IRELAND

Farming climate plan imposes ‘impossible’ burden on other sectors, say scientists

‘Special dispensation’ for agriculture leaves State exposed to legal action for failing to hit 2030 climate target

Minister of State for Farm Safety Martin Heydon with Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue, Minister for Climate Eamon Ryan and Minister of State for Land Use Pippa Hackett at the announcement of sectoral emissions ceilings. 

Photograph: John Ohle/Irish Times

Simon Carswell
Cormac McQuinn
Sat Jul 30 2022 - 

The emissions reduction set by Government for farming places an impossible burden on other sectors to reach the overall climate change target by 2030 and exposes the State to legal action, scientists have warned.

Climate scientists have said the Government decision’s this week to demand a 25 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector will result in the State falling short of the Government’s commitment, set in law, to cut emissions by 51 per cent by 2030.

The Climate Change Advisory Council, the independent body set up to advise Government, has said the sector-by-sector emission targets announced by the Government on Thursday would lead to an overall cut of just 43 per cent over the next eight years.

Advisory council chairwoman Marie Donnelly said in the long term the ceiling for one sector will have to be substantially increased “or all sectors will ultimately have to be revised upwards. At this point, it’s no longer about talking; it is now about … implementing actions and implementing them at speed,” she said.

Dr Cara Augustenborg, an environmental policy professor at UCD and a member of the council, said the shortfall left by the sector-by-sector ceilings should create a “big concern” for the Government.

“It means at some stage the targets will have to be increased to meet that 51 per cent and it puts the Government at risk because it has been set forth in legislation, so it is obviously justiciable, meaning that any group can take the Government to court,” she said.

Peter Thorne, a climate science professor at Maynooth University, said the 25 per cent target for the farming sector was responsible for a large proportion of the shortfall between what the sector-by-sector ceilings will actually achieve and the overall target of 51 per cent.

‘Cold hard maths’

“Agriculture is responsible for about 37 per cent of emissions, so if we give only a 25 per cent reduction, the ask on all other sectors becomes impossible. The cold hard maths is going to have to come into this,” he said.

“Physics doesn’t care for a special pleading or special dispensation; physics fundamentally cares about emissions and it is the emissions that matter.”

Climate politics is here to stay

Technological University Dublin professor Pat Goodman, who researches air pollution and human health, said the plan was “very much a political document trying to keep all sides happy. The reality is you can set all the targets you like but how are we going to achieve them? We need to see a bit more detail about how we get there.”

Dr Patrick Bresnihan, a geography lecturer at Maynooth University, said the Government’s admission that the changes demanded from farmers would be voluntary showed that it was “not grasping the contradictions” between the State’s agricultural models and its climate ambitions.

This was also the case for the Government’s policy on foreign direct investment into data centres and the approach taken to encourage people to buy electric vehicles.

“I am really not convinced that any of the political parties, including the Greens, are willing to tackle those contradictions,” he said.
Data centres

The academic, a researcher on the environmental cost of energy-intensive data centres, said the emissions-cutting plan also depended on unproven advances in wind and solar technology.

“This is being kicked further down the line and it is very much reliant on technologies that haven’t been proven at scale,” he said.

Green Party politicians have argued that the agriculture sector’s contribution to carbon emissions cuts will be greater than the 25 per cent agreed by Government due to plans for more energy generation on farms.

However, there is a push from some rural Fianna Fáil TDs that farmers’ efforts on renewable energy should be included as part of their cuts rather than those allotted to the energy sector.

The issue has the potential to cause continued internal tension within the Coalition over carbon emissions targets for agriculture. Documents obtained by The Irish Times reveal the difficult nature of the Coalition talks, with the prospect of “herd retirement schemes” raised at one stage between Ministers.

Simon Carswell
Simon Carswell is The Irish Times’s Public Affairs Editor and former Washington correspondent

Cormac McQuinn
Cormac McQuinn is a Political Correspondent at The Irish Times

Egypt vows to fight against backslide of climate goals at COP27

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who is set to chair COP27 later this year. Egypt wants to ensure there’s no backtracking on past commitments to slow the pace of climate change — even as global leaders grapple with food shortages, an energy crisis and high inflation. | POOL / VIA REUTERS


BY SALMA EL WARDANY, LAURA MILLAN AND AKSHAT RATHI
BLOOMBERG
Jul 31, 2022

Egypt, the country hosting COP27 later this year, wants to ensure there’s no backtracking on past commitments to slow the pace of climate change — even as global leaders grapple with food shortages, an energy crisis and high inflation.

The annual United Nations-sponsored Conference of Parties is scheduled for November in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh. Egyptian Foreign Affairs Minister Sameh Shoukry, who is also the conference’s president, spoke to Bloomberg News about the challenges ahead.

“The conference is going to be held in a difficult geo-political situation, with the world facing energy and food challenges,” he said in written answers to questions. “Of course all of this could impact the level of ambition and might lead to distractions of the climate change priority.”

