“We Will Use All The Tools At Our Disposal”: Israeli Networks Form Emergency Forum To Oppose New Government Media Bill

Max Goldbart
Wed, August 16, 2023 


Israeli networks have taken the unprecedented step of banding together to form an emergency group forum opposing the government’s new media bill.

A statement from Reshet 13, Keshet 12 and public broadcaster Kan said the Israeli TV Channels Forum will “operate in an emergency mode in order to prevent the expected harm to media independence and freedom of the press as a result of the reform.”

Israel's Controversial Judicial Reform Has Grabbed All The Headlines, But The Nation's Thriving TV Sector Could Be Next In The Crosshairs

The group of decades-old channels are responding to a bill championed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, which they say has made “the takeover of the media market the government’s next target” – following the controversial judicial reform. The forum is already active and prominent execs from various channels, legal advisors and regulatory personnel will convene for the first time in the coming days.

The proposals, which are expected to pass but not for months, include the significant reduction of local original content quotas, the creation of a new regulator whose members would largely be chosen by the government and which could meddle with Israeli content, the cancellation of the requirement for networks to obtain independent licenses in order to broadcast news content and the oversight of ratings data by a government committee.

Today, the new forum said it will “use all the tools at its disposal to prevent the dangerous move of a hostile takeover of the Israeli media,” although it didn’t elaborate on next steps.
“Second to none”

Having a “political body that controls the news and TV market in Israel is second to none in the democratic world,” its statement said.

“The expected bill is intended to blatantly intervene in the economic sphere as well, by rewarding specific media outlets – that the government desires to reward – with specified benefits and exemptions from payment,” added the statement. “At the same time, the bill confiscates the rights of free channels, eliminates the local production industry, and severely harms Israeli public broadcasting and the Israeli music industry.”

The group already issued a joint statement against the bill last month. Karhi’s department has responded by saying the proposal will in fact “enhance competition and bolster freedom of speech,” claiming that those opposed are “media monopolies who have a vast interest to keep the market closed.”

“This proposed piece of legislation is aimed at alleviating congestion and removing all redundant government regulation from the market,” a spokesman told Deadline last week. “In fact, the legislation is explicitly designed to not intervene in any content while opening up the market, essentially enabling more players to enter the market, therefore directly increasing the aspect of freedom of speech.”

The legislation is expected to pass later this year and come into force in early 2024.

Protests have been raging in Israel for months since Netanyahu appointed potentially the most right-wing government in the nation’s short history, which plans to bring in laws to impinge LGBTQ+ rights and has rubberstamped judicial reform that weakens the power of the Supreme Court.

'Wounded Indian' sculpture given in 1800s to group founded by Paul Revere is returning to Boston

MARK PRATT
Tue, August 15, 2023 

This May 31, 2023 photo provided by Cultural Heritage Partners, PLLC, shows the statue "Wounded Indian" sculpted in 1850 by Peter Stephenson and modeled on the ancient Roman statue "Dying Gaul," in a gallery at the Chrysler Museum of Art, in Norfolk, Va. The marble statue that depicts the heart-wrenching scene of a felled Native American pulling an arrow from his torso is being returned to the Boston-area organization cofounded by Paul Revere that thought it had been destroyed decades ago. 

(Stewart Gamage/Cultural Heritage Partners, PLLC via AP) 


BOSTON (AP) — A marble statue that depicts a felled Native American pulling an arrow from his torso is being returned to the Boston-area organization cofounded by Paul Revere that thought it had been destroyed decades ago.

“Wounded Indian,” sculpted in 1850 by Peter Stephenson and modeled on the ancient Roman statue “Dying Gaul,” was a gift to the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association in 1893 and was displayed in its exhibition hall, according to Cultural Heritage Partners, the law firm that represented the Boston organization during negotiations.

That hall was sold in 1958, and the association was told that during the chaos of moving and distributing its assets to other area cultural institutions, the sculpture was accidentally destroyed and tossed away.

