#ISRAEL #APARTHEID  

After 60 years, East Jerusalem Palestinians face eviction under Israeli settler rulings




Palestinian Nabil Al-Kurd stands outside his home in east Jerusalem

By Suheir Sheikh and Rami Ayyub
Tue, December 15, 2020, 

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - For Nabil al-Kurd, being forced out of the East Jerusalem home he has lived in since the 1950s would be a fate worse than death.

But the 76-year-old and his wife and children are among dozens of Palestinians under threat of eviction from two districts of the disputed city, after an Israeli court ruled their properties are built on land belonging to Jewish settlers.

"This is my motherland. All my memories are in this house," Kurd told Reuters. "I won't leave unless it is to the cemetery."

The ownership claims against him and others in Sheikh Jarrah and a second neighbourhood, Batan al-Hawa, are a focal point of settler development plans in East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in a war in 1967.

Kurd was ordered evicted in October, within 30 days.

He has appealed to the Jerusalem District court, though Hagit Ofran, project coordinator for Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now, says he has little chance of overturning the ruling.

That same court has this year upheld several settler claims, based on 19th- and early 20th-century documents, drawing censure from the European Union, whose representative in Jerusalem says 77 Palestinians are at risk of forced transfer.

CITY AT THE HEART OF CONFLICT

The status of Jerusalem, a city holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians, is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Palestinians want the capital of their would-be state to be East Jerusalem, and most countries regard settlements that Israel has built there as illegal.

Israel disputes this, citing biblical and historical links to the territory, as well as security needs and legal arguments.

Many of the Palestinians facing eviction were refugees like Kurd or their descendants, who came to the area more than half a century ago, Peace Now said.

The settlers in Kurd's case bought the land from two Jewish associations that claimed to have purchased it at the end of the 19th century, the group said.

A lawyer who represented the settlers claiming Kurd's property declined to speak with Reuters.

Peace Now says some 14 families have been evicted from Batan al-Hawa since 2015 and 16 from Sheikh Jarrah since the late 1990s in such cases.

Evictions are typically stayed while appeals are heard, and some of the residents have appealed their cases to Israel's Supreme Court, but Kurd's family is taking no chances.

"My family has prepared luggage of the important things we need so that if they come in any second, we will be ready," said daughter Muna al-Kurd.

"...We have a camera at the house, four cameras that show the street, and dad stays up until two to three in the morning just watching if they are coming to evacuate us."

(Writing by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and John Stonestreet)

Fauci: 'Something very strange' about COVID
Mon, December 14, 2020, 1:33 PM MST

"I have not seen anything where you have a virus that in 40% of the people has no symptoms, and those who have symptoms, 80% of them have very mild to moderate symptoms that don't require any significant medical intervention. And then you have 20-25% of people who are devastated," Fauci told The Center for Strategic and International Studies' (CSIS) Senior Vice President Stephen Morrison on Monday.

"There's something very strange about a virus that in most people barely bothers them, and in others it kills them. We still don't know why that's the case right now. We need to find that out," he added.

Fauci's remarks came after some of the first U.S. healthcare workers received doses of the coronavirus vaccine and as the death toll in the U.S. crossed 300,000.
Video Transcript

STEPHEN MORRISON: We started with zero knowledge of this virus. OK, what did we learn?

ANTHONY FAUCI: Well, we've learned that this is one of the most, if not the most, unusual virus that any of us have ever dealt with. Certainly, in my 36 years as director of the Institute, I have not seen anything where you have a virus that in the-- 40% of the people has no symptoms, and those who have symptoms, 80% of them, have very mild to moderate symptoms that don't require any significant medical intervention. And then you have 20% to 25% of people who are devastated, as attested by the almost 300,000 deaths.

There's something very strange about a virus that in most people barely bothers them and in others it kills them. We still don't understand why that's the case. Right now, we need to find that out.

STEPHEN MORRISON: So do you anticipate next fall that most people will be back in classrooms, people will be eating in restaurants, people will be traveling on planes to take vacations or engage in business?

ANTHONY FAUCI: It's a big if, and the if is is it's up to us. If we get 75%, 80% of the population vaccinated, I think that's eminently doable, what you've just said, by the fall. Because we will start vaccinating the general population people, who don't fall in any of the high priority groups, probably as we get into April. We'll have April, May, June, and July. We'd have three months, four months of vaccinating everybody with a prime and a boost.

By the time you get into the fall, September and October, if we get that proportion of the population vaccinated, we should be able to clearly be feeling very comfortable about schools, as well as getting some of the other functions that we have withheld up to now, theaters, restaurants, things like that.

I don't believe we're going to be able to throw the masks away and forget about physical separation in congregate settings for a while, probably likely until we get into the late fall, and early next winter, but I think we can do it. The numbers will guide us.