Egypt’s goal is to prevent that from happening, Shoukry said. As the first African country to host a COP meeting in six years, it also wants to focus on how developing nations can get funding to adapt to the changing climate and to finance the green energy transition.

“We hope that COP27 will first confirm the political commitment to climate change and the agreed transition at the highest level,” he said. The main focus of COP27 is to “raise ambition” and confirm “no backsliding or backtracking on commitments and pledges” made in past summits, he said.

Thousands of climate diplomats representing virtually every country in the world meet every year at COP. The gathering also attracts tens of thousands of activists, observers, businesspeople and media, making it the world’s largest international summit by number of people. COP26 talks in Glasgow last year — the first to happen after the coronavirus pandemic — saw 40,000 people and 120 world leaders attending.

COP meetings are the vehicle through which the global community coordinates actions to cut planet-warming greenhouse-gas emissions. The ultimate goal is to cap the rise of global average temperatures which, at the moment, are headed for an increase of around 2.7 degrees Celsius or more by the end of the century, from the average of pre-industrial times.

Such an increase would be catastrophic, threatening life as we know it today, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The global community agreed at the COP21 meeting in Paris in 2015 to take steps to keep the temperature increase at 2 C, and ideally close to 1.5 C. The world has already warmed about 1.2 C, and the window to meet the Paris commitment is shrinking, Shoukry said.

“The science is clear and indicates that we are still not on track with regard to achieving the temperature goal, preparing for the adaptation challenges, or meeting the finance targets,” he said. “These gaps need to be bridged.”

But the global fight to tackle climate change is rubbing against a scramble for fossil fuels — including Egyptian natural gas — as Europe tries to move away from using Russian oil, gas and coal. That’s caused prices of natural gas to spike and led to a revival of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, with countries burning whatever they can get their hands on.

“This is a major concern,” Shoukry said. “It is jeopardizing decarbonization and the energy transition.”

The plummeting cost of renewable power should lead to large investments into cleaner forms of energy, Shoukry said. But the current geopolitical situation suggests the switch to renewable power will take longer than the global community anticipated at the COP meeting in Glasgow last year, the minister said.

At the heart of the matter is how developing nations, and particularly African nations, implement this transition while making sure economic growth is not impacted. At Glasgow last year, poorer nations argued they shouldn’t be deprived of the opportunity to exploit their oil and gas reserves. Since then they have been stressing the priority of this year’s meeting should be on getting rich countries to pay more to help them transition to clean energy.

“It’s incumbent upon us to listen carefully to African concerns and to ensure that African priorities, such as adaptation and resilience,” Shoukry said. Adding that negotiations on finance should take into consideration “the needs of communities across Africa, who are suffering more than any other continent from the impacts of climate change.”

Europe’s rush to buy African natural gas, while lagging behind funding of green infrastructure and of gas pipelines and power plants has countries like Angola, Nigeria or Senegal hooked on dirtier fossil fuels and is delaying the access for hundreds of millions of people to electricity.

Under the Paris deal, developed countries agreed to provide about $100 billion annually by 2020. But they have fallen short by billions of dollars, with the new target to reach the sum by 2023. Shoukry wants COP27 to agree on further, increased sums transferred after 2025. The latest estimates to finance developing nations’ climate goals are in the scale of $6 trillion in total through 2030.

Getting there won’t be easy. Developing countries want the conversations about finance to not just remain on funding mitigation and adaptation to a warming planet. They want discussions also on what’s known in climate diplomacy jargon as “Loss and Damage.” That would mean developed countries, which are largely responsible for causing climate change, would need to compensate for some of the damage suffered by the poor, vulnerable countries.

It’s become a contentious issue especially in Africa, which is suffering the impacts of climate change more than any other continent. Meetings held earlier this year in Bonn to discuss technical issues leading to COP27 caused flare-ups between the two camps on Loss and Damage. The mood in a more recent meeting in Berlin provided more common ground.

“The job of the COP presidency is to align and converge the views and to overcome this divide,” Shoukry said. “Achieving a breakthrough in finance remains of high importance for many of the developing and African countries.”

Egypt is no stranger to this tension. The most populous Arab nation is highly vulnerable to climate change, with high temperatures and the salinization of the Nile Delta due to sea level rise impacting food production. Desertification is advancing in a country that lies mostly on hyper arid land, and the flow of the Nile river, which cuts through the country from south to north, is being impacted by a new massive dam in Ethiopia, further upstream.

The country was the first in the Middle East and North Africa to issue a sovereign green bond worth $750 million in 2020, tapping investors keen to fund clean transport, water supply for cities and the management of wastewater.

At the same time, Egypt submitted last month new and updated climate targets to the United Nations as part of its attempt to contribute to slowing the pace of climate change. The country will see its emissions from power generation rise 88 million tons in 2015 to 145 million tons in 2030. However, it is promising to keep the rise 33% below a business-as-usual increase. It also aims to double the share of renewables in the power mix to 42% by 2035. In June, the country also joined the Global Methane Pledge to cut emissions of the potent greenhouse gas by 30% by 2030. Egypt’s strategy includes planned investments of $211 billion for mitigation and $112 billion for adaptation, the minister said. The country needs a minimum of $196 billion to finance its updated mitigation target and $50 billion on adaptation by 2030.