But the life-size piece showed up 30 years later at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia.

The mechanic association started pressuring the Chrysler Museum for the sculpture's return as far back as 1999 and stepped up its efforts a few years ago, when it brought in a researcher to establish ownership and hired a lawyer.

But the dispute was not resolved until Aug. 9, when the Chrysler's trustees agreed to return the statue.

"It feels great to get the piece back because we really felt that there wasn't any question that it was our statue," said Peter Lemonias, the treasurer and past president of the mechanic association, who chaired the panel that worked on getting it back. “We were perplexed as anyone as to how it got away."

It is headed back to Boston at a time when 19th-century art depicting Native Americans is under increased scrutiny. Like its inspiration, “Wounded Indian” depicts a vanquished foe considered primitive by the artist's cultural standards.

The statue dates to the end of the Removal Era, when Native tribes were being pushed west to make way for white settlers. Art of the era reflects nostalgia and myth about growth that came at the expense of suffering by Indigenous people.

“When you look at the representations of American Indians in American art, they are often depicted in terms of tragedy, in this classical sense of overwhelming and undeterrable forces resulting in these tragic consequences, like it's destiny," said David Penney, an associate director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian.

Lemonias thinks “Wounded Indian” is respectful.

“This is a solemn moment, maybe his dying breath, and I feel Stephenson was viewing the scene with a lot of empathy,” he said.

So what changed in the dispute over the statue? Greg Werkheiser, a founding partner at Cultural Heritage Partners, pointed to three things: the factual record of the statue's provenance; public pressure on the Chrysler Museum spurred by an article in The Washington Post that detailed the dispute; and an FBI investigation into the sculpture's ownership.

The dispute was resolved without litigation.

The Chrysler Museum got the piece from a now-deceased collector named James Ricau, who had a reputation in the art world for not being able to document how he obtained some of his objects, Werkheiser said.

Ricau said he had bought the statue from a reputable Boston art gallery in 1967, but that gallery said it had no record of the transaction, he said.

The Chrysler Museum said in a statement that it “acquired the piece in good faith in the 1980s,” but that “it was in the best interests of all parties to end the dispute.”

“The Chrysler is pleased with the amicable resolution, and we wish the best for the MCMA,” Chrysler Museum Director Erik H. Neil said in a statement.

“The impending return of this exquisite statue to Boston is a triumph not only for MCMA, but also for all Bay Staters and Americans who appreciate that this outstanding work of art was created in Boston, by a then-Bostonian, given to a Boston civic organization, for a Boston-area audience," the mechanic association said in a statement.

Revere, the silversmith more famous for alerting colonists to the impending arrival of a British column before the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, was a founder and first president of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, established in 1795 to promote the mechanical arts and trades.

Today, based in suburban Quincy, it provides charitable support to organizations that teach or employ troubled and disabled youths. Paul Revere III is on its board and serves as general counsel.

The statue should be shipped back to Boston by early September, said Lemonias, and the next task will be finding a museum willing to house it and display it publicly.

It should be displayed and interpreted only with more historical context, Penney said.

“I think it would be helpful if we looked at this statue in a more critical way," he said.

UK

Rishi Sunak tells striking doctors to take pay deal and ‘get back to treating patients’

Michael Searles
Tue, August 15, 2023 

Rishi Sunak speaks to staff and patients during a visit to Milton Keynes University Hospital.

 - Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street/

Junior doctors should accept the pay deal on offer so “we can all get back to treating patients and getting waiting lists down”, Rishi Sunak has said.

The Prime Minister said progress on tackling record NHS backlogs “has stalled because of the industrial action” and the current pay offer is a larger increase than “almost every other workforce in the public sector”.

Junior doctors finished a 96-hour walkout at 7am on Tuesday - their fifth round of action - which has cost the NHS in excess of £1 billion.