So I don't think it's going to be subtle. We're going to see a dramatic change in the dynamics of the outbreak, and when we do, then we've got to cautiously and prudently begin to pull back a bit on mitigation methods, not just abandoning them all, but gradually and prudently pulling back.

Head of White House security office has his right foot amputated because of severe COVID-19 and is facing 'staggering medical bills,' new report says

Eliza Relman
Mon, December 14, 2020, 


The head of the White House security office, Crede Bailey, had a part of his lower right leg and the big toe of his left foot amputated because of COVID-19, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

Bailey has been hospitalized with a severe case of COVID-19 for three months but is said to be recovering.

Friends of Bailey's have raised over $35,000 through a GoFundMe campaign to help pay for his rehabilitation and "staggering" healthcare costs.


Crede Bailey, who heads the White House security office, lost part of his lower right leg, including his foot, and a toe of his left foot during a months-long battle with COVID-19, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

Bailey, whose office handles White House credentials and works with the Secret Service, contracted the coronavirus in September. He's been hospitalized for three months but is said to be recovering from the illness.

Friends of Bailey's have raised more than $35,000 through a GoFundMe campaign to help pay for his rehabilitation and healthcare.

"Crede beat COVID-19 but it came at a significant cost: his big toe on his left foot as well as his right foot and lower leg had to be amputated," Dawn McCrobie, who organized the fundraiser, wrote in an update last week.

A White House representative declined to comment about Bailey's condition to Business Insider. Bloomberg reported that Bailey's family requested that the White House not publicly acknowledge his illness.

McCrobie wrote last month that Bailey's family "has staggering medical bills from a hospital stay of 2+ months and still counting in the ICU and a long road ahead in rehab before he can go home." She added that Bailey would need to pay for alterations to his home and a car he could operate to accommodate his disability.

Dozens of top administration officials and people tied to the White House have contracted COVID-19, and President Donald Trump has consistently downplayed the threat the virus poses. The president, who contracted the virus and was hospitalized for several days in October, has told Americans not to be afraid of COVID-19, mocked those who wear face masks, and condemned states' aggressive measures to slow the spread of the virus.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Ten years on, anger grows in Tunisian town where 'Arab Spring' began

Philosophy teacher Athmouni looks on as he stands along a street in Sidi Bouzid

By Angus McDowall and Tarek Amara
Tue, December 15, 2020,

SIDI BOUZID, Tunisia (Reuters) - Ten years ago, a fruit seller set himself ablaze in the central Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid after an altercation with a policewoman about where he had put his cart.

Word of Mohammed Bouazizi's fatal act of defiance quickly spread, sparking nationwide protests that eventually toppled Tunisia's long-serving leader and helped inspire similar uprisings across the region - the so-called "Arab Spring".

Huge demonstrations broke out in Egypt and Bahrain, governments fell and civil war engulfed Libya, Syria and Yemen.

Tunisians are now free to choose their leaders and can publicly criticise the state. Yet for all the chaos they have been through, many people look back on the events of 2010 and regret that their dreams remain unfulfilled.

"Something went wrong in the revolution," said Attia Athmouni, a retired philosophy teacher who helped lead the uprising after Bouazizi's death by standing on the fruit seller's abandoned cart to address the crowd the night he died.

Protests have flared again in recent weeks across Tunisia's poorer southern towns against joblessness, poor state services, inequality and shortages.

The scramble to get enough cooking gas to provide for families underlines the hardships ordinary people face in a country where the economy has stagnated, leaving the public as angry as it was a decade ago.

Near Sidi Bouzid last week, a crowd placed large stones across the tarmac to block a main road. They wanted trucks taking cooking gas cylinders to the town to offload them in their village instead.

Supplies have been in short supply in Tunisia since people living near the main state-run factory producing the gas closed the plant several weeks ago to demand more local jobs.

Outside the main outlet for cooking gas in Sidi Bouzid, three riot police vans guarded the gate as hundreds of people waited to get their hands on full cylinders.

A woman at the front of the crowd said she had had no gas for three days and her family had been eating only cold food. She had queued for six and a half hours.

REVOLUTION

Bigger demonstrations may take place in Tunisia on Thursday, the anniversary of Bouazizi's self-immolation after his fruit cart was confiscated when he refused to move off an unlicensed pitch.

Slimane Rouissi, another Sidi Bouzid activist and former teacher who knew Bouazizi's family, said the young man had endured a string of disappointments before the final confrontation.

He drenched himself in petrol and killed himself in front of the local governorate office.

When Athmouni, the retired teacher, heard about the incident, he dismissed his class and told his students to start protesting.

That night, as hundreds of people gathered outside the governorate and chanted slogans, he heard the words "the people want the fall of the regime" - soon to be the catch phrase of Tunisia's revolution - for the first time.

Over the coming weeks the protests grew. By January, 2011, thousands were marching in Tunis and President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, in power for 23 years, realised the game was up. He fled to Saudi Arabia where he died in exile last year.