The country’s plan does not include a target to reach net-zero emissions by midcentury, which is considered a gold standard for climate plans. The country’s first submission for a climate plan in 2015 was ranked “highly insufficient” by Climate Action Tracker, which provides independent scientific analysis of government climate plans. The nonprofit is still analyzing the latest document, its website said. Plans by neighbor Saudi Arabia and large emitters China and India also rated as “highly insufficient” by CAT.

Shoukry would not confirm whether Egypt is planning to set a net-zero goal and referred to the government’s National Strategy for Climate Change 2050, which was launched last May and doesn’t include an emissions reduction target.

In the past, pressure from climate activists in protests across the world and at the conference itself have been essential to build pressure on negotiators. COP protests inside and outside the main venue have become a fixture, often staging colorful demonstrations that bring music, inflatable animals and dance to a conference that’s otherwise famous for the technicality of the talks.

That element is under question in Egypt, where unauthorized protests are banned and the government retains the right to cancel or postpone any demonstrations.

“While we recognize that governments play a central role for the success of international efforts to deal with the ‘climate crisis’, the current challenge requires the concerted efforts of all stakeholders,” Shoukry said when asked about whether protests will be allowed at Sharm el-Sheikh. “All stakeholders have to have a role at the COP, and the appropriate space to express their views at both the formal and the informal tracks.”

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Opinion

Shifting to EVs is not enough. The deeper problem is our car dependence

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Our government should be doing much more to get

Canadians out of cars altogether

Paris Marx · for CBC Opinion · Posted: Jul 31, 2022 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau makes an announcement highlighting Budget 2022 investments in electric vehicle infrastructure in Victoria in April. Electric vehicles will be part of the solution, writes Paris Marx, but meeting the challenge of climate change will require taking on the dominance of cars. (Ken Mizokoshi/CBC)

This column is an opinion by Paris Marx, a technology writer based in St. John's. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a bold claim: Canada "isn't just going to be a global player in EVs, … we get to be global leaders." Over the past year, the federal government has been announcing a series of deals with auto companies and suppliers aimed at growing the domestic electric vehicle industry.

With gas prices soaring above $2 a litre for the first time in May and Atlantic Canada's record temperatures serving as yet another reminder that the world is rapidly warming, it's clear that we desperately need to rethink our transport system. But is the government placing too much focus on electric vehicles instead of encouraging more people to ditch their cars altogether?

• U.S. electric vehicle tax credit could be expanded to include Canadian-assembled EVs

Electric vehicles tend to produce fewer emissions over their life cycles than equivalent vehicles powered by fossil fuels, but the framing often used by government and industry that they are "zero emissions" is misleading.

Unlike a conventional vehicle whose emissions come from burning fossil fuels, a greater share of an EV's emissions come from its production; more specifically, its battery. This is the side of the EV that often doesn't make it into the ad campaigns.

The International Energy Agency estimates that there will need to be a significant increase in mineral extraction to fuel a green transition that places emphasis on EVs over alternatives like public transit and cycling. For example, demand for lithium is expected to soar by 4,200 per cent and cobalt by 2,100 per cent.

Greenwashing operations

Those figures sound great to the mining industry, which hopes to use EVs to greenwash its operations, but they have severe human and environmental consequences throughout the supply chain.

The "lithium triangle" in South America is poised to be a significant source of the mineral, but already it's polluting the water and lowering the water table, threatening fresh water access for local communities.

Meanwhile, the site of much of the world's cobalt extraction in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) experiences high rates of birth defects, contaminated water, and around 40,000 children are believed to work in artisanal mines. In 2019, electric carmaker Tesla was among a number of companies named in a lawsuit over child deaths at cobalt mines in the DRC.

But this isn't just happening abroad. Part of the prime minister's pitch for Canada to be a global EV leader is to increase mining as well. Lithium mines in Quebec have already been responsible for environmental accidents and subject to community opposition, while Indigenous opposition is already mounting over plans to exploit the Ring of Fire in Ontario. We're sure to see more as provinces across the country look for mineral deposits to exploit.

Unlike a conventional vehicle whose emissions come from burning fossil fuels, a greater share of an EV’s emissions come from its production; more specifically, its battery, writes Paris Marx. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

In 2019, transportation accounted for 25 per cent of national emissions, second only to oil and gas, and that had grown by 54 per cent since 1990, in part because people were driving more and buying big trucks and SUVs instead of sedans. There's a need to address the transport sector's emissions, but the problem goes beyond tailpipe emissions.

According to Statistics Canada, 73.7 per cent of Canadians live in urban areas, but the majority are in the suburbs, not the downtown core, and those suburbs keep growing. That reality is the product of decades of government policy that incentivized suburban living and prioritized cars above other forms of mobility.