Speaking from Buckinghamshire Hospital to announce £250 million funding for 900 new NHS beds, Mr Sunak said: “I’m pleased that we’ve practically eliminated the number of people waiting two years. Earlier this year we practically eliminated the number of people waiting one-and-a-half years.

“Unfortunately, the progress that we were making has stalled because of the industrial action.”

The latest figures show 7.6 million people are on the waiting list. The NHS missed a target to eliminate the number of patients waiting 18-months by April, which now stands at 7,000.

Junior doctors rally near Downing Street while striking in London on Friday, - Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

The British Medical Association (BMA) is seeking “pay restoration” of 35 per cent for 15 years of under-inflation pay rises, but the Government has said its current offer of 8.8 per cent on average is “final”.

Mr Sunak said the Government had settled pay negotiations “with the vast majority of workers in the public sector” and that in the NHS “over a million NHS workers accepted” the deal.

“That includes nurses, and many others, half a dozen unions in the NHS staff council recommended that their members accepted that offer, and they have,” he said. “I’m very grateful to them for that.”

He added: “A nine per cent pay increase for a typical junior doctor. That is a larger pay increase than almost every other workforce in the public sector.

“Now, we’ve been very clear, we think that is fair, we’ve accepted it in full, and now as I’ve said previously, we’d urge junior doctors and consultants to accept the recommendations of an independent body.”

Hospital consultants have strike dates planned for later in Augst and September.

NHS officials have said that more than one million operations and appointments are likely to have been postponed due to strikes.

Dr Rob Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, co-chairmen of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, said: “This Government and the Health Secretary have grown increasingly intransigent, belligerent and unwilling to talk about how we can end this dispute, and indeed are now expending more energy on making spurious claims about the reasons for our legitimate campaign than they are about settling the dispute.”

US Shale Wells Are Losing Oil Output Faster Than Expected, Study Says

Mitchell Ferman
Tue, August 15, 2023


(Bloomberg) -- The steep drop in output from US shale wells is turning out to be worse than expected, forcing oil drillers to work even harder to keep production from slipping, research firm Enverus said in its latest report.

The firm’s conclusion that there won’t be a surge of American oil production comes after the amount of crude extracted from US shale wells doubled in the past decade. The falling output rate over time highlights a fact of life for US shale explorers: oil wells are most prolific in early months of production, with gushers quickly turning to trickles. That reality is why oil output boomed during the shale revolution of the 2010s as companies chased production growth at all costs.

Now, however, most of the land is already owned or leased, offering few opportunities to drill new areas with vast oil reserves. Companies are considering a range of drilling and production strategies to maximize what they get out of each well such as drilling wells closer together, which makes the shale patch a more dense and difficult place to increase the rate of production.

“Summed up, the industry’s treadmill is speeding up and this will make production growth more difficult than it was in the past,” said Dane Gregoris, managing director at Enverus Intelligence Research and author of the report published Tuesday.

In the Permian Basin of west Texas and southeast New Mexico, North America’s most productive oil field, the rate of well production in the Midland area has declined by 0.5% each year since 2014. Well production at the nearby Delaware region has fallen by even more since that time.

--With assistance from David Wethe.

Prospect of Kenyan troops in Haiti has sparked concerns – but may also prompt soul-searching across the Americas over lack of action

Jorge Heine, 

Interim Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 

Boston University

Wed, August 16, 2023 

THE CONVERSATION

Haitian authorities are fighting a losing battle against organized gangs. Richard Pierrin/AFP via Getty Images


The kidnapping and subsequent release of U.S. nurse Alix Dorsainvil and her young daughter in Haiti in early August 2023 drew brief international attention to crime in the impoverished Caribbean nation.

But the truth is that such kidnappings are commonplace for Haitians, and they rarely receive attention from outside the country itself. Indeed, Haiti has become a forgotten crisis to many international bodies and foreign governments. News that Kenya has offered to lead an international effort to bring order to the country only underscores the lack of action by other nations closer to Haiti.