Tunisia's revolution spread. In Egypt the crowds forced Hosni Mubarak from power after 30 years as president. Uprisings shook Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen.

Hope for a new democratic future soon turned to bloodshed, particularly in Syria, Yemen and Libya, where civil wars pulled in major powers fearful their regional foes would gain an advantage.

Though Tunisia's path to democracy has been far smoother, its economy has deteriorated and political leaders appear paralysed.

Last year's election delivered a bitterly fragmented parliament unable to produce a stable government, with parties bickering over cabinet seats and putting off big decisions.

More Tunisians are trying illegally to leave the country than ever, while visions of jihad lure alienated, jobless youth. Both dynamics were evident in the recent attack in Nice by a young Tunisian migrant who killed three people in a church.

"There is a rupture between the politicians and the people now because the system cannot understand the demands of the street," Athmouni said bitterly in a Sidi Bouzid cafe full of unemployed young men.

NO INVESTMENT

In the streets near Bouazizi's old home - a shabby single-storey building behind a dented metal gate - a group of young men stood chatting on a street corner.

Sabri Amri, 26, laughed when asked if he had voted in any of Tunisia's post-revolution elections. All he and his group of friends want is to emigrate, he said. There is no work and young people spend their time drinking or taking drugs, he added.

"We have geniuses here - doctors, engineers. I know a guy who is a mechanical engineer. What does he do now? He sells weed just to live," said Abdullah Gammoudi, a qualified sports teacher who does not have a job.

In Sidi Bouzid, the only tangible signs of investment since 2011 are a new building outside town to replace the governorate headquarters where Bouazizi died, and his memorial - a stone fruit cart scrawled with graffiti saying: "The people want..."

Mohammed Bouali, 37, stood behind the government offices off Sidi Bouzid's main road, his cart full of oranges, apples and bananas. He and Bouazizi used to work on the same street.

Though his work - weighing out fruit for customers with a small hand-held scale - does not make enough to support his two children, he has few other options.

"The government won't provide anything," he said.

The policewoman who confiscated Bouazizi's cart 10 years ago still patrols the same streets, moving unlicensed vendors from their pitches.

Athmouni believes the answer is more protests. Mass uprisings in Algeria and Sudan ousted entrenched leaders there only last year.

"I'm convinced the revolution is continuous," he said. "This year the anger is bigger than in the past."

(Reporting by Angus McDowall; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

'We have no oxygen': First journalist to access Yemen after Covid discovers major cover up in country of her birth


Nawal Al-Maghafi
Mon, December 14, 2020, 
Gravediggers in Alradhwan Cemetery in Aden told the BBC they did not have time to eat during the Coronavirus outbreak they had so many bodies to bury - BBC News Arabic/BBC

Like many others in March I was spending my days locked down in my London flat, listening to reports about how overwhelmed the NHS was and the struggle to get essential supplies.

However where I differed is that all I could think about was Yemen.

I am British, but I’m originally Yemeni, and regularly report from it for BBC News and the World Service.

If the UK was struggling to cope, I thought to myself, just how would the authorities in Yemen fare?

I was terrified for them: my family, my friends, the nation. But I mainly feared for my grandmother. She is in her late 70’s and ticked all the vulnerable categories.

I began calling my sister who lives in northern Yemen every day asking her if there were any cases. But while I was terrified, she, like so many others in the war-torn country was oblivious to the threat.

The Houthi authorities in the north hadn’t announced a single case.

From London I set about trying to find out what was truly happening, but it was near impossible. The Houthis had imposed a blanket restriction on all Covid reporting from areas they control.
Nawal Al-Maghafi in Yemen for BBC News Arabic - BBC News Arabic/BBC

Instead they were broadcasting propaganda videos about how they were disinfecting neighbourhoods to keep the virus at bay.

Undeterred, I spoke to Yemen’s UN humanitarian coordinator, and learnt that the entire country only had 200 ventilators. I was told that with world powers buying up all the supply, Yemen was at the bottom of the queue.

I immediately called my grandmother.

Over the phone from London I implored her to believe she was in danger, begged that she stop seeing anyone, cook for herself, and stay in her flat, alone.

The hardest part for her was sending my cousins back when they came to visit her. “We will meet after corona”, she would tell them.

By then I had collated hundreds of posts from Facebook showing how Covid was exacting its deadly toll. My father was mourning dozens of his friends who had died, and I was receiving news that members of my extended family had fallen ill with “flu like symptoms” and passed away.

I was desperate to get to Yemen to document what was happening. But with the world at a standstill it took weeks to find a way. Finally, in July, I was on one of the first flights in since Covid had hit.

I arrived in Sanaa, my home town; and a city in mourning.