A study released in January found that 83 per cent of Canadians own or lease a vehicle, and 81 per cent of car owners felt it would be impossible not to because so many of our communities have been built to deny residents a reliable alternative. Those suburban communities also have higher carbon footprints than denser urban areas.

But car dependence isn't just an environmental problem. In 2020, an estimated 1,745 people died in motor vehicle collisions and another 7,868 people sustained serious injuries. Commute times are also getting longer in Canadian cities, and sitting in a car is associated with a whole range of adverse health impacts.

On top of that, owning a car is more expensive than many people realize. Before the pandemic, inflation and soaring fuel costs, the Canadian Automotive Association estimated the annual cost of vehicle ownership was between $8,600 and $13,000, depending on the model. It's surely higher now.

An unprecedented opportunity

The climate crisis offers us an unprecedented opportunity to re-imagine how we move and how we build our communities, but the push for electric vehicles is about making the smallest possible change — one that likely won't deliver the scale of emissions reductions we need. Meeting the scale of that challenge requires taking on the dominance of cars in our communities.

The federal government has increased transit funding, but much of the money won't flow until 2026 and beyond. Meanwhile, subways in the major cities need expansions to keep up with demand, municipal bus systems need operations funding to provide a more frequent and reliable service, and many Canadian cities lack proper cycling infrastructure.

Similarly, the Liberals finally approved VIA Rail's high-frequency rail plan between Toronto and Quebec City after five years of delay, but even then it won't arrive until the early 2030s. And it still won't match the high-speed rail being built in countries across Asia and Europe. The ambition we need simply isn't there.

Electric vehicles will be part of the solution, but the deeper problem is how many Canadians are dependent on their cars with no reliable alternatives. Governments serious about climate action need to change that.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paris Marx

Freelance contributor

Paris Marx is a technology writer, host of the Tech Won’t Save Us podcast, and author of Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation.

Removing condom without consent a sexual offence, says Canada’s top court

The act of secretly removing a condom during sex, sometimes referred to as “stealthing.”

• Chandrashekar Bhat
• 31 July, 2022

A person can be charged with sexual assault for not wearing a condom without a partner’s consent during sex, Canada’s top court ruled on Friday. The case was decided 5-4.

Ross McKenzie Kirkpatrick was initially acquitted of the charge in British Columbia before an appeals court ordered a retrial.

On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that Kirkpatrick must face a new trial. He is accused of not wearing a condom during sex with a woman who consented only to protected sex. It did not say whether he was guilty of those charges.

The act of secretly removing a condom during sex, sometimes referred to as “stealthing,” has come under legal scrutiny in countries that include Germany and Britain, both of which have convicted people for the act. California outlawed it last year.

“Since only yes means yes and no means no, it cannot be that ‘no, not without a condom’ means ‘yes, without a condom’,” Justice Sheilah Martin wrote in the majority opinion.

Under Canadian law, sexual assault requires proof of a lack of consent to a particular sexual activity.

Condom use may form part of the sexual activity in Kirkpatrick’s case because “sexual intercourse without a condom is a fundamentally and qualitatively different physical act than sexual intercourse with a condom,” Martin wrote.

Kirkpatrick met a woman online and then in person for a possible sexual relationship. They had sex twice in one night in 2017, once with a condom and then again without one, though without the woman’s knowledge, according to the complaint.

The complainant said she did not know that he did not use a condom the second time, and if she did, she would not have agreed to it.

“Recognizing that condom use may form part of the sexual activity in question is also the only way to respect the need for a complainant’s affirmative and subjective consent to each and every sexual act, every time,” the judgment read.

While all judges agreed that Kirkpatrick must face a fresh trial, four of the nine judges reached that conclusion through a different legal route, asserting that the secret removal of condom amounts to fraud.

“What will be interesting to see when Kirkpatrick gets tried again is how this inclusion of the deception under the sexual assault provisions instead of the fraud provisions ends up weighing out in terms of the decision of whether or not a sexual assault took place,” said Dawn Moore, professor of legal studies at Carleton University.

Moore said hypothetically there may be an advantage for prosecutors if they can make a case for both fraud and sexual assault, but proving what happened in privacy remains challenging.

 

Iran ready to host talks on providing Lebanon with fuel

TEHRAN, Jul. 31 (MNA) – Director General of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) affairs has said that Iran is prepared to host talks on providing Lebanon with the needed fuel.

Mohammad-Sadegh Fazli, in a tweet, wrote that the Islamic Republic of Iran, as one of the largest producers and exporters of energy in the region, stands with Lebanese nations.

Tehran is ready to host talks on providing Lebanon with the necessary fuel, he said, adding that Iran will never leave its friendly countries alone on tough days.

Recently, Secretary-General of Lebanon Hezbollah Resistance Movement Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah said that "I am willing to import fuel from Iran, provided that the Lebanese government accepts this action."

