Why a pipeline project in Houston is raising concerns over environmental racism

Nada Hassanein, USA TODAY
Tue, February 21, 2023 

Days before the new year, Angela King woke up to a nauseating scent of rotten egg wafting through her neighborhood in southwest Houston.

The smell was a reminder of how close she lives to a storage facility bearing 300,000 gallons of liquid propane. And now, CenterPoint Energy plans to install natural gas pipeline transmission lines 4 feet underground. Initial construction will be just 50 feet from her home, King said.

King has lived in Southwest Crossings, a mostly Black and brown neighborhood, for two decades, and she and her neighbors have protested the construction, fearing for their health and safety. Propane and natural gas are highly flammable and come with risks of leaks, fires and explosions at facilities and pipelines.

And their neighborhood – situated in the energy capital of the nation – isn’t alone.

Evidence shows that throughout the U.S., communities of color are more likely to be burdened by various industry infrastructure, disproportionately jeopardizing the health of Black and brown people. Experts say Houston and the pipeline project are microcosms of the nation’s persistent environmental racism that subjects people of color to hazards.

Angela King poses for a portrait at her home in Southwest Crossings in Houston, Texas. CenterPoint Energy plans to install a natural gas pipeline transmission lines 4 feet underground in her neighborhood with initial construction just 50 feet from King's home.

Black people are 75% more likely to live near industrial facilities in “fence line” communities, according to Fumes Across the Fence-Line, a 2017 Clean Air Task Force and NAACP report on air pollution from oil and gas facilities.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has taken an unprecedented approach to center environmental justice as part of its agenda to acknowledge how industry, climate and disaster has a disproportionate impact on communities of color.

The administration has launched efforts across multiple federal agencies, which includes the Justice40 Initiative that aims to invest 40% of federal climate, housing, clean water and other benefits in historically underserved communities.

And last month, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it was awarding $100 million in environmental justice grants to communities overburdened by pollution.

The investments couldn't be more urgent for communities like King’s Houston, which was the subject of the widely cited environmental justice study by Robert Bullard, founder of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University. The study, published 40 years ago, found waste disposal facilities were more likely to be in Houston’s Black communities.

And last year, the U.S. Justice Department started an investigation into the city for illegal dumping of solid waste in Black and Hispanic communities.

The “genesis of environmental justice research was in Houston," said Joan Casey, an environmental epidemiologist at the University of Washington and the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. "Now we're in 2023, we're still having this same conversation. This is the way that we've operated in the United States for a very long time.”

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What is propane? And why are pipelines dangerous?

Propane, which is derived from natural gas and oil refining processes, is considered a cleaner, low-carbon fuel when used to heat and cool buildings and for transportation, among other uses. But in high concentrations, it can cause suffocation and cardiac arrest. Natural gas can also cause suffocation, as well as gas poisoning.

Acute dangers are the biggest concerns. Because propane is heavier than air, when released it settles lower to the ground than natural gas, which leads to increased risk of ignition, fire and explosion. Even a small leak can pose a high risk of fire.

Natural gas is almost entirely methane gas, which contributes significantly to climate change.

CenterPoint told local media the smell King and her neighbors woke up to around Christmastime wasn’t a leak but a part of normal operations.

In response to a USA TODAY inquiry about the incident, a spokeswoman said that the company is "committed to the safe, reliable operations of our energy systems" and that "communication with the communities we have the privilege of serving is a top priority for our company."

Still, King fears future accidents.

Last year, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration reported 10 deaths and 24 injuries from pipeline incidents across the U.S.

Over two decades, an average of 640 incidents occur each year. Incidents are defined as leaks that result in at least $122,000 in property damage, gas loss of at least 3 million cubic feet, injury, death or emergency shutdown, according to federal regulations.

In 2011, a CenterPoint Energy gas line in Minneapolis exploded. No one was injured, but vehicles were destroyed and the city filed a lawsuit against the company.

In 2018, dozens of homes in northeast Massachusetts were destroyed and one man was killed in a natural pipeline explosion. Pressure readings showed 12 times normal standards, and the Leonel Rondon Pipeline Safety Act, named after the victim, was passed in 2020 in hopes of increasing safety standards.

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What's happening in Houston?

Texas is the top producer of natural gas in the country and has the most crude oil refineries of any state. The Houston metro area has more than 180 pipeline transmission systems.

Southwest Crossings residents have held protests at the site and have been pushing back since 2020, when King said homeowners were first notified of the storage facility project.

But residents say that COVID-19 interfered with timely correspondence and that the letters were in English despite many residents being Spanish speakers. Hispanic people make up more than 60% of the community, and roughly a third of residents are Black, according to estimates from the U.S. Census American Community Survey.

The company said it sent letters again the next year. And in July 2022, King received a letter from the company asking for her easement along with a $9,000 compensation offer for pipeline construction 50 feet from her fence. Two months later, she received a notice that the company would begin construction by eminent domain.

She worries for her son and two middle-school-aged nephews who live with her and the schools and churches in the subdivision.

"It makes me feel ignored, as if I am not even a human – that they're walking all over me as if I do not matter. That my voice is nonexistent," said King, 55, who is medical billing and coding worker.

She and community activist Brittney Stredic, 28, have met with city officials and the company to demand detailed safety plans. They’ve started a petition and website to spread awareness of their concerns.

CenterPoint said it has several safety strategies in place at the storage facility, and it shared them with residents. Those plans include an alarm system; smoke, gas and flame detection; and emergency shutdown protocols.

The pipeline project is set to be completed by the end of the year. The company proposes to install the pipelines at least 4 feet underground.

“We are following federal code to install the pipeline to meet or exceed the requirement established for this type of installation,” the company told USA TODAY in a statement. “CenterPoint Energy representatives have participated in multiple community meetings and have attempted to meet via phone and/or face-to-face with all the area residents.”

But Stredic said she felt the plans didn’t consider the neighborhood she has called home her whole life.