A funeral procession through the northern city of Sanaa - BBC News Arabic/BBC

It took me two weeks to negotiate gaining access to hospitals, such was the resistance to coverage. But finally, with 6 Houthi minders in tow, I did it.

In the first one I went to, the doctor there wasn’t even allowed to tell me the exact number of deaths, but she said the hospital was overwhelmed. In most countries young people are considered to be at low risk – but not in Yemen.

“We started to get really young patients, 25, 30, 35, 40 years old”, she told me. “They had no underlying health issues. They would deteriorate quickly, they wouldn't last 1 to 2 weeks.”

Throughout my 2,000km trip, I worried desperately about the people I left behind me at each juncture – it wasn’t just the virus that endangered them.

Airstrikes and fighting continued throughout the pandemic. During my trip I visited the site of an attack which had hit a civilian home killing nine children.

Back in another Yemeni hospital, I also observed the impact of the US withdrawal of 73 million dollars worth of aid.

I met a doctor, Tariq Qassem, facing the task of treating Covid amidst these cuts.

He was just 26 years old, and told me the majority of the deaths were a result of the hospital lacking oxygen supplies.

Nawal at Alkuwait hospital in Sanaa - BBC News Arabic/BBC

“When the oxygen runs out, that's it, we watch them die”, he said.

Despite knowing that Yemen was ill prepared for Covid, I was still stunned to hear that he and his colleagues were working in the ICU with no protective gear.

He caught Covid, but he kept working – until he needed to be put on oxygen himself.

Tariq survived. But seeing all of this, I couldn’t stop thinking about my grandmother, hoping she was doing as I’d told her to over the phone from London.

At the end of my trip I decided I would visit her - from a safe distance. We sat metres apart in her garden. I complained to her about all the gatherings I’d seen still taking place - the weddings, the funerals.

But her response? “The people in this country have died many times: war, starvation, disease,” she said.

“Corona is the least of their worries”.

5 years and counting: Ex-treasure hunter still stuck in jail

ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
Mon, December 14, 2020, 

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A former deep-sea treasure hunter is about to mark his fifth year in jail for refusing to disclose the whereabouts of 500 missing coins made from gold found in an historic shipwreck.

Research scientist Tommy Thompson isn't incarcerated for breaking the law. Instead, he's being held in contempt of court for an unusually long stretch — well past the normal maximum limit of an 18-month internment in cases of witnesses refusing to cooperate.

But nothing is usual about Thompson's case, which dates to his discovery of the S.S. Central America, known as the Ship of Gold, in 1988. The gold rush-era ship sank in a hurricane off South Carolina in 1857 with thousands of pounds of gold aboard, contributing to an economic panic.

Despite an investors lawsuit and a federal court order, Thompson still won't cooperate with authorities trying to find those coins, according to court records, federal prosecutors and the judge who found Thompson in contempt.

“He creates a patent for a submarine, but he can’t remember where he put the loot,” federal Judge Algenon Marbley said during a 2017 hearing.

Thompson's legal troubles stem from the 161 investors who paid Thompson $12.7 million to find the ship, never saw any proceeds and finally sued.

Back in 2012, a different federal judge ordered Thompson to appear in court to disclose the coins' whereabouts. Instead, Thompson fled to Florida where he lived with his longtime female companion at a hotel where he was living near Boca Raton. U.S. marshals tracked him down and arrested him in early 2015.

Thompson pleaded guilty for his failure to appear and was sentenced to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Thompson's criminal sentence has been delayed until the issue of the gold coins is resolved.

That April 2015 plea deal required Thompson to answer questions in closed-door sessions about the whereabouts of the coins, which the government says are worth $2 million to $4 million. Importantly, he must also “assist” interested parties in finding the coins under that deal.

Thompson refused several times, and on Dec. 15, 2015, Marbley found Thompson in contempt of court and ordered him to stay in jail — and pay a $1,000 daily fine — until he responds.

In late October of this year, Thompson appeared by video for his latest hearing.

“Mr. Thompson, are you ready to answer the seminal question in this case as to the whereabouts of the gold?” Marbley said.

“Your honor, I don’t know if we’ve gone over this road before or not, but I don’t know the whereabouts of the gold,” Thompson responded. “I feel like I don’t have the keys to my freedom.”

And with that, Thompson settled back into his current situation: housed in a federal prison in Milan, Michigan, he’s now spent more than 1,700 days in jail and owes nearly $1.8 million in fines — and counting. Thompson's attorney declined to comment.

Thompson, 68, has said he suffers from a rare form of chronic fatigue syndrome that has created problems with short-term memory. He’s previously said, without providing details, that the coins were turned over to a trust in Belize.

The government contends Thompson is refusing to cooperate and that there’s no connection between his ailment and his ability to explain where the coins are.

A federal law addresses individuals like Thompson, known as “recalcitrant witnesses.” The law holds that 18 months is generally the limit for jail time for contempt of court orders. But a federal appeals court last year rejected Thompson's argument that that law applies to him.