"No one in Lebanon dares to undertake so because they fear the American sanctions against their family," he noted.

Also, Samir Geagea, leader of the Christian Lebanese Forces party, has called on the Lebanese government to accept the proposal suggested by Hezbollah to import fuel from Iran.

Earlier, Fazli twitted that "through supporting the Zionist apartheid regime and interfering in regional states, the US has exacerbated the situation in them, including Lebanon."

"How does the White House statement help Lebanon?", he asked, adding that stop backing the aggressors and plundering Lebanese land and sea resources.

Iran will stand with the noble and resilient Lebanese nation in the fight against bullying, he further noted.

AMK/FNA14010509000095

Delhi: Myanmar Group Not Permitted To Hold Peaceful Protest Against Executions by Junta

The India-based group of dissidents had asked for permission to hold a peaceful protest of around 200 individuals at Jantar Mantar on Saturday to express their condemnation of the 'barbaric act'.

The protest against Myanmar's execution of four democracy activists was not permitted in Delhi on Saturday. Photo: CRPH-NUG India support group/Facebook

The Wire Staff

New Delhi: A planned protest by Myanmarese dissidents against the execution of four pro-democracy activists by the military Junta was cancelled after Delhi Police did not permit it at the eleventh hour on Saturday, the organisers said.

The group, CRPH-NUG India support group, had applied to Delhi Police on Wednesday to hold a demonstration against the executions by the Junta, the first judicial killings in Myanmar in decades. The Myanmar government had announced that four prominent activists had been executed for accused of helping insurgents to fight the army that had seized power from the civilian government in a coup in February 2021.

Thousands of Myanmar nationals fled the brutal military crackdown and travelled into India, mainly across the mountainous border of the state of Mizoram. Living in exile, many of them have tried to keep alive their resistance by forming a group to increase awareness about the Junta’s human rights violations and urging the Indian government to take a more robust position against the Myanmar government.

As reflected by its name, it is aligned with the National Unity Government (NUG), the shadow government formed by ousted lawmakers known as the CRPH.

After the execution of the four activists led to a new wave of international criticism and protests within Myanmar, the India-based group of dissidents asked for permission to hold a peaceful protest of around 200 individuals at Jantar Mantar on Saturday late afternoon, to express their condemnation of the “barbaric act”.

Also read: ‘I Had No Chance to Say Goodbye’: Executed Myanmar Democracy Activist’s Mother Recalls Last Meeting

“On Wednesday, we went to the police and asked for permission… I got a call on Friday from their office, asking how many were coming… I got further calls early on Saturday morning asking about the protest. Not one of the callers said that permission had not been granted,” general secretary, CRPH-NUG India support group, William San told The Wire.

When the hired bus was ready to go to the protest venue, they learnt that police had not given any permission. “I was told that we cannot hold any demonstration. When I pressed them for a reason, the policeman said that they did not have any authority to tell me the reasons not to protest,” said San, who left Myanmar seven months ago.

He was later asked to collect the letter from Delhi Police, dated July 30, which stated that permission had not been granted “in view of security/law and order/traffic reasons”. “I was also asked to submit a signed letter that we will not hold any demonstration on Saturday,” said San.

With the permission not granted at the last minute, the group had also made preparations for their members to gather from all parts of Delhi. Unable to hold a formal protest, they just posed with their placards for photos at a park.

It had been surprising for the group not to get any permission as they had previously organised a protest after an official green light in February this year. “We had held a protest on February 22 to motivate our people and also to ask India’s help in the restoration of democracy,” said another senior office-bearer of the group. He did not want to be identified with his real name to avoid putting his family members living in Myanmar in danger.

For San and other group members, the lack of approval was disappointing as they had hoped to bring more attention to the critical situation inside Myanmar. A poem published on their Facebook page expressed their anguish, comparing India’s actions to that of kicking a person who has already been trampled to the ground.

After the February 1 coup, India expressed “deep concern” and called for a democratic transition in Myanmar. However, New Delhi had also taken a more muted stance compared to western countries, worried about the security situation in the adjoining north-eastern states and keeping open channels of outreach with the Junta.

India was also worried about China’s presence, which has used its diplomatic clout to shield Myanmar from widespread international censure.

Also read: ‘Justice for the People’: Myanmar Defends Executions Amidst Deluge of Global Condemnation

In June last year, India abstained on a UNGA resolution on Myanmar on the grounds that it did not “aid efforts towards strengthening democratic process”. By then, India had also put its weight behind the regional bloc ASEAN’s peace efforts based on the Five Point Consensus.

However, ASEAN, of which Myanmar is a member, has also become disenchanted with the Junta’s lack of progress in implementing the roadmap toward political stability and democracy.

After the announcement of the executions of democracy activists, the ASEAN chairman, Cambodia, denounced them as “highly reprehensible” on July 26. Cambodia also described the Junta’s actions as demonstrating a “gross lack of will” to support the implantation of ASEAN’s five-point consensus peace plan.