“To me, there was never a consideration about the community that they were placing it in,” she said. “That endpoint is a business.”

A spokesperson for CenterPoint Energy said the system will traverse many neighborhoods, "both affluent areas and underprivileged areas."

"Regardless of the location in our service territory, our decisions when evaluating new construction projects or system enhancements are based on several key criteria: If CenterPoint Energy owns the property or has easement rights; proximity to area that will be served by our equipment or facility; technical and existing natural gas distribution system design considerations as outlined previously; and optimization of our system operations. We do our best to treat all our customers fairly and equitably," spokesperson Alejandra Diaz wrote.

City officials referred comments to CenterPoint Energy, but a spokeswoman confirmed the city "was made aware of the residents' concerns."
Residents’ concerns ‘based on science’

Experts say residents’ fears reflect the reality of a wide range of environmental hazards disproportionately faced by communities of color across the nation.

In a study published last year in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, Casey and a team of researchers found that formerly redlined neighborhoods were twice as likely to be oil and gas well sites and showed how federal policies continue to fuel structural racism.

“Their concerns are based on science. I wouldn't want this facility in my neighborhood,” Casey said.

Ryan Emanuel, an environmental justice expert and hydrologist at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, has studied natural gas pipelines and their locations in relation to communities. The Great Plains are home to Indigenous communities often subjected to oil and gas industry infrastructure, but Emanuel also studied the issue in states like North Carolina, where he found a quarter of all American Indians in the state lived within the area of the Atlantic Coast pipeline project plan that folded in 2020.

In another study published in 2021 in the journal GeoHealth, Emanuel and his team found that counties with higher social vulnerability factors such as low income also had greater pipeline densities.

Researchers mapped pipelines and social vulnerability. Natural gas gathering and transmission pipelines in the mainland U.S., with social vulnerability index shown for each U.S. county. Yellow indicates high social vulnerability. One Alaska county is included in the statistical overview of the results but is not shown here.

“Those are places that don't have the ability to deal with disaster, public health issues or have limited resources to recover when things go wrong. These are the communities that are saddled with more of this harmful and polluting infrastructure,” he said.

Though that study focused on interstate natural gas pipelines, Emanuel said the findings echo the larger issue.

"It's a bigger picture that's related to the decisions that we make about energy and public participation in decision-making process,” he said. “It's not a collection of anecdotes. This is the result of our public policies and corporate policies, frankly, over many decades.”

Reach Nada Hassanein at nhassanein@usatoday.com or on Twitter @nhassanein_.

Mexico president takes aim at predecessor after U.S. court convicts drug czar


Mexico's President Lopez Obrador speaks on the third anniversary of his government in Mexico City

Wed, February 22, 2023

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Wednesday that one of his predecessors, Felipe Calderon, should explain whether he knew a former top law enforcement official took bribes from the infamous Sinaloa Cartel.

On Tuesday, a U.S. court convicted a former security official, Genaro Garcia Luna, on charges that he took bribes in exchange for protection from arrest, safe passage for drug shipments and tip-offs about law enforcement operations.

Garcia Luna, 54, is one of the highest-ranking Mexican officials ever accused of ties to drug trafficking. He led Mexico's Federal Investigation Agency from 2001 to 2005 and was public security minister for six years until 2012.

Calderon was president from 2006 to 2012.

"Yes, it's important to find out more: why did Calderon have (Garcia Luna) in place for six years?" Lopez Obrador said during his regular morning news conference. "He never saw anything strange? What were the agreements? What orders did he give?

Calderon issued a statement on Twitter after the conviction saying that his administration followed the law, and that security was not the responsibility of only one person but also the military, police and other officials.

(Reporting by Raul Cortes Fernandez and Ana Isabel Martinez; Editing by Richard Chang)

Canada says it thwarted recent air, maritime surveillance attempts by China



Wed, February 22, 2023 

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada is aware of recent air and maritime surveillance attempts by China and has thwarted such efforts since last year, the Canadian defense ministry said on Wednesday, after a newspaper reported Chinese floating devices were found in the Arctic in autumn.

The discovery of a suspected Chinese spy balloon, which flew over the United States and Canada before being shot down earlier this month, has hit already strained relations between Beijing and the West, and has intensified discourse about North American security.

The Globe and Mail newspaper reported on Tuesday the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) spotted Chinese monitoring buoys in the Arctic last year as part of an effort to provide early detection of threats to Canada's security.

A spokesperson for Canada's defense ministry declined to provide details but said authorities were aware of Chinese surveillance attempts using dual purpose technologies, which can have both commercial and military applications.

"The CAF are fully aware of recent efforts by China to conduct surveillance operations in Canadian airspace and maritime approaches," the spokesperson said, adding the forces had stopped attempts to surveil Canadian territory since 2022.

The Chinese embassy in Ottawa did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Over the weekend, China's top diplomat Wang Yi said the U.S. handling of the balloon incident had been "unimaginable" and "hysterical," an "absurd" act that had violated international norms.

(Reporting by Ismail Shakil and Steve Scherer in Ottawa; Editing by Chris Reese)

Bahamas announces crackdown on undocumented migrants, saying it’s affected by Haiti crisis


Courtesy of Marvin J. Thompson

Jacqueline Charles
Wed, February 22, 2023 

The Bahamas is vowing to step up repatriations to a crisis-wrecked Haiti, its prime minister declaring in a national address that “The Bahamas is for Bahamians” and the country has to defend its 180,000 square miles of territory.

“We have a comprehensive plan to disrupt the flow of migrants to our islands and to actively pursue the identification and repatriation of those who have entered our nation illegally,” Prime Minister Philip Davis said over the weekend during a speech that outlined a new security and migration policy for the country while laying out its challenges with irregular migration, especially from neighboring Haiti.