Thompson hasn't just refused to answer questions, the court ruled: He's also violated the requirement that he “assist” the parties by refusing to execute a limited power of attorney to allow that Belizean trust to be examined, as required under his plea deal.

“The order isn’t intended to solely seek information, it’s to seek information for the purposes of recovering these unique assets,” said law professor and legal analyst Andrew Geronimo, director of Case Western University's First Amendment Clinic.

Earlier this year, Marbley denied Thompson's request for release over concerns he's at risk for contracting the coronavirus behind bars. Marbley said Thompson didn't present proper evidence for his risk level, and also noted he remains a flight risk.

The investors still looking for their money say Thompson has no one but himself to blame for his incarceration.

“He would be out of prison by now if he had simply complied with his plea agreement and cooperated in locating missing assets when he was supposed to,” attorney Steven Tigges said in a March court filing.

___

This story has been corrected to show that the S.S. Central America sank in 1857, not the S.S. America.

30 US congressmen call for urgent action on UAE and Middle East Human Trafficking

International UN Watch
Mon, December 14, 2020

US lawmakers issue dear Colleague letter calling for urgent action on human trafficking
30 US congressmen call for urgent action on UAE and Middle East Human Trafficking

International UN Watch

London, UK, Dec. 14, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Washington, London - On Human Rights Day, thirty members of the U.S. House of Representatives signed a “dear colleague” letter to the U.S. government calling for an end to human trafficking and labor exploitation in the Gulf region of the Middle East. Representative Raúl Grijalva, who serves as Vice Chair in the International Workers’ Rights Caucus, led the effort. “I led my colleagues in a letter urging Sec. Pompeo to urge the Gulf States to uphold human rights for migrant workers and abolish the discriminatory Kafala System,” he tweeted. The letter was supported by International United Nations Watch, Just Foreign Policy, Amnesty International, Freedom Forward, South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), Freedom Initiative, the Saudi American Justice Project, Win Without War, GLJ-ILRF, and Demand Progress.

In addition to highlighting on GCC region, the letter made particular focus on both Saudi Arabia and UAE due to the high levels of human rights abuses regarding the Kafala System (Modern Slavery) and human trafficking of female victims from east Europe to UAE.

“In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the number of sex trafficking prosecutions and convictions increased, yet authorities allegedly jailed unidentified trafficking victims for offenses of prostitution, extramarital sex, or absconding from their employers. Furthermore, there were no reported convictions of labor traffickers during the period of the recent TIP report, and cases of labor violations and forced labor were not treated as trafficking offenses. While labor trafficking offenses remain a primary concern in the country, the government took no “new steps to dismantle the [Kafala] sponsorship system.” In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Human Rights Watch and other prominent organizations expressed their concern about vulnerable low-paid migrant workers in the UAE and the cramped and unhygienic conditions of detainees. The UAE upheld a policy of no minimum wage for migrant workers, who comprise 90% of its population” said the letter

The letter which was signed by 30 congress members stated, “In Saudi Arabia, the Kafala system ensures that a migrant worker cannot leave the country without permission from their sponsor, paving the way for exploitative practices. The government continues to “fine, jail, and/or deport migrant workers for prostitution or immigration violations,” pertaining to cases of unidentified victims of labor or sex trafficking. Saudi Arabia miscategorized trafficking cases as administrative violations rather than criminal offenses. The TIP report further asserts that Saudi Arabia’s Kafala system has “continued to exacerbate trafficking vulnerabilities in the large migrant worker communities.”During the COVID-19 pandemic, Saudi Arabia also increased penalties and taxations imposed on migrant workers.”

It also added, “Similar requests have been recently spearheaded in the European Parliament and the U.K. Parliament. The United States and the international community must uphold human rights across the globe and protect victims of trafficking and exploitative working conditions in the Gulf. This letter requests that the Department of State urge the GCC to make significant and lasting improvements in regards to legal protections, gender equality, labor rights for migrant workers, and to completely reform or abolish the Kafala system in the region.”

Maya Garner, spokesperson for International United Nations Watch, stated: “It is encouraging to see progressive members of Congress stand up to human trafficking and labor exploitation in the Gulf Region. This letter is important for directly addressing the Kafala sponsorship system as a root cause of this abuse, and for looking at the contributing factors of gender inequality, and labor and migrant rights violations. Widespread reform is urgently needed, as is respecting the rights of domestic workers. I hope to see more members of Congress and American civil society urge GCC member states to fully comply with international human rights standards.”

The letter was initiated by International United Nations Watch is a London-based monitoring organization which issued a report “A Journey to the Unknown: Trafficking from the Fringes of Europe” which focused specifically on case studies of the sex trafficking of Moldovan women to the UAE, petitions in the EU parliament, UK parliament, as well as the French, German, Belgium, Danish and Swedish parliaments have accumulated more than 100 signatures from parliamentarians.