Two days later, India reacted to the executions, noting the developments with “deep concern”. Stating that the rule of law and democratic process must be upheld, the MEA spokesperson said, “As a friend of the people of Myanmar, we will continue to support Myanmar’s return to democracy and stability”.

REST IN PEOPLE POWER
Fidel Ramos, who helped end Marcos dictatorship, dies at 94

PUBLISHED : 31 JUL 2022
WRITER: BLOOMBERG
This file photo taken on Nov 22, 1996 shows Philippine President Fidel Ramos addressing the opening of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) Ministers' Meeting in Manila. Ramos, who oversaw a rare period of steady growth and peace that won him the reputation as one of the country's most effective leaders ever, has died aged 94, officials said on Sunday. (AFP)

Fidel Ramos, the former Philippine president who was head of the national police under Ferdinand Marcos before defecting and joining the “People Power” protests that ousted the dictator in 1986, has died. He was 94.

Ramos died Sunday, according to radio station DZRH and state-owned broadcaster PTV, without citing the source of the information.

Popularly known as FVR, Ramos served as defence chief in the first post-dictatorship government led by Corazon Aquino, widow of the slain Senator Benigno Aquino Jr, a prominent Marcos critic.

He won the presidency himself in 1992 -- the first election under the current constitution -- and was credited with steering the economy into a period of rapid growth until the 1997 financial crisis hit Southeast Asia.

A career military officer, Ramos gained prominence in 1986 when he and then-Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile broke from Marcos, whom they accused of rigging elections that year to stay in power. Ramos said he defected because the dictator had prioritised personal interest and was no longer a capable commander-in-chief.

They holed up in police headquarters in the capital, expecting an attack from pro-Marcos forces. However, members of the public heeded a call from a Roman Catholic cardinal to gather around the building, forming a human barricade that protected Ramos, Enrile and their troops. This started the People Power Revolution that eventually ousted Marcos.

In honouring him in 2000, the alumni group of the US Military Academy at West Point cited his “paramount role in returning democracy to the Philippines”, for which he was named a military hero of the revolution.

Ramos was born on March 18, 1928, in the municipality of Lingayen in Pangasinan province, north of the capital, the son of lawmaker and diplomat Narciso and educator Angela. He graduated from West Point in 1950 and earned a master’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Illinois the following year.

He earned two more master’s degrees: in national security in 1969 from the National Defense College of the Philippines, and in business administration in 1980 from Ateneo de Manila University, according to the Ramos foundation.

His early career was spent in the Philippine army in areas including reconnaissance and special forces. He climbed steadily up the ranks and in 1972 was named chief of the Philippine Constabulary. Three years later he also became director-general of the national police. He became vice chief of staff of the armed forces in 1981 and served as acting chief toward the end of Marcos’ reign.

Ramos narrowly won the presidency in 1992 with less than a quarter of the vote -- the lowest plurality in the nation’s electoral history up through the 2022 vote, which Marcos’s son Bongbong won by a landslide. Ramos was also the first Protestant president in the Catholic-majority country.

Among his major moves in office was to sign a visiting forces agreement with the US, the country’s former colonial ruler and post-war ally. The pact went some way to restore defence ties after the Philippine Senate in 1991, rejecting appeals from then-President Aquino, voted to boot the American military from its bases in the country, arguing in part that their presence undermined national sovereignty.

The new deal facilitated American soldiers’ access to the Philippines and bolstered the nations’ 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, where they pledged support in case of foreign attack.

‘Sound footing’

In 1996, Ramos entered into a peace deal with the separatist group Moro National Liberation Front, ending 25 years of conflict.

His economic stewardship won plaudits. The Philippines was on a “sound footing” relative to its neighbours when the Asian financial crisis hit, as consumption and overseas workers’ remittances supported the economy, according to the Asian Development Bank.

Ramos also promoted investment to the Philippines through state visits and summit meetings, and is credited with reviving and expanding trade links with Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

In 1997, Aquino and then-Cardinal Jaime Sin led successful protests against Ramos’ plan to amend the constitution to allow him to seek re-election.

Ramos remained a political force even after his presidency, with the party he founded still active in government. He was among the first prominent politicians to urge then-Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte to run for president, which he did successfully in 2016.

Ramos briefly served as Duterte’s special envoy to China, but later said that the firebrand leader’s government was a “huge disappointment and let-down”.

In 1954, he married Amelita Jara Martinez, who is described as a teacher and environmentalist on the Ramos foundation website. They had five daughters.

ZIONIST ETHNIC CLEANSING

Disabled Palestinian man shot by Israeli army dies of wounds

Hussein Qawariq, described by family as having a 'mental disorder,' was shot on Tuesday at checkpoint near Nablus

Israeli army soldiers manning the Huwara checkpoint near Nablus 

in the occupied West Bank on 17 May 2022 (AFP)

By MEE and agencies
Published date: 30 July 2022

A Palestinian man, described as a suspect by the Israeli army and as mentally disabled by his family, died on Saturday, four days after being shot by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint.