As someone who has written a book, “Fixing Haiti,” on the last concerted outside intervention – the United Nations’ stabilizing mission (MINUSTAH) – I fear the lack of action by countries in the Americas could increase the risk of Haiti transitioning from a fragile state to a failed one. MINUSTAH was the first U.N. mission formed by a majority of Latin American troops, with Chile and Brazil taking the lead. The prospect of outsourcing that role now to Kenya may have sparked concerns from human rights groups, but it might also lead to soul-searching questions in capitals from Washington to Brasília, as well as at United Nations headquarters in New York.
At the mercy of gangs

Haiti has been falling into chaos for the last two years, ever since the murder of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021. A subsequent earthquake that struck the southern part of the country only further worsened the plight of Haitians.

Today, the country is not only the poorest in the Americas, but is also among the most destitute in the world. Some 87.6% of the population is estimated to be living in poverty, with 30% in extreme poverty. Life expectancy is just 63 years, compared with 76 in the United States and 72 in Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole.

Meanwhile, crime is so pervasive that it makes it almost impossible to move from one city to another due to the risk of being attacked by gangs, which control almost two-thirds of the country. Things have gotten so bad that the U.S. State Department has evacuated all nonessential personnel and recommended that U.S. citizens leave the country as soon as possible.
Recipe for disaster

International intervention in Haiti has been long overdue. Yet, until now, the attitude of the international community has, from my perspective, been largely to look away.

From a humanitarian perspective and in terms of regional security, to allow a country in the Americas to drift into the condition of a failed state controlled by a fluid network of criminal gangs is a recipe for disaster. Yet governments and transnational bodies in the region are unwilling to step up to confront the crisis directly despite pleas from Haiti and the U.N..

The Organization of American States – which in the past played an important role in Haiti and for which I served as an observer to the country’s 1990 presidential elections – and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States have been criticized over their slow response to the Haitian crisis. The Caribbean Community, or CARICOM, has held a number of meetings on the Haitian crisis. But that bloc is bound by a strict noninterference policy.

The United States, in turn, having left Afghanistan in 2021 after a tumultuous 20-year occupation, appears reluctant to send troops anywhere.

Rather, Washington would prefer that others take up the role of peacekeeper this time. In response to the offer from Kenya, the State Department said it “commends” the African nation for “responding to Haiti’s call.”

Part of this reluctance in the Americas could also be related to the perception – in my view, a misperception – of how past interventions have played out. The United Nations mission from 2004 initially managed to stabilize Haiti after another rocky period. In fact, the country made significant strides before it was hit by a devastating earthquake in 2010.

There were bad missteps, for sure, after 2010. A cholera outbreak brought to Haiti by infected troops from Nepal resulted in more than 800,000 infections and 10,000 deaths. Sexual misconduct by some of the U.N.‘s blue helmets further tarnished the mission.

But the notion that MINUSTAH was a failure is, in my view, quite wrong. And the end of the mission in 2017 certainly didn’t see improved conditions in Haiti. Indeed, after the mission ended, criminal gangs had the run of the country once again, and proceeded accordingly.

A U.N. mission car is burned by demonstrators in Haiti on Dec. 20, 2006. Thony Belizaire/AFP via Getty Images

Yet the perceived failure of the U.N. mission has become the basis of a view held by some Haiti watchers that international interventions are not only unsuccessful or misconceived, but also counterproductive.

Such a view forms the backbone of the notion of Haiti as an “aid state” – as opposed to a “failed state.” In this view, international interventions and the inflow of foreign funds have created a condition of dependency in which the country gets used to having foreigners make key decisions. This, the argument goes, fosters a cycle of corruption and mismanagement.

There is no doubt that some previous interventions left much to be desired, and that any new initiative would have to be conducted in close cooperation with Haitian civil society to avoid such pitfalls.

But I believe the notion that Haiti, in its current state, would be able to lift itself up without the help of the international community is wishful thinking. The nation has moved too far down the direction of gang control, and what remains of the Haitian state lacks the capacity to change that trajectory.
A duty to intervene?

