demands: Cut down emissions and provide financing to help developing countries tackle climate change. Did the Europeans agree? No, they did not. In fact, they want more coal, and they want it from the developing world.

The war in Ukraine has exposed Europe’s vulnerabilities. The European Union sanctioned Russia and so, Russia hit back by cutting gas supplies to Europe, pushing the continent to look for coal.

Germany has fired up its coal plants again. The Netherlands has removed limits on production from coal plants. Denmark may do the same.

Italy has declared a state of alert on energy. Italian energy plants have been hoarding coal for months now they might soon put it to use.

Why does Europe need more coal? They’re suffering a heat wave and they need more gas for their cooling systems. So, power consumption has gone up.

But where will this power come from? Europe gets 40 per cent of its gas from Russia and that supply is not guaranteed. Russia is already cutting exports. Gazprom, Russian state-owned gas giant, supplies to Europe. It sends gas through the north stream pipeline to Germany and from there, the gas is distributed to the rest of the continent.

But since last week, the supply has not been steady. In the last seven days, Russia cut gas exports to Europe by more than 50 per cent. And so, they’re switching to coal, the Europeans.

What happens to their climate goals? Europe has money so it can tilt the playing field. Let me explain how EU wants to phase out coal-fired plants by 2030. So, plants in Europe have to be shut down, then where will they get their coal? From other countries — the developing world.

They will supply coal to Europe, in fact they already are. Colombia is one of the countries doing that. In March alone, Europe imported 1.3 million tonnes of coal from Colombia. Colombian exports to the EU have increased by over 47 per cent this year, Braemar data showed.

South Africa is another candidate. It shipped nothing to Europe in march last year. But this year, it sent 287,000 tonnes of coal.

The United States, Australia and Indonesia are all supplying coal to Europe. But even together, they may not be able to meet the continent's growing demand.

These countries have hit their production limits, plus there’s another problem: European banks won’t finance Russian coal purchases. So, energy companies in Europe have very limited options. They have to buy more coal from the developing world so that Europe can survive the heat wave.

Again, what about their climate promises? Shutting down your coal plants and buying from outside hardly solves the problem. In the past Europe never tired of telling this to the world.

Extreme weather is causing a loss of $520 billion every year, according to the World Bank, and pushing 26 million people into poverty.

Around 23 rich countries are responsible for half of the historical emissions,According to Global Carbon Project. Most of them are European: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom.

Europe has only 7 per cent of the world’s population but it still uses almost 20 percent of the planet's resources. Recently, Germany rejected the European Union plan for ban on new fossil-fuel cars from 2035 as they are the makers for some of the biggest automobile giants including Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes and Audi.

I could continue, but here is the essence of the matter: If Europe wants coal, it can buy it. If Europe wants coal, it can keep its plant running. Because European air conditioners must keep running.

When developing countries say they cannot stop using coal, they’re asked to shut down factories, told to ration coal. But when developing countries demand climate compensation and financing, they’re denied.

This is classic European hypocrisy still treating the developing world as their colonies and bending rules to suit themselves.