Davis’ statement, which was followed by a debate about immigration in the Parliament on Monday, came 48 hours after he and other Caribbean Community leaders ended a meeting in Nassau where leaders of the 15-member regional trade bloc known as CARICOM met privately among themselves, as well as with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Haiti Prime Minister Ariel Henry and officials in the Biden administration to discuss what to do about Haiti’s ongoing crisis.

Henry and members of the U.S. delegation had hoped that CARICOM and Canada would take the lead in the deployment of an international force to Haiti, a member state of the bloc. Instead, Canada declared it would continue to provide support to the embattled Haiti National Police and would deploy Naval warships in the waters off Port-au-Prince for deterrence and intelligence gathering for the force.

In October, Davis went on record saying he would provide Bahamian troops and police to a multinational force if asked by the United Nations; last month, Jamaica Prime Minister Andrew Holness, with support from his country’s opposition party, also told his nation’s Parliament that he was open to doing the same.

But instead of sending a force to Haiti or moving ahead with a previously agreed-on decision to visit the country to see for themselves the impact of the spiraling gang violence, leaders agreed to endorse a plan that focuses on strengthening the Haiti National Police, election preparations and inviting Haitian politicians to Jamaica to address the turmoil.

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Though the Caribbean heads of government presented their decision on Haiti as taking their “moral and political obligations” to help a fellow member-state address its multifaceted and complex crisis, Davis characterized it as steps to deal with Haitian migrants during his national address. He called it “the pillars of the CARICOM plan to address the Haitian migration crisis.”

He announced the launch of “Operation Secure,” an aggressive collaborative security campaign between the Royal Bahamas Police Force, the Defense Force and the Department of Immigration to go after undocumented migrants, those who employ them and the illegal structures where they live, also known as shantytowns.

Davis said that the burden of Haitian migration is the reason why last June at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles he declined to sign a pledge that included a commitment to take on refugees, even though 21 other countries in the hemisphere, including fellow Caribbean nations like Barbados and Jamaica, signed on to the agreement.

“Our small nation cannot possibly shoulder any more of a burden. We are standing strong on this position,” Davis said. “Despite pressure, earlier this year, when the United Nations called for countries in our region to halt deportations to Haiti, once again, I decided to continue repatriations.”

At the center of Operation Secure is a crackdown on shantytowns and their landowners.

“Documented migrants living in unregulated communities will be required to relocate at their expense or their employer’s expense or face repatriation,” Davis said of the illegal communities, whose residents include some Bahamians but are overwhelmingly Haitian.

The harder tone on the shantytowns were in stark contrast to Friday’s softer tone. When asked about a court decision clearing the way for the government to deal with the unregulated structures, Davis told journalists that shantytowns are “a challenge and a problem in this country,” and moving quickly to demolish them could create a homeless problem in The Bahamas.

“People are living in these buildings and in the shantytowns, so taking down shantytowns could create the other problem of leaving hundreds or thousands of persons homeless,” he said. “There is no sense responding to a crisis to create another crisis.”

By Sunday, he had changed his mind, declaring in his address that “even wealthy nations like the United States, with all resources at their disposal, struggle to put a complete stop to the inflow of undocumented migrants across their borders. But the difficulty of the task will not deter us from doing all that we can to intercept undocumented vessels in our waters.”

Last year, The Bahamas repatriated a record 4,748 people. Already this year, they have returned 1,024 individuals, Immigration Director Keith Bell told Parliament on Monday.

“If present irregular migration trends continue... we will experience another record-breaking year,” Bell said, adding that “our aggressive efforts to protect our borders and deport those who enter our country illegally has not ceased in 2023.”

During the debate in Parliament, Bell endorsed Davis’ position but also tried to show that the crackdown wasn’t just aimed at Haitian nationals. The Bahamas, he said, currently has 180 Cubans and 97 Haitians in its main immigration detention centers, along with 33 other people of various nationalities.

“We have repatriated to Cuba, Haiti, Guyana, Dominica, America, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Brazil,” Bell said.

Still, Haitians account for the leading number of migrants, and the leading cause of the government’s angst. Its hardline tone echoed that of the neighboring Turks and Caicos, whose immigration minister, Arlington Musgrove, a week earlier announced a similar crackdown on undocumented Haitian migrants in its territory.

Turkey earthquake: New tremor ends homeless family's dream of recovery

Tue, 21 February 2023 


They thought it couldn't get more terrifying. They were wrong. Just when they thought it was all over, it wasn't.

More than two weeks on, families were again running for their lives. Some had only just returned to their homes, or still clung to hope they could return.

But overnight that dramatically changed with another two significant earthquakes - one of them in the heart of one of the already worst-affected areas.

The Goncagul family moved into a tent just three days ago in Antakya, Hatay. Mehmet, Fatima and their four young children had been sleeping in their car since the first set of earthquakes hit just over two weeks ago.

They couldn't leave the area until they'd try to locate their dead and missing relatives. We think we've misheard him when Mehmet tells us he's lost about 80 relatives.

"Eight you mean?" I inquire. "No, EIGHTY," he says, "More than 80. I've lost count now," he says.

He and his immediate family of six are huddled round a fire which they're feeding with broken up bits of furniture. Their furnishings, or what were once furnishings, are now only fit for firewood.

"I went back to the house this morning. Before the latest set of earthquakes, the home was liveable in. But now the roof has gone and there are big cracks throughout," Mehmet explains. He swipes through pictures on his phone showing room after room of devastation.

Read more:
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His wife Fatima tells us: ''Before we had some hope of returning to the home. But its gone now. We have no hope now."

Antakya is changed beyond recognition. Guldenay Sonumut, our Turkish colleague, keeps pointing former landmarks and restaurants we used to visit on the many occasions we visited this region and this once historic and beautiful city.

"Do you remember that's where we used to sit in the outside garden," she says, "And there, that was where you could enter the old market."

None of it looks recognisable any more. There just seem streets and streets or rubble and piles that were once people's lives and belongings.

And seismologists are warning there could still be more tremors and aftershocks to come for weeks, and potentially months ahead.

Alex Crawford was reporting with cameraman Jake Britton, specialist producer Chris Cunningham and Turkey producer Guldenay Sonumut

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/02/another-earthquake-hits-turkey-syria.html

The Buried Secrets Behind the Worst Earthquake of the Decade

Tom Mutch
Wed, February 22, 2023


ANTAKYA, Turkey—Hassan Hassan had been keeping vigil outside of his family’s destroyed apartment block for days now. “Three of my family members are under there,” he said, motioning to the huge expanse of rubble that thousands of people had called their home until just over a week ago.

Rescue workers usually refer to a “golden period” of 72 hours where the vast majority of survivors are found. When The Daily Beast visited Antakya, a city in Hatay province in south Turkey on the border with Syria, many people had long given up. But although it was 10 days after the original 7.8 magnitude quake hit Turkey and Syria on Feb. 6—killing upwards of 41,000 people—orange diggers and men and women in hard hats and high-vis jackets were still pulling through the rubble looking for any sign of survivors.

Around 90 different search and rescue teams have been sent from around the world in one of the most desperate efforts of the 21st century. When they—as is almost inevitable—find a corpse, they put it into a black body bag, and it is driven away by a waiting hearse.

Yet another earthquake aftershock has hit near the city of Iskenderun at the time of writing. It kills more, forces yet more evacuations and upends the lives of the survivors, who have no idea when their nightmare is going to end. Faced with the numbing scale of the tragedy, it is sometimes easy to forget the individual lives destroyed.

Hidden toll

Galal, a doctor who teaches at Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University and is now volunteering to help with disaster relief, says on the outskirts of the town that “this is the worst-affected place in the country. It’s absolutely horrible in there… the government says that there are only 30,000 dead, but that’s nonsense. There must be 30,000 dead in this city alone.” The rescuers are all gaunt-faced, with heavy bags under their eyes and dirty clothing, having worked without respite for over a week.

Three rescue workers in discussion outside a building being demolished in Antakya.

They have a grisly methodology to come to this sum: multiply the amount of destroyed buildings by the average number of people living there and work out the percentage who we know were rescued. These are not official statistics, and would be very hard to independently verify, but a visit to the area led Martin Griffiths, the UN’s chief emergency relief coordinator, to say that the most horrible part of the recovery will be when we learn the true death toll. In Hatay province, people believe the earthquake will have claimed 200,000 victims throughout Turkey and Syria once it is totalled up.

In Turkey, earthquakes are commonplace, but are also intensely political, and could prove fatal to President Erdogan’s attempts to tighten his grip on power in the upcoming May elections. After a previous terrifying earthquake in 1999, which killed around 17,000 people in Istanbul, Erdogan’s AKP capitalized by promising reform and anti-corruption measures to make buildings safe and earthquake-proof. Citizens paid billions of liras in “earthquake taxes” to improve construction, but government critics say that much of this money was pocketed by corrupt officials.

Meanwhile, in a parking lot in Antakya, we found a sofa with a family’s photographs and personal documents lying around. They record the lives of the family’s young son, starting in the womb with photos of his ultrasound. Then we find a birth certificate, a baby’s birthday party, and what look to be family vacation photos. We were unable to find out whether the family was alive.

An ultrasound and family photo pulled from the wreckage of a destroyed apartment in Antakya.

Yet miracles are still occurring. The previous day, a 12-year-old girl had been dug out alive from an adjacent apartment building, giving Hassan some small hope. His family’s odds are low, however—one exhausted rescue worker estimated that they now pull out 500 corpses for every one person they find alive.

“Don’t expect to find any more,” one local official in the nearby city of Kahramanmaras told The Daily Beast privately, although they are reluctant to give up the search until the last possible moment. “We can’t talk right now, we’ve lost too many people, it’s too painful,” one Syrian family says as they sit around a fire made from abandoned clothing stacked in a rubbish bin. Rescuers and survivors alike have been using these for heat throughout the city, as utilities like electricity and running water have been completely cut off by the quake.

It is difficult to find words to portray the level of damage in this city—an ancient port town home to one of the contenders for the world’s oldest Christian church, the road to which has been blocked by debris. Possibly a third of buildings in this city, originally home to around 400,000 people, are completely flattened, with many others partially collapsed, or their foundations broken beyond repair.

Cranes searching for a family believed buried under rubble in Kahramanmaras.

On the central Inonu Boulevard is a cruel monument to the whims of fate. The buildings to the left are pristine and look completely untouched. To the right, they are almost all in ruins. Whether you lived or died that day might have depended on simply which side of the street you were in. Turkish authorities now estimate that 84,000 buildings have collapsed or sustained irreparable damage. Shopping malls, historic castles, places of worship and scores of apartment blocks are in pieces, with an unknowable number of bodies lying beneath them.

‘Open-air prison’

Millions of people have been displaced, and the safer parts of the cities away from high rise buildings are filled with camps of tents run by AFAD, Turkey’s disaster management agency. Several shipping companies are donating containers that are being rapidly converted to temporary shelters. Turkish authorities have promised to quickly build another 200,000 apartments in the region—but it was the rapid pace of building the original structures, and the corners cut in construction, that led to so many preventable deaths in the first place. Driving past fields near the cities, you can see large gravesites being hurriedly dug for the dead, who are far too many for local cemeteries to handle.

Rubble of destroyed apartment buildings in Antakya.

For many of the survivors, this is not their first brush with death. Martin Hijazi, a 26-year-old Syrian from Aleppo who works for a development NGO, said that “at least one third of the city of Gaziantep is Syrians. This has really inflamed tensions between Turkish people and the Syrian refugees. Many of the Turks hate us now, and Syrians started to get scapegoated for anything that went wrong. In one refugee camp in Mersin province, a rumor went around that Syrians were stealing food from the camp. So at midnight, they made everyone who was Syrian leave the camp, in the middle of the night, with no food and nowhere to go.”