Moreover, there is an argument to be made that the international community bears responsibility for the Haitian tragedy and is duty-bound to try to fix it.

To use one example from the relatively recent past: Haiti, until the early 1980s, was self-sufficient in the production of rice – a key staple there. Yet, pressured by the United States in the 1990s, the country lowered its agricultural tariffs to the bare minimum and, in so doing, destroyed local rice production. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton later apologized for the policy, but its legacy still lasts.

Haiti today has to import most of the rice it consumes, largely from the United States. And there isn’t enough of it to go around for all Haitians – the U.N. estimates that nearly half of Haiti’s population of 11.5 million is food-insecure.

Indeed, from its very beginning as an independent nation in 1804, Haiti has suffered the consequences of its unique place in history: It was simply too much for white colonial powers to see Haiti thrive as the first Black republic resulting from a successful slave rebellion.

France retaliated to the loss of what was once considered the world’s wealthiest colony by exacting reparations for a century and a half. Payments from Haiti flowed until 1947 — to the tune of US$21 billion in today’s dollars. The United States took 60 years to recognize Haiti, and invaded and occupied the nation from 1915 to 1934.

However, any thoughts of atoning for past actions seem far from the minds of those looking on as the chaos in Haiti spirals. Rather, many appear to have the kind of mindset expressed in 1994 by current U.S. President Joe Biden when, as a senator discussing the rationale for various interventions, he noted: “If Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean, or rose 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot for our interests.”

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

It was written by: Jorge Heine, Boston University.

Read more:


Haiti’s president assassinated: 5 essential reads to give you key history and insight


In Haiti, climate aid comes with strings attached

Jorge Heine is a founder and sits on the board of Diplomats Without Borders and is a member of Chile's Party for Democracy, the International Political Science Association, the International Studies Association and of the Foro Permanente de Política Exterior, a Chilean foreign policy think.
View comments (43)

WORKERS CAPITAL

CANADA / US investor group clinches tax credit deal for $1.5 bln renewable power acquisition


Wed, August 16, 2023 
By Isla Binnie

NEW YORK, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Invenergy Renewables, Blackstone and Canada's second-largest pension fund said on Wednesday they struck a deal with Bank of America to help buy wind and solar plants worth $1.5 billion, capitalising on a new tax structure included in President Joe Biden's landmark climate law.

Developers and investors are working on ways to take advantage of a provision in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act(IRA) which gives companies tax breaks for funding the clean energy projects which can help wean the world off fossil fuels.

Invenergy said in a statement it agreed to sell tax credits worth $580 million to Bank of America, and put those funds towards buying 14 projects from American Electric Power.

Policymakers hope the new system will bring more money from fresh sources into renewables projects which have long relied on a limited group of large banks which can handle the process of buying equity stakes and taking the associated tax breaks.

This is the first large-scale transaction of its kind to be publicly announced, Bank of America's global head of sustainable finance Karen Fang said in the statement.

It "creates a financeable transferability product that will be used to scale the growth of renewable energy," Fang said.

Around $4 trillion will need to be spent on clean energy development globally each year by 2030 to allow the world's economies to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero, meaning no more than can be captured by natural sinks like forests or using technology, the International Energy Agency said.

Analysts at investment bank Credit Suisse have estimated the IRA could lead to the generation of tax credits worth $576 billion by 2031.

Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service published rules on how to regulate tax credit transfers in June, and they are expected to launch an online registry by the end of 2023.

Private equity firm Blackstone has invested around $4 billion in Invenergy. Its fellow investors include Canada's Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec.

 (Reporting by Isla Binnie Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Ontario college faculty get salary boost after Bill 124 struck down


Wed, August 16, 2023 at 8:25 a.m. MDT

TORONTO — College faculty members represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union will be receiving an additional 6.5 per cent in salary increases over three years.

They are the latest group of public sector workers to see their pay boosted due to an Ontario court finding a provincial wage restraint law known as Bill 124 unconstitutional.