Hussein Qawariq, 59, from the village of Awarta, was shot on Tuesday by Israeli forces manning a checkpoint in Huwara, near the West Bank city of Nablus, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The Israeli army told AFP that soldiers "spotted a suspect approaching them at a military post" and initially fired in the air after "receiving no response".

Palestinian boy shot dead 'by Israeli settlers' east of Ramallah

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"The suspect continued approaching the soldiers, who responded with fire toward him. A hit was identified," the army said.

Huwara's mayor, Wajih Odeh, said that Qawariq was "mentally disabled". He "used to collect bottles and cans from the street and ask for money from businesses in the area," he said.

Qawariq's family, too, said he had a "mental disorder," Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. He died from his wounds in the Rabin Medical Centre in Israel, it added.

The army said it was looking into the fatal shooting.

At least 54 Palestinians have been killed since late March, mostly in the West Bank. They have included suspected militants and also non-combatants, among them Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American dual national, who was covering an Israeli raid in Jenin.

Iran: Outrage after government puts Google on Safe Search for all Iranians
Restrictions on access roundly mocked by internet users who accuse government of treating Iranians like children

Youths at an internet cafe in Tehran on 24 January 2021 (AFP)

By MEE correspondent
Published date: 30 July 2022 

Iranians have reacted with incredulity to a move by the government to forcibly activate Safe Search on Google for all citizens, accusing officials of treating them like children.

Iran's communications minister, Isa Zarepour, confirmed the new restriction earlier this week, saying his government had activated Safe Search following requests from Iranian families.

'You may be a history or a medical researcher, but when the Safe Search option is enabled, Google will provide you with content that is good for a kid'

- Soroush, IT expert

He told reporters that "no restrictions have been placed on other searches" and "only the access to [porn], immoral and extremely violent content" had become limited just to "address the concerns of families".

He also claimed that "many" other countries have taken the same decision.

The restriction means that the Iranian state has effectively hijacked Google's domain name system (DNS), meaning that, rather than being directly connected to Google DNS when users enter the Google web address, they will be directed to one controlled by the government.

The move has provoked an outcry from internet users who argue the Islamic Republic is effectively infantilising the country.

Soroush, an IT expert and owner of a start-up in Tehran, said the new restriction would cause enormous problems for professionals in the country.

"Google's artificial intelligence shows the search results to the user based on the algorithms defined for it. One of these important issues is the age of the user," he told Middle East Eye, not wanting to reveal his full name.

"You may be a history or a medical researcher, but when the Safe Search option is enabled, Google will provide you with content that is good for a kid. Therefore, the search results for you would become weak and unusable."

Internet crackdown

The Iranian government, currently headed by conservative Prime Minister Ebrahim Raisi, has been accused of taking steps to restrict internet access for Iranians.

Since early 2022, parliament has been discussing a draft law titled "The Protection Bill," which rights groups have warned would give unprecedented levels of data to the security services and organisations like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as cutting off Iranians from the global internet by slowing down internet speed when using international websites and social networks.

'The problem lying here is that this option has been forcefully imposed on people's internet without their consent and also on all Iranians not just kids'

Opposition to the bill led to more than one million Iranians signing an online petition urging the high-ranking officials to put an end to this project.

However, while the controversial bill is yet to be passed, many view the new Safe Search restrictions as part of the same assault on internet freedoms in Iran.

"This feature of Google is great, and parents should be made aware of this in order to protect their children from harmful content," said one political activist, who didn't want his name to be disclosed.

"I have no doubt about this, but the problem here is that this option has been forcefully imposed on people's internet without their consent and also on all Iranians, not just kids."

He told MEE the new rules meant a "dark future" for the internet in Iran.

"While I previously thought the Islamic Republic wouldn't risk heavy damage to its social supporting base, I think now that they are willing to move further forward with their plan for limitation on the global internet as they think limitless access to the internet has greater risks for them," he said.

'Even the jungle has its own rules'

Many hardliners, including those who would like to see internet restrictions go further, have defended the Safe Search imposition, arguing that an unregulated internet could be potentially harmful for ordinary Iranians.

Majid Nasirayi, the spokesperson for the Cultural Commission of Parliament, used an elaborate metaphor to justify his support for the rule.

"Look at nature, even the jungle has its own rules. A lion never takes the position of a giraffe, and a giraffe also doesn't take a lion's place. When nature has rules and regulations, why shouldn't we have rules?" he told journalists.

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"Why do [you make people] sensitive whenever we state that cyberspace shouldn't be left free?"

The Google restriction also has an added geopolitical bonus for Iran.

Shortly after the rule was imposed, the Iranian government unblocked Russian search engine Yandex.

Hailing the move, the influential pro-government Fars News Agency compared Google with Yandex, implying that, unlike the American search engine, the Russian one offers positive results when people search the word "Iran".

The hardline pro-government Hamshahri newspaper said the move could be "assessed within the framework of the 20-year cooperation agreement between Iran and Russia, in which the field of information technology is considered one of the important parts of this agreement".

But regardless of the justifications, Iranian internet users are mortified. They fear that they could be witnessing the first step on the road to the end of already limited online freedoms in Iran.

Others note who stands to benefit, in a country that has long suffered under sanctions and where a small number of government-linked elites have been able to turn a healthy profit.

"Blocking, limiting the access, the protection bill, and the Safe Search, will only lead to more profits for the market of selling VPNs," said Yousef who is the co-founder of a local start-up in the field of tourism and travelling, referring to virtual private networks, which can offer a degree of invisibility to users.

"Therefore, such plans and moves will only further make VPN makers richer, and interestingly, the market is indirectly and fully in the hands of government and other Islamic Republic entities."

Russia plans to buy Turkish treasury bonds via Akkuyu nuclear plant $6bn loan deal

State-owned Rosatom plans to use loan partly to invest in the bonds as Ankara seeks to replenish its coffers

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with workers at the Akkuyu nuclear plant on 17 September 2021 (Handout)

By Ragip Soylu in Ankara
Published date: 30 July 2022 

A Russian state-owned company sought a $6.1bn loan deal this week to fund the construction and development of Turkey's Akkuyu nuclear power plant, including plans to deposit some of the money with the Turkish Ministry of Treasury and Finance, according to official documents.

In a public announcement on Monday, Rosatom Corp collected bids from potential creditors to provide a $6.1bn credit line to finance Akkuyu Nuclear JSC, its subsidiary in Turkey.

The initial credit would be $3.3bn with an option of $2.8bn of additional funds.

The official documents suggest the money would be used for four projects, including the purchase of equipment, payment for construction and installation works, and operation of the nuclear plant and four power units with VVER-1200 reactors.

The money will also be also used for the acquisition and development of a uranium deposit in Kazakhstan, and for acquiring lithium assets abroad.

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The official notice and the memorandum for the loan says one of the "intended uses" of the credit line would be for "temporary placement in deposits, purchase of dollar bonds of the Ministry of Treasury and Finance of the Republic of Turkey". The intended amount is not clear.

Rosatom’s Akkuyu Nuclear JSC also plans to use its subsidiary Atomenergoprom as the guarantor for the loan, and pledge some Turkish dollar bonds to secure the credit line if the lender agrees.

On Friday, Bloomberg reported that Rosatom had decided to wire $15bn to Turkey for the construction of the $20bn Akkuyu nuclear power plant, citing officials who said that an initial $5bn had already been received last week.

The officials suggested the move was a goodwill gesture by Russian President Vladimir Putin to thank Turkey for the breakthrough Ukraine grain deal brokered by Ankara this month.
Rapidly evaporating foreign currency reserves

The Turkish government is in dire need of foreign funding as a result of its rapidly evaporating foreign currency reserves.

Rosatom is expected to spend up to $2bn quickly on overdue payments to subcontractors.

The company told Bloomberg that it would indeed transfer some funds to Turkey, but an amount much lower than that declared by Turkish officials.

The power plant will satisfy 10 percent of Turkey's energy needs when fully operational in 2026.

Since last year, the Turkish treasury has introduced a number of tools to help provide a lifeline to its coffers by promoting Turkish lira assets.

In December, the treasury introduced "foreign exchange protected Turkish lira deposits" under a scheme to encourage investors to use the local currency.

The accounts, which are open to foreign investors, compensate savers if the exchange-rate depreciation exceeds the official interest rate.
Mere procedure

Middle East Eye reached out to Rosatom for comment on the credit line but the company had not replied at time of publication.

One source with knowledge of the matter pointed out that the bid was open for only two days, Monday and Tuesday, with the evaluation to be completed on Friday, raising the possibility that a creditor might already have been chosen and the notice was a mere procedure.

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The timing of the bid roused interest in Turkey as Rosatom decided to pursue the credit line just one day before its subsidiary, Akkuyu Nuclear JSC, cancelled its contract with the Turkish-Russian contractor Titan2 Ic Ictas, citing several violations, ranging from security to insurance.

In a statement, Ictas reminded the public that the company was a joint venture, including a party associated with Rosatom.

"The attempt to cancel the contract is resulting in the removal of the Turkish partnership from the project as the contractor," Ictas said.

"There are steps to assign a Russian company as the sole alternative contractor. It is very clear that the aim is to reduce the participation of the Turkish companies within the management of the project and degrade them to subcontractor level."
'Turks are completely out'

An official document signed by Akkuyu Nuclear JSC indicates that the company will replace Titan2 Ic Ictas with TSM Enerji Insaat Limited Sirketi.

The main shareholder of TSM Eneji is Titan2 JSC, with 49 percent, which makes the company a subsidiary of Rosatom.

One Turkish source with knowledge of the matter told MEE that Turkish workers were not allowed onto the construction site on Friday, while Russian workers associated with Titan2 Ic Ictas were granted access.

"Turks are completely out," the source said. "That's about it."