Under Turkey’s temporary protection status for Syrian refugees, many cannot leave the province they claimed refuge in, so they are forced to stay in earthquake-prone areas. Tremors continue throughout the days; I was woken up twice by my hotel room in Gaziantep shaking.

“Even though I speak Turkish, I have citizenship, I’m still treated second-class,” says Martin, “For many of us, Turkey feels like an open-air prison.”

PHOTOS: Tom Mutch

 The Daily Beast.

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Fighter jets, quakes, NATO stakes: Are US-Turkish ties on a reset?

Leela JACINTO
Tue, 21 February 2023 

© Burhan Ozbilici, AP

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Monday came in the wake of the devastating earthquakes that have rattled the Turkish leader’s projection of his country as a regional hegemon. With Turkey turning into a recipient of generous US humanitarian aid, will Ankara play the role of Washington’s friend rather than foe?

Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey and head of the powerful US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, took the floor on December 19 to deliver a scathing inventory of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s domestic and foreign policy misdeeds.

“The United States must take the Turkish president’s actions seriously,” Menendez told the Senate. “We need to hold Erdogan accountable for his behaviour when he violates international laws, or challenges democratic norms, or allows his forces to commit human rights abuses,” the US senator continued before hitting the objective of his speech.

“That is why, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I will not approve any F-16s for Turkey until he [Erdogan] halts his campaign of aggression across the entire region,” said Menendez.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee head was referring to a $20 billion sale of new F-16 fighter jets to Turkey.

"The Biden administration strongly supports the package to both upgrade the existing F-16s and to provide new ones," said Blinken, adding that as a defence ally, Turkey should have “full interoperability” with NATO systems.

‘Making climate crisis worse’: Greens blast Labor after Queensland coal seam gas expansion approved

Adam Morton and Josh Butler
Tue, 21 February 2023 

Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

The Greens have accused Labor of “making the climate crisis worse” and being more interested in opening new coal and gas mines than working together to improve climate policy after the government approved a new coal seam gas expansion in Queensland.

Documents posted on the environment department website show the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, on Friday approved a project by the oil and gas company Santos to open 116 new coal seam gas wells in Queensland’s Surat Basin.

The approval under national environment law, signed off by an official on Plibersek’s behalf, allows the company to construct and operate the wells at the Towrie gas development to feed a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility at Gladstone. It says the wells can have an operational life of about 30 years and the approval is valid until 2077.

The Greens attacked the decision, which comes as the minor party is negotiating with Labor over the design of the safeguard mechanism, a policy the government has promised to transform to cut emissions from Australia’s 215 biggest polluting industrial facilities.

Related: Safeguard mechanism: what is it, will it cut emissions and what role do carbon offsets play?

Adam Bandt, the Greens leader, has offered to support the policy, despite having other reservations about the design, if the government stops approving new fossil fuel developments. Labor has rejected the proposal, arguing it would breach an election commitment and decisions on new coal and gas developments were for investors.

In a Twitter thread, Bandt accused Labor of “wanting coal and gas corporations to keep polluting, profiting, and opening more mines”. He said Plibersek had granted the approval on Friday without issuing a media release or public statement, and Santos had donated at least $521,719 to Labor since 2015.

“For a government that likes to talk about integrity and transparency this is straight out [of] Morrison’s playbook,” Bandt said.

The independent MP Monique Ryan also focused on Santos’ donations to Labor. “You’d have to say they’ve received an excellent return on their investment,” she said in a tweet.

A spokesperson for Plibersek said Santos’ proposal was assessed on its merits. “It was subject to robust scientific assessments, and strict environmental approval conditions have been applied,” they said.

Santos already has a large coal seam gas operation in the Surat Basin, with more than 8,000 wells approved since 2010 connected to its GLNG export development. The company said it welcomed the government’s decision. A spokesperson said it would spend “more than a billion dollars this year alone” drilling new wells and developing infrastructure to supply long-term contracts in Korea and Malaysia.

Rod Campbell, research director with the Australia Institute, said while the latest development was not massive compared to others, the decision illustrated that major fossil fuel projects were often approved and expanded through a series of small decisions that added up to a significant impact.

“Our systems are entirely set up to approve these fossil fuel developments, sometimes piece by piece,” he said. “It really needs to change so the government is asking ‘do we need these any more?’”

The independent senator David Pocock who, like the Greens, is negotiating with the government over the safeguard mechanism design and a list of other policies, said scientists and the International Energy Agency had been “absolutely clear” that the world could not could not afford to keep opening new coal and gas facilities if they wanted to keep global heating to 1.5C or 2C above pre-industrial levels.

On the safeguard mechanism, Pocock said he had several concerns, particularly the government’s proposal to allow companies to buy an unlimited number of carbon offsets to meet emissions limits. “I think there is a number of measures to improve the integrity and ensure that we are actually driving down emissions,” he told the ABC.

He also backed the introduction of a climate trigger into the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act so emissions would have to be considered before developments were approved.

The climate change minister, Chris Bowen, said he believed the government had “the balance right” on the safeguard design, but acknowledged changes were possible following consultations with companies, interest groups and others in parliament.

“I’ll sit down with people in good faith across the parliament. What we do will be in keeping with, one, our election commitments and, two, what we need to do in the national interest,” he said.

Greens’ deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi said: “The Greens will continue negotiations, but Labor seems to want new coal and gas mines more than they want their safeguard mechanism.”

Under its proposed changes, Labor would set a new pollution limit, known as a baseline, for each big polluting site based on emissions intensity. Baselines would mostly be reduced by 4.9% a year. Companies could meet their limit through direct cuts or by buying carbon credits, meant to represent cuts made elsewhere.

Academics and activists have raised concerns over whether some carbon credit projects deliver real and new emissions reductions. A review of the carbon credit scheme commissioned by the government said the system had integrity, but critics have called for an evaluation of individual projects.