The Progressive Conservative government's 2019 law capped salary increases for broader public sector workers' next set of contracts at one per cent a year for three years.

The government appealed after the court declared the law unconstitutional last year, but in the meantime many workers have been awarded additional wages due to "reopener" clauses in their contracts that were triggered when the law was struck down.

The 16,000 full-time and partial-load college faculty represented by OPSEU will now be receiving wage increases of three per cent in each of the first two years of their 2021-2024 contract and 3.5 per cent in the third year, after the union and the College Employer Council reached a mediated settlement.

Other workers to have received higher wage increases after Bill 124 was overturned include hospital registered nurses, other hospital workers such as dietary aides and personal support workers, and paramedics at the Ornge air ambulance service.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 16, 2023.

The Canadian Press

ALBERTA/MONTANA
International study examining water apportionment between St. Mary and Milk Rivers


Local Journalism Initiative
Wed, August 16, 2023 

“For over a century, the United States and Canada have shared the waters of the St. Mary and Milk Rivers through agreements negotiated by both countries,” Carole Smith, Policy, Programs, and Communications for the International Joint Commission, said. “Over time, many things have changed.”

Smith says that factors including changes to climate, the growing season, and the adequacy of canals and other structures that are used to store and move water have impacted water apportionment since the International Joint Commission issued its initial Order more than 100 years ago in 1921. An example of things that have affected apportionment, Smith says, include an incident in May 2020 when a portion of the St. Mary Canal in Montana temporarily stopped the flow of water into the Milk River. Fortunately, Smith says, due to the hard work of many stakeholders, the structure was repaired, and the canal was reopened in October 2020.

The Government of Alberta website explains that the 1921 Order established the St. Mary River at the international boundary and the Milk River at the eastern crossing as the places where apportionment happens. The roles for Accredited Officers for both the St. Mary and Milk Rivers were also established and clearly outlined along with the treaty. Both Canada and the U.S. appointed one officer to measure and apportion water, including the flow volumes and shares for each country.

In April 2003, the website says, the Government of Alberta requested that the International Joint Commission conduct a review of the 1921 order and in response, the International Joint Commission held four public information sessions in 2004 to gather information about water sharing associated with the Milk River and St. Mary River. As a result of those meetings, the International St. Mary/ Milk Rivers Administrative Measures Task Force, with four members from Canada and four members from the U.S., was established. The task’s force first report was released on the International Joint Commission’s website in 2004 and 2006. Their 2004 submission included contributions from Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development and Alberta Environment. More information about those reports can be found on the Government of Alberta website under the ‘Water Management’ section.

Smith states that all of these events, as well as other factors, resulted in the International St. Mary and Milk Rivers study being launched in the fall of 2021. The study, Smith says, was launched with the support of the governments of Canada and the United States who are also helping to fund the work. Smith states that the study is a four-year effort (2021-2025) to assess whether options are available to enhance each country’s access to their share of the water.

Smith says that the technical working groups who are involved in the study started their work by gathering and analyzing existing data about the basin including climate, hydrology, irrigation infrastructure, water rights, water use, and ecology, among other relevant baseline information.

“They are now evaluating and configuring the models that will be used to evaluate different structural and administrative options,” Smith said. “They are also working to define indicators that can be used to assess the performance and impact of different modelling scenarios.”

Since the study is focused on ways of improving each country’s access to their share of water from the St. Mary and Milk Rivers, Smith says, the findings and recommendations may ultimately benefit water users in the Municipal District of Taber and other municipalities along the watershed, which includes irrigation farmers and municipal users.

The study’s first annual progress report was actually published by the study board in September 2022, and another one is anticipated in the fall of 2023.

The study involves not only communication with the IJC, Smith says, but also Advisory Groups including a Public Advisory Group and Indigenous Advisory Group, Smith says.

“They are kept informed about the study and its progress, and their input and assistance are invited to guide its work, particularly with respect to the identification and development of performance indicators,” Smith said.