According to Amnesty International,” women continued to face discrimination in law and in practice. For example, the Personal Status Law of 2005 states that “a husband’s rights over his wife” include the wife’s “courteous obedience to him” (Article 56), and places conditions on a married woman’s right to work or leave the house (Article 72). Under Article 356 of the Penal Code, “debasement of honour with consent” is punishable by one year or more in prison. On the basis of this law, a Swedish-run hospital in Ajman Emirate was forced to report pregnant, unmarried women to the police. In some cases these referrals have led to prosecution and deportation. The government failed to adequately protect women from sexual and domestic violence. Under Article 53 of the Penal Code, “a husband’s discipline of his wife” is “considered an exercise of rights”, language that can be read as official sanction of spousal abuse.”

Letter endorsed by:

Lead: Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva

Co-signers:

Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky

Rep. Barbara Lee

Rep. James P. McGovern

Rep. Jamie Raskin

Rep. Jim Cooper

Rep. Deb Haaland

Rep. Hank Johnson

Rep. Ilhan Omar

Rep. Ro Khanna

Rep. Jared Huffman

Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney

Rep. Steve Cohen

Rep. Alan S. Lowenthal

Rep. David N. Cicilline

Rep. Ayanna Pressley

Rep. Mark Pocan

Rep. Jesús G. “Chuy” García

Rep. Pramila Jayapal

Rep. Bobby L. Rush

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman

Rep. Joe Neguse

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson

Rep. Peter Welch

Rep. Suzanne Bonamici

Pandemic nudging firms to address climate change, says Norway wealth fund


OSLO, Dec 14 (Reuters) - The coronavirus pandemic may be accelerating a shift among companies worldwide to make their operations more environmentally sustainable, a high-ranking official at Norway's $1.25 trillion sovereign wealth fund said on Monday.

The fund is one of the world's largest investors, channelling revenues from Norway's oil and gas production into the stocks of some 9,200 companies abroad, or 1.5% of the world's stocks. It also holds bonds and unlisted real estate.

"The pandemic has not weakened sustainability work, but perhaps strengthened it," Carine Smith Ihenacho, the fund's head of governance and compliance, told a news conference, citing a survey the fund had done among a sample of firms it invests in.

Some 67% of 1,521 companies it surveyed in 2020 said they had set long-term quantitative targets to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, up from 54% in 2019, when 1,500 firms were surveyed.

Some 48% of companies surveyed in 2020 had considered different climate scenarios in their business plans or strategy, up from 35% in 2019, the fund said.

"The head of a big European company told us that the pandemic has accelerated work on sustainability," Smith Ihenacho said. She did not name the firm or the executive.

She did not spell out why the pandemic was making more companies more inclined to sustainable operations.

Still, a majority of companies surveyed this year - 52% - has not considered different climate scenarios in their business plan or strategy.

The fund is canvassing companies because it wants to test the business model of the biggest CO2 emitters in its portfolio and see whether they have a business model that can survive in a low-carbon society.

The fund had previously said it was planning to publish, ahead of time, its voting intentions at the annual general meetings of the 9,200 companies it invests in.

On Monday, the fund said it would do so five days before the vote is scheduled, and that it would start doing so from next month, making the information searchable on its website nbim.no.

"We want to be world-leading on this," CEO Nicolai Tangen told a news conference.

(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Europe's banks have a way to go on sustainability - BlackRock study

By Simon Jessop and Kate Abnett
Mon, December 14, 2020

The facade of the EU Commission headquarters is reflected in the windows of the EU Council building in Brussels

LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe's banks are not integrating climate change and other sustainability concerns into their risk management systems as quickly as regulators expect, a study by BlackRock for the European Union showed on Monday.

In an interim report, BlackRock said it had analysed feedback from the region's lenders and found most were only just starting to reflect environmental, social and governance (ESG) related risks in their internal processes.


A final report, which will be used by Brussels to help develop new regulations, is due by April next year.

"While interviewed banks often state that they have initiatives in place to enhance the integration of ESG risks, the majority have not formalised an ESG risk integration strategy with clear timelines and responsibilities," it said.

"With respect to climate risk, many smaller banks stated that they have not yet started its integration into risk management," the report said.

It also found that only a minority of regulators provide guidance to banks on ESG risks or reflect it in their oversight processes, such as through climate-related stress tests.

"The majority of supervisors interviewed do not yet have any quantitative indicators in place to monitor and assess the exposure of supervised banks to ESG risks," the report said.

While some banks have begun to launch ESG-related products and make commitments to meet the terms of the Paris Agreement on climate, the report said that in the view of many civil society organisations, efforts by lenders so far fell short.