Teachers in Scotland begin targeted strikes in key constituencies

Lucinda Cameron, PA Scotland
Tue, 21 February 2023

Children attending school in the constituencies of key politicians including Scotland’s First Minister are missing more days of lessons as teachers begin six days of “targeted” strike action.

Many schools in the five affected areas will be closed for three days from Wednesday as the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) escalates industrial action in the long-running dispute over pay, with a further three days of action planned next month.

The union has singled out areas covered by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Deputy First Minister John Swinney, Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville, Scottish Green education spokesman Ross Greer and Katie Hagmann, the resources spokeswoman for local authority body Cosla, for further action.

This will be on top of national strikes on February 28 and March 1, and another 20 days of rolling walkouts across Scotland’s local authorities between March 13 and April 21, following strikes earlier in 2023 and late last year.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s constituency is one of the areas targeted (Jane Barlow/PA)

Parents have voiced concerns over the targeted action, branding it “inequitable and unfair” for pupils in the affected areas.

It comes after the EIS rejected the latest pay offer put to it by Ms Somerville, the MSP for Dunfermline in Fife, which would have meant a 6% pay boost backdated to April 2022 for teachers who earn up to £80,000 and a further 5.5% from the start of the 2023 financial year, in what is the fifth offer put to them.

EIS president Andrene Bamford said the resolve of the teaching workforce to push for a 10% pay rise remains.

EIS general secretary Andrea Bradley said: “Today’s intensification of strike action is a direct result of the failure of the Scottish Government and Cosla to deliver an acceptable pay offer to Scotland’s teachers.

“As a result, this intensified strike action is targeted directly at the politicians with the ability to deliver a better pay offer that can end this pay dispute – just as is happening in health.”

She added: “Parents and students have every right to be angry at the fact that local and national politicians continue to collude in withholding a fair settlement from Scotland’s teachers.”

She said after taking legal advice it is up to individual EIS members if they wish to enter into voluntary agreements with the Scottish Qualification Authority to mark exam scripts.

EIS members will take three days of strike action in Glasgow Southside, Dunfermline, Perthshire North and the part of Clydebank and Milngavie constituency that lies within the East Dunbartonshire Council area between February 22 and 24.

Teachers have taken several days of strike action (Andrew Milligan/PA)

A further three days of strike action will take place in these areas, and also in Ms Hagmann’s Mid Galloway and Wigtown West ward in Dumfries and Galloway between March 7 and 9.

Leanne McGuire, chairwoman of the Glasgow City Parents Group, said it does not support the targeted action, warning it could increase inequality, saying parents are concerned about missed learning.

She told the PA news agency: “We’re coming up to exam season now and young people are trying to maximise the amount of teaching time and in-class time that they can have to revise for their exams, and it seems really inequitable and unfair that pupils in that area are going to have six less days of in-school time then other areas of Glasgow, so that’s why as a committee we just cannot support this type of action in any way.

“The Scottish attainment gap continues to widen, that’s a fact, it’s not exactly narrowed or anything, and particularly the issue that we have is the areas within the southside constituency, the majority of that is areas of high deprivation, so these young people are already disadvantaged during education as it is, and to then add another six days on top of that just further disadvantages them.”

In Perth and Kinross, where Mr Swinney is MSP for Perthshire North, around 40 schools will be closed between February 22 and 24.

In the East Dunbartonshire council area which is part of Mr Greer’s regional constituency, nine schools will be closed on both the February and March dates.

The majority of schools in Ms Sturgeon’s Glasgow Southside constituency will be closed while in Ms Somerville’s constituency 27 primary schools will be shut and secondary schools were considering whether they could offer any learning for some groups of pupils.

Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville, who has written an open letter to learners on the support available during school strikes, said: “I had hoped that everyone involved in this dispute would agree that pupils should not have the worry of disruption to exams hanging over them.

“I am bitterly disappointed, therefore, that the EIS is threatening continued industrial action in the run up to the exam diet.”

She has appealed to teaching unions to suspend industrial action as pay talks continue.

Ms Somerville added: “We are working with partners, including the SQA, local authorities and education directors, on contingencies for exams should industrial action continue.

“The National e-Learning Offer continues to offer a wide package of support that pupils preparing for exams can access from home while schools are closed.”

HELLO; PATHETIC, STRIKE ON!

UK

Pay rise of just 3.5pc for public sector in effort to halt strikes

Daniel Martin
Tue, 21 February 2023 

Ambulance workers on strike in Deptford, south-east London, earlier this month. More are planned this week - Jordan Pettitt/PA

Public sector workers should receive just a 3.5 per cent pay rise next year, ministers have declared, as they opened talks aimed at ending the current wave of strikes.

The figure emerged on Tuesday night in official submissions to the independent pay review bodies released by government departments and relating to the salaries of doctors, nurses, teachers and police officers in 2023-24.

The Treasury is understood to believe that going higher than this level would mean deeper spending cuts were needed - and that any increase above five per cent risks fuelling inflation further. Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, repeated his warning on Tuesday that inflation must be halved from 10 per cent in order to grow in the economy.


A source said: “We want to find a fair and reasonable pay settlement, but one that acknowledges wider economic pressures and our priority to halve inflation this year.”

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has now called off next week’s 48-hour strike at more than 120 trusts to begin “intensive” negotiations with the Department of Health and Social Care on Wednesday over pay. It raises hopes that the industrial action that has crippled the NHS could be brought to a close.

However, other health unions accused ministers of playing “divide and rule” by trying to reach a “backroom deal” with nurses while ignoring the needs of other NHS staff.

At the same time Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, has written to teaching unions to urge them to join talks. However, the National Education Union has refused to call off its industrial action.

Strike action over the past few months has crippled the country, with rail unions, nurses, ambulance workers, teachers, Border Force staff and civil servants all walking out.

This week, there will be strikes by ambulance workers in the North West and in Northern Ireland, as well as by university staff. Teachers are set to stage strikes in various regions next week.

All four of the documents released on Tuesday - to doctors, nurses, teachers and police officers - suggest pay increases of 3.5 per cent next year.

This is despite average private sector pay rising by 7.3 per cent in a year, according to the latest Office for National Statistics data.

Pat Cullen, RCN general secretary, said every nurse in England could “breathe a sigh of relief” following the announcement that the union has agreed to talks.

In a joint statement, the union and the Department of Health and Social Care said: “Both sides are committed to finding a fair and reasonable settlement that recognises the vital role that nurses and nursing play in the National Health Service and the wider economic pressures facing the United Kingdom and the Prime Minister’s priority to halve inflation.”

The talks will focus on “pay, terms and conditions, and productivity-enhancing reforms”.

Ms Cullen told Sky News: “I’m entering this in good faith. I think this is a significant step forward. Every nurse in England today can breathe a sigh of relief and, more importantly, our patients can.

“I’m confident that we will be able to reach agreement about a fair pay deal for our nursing staff.”

The union has campaigned for a 19 per cent pay rise, but has since said it would be willing to meet the Government halfway.

Steve Barclay, the Health Secretary, has previously suggested that pay could be increased in future if unions agree to efficiency savings and to modernise practices.
'Divide-and-rule politics'

Unions representing ambulance workers, who are due to hold further strikes next month, expressed fury that the RCN had secured the talks - fearing that other health workers may get a less favourable deal.

Rachel Harrison, GMB national secretary, said: “This backroom deal with some sections of the workforce is a tawdry example of ministers playing divide-and-rule politics with people’s lives.”

The British Medical Association (BMA) has pleaded with Mr Barclay to attend a crunch meeting between the union and officials due to take place on Wednesday.

On Monday, the BMA’s junior doctors voted resoundingly in favour of strikes, with a three-day walkout planned for March.

The Department of Health and Social Care's evidence to the NHS Pay Review Body for the 2023-24 financial year stated: “Through the current financial settlement provided by HM Treasury to the department and reprioritisation decisions, funding is available for pay awards up to 3.5 per cent.

“Pay awards above this level would require trade-offs for public service delivery or further government borrowing at a time when headroom against fiscal rules is historically low and sustainable public finances are vital in the fight against inflation.”

A similar recommendation has been made for doctors and dentists.
Teachers refuse to call off strikes

Meanwhile, teachers refused to call off planned strikes in England next week in exchange for “formal talks” on pay and a proposed 3.5 per cent salary increase next year.

The National Education Union (NEU) said the offer failed to come close to its demand for pay rises to “at least match price increases, and for any pay rises to be fully funded in school budgets”.

However, it said that the union’s national executive committee would at a meeting on Saturday reconsider the Government’s request to call off strikes in exchange for formal negotiations.

The Department for Education has said an overall 3.5 per cent pay rise would mean experienced teachers get a three per cent salary increase, while starting salaries outside London would increase from £28,000 to £30,000.

Ms Keegan wrote to teaching unions on Tuesday inviting them to “formal talks on pay, conditions and reform”.

However, she said she would only host formal negotiations on the condition that three days of planned regional strikes in England next week are cancelled.

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU, said: “We are willing to talk at any time, but there is nothing substantial in the Secretary of State's letter that suggests to us we should call off strikes for next week.

“There is time for the DfE to make clear that they will talk about pay rises for this school year and would fund those potential pay rises. There is time for them to tell us they are willing to move beyond a three per cent pay rise for next September and to fund such pay rises.”

The Home Office has also suggested in its submission to the police pay review body that officers should receive a 3.5 per cent salary increase.

However, on Tuesday Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, called for his officers to receive a 10 per cent pay increase.

He said, unlike other public sector workers, police officers do not have the ability to strike - meaning they do not have the same voice when negotiating with the Government.

It comes as the Department for Transport (DfT) admitted that new anti-strike laws may cause even fewer trains to run in certain parts of Britain during walkouts.

The Government is trying to introduce legislation to set minimum service levels in six sectors, including transport, to reduce the impact of strikes.

However, a DfT consultation document revealed that this “may result in a lower level of service for some areas than currently seen on certain strike days, but improved levels of service for others and overall”.

Public sector workers could see 3.5% pay rise after departmental submissions

Patrick Daly, PA Political Correspondent
Tue, 21 February 2023 

More than one million public sector workers, including police officers and NHS staff, could be in line for a 3.5% pay rise following submissions by UK Government departments to the pay review process.

A host of Whitehall departments announced on Tuesday what level of pay rise would be affordable for 2023/24, with 3.5% the favoured increase for most.

Only the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), when giving its submission for those working in the prison service, differed by saying it would not provide a base figure, instead submitting proposals for wages depending on pay band.

The submissions pave the way for police, teachers, NHS workers, doctors and dentists, as well as those working in the judiciary, to receive a 3.5% pay bump in the next financial year.

The UK Government’s evidence will now be reviewed by the independent pay bodies, which will make formal recommendations to ministers.

Doctors are among those for whom the Department for Health said it could afford a pay rise (Hannah McKay/PA)

But with inflation as high as 10% according to some metrics, the wage increase would still amount to a real-terms cut as the UK battles a cost-of-living crisis.

The submissions follow a wave of industrial action across the public sector, with nurses, teachers and border force officials on strike in recent weeks.

The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) said “funding is available for pay awards up to 3.5%”, with the same amount deemed affordable for dentists and doctors.

The NHS Pay Review Body is responsible for making recommendations on the pay of more than one million NHS staff paid under the Agenda for Change contract, with a separate body for doctors, dentists and very senior managers.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said “This has to be some sort of sick joke. On the day when figures show that the country can well afford to meet NHS workers’ pay expectations, the Government is trying to force another year of wage cuts into the NHS.”