A newsletter, Smith says, is also associated with the study and is published by the International St. Mary and Milk Rivers Study Board. It publishes this semi-annual newsletter to help keep the public informed about the International St. Mary and Milk Rivers Study. The first newsletter was published in June, Smith says, and is available for viewing in the International St. Mary and Milk Rivers Study Board website’s Library. The public can also subscribe to future newsletters through the International St. Mary and Milk Rivers Study Board’s website.

“The study board’s newsletter is a valuable tool for communicating with people involved directly and indirectly with the study, including the public,” Smith said.

According to the Board’s website, the whole idea for the project originated in 2019 when the accredited officers of St. Mary and Milk Rivers communicated with the International Joint Commission about a proposed study regarding administrative procedural changes and structural options that could potentially improve the access to the St. Mary and Milk Rivers by Canada and the U.S. The communication from the accredited officers included providing documents to the International Joint Commission that outlined details associated with a four-year study of the rivers and surrounding areas. In June 2021, the U.S. and Canadian governments wrote a letter supporting the creation of the study.

“The study will present its final report to the International Joint Commission in June 2025,” Smith said. ““The Commission will then review the report and make recommendations to the governments of both countries for their consideration. Until then, water apportionment will continue to occur under the existing framework.”

Heather Cameron, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Taber Times

https://ijc.org/en/watersheds/oldman-milk-rivers

St. Mary and Milk Rivers | International Joint Commission 

Mary Canal was constructed in 1917 and is used to divert water through a series of syphons from the St. Mary River to the North Milk River for use in the lower ..

https://ablawg.ca/2022/08/24/the-milk-and-st-mary-apportionment-a-next-step

The Milk and St. Mary Apportionment: A Next Step? - ABlawg 

Aug 24, 2022 ... The Milk River is part of the Mississippi Basin. It rises in Montana, flows north and east into Alberta, and then crosses the border again ...

UK

Third of migrants quit asylum camp at former RAF base


Charles Hymas
Tue, 15 August 2023

The development at RAF Wethersfield is a fresh blow to the Government’s plans to move migrants onto larger sites and out of asylum hotels - David Rose for the Telegraph

A third of the migrants in an asylum camp at a former RAF base have quit the site, claiming to be potential victims of modern slavery or turning their back on the conditions.

Sixteen of the first 46 Channel migrants to be moved to the camp at RAF Wethersfield, near Braintree in Essex, last month have been transferred to hotels by the Home Office or decided to leave so they can live with relatives.

Those who have left to stay with relatives are required to provide evidence of addresses and answer to immigration bail.

It is understood that up to a dozen of the migrants were from Eritrea and are said to have been potential victims of modern slavery, which made them “unsuitable” for the camp under the Home Office’s rules.

The Home Office could have been left open to legal challenge if it had kept them on the 800-acre site, with officials understood to have decided to move them into hotels.

It is a fresh blow to the Government’s plans to move migrants onto larger sites and out of asylum hotels, which are costing taxpayers £6 million a day.

It follows last week’s evacuation of 39 asylum seekers from the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, Dorset, after the discovery of Legionella bacteria, which can cause Legionnaires’ disease, a potentially fatal form of pneumonia.


Wethersfield is one of two disused RAF bases being converted by the Home Office into the UK’s first dedicated asylum camps. It is expected to hold up to 1,700 adult male migrants. RAF Scampton, in Lincolnshire, is due to take its first residents in October and will house up to 2,000 men.

Both have been designated by the Home Office to take migrants directly after their arrival on small boats across the Channel, but are subject to High Court legal challenges by local councils seeking to shut them. The councils claim they are in remote, inappropriate locations that place unsustainable pressure on local services.

The rules for determining who is housed in former Ministry of Defence bases, barges or other vessels could open up the Home Office to more modern slavery claims.

They advise Home Office officials that migrants are unsuitable for such sites or room sharing if they may be a victim of modern slavery, torture, rape or physical violence, or if they are disabled or elderly.
‘Slapdash approach’

Steve Smith, the chief executive of Care4Calais, which supported more than 50 asylum seekers who refused to go onto the Bibby Stockholm, said: “We understand that several of those seeking asylum who are housed at Wethersfield have suffered from torture, modern slavery and trafficking.

“Even the Government’s own guidelines state that individuals who have experienced such horrors are not suitable for housing in barracks and barges. This slapdash approach is shameful.”

It is understood that a further 50 migrants have been moved onto the camp in the past week, with numbers expected to pass 100 in the coming week.

Senior Tory MPs said there was no reason why victims of modern slavery should not be housed on the former airbases. On said: “They are safe, secure and protected, with police available for any interviews.”

A Home Office spokesman said the £6 million a day spent on housing 51,000 asylum seekers in hotels was unacceptable. “We continue to ensure the accommodation provided is safe, secure, leaves no one destitute and is appropriate for an individual’s needs,” they said.

UK

SNP TO THE LEFT OF LABOUR

'Disgrace': Fury as Keir Starmer says Labour will use rape clause 'more fairly

Xander Elliards
Tue, 15 August 2023 

Keir Starmer (left) and Anas Sarwar appearing at Rutherglen Town Hall (Image: PA)

SIR KEIR Starmer’s claim that a UK Labour government would implement the two-child benefit cap and the associated rape clause “more fairly” than the Tories has been met with outrage.

Katy Loudon, the SNP’s candidate in Rutherglen and Hamilton West – where Starmer was campaigning when he made the comment - called it a “disgrace”.

Loudon said: “There is no world in which a policy that makes a woman prove if a child was conceived through rape is fair – and for Keir Starmer to say so proves that Labour is just as cruel and out-of-touch as the Tories.

READ MORE: Mhairi Black: Keir Starmer should be 'embarrassed' to campaign in Scotland

“Saying they will implement the evil Tory policy more fairly seems to be the compromise UK Labour and their Scottish branch office have reached in their desperation to hide the growing list of divisions within the party. It's a disgrace.”

Speaking at a Q&A session at Rutherglen Town Hall, where the majority of the pre-selected questions were asked by Labour councillor Kirsty Williams, Starmer had insisted that economic growth had to come before anything else.

“We’ve picked very carefully and number one is growth,” the Labour leader said of his party’s priorities. “Economic growth, everywhere across the United Kingdom, the highest sustained growth in the G7.”

Starmer said that a Labour government’s anti-poverty strategy would focus on this economic growth rather than “specific arguments about this benefit or that benefit”.

The National: Anas Sarwar and Sir Keir Starmer

The Labour leader repeatedly refused to commit to scrapping the two-child limit, suggesting that doing so without costing it beforehand would lead to economic turmoil similar to that which followed in the wake of Liz Truss’s mini-budget.

Asked why Labour did not simply calculate the cost of scrapping the benefit cap, Starmer said that any money created by taxation changes had already been allocated.

Appearing alongside Scottish Labour’s Anas Sarwar, Starmer also looked to play down any talk of division within the Labour party.

Starmer claimed he and Sarwar were “welded” together on key issues, despite Scottish Labour opposing the two-child cap on benefits brought in by the Conservative UK Government.

Confusion has surrounded the campaign from Michael Shanks – the Labour candidate in Rutherglen and Hamilton West – who has insisted he will both join Starmer’s Westminster group and oppose it on issues such as the two-child cap.

Loudon said: “The two-child cap and rape clause is a heinous and inhumane policy – and the Labour party agreed with us on that until they started to get a sniff of power. The Labour candidate in Rutherglen and Hamilton West knows this, which is why he has attempted to distance himself by saying he will vote against it.

“The SNP is clear that the only way to make the two-child cap and rape clause fair is to scrap it immediately.

“A vote for the SNP means real opposition to cruel Tory policies, cost-of-living support and real change with independence.”