"The Commission is committed to transparency. As promised, we published BlackRock's interim report today," a European Commission spokesman said. "This report is only a preliminary analysis of data collected so far. The final report is to be submitted to the Commission at a later stage."

The EU's appointment in April of the world's biggest asset manager to help it plan future prudential regulations has raised concerns about conflicts of interest.

While the bloc's Ombudswoman said last month that the Commission had failed to consider such conflicts properly, she did not cancel the contract.

(This story corrects quotes attributed to the report throughout)

(Reporting by Simon Jessop and Kate Abnett; Editing by David Clarke)

Targeting Barclays, Climate Activists Fight Their Way to Draw

Alastair Marsh
Mon, December 14, 2020


(Bloomberg) -- Few people understand the seeming futility of getting big banks to do the right thing better than Catherine Howarth.

For three years, Barclays Plc, Europe’s biggest financier of corporate carbon emitters, ignored her entreaties. Then her non-profit, ShareAction, spent the best part of another year pushing a shareholder resolution -- the first of its kind in Europe -- for the lender to phase out funding for fossil-fuel companies.

The result: A pledge from Barclays to cut its net emissions to zero in three decades and, in the meantime, to ramp up its green financing activities.

“For the current directors of a company to commit to something that’s 30 years away does leave quite a lot of wiggle room,” the 46-year-old activist says.

It was better than nothing, but far less than Howarth wanted. While Barclays said in March that it planned to adjust its lending and capital markets activities to be compatible with the goals of the Paris climate agreement to limit global warming, the London-based bank didn’t commit to phase out financing to fossil-fuel companies that have no plans to contribute to those targets, the key objective of ShareAction’s resolution

The battle with Barclays, which Howarth insists isn’t over, highlights the gap between rhetoric and reality when good business and good intentions diverge.

“It’s not just a question for Barclays,” she says. “The global banking sector isn’t where we need it to be, and even though it’s moving really quite fast in the right direction, we’re in a climate emergency and so moving quite fast but not fast enough is what could take us over dangerous tipping points.”

The contest between ShareAction, a 55-person charity that until earlier this year was operating out of a re-purposed liquor warehouse on the edge of London’s financial district, and an institution with 80,000-plus employees and around $2 trillion in assets is the classic underdog story – but without the cinematic finale. Instead, it has provided a lesson in the limitations of shareholder activism on climate change.

Since the Paris climate agreement was signed in December 2015, Barclays has helped arrange $91.7 billion of bonds and loans for energy companies, excluding solar, wind and other renewable producers, more than any bank in Europe, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That includes $20.8 billion in 2020 for clients including BP Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp.JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. have been the biggest lenders to corporate emitters, while HSBC Holdings Plc and BNP Paribas SA are among Europe’s largest financiers, Bloomberg data show. Since Barclays made its net-zero pledge, London-based HSBC and JPMorgan in New York have made similar commitments.

Barclays Chairman Nigel Higgins said Dec. 3 during a virtual conference hosted by the Financial Times that the company’s fossil-fuels business is commensurate with the scale of its overall investment-banking franchise and there’s no reason to think the bank took clients that its peers turned down. He wrote four days earlier in a letter to shareholders that the bank’s environmental journey “is far from complete’’ and it’s “committed to continuous improvement in our response to the climate challenge.’’

A spokesman for Barclays declined to comment for this story.

Howarth joined ShareAction in 2008 after several years campaigning for a living wage for low-paid workers. She credits her Irish mother for her passion for social justice, and for her thick red hair. For Howarth, the Barclays resolution is “one piece, one really exciting moment, in a much longer drama.”Just months after the Paris accord was announced, Howarth and a group of colleagues attended the general meetings of Britain’s largest banks to gauge their response. While some banks made board members available for discussion, what followed with Barclays was a series of fruitless meetings with its sustainability team, Howarth said.

Three more years of empty chat resulted in a more aggressive – but still courteous – strategy. It was time to force Barclays’s hand.Over the din of commuter trains winding into London Bridge station, Howarth and her team weighed the pros and cons of pursuing a resolution that would require Barclays to cease financing fossil-fuel companies that had no plan to reach the Paris agreement. They wanted the lender to set and disclose targets to wind down infrastructure funding, corporate loans and debt underwriting for oil and gas exploration, production, refining, marketing and storage, as well as for coal companies.

Signing up Barclays shareholders took time and effort. But by last Christmas, they reached the threshold of investors required to put a resolution on the agenda for the bank’s annual meeting in May. The supporters included more than 100 individual investors and a dozen institutions, including Brunel Pension Partnership Ltd. and Sarasin & Partners. The Church of England and Jupiter Asset Management also backed the proposal.

After the resolution became public, she finally did get an audience with the bank’s decision makers, including three meetings with Higgins. She declined to comment on the particulars of the discussions, citing confidentially agreements.