Unison’s head of health Sara Gorton said: “If the Government was actively trying to worsen the crisis in the NHS, it couldn’t have done better than this.

“Vacancies are at an all-time high and this pitiful pay suggestion does nothing to solve the growing staffing emergency.”

British Dental Association chair Eddie Crouch said: “This service is haemorrhaging talent by the day, and, with inflation soaring, a miserly 3.5% pay rise will clearly take its toll.

“The government’s blind pursuit of affordability risks undermining the very sustainability of NHS dentistry in this country.”

For teachers, the Department for Education (DfE) said more than the 3.5% budgeted for could be available in some schools depending on energy prices.

Schools and other public sector institutions have been dealing with rising energy bills since the lifting of Covid lockdown restrictions and the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine a year ago.

The DfE, in its submission to the School Teachers’ Review Body, said: “The department’s view is that an award of 3.5% (3% awards for experienced teachers, plus awards to raise starting salaries to £30,000) will be manageable within schools’ budgets next year, on average, following the additional funding provided at autumn statement.”

The Ministry of Justice said it would not set a flat rate for a pay rise among prison workers (Peter Macdiarmid/PA)

But it added: “Different energy scenarios mean that more headroom could be available than the 3.5% currently estimated.

“This could allow for additional investment in areas which benefit pupils, including, for example, a higher pay award.”

The Home Office, in its submission for police, has asked the pay review body to determine how any recommended pay rise should be applied across the ranks, including chief officers.

According to the MoJ, paying those working in the judiciary a 3.5% pay rise would cost £23 million based on 2022/23 pay roll costs.

Declining to set a base rate rise for all those working in prisons, department officials outlined a more piecemeal approach to pay in the sector.

The MoJ’s Submission to the Prison Service Pay Review Body said: “Using a flat-rate cash approach at each band, rather than the basic percentage uplift, represents an opportunity to provide a higher award in percentage terms for those lower down the pay scale, allowing us to target lower earners without raising the costs for all staff.”

The department said it would “target our lower paid staff” working in prisons with pay rises, with £70 million invested in upping remuneration of those on the bottom pay rungs.

The lowest paid would see a “cash increase of £2,000”, under the MoJ’s submission, while Band 3 prison officers would receive a £1,015 increase, amounting to a 4% increase “regardless of where they sit in the pay range”.

3.5% pay rises recommended for NHS, police, teachers and judges - as union brands it 'a disgrace'

Tue, 21 February 2023 


Ministers have recommended NHS workers, police officers, teachers and judges are all given a 3.5% pay rise for the next financial year.

Government departments have written to the independent pay review bodies of each sector to submit their evidence and say what figure is deemed affordable by them and the Treasury.

But a number of unions are calling for much higher pay awards for the last financial year before negotiations even begin for 2023/24, and the figure for the following 12 months may not meet expectations.

Starting with the NHS - including doctors and dentists - the Department for Health and Social Care said: "Through the current financial settlement provided by HM Treasury to the department and reprioritisation decisions, funding is available for pay awards up to 3.5%."

The document said anything above this level "would require trade-offs for public service delivery or further government borrowing at a time when headroom against fiscal rules is historically low and sustainable public finances are vital in the fight against inflation".

Rachel Harrison, national secretary for the GMB union that represents ambulance workers and other NHS staff, called the offer "a disgrace".

"Today's submission to the pay review body shows this government's true colours," she said.

"Ambulance workers - and others across the NHS including cleaners, porters and care workers - who are the backbone of the health service deserve better.

"Ministers have no intention of recognising the true value of the entire workforce. It's a disgrace and will do nothing to end GMB's NHS and ambulance strikes.

"This backroom deal with some sections of the workforce is a tawdry example of ministers playing divide and rule politics with people's lives."

Unison's head of health, Sara Gorton, said the government "couldn't have done better than this" if it was actively trying to worsen the NHS crisis and warned it "could prove the final straw" for staff questioning whether to leave the NHS.

She called for pay talks for all health unions as she hit out at the government for only meeting with the RCN.

"Ministers need to start behaving like grown-ups and up their game substantially," she added.

Police budget

The recommendation from the police came from the Home Office, which pointed to forces having "previously indicated that a pay award above 2% for 2023/24 may be affordable".

The document said the department was carrying on discussions with the National Police Chiefs' Council and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners but added: "Considering the additional funding available from the police funding settlement for 2023/24, and forces seeking to maximise efficiencies, our current assessment is that there is scope for forces to budget up to a 3.5% pay award within the existing settlement."

Read more:
NHS crisis: Why are so many staff leaving the health service?

Nurses to halt strike action as union 'confident' of agreeing pay deal with ministers

'Nothing in letter to call off teachers' strike'

For teachers, the document from the Department for Education said a 3.5% rise - including 3% awards for experienced teachers and raising starting salaries to £30,000 - "will be manageable within schools' budgets next year, on average, following the additional funding provided at autumn statement".

But ministers also said the amount available could be impacted by energy costs faced by schools adding: "It is difficult to forecast energy costs. Different energy scenarios mean that more headroom could be available than the 3.5% currently estimated.

"This could allow for additional investment in areas which benefit pupils, including, for example, a higher pay award."

The National Education Union joint secretary, Kevin Courtney, said he was "pleased" the government is offering formal talks and he hopes it means they are willing to talk about pay after previous talks this year have failed to result in an offer.

But he said their offer of talks "still contains no suggestion that they are willing to talk about pay rises this year".

Mr Courtney added that the Department for Education's suggestion of a 3% pay rise for experienced teachers is less than the current inflation forecast for quarter three year so will amount "to a further pay cut".

He said there was nothing in the letter to suggest they should call off next week's teacher strikes but there is still time for an offer to be made before the union's national executive meets this Saturday.

And when it came to judges, the Ministry of Justice proposed that "pay for all judicial office holders should increase by 3.5% in 2023/24", adding it would cost £23m.