Dominic Burke, investment director at Lankelly Chase and part of the group that filed the resolution, attended some of the meetings and said Barclays didn’t engage with the substance of the group’s demands. Though the bank’s team suggested they shared the non-profit’s core concerns about climate change, they took issue with the wording of the resolution that requested a phasing out of fossil-fuel financing, he said. The bank’s alternative gave it more latitude to trumpet its green credentials and continue to finance polluters, Burke said.

While Howarth didn’t get what she wanted — only 24% of shareholders supported ShareAction’s resolution, which was far below the threshold required for Barclays to adopt it — she is playing the long game and considers the resolution to be a successful endeavor.If her experience of shareholder advocacy teaches her anything, it’s that patience pays. Seven years after ShareAction filed a resolution requesting that Royal Dutch Shell Plc stop investing in carbon-heavy tar sands projects, a proposal that received less than 15% shareholder support, the company said in 2017 it would sell most of its Canadian oil sands assets.

And Barclays has “moved an extraordinary distance in the last 12 months,” Howarth said. At the end of November, the bank said it joined an industry-wide group that measures emissions from lending and underwriting, developed its own methodology for calculating funded emissions, and affirmed its ambition to align its financing with the Paris agreement.

She also thinks she’s figured out the key to success for climate action in the finance industry: appeal to financiers’ animal spirits.

“You’re not going to get these people necessarily to do anything out of the goodness of their hearts, but if you can harness the competitive spirit between them, it can be extraordinarily productive,” Howarth said.

©2020 Bloomberg L.

Israel Should Heed Its New Arab Friends on Palestine

Seth J. Frantzman
Mon, December 14, 2020

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Extraordinary opportunities are developing between Israel and the United Arab Emirates in the wake of the normalization deal the countries signed in September. At a recent technology conference in Dubai, more than 130 Israeli companies and a delegation of four hundred Israelis we able to explore trade opportunities. This, along with new interfaith initiatives, showcases rapidly developing relations between the two countries.

But Israel needs to listen to its new Arab peace partners and show that it is also serious about progress on talks with the Palestinians in the future.

The partnership between Israel and the UAE, underpinned by trade and travel initially, comes with assumptions from Abu Dhabi. The UAE said that it embraced the deal to “stop annexation and the potential of violence escalation.” It is also keen to maintain the viability of a two-state solution and increase stability in the region, especially in countries like Jordan that are very sensitive about changes to the status quo in Israel.

The Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said in a recent interview that the normalization agreement is not transactional but a strategic national choice. The deal, he said, is an important opportunity to show that prosperity and peace can be achieved for the region: “It should be bigger than the UAE and Israel.”

That means providing for a political solution between the Palestinians and Israelis.

The carefully worded statements from the Emiratis amount to a message that doesn’t always seem to get through to Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is heading toward his fourth election campaign in two years, hoping to extend a long tenure in office in which he has made lack of progress on the Palestinian issue a core value.

This approach may have worked for him in the past, but now Netanyahu has secured peace deals with several Arab nations — with Morocco joining the USE, Bahrain and Sudan in the camp — he can’t ignore the concerns and demands of his new friends.

Significantly, these new friends are making common cause with older partners Netanyahu has previously ignored: The UAE and Bahrain recently hosted Jordan’s king, showcasing their support for a ruler who has had a cold relationship with Netanyahu.

The UAE is seeking to change the playbook for normalization between Arab states and Israel. The first model was “land for peace,” the basis for the 1979 deal between Egypt and Israel. The second, defined by the Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, required Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza, and the creation of a Palestinian state. The new model is recognition and normalization first, and then a push for a peace process.

Saudi Arabia and other Arab states are watching closely to see if their quiet support for the new diplomatic openings result in progress between Israel and the Palestinians. But Israeli officials seem not to be paying attention.

Israel is sticking to its well-worn line that the Palestinians must stop their “rejectionism” as a precursor to peace. For many years there has not been a clear Israeli policy on what the Palestinians would receive if they do meet this demand. The key issues, such as Jerusalem as a shared capital city, or borders and compensation for refugees, are not on the table from Israel’s point of view.

There are other factors at play, of course. Adversaries of Israel and the UAE have been backing Palestinian groups, like Hamas in Gaza, that are opposed to any peace efforts. A divided Palestinian polity with an aging leadership presents many challenges. But these facts only strengthen the argument for Israel to work closely with the UAE and other Arab states on the next steps.

Israel’s new Arab partners aren’t demanding that a Palestinian state needs to emerge immediately, but they have been saying they want to see movement in that direction as part of their normalization deals. It is incumbent on Israel to show that its relationship with these states is about more than trade deals and interfaith dialogue. This is a multi-layered peace project and it needs a layer in which Israel listens to its new friends.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Seth J. Frantzman covers Middle East affairs for the Jerusalem Post. He is the author of "After ISIS: America, Iran and the Struggle for the Middle East" and executive director of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis.