August, 31 2015, 02:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Expert contact: Marissa Knodel, (202) 222-0724, mknodel@foe.org
Communications contact: Kate Colwell, (202) 222-0744, kcolwell@foe.org
Obama's Alaska Visit Showcases Climate Hypocrisy
WASHINGTON
President Obama begins a three-day trip to Alaska today, to view how climate change is already having adverse impacts on the state and discuss ways to address them. In his weekly address, he described the sea level rise, erosion, and melting glaciers as wake-up calls for the rest of the nation and the world. The president said he is committed to working with Alaskans and global leaders gathering at the Conference on Global Leadership in the Arctic this week to lead the global effort to address the threats of climate change. Earlier this month, the Obama administration gave Shell the final permit needed to break ground in the American Arctic Ocean in the search for oil and gas. According to a recent climate study, Arctic oil and gas are unburnable in order to have a chance at avoiding climate catastrophe.
Friends of the Earth Climate Campaigner Marissa Knodel issued the following response:
President Obama's visit to Alaska puts a spotlight on his climate hypocrisy. Rubber-stamping Shell's reckless pursuit for Arctic oil and gas is antithetical to calling for climate action. By allowing these unburnable fossil fuels to be developed, President Obama is making the adverse climate impacts that Alaska is experiencing worse, not better. If President Obama wants to be a true climate leader, he needs to disavow his "all of the above" energy plan and keep Arctic oil and gas in the ground.
Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.
(202) 783-7400LATEST NEWS
After Years of Indigenous-Led Campaigning, Court Grants Rights to Peru's Marañón River
The decision "establishes a groundbreaking legal framework that acknowledges the inherent rights of natural entities," said one campaigner.
Mar 19, 2024
After years of campaigning, an organization of Indigenous women in Peru's Loreto province celebrated "a landmark decision" on Tuesday by a court in Nauta, which found that the Marañón River has "intrinsic value" and that its "inherent rights" must be recognized by the government.
The Mixed Court of Nauta ruled that specific rights of the river must be codified, including the right to exist, the right to ecological flow, the right of restoration, the right to be free of pollution, the right to exercise its essential functions with the ecosystem, and the right of representation.
Led by Kukama women, the Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana Federation in the Parinari district of Loreto began its legal fight on behalf of the Marañón River in 2021, demanding that the state and federal governments protect the waterway from "constant oil spills."
Petroperu's Oleoducto Norperuano, or Norperuvian oil pipeline, caused more than 60 oil spills between 1997-2019, and the 28 communities represented by the federation are still recovering from a 2010 oil spill that sent 350 barrels of oil into the river near Saramuro port.
Indigenous groups blocked the river in protest in September 2022 after another spill sent 2,500 barrels of crude oil into the Amazon, of which the Marañón is a main tributary.
The Marañón supplies drinking water directly to communities in Loreto, and is a vital habitat for fish that help sustain Indigenous communities.
"We do not live on money. We live from what we grow on our land and our fishing. We cannot live without fish," Isabel Murayari, a board member of the federation, told the Earth Law Center, when the group filed its lawsuit in 2021.
The Kukama women also aimed to halt infrastructure projects including hydroelectric dams and the Amazon Waterway—recognized as environmental risks by the International Union for Conservation of Nature—and warned that illegal gold mining has left the Marañón with mercury contamination that must be remedied.
Martiza Quispe Mamani, an attorney representing the Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana Federation, said the "historic ruling is an important achievement of the Kukama women."
"The fact that the judge of the Nauta Court has declared the Marañón River as a subject of rights represents a significant and transcendental milestone for the protection not only of the Marañón River but also of all rivers contaminated by extractive activities," said Mamani.
In addition to granting the river inherent rights, the court named the Indigenous group and the Peruvian government as "guardians, defenders, and representatives of the Marañón River and its tributaries."
Loreto's regional government was ordered to take necessary steps with the National Water Authority to establish a water resource basin organization for the river. The court also required Petroperu to present an updated environmental management plan within six months.
Mariluz Canaquiri Murayari, president of the federation, said the group's fight to protect the environment in the region "will continue."
"It encourages us to fight to defend our territories and rivers, which is fundamental," Murayari said of the ruling. "The recognition made in this decision has critical value. It is one more opportunity to keep fighting and claiming our rights. Our work is fundamental for Peru and the world: to protect our rivers, territories, our own lives, and all of humanity, and the living beings of Mother Nature."
The women who led the legal action noted that courts in recent years have recognized rights for other waterways, including Colombia's Atrato River, New Zealand's Whanganui River, and Canada's Magpie River.
Monti Aguirre, Latin America director of International Rivers, which supported the federation in its lawsuit, said the ruling "underscores the vital impact of community-led advocacy in safeguarding river ecosystems and sets a crucial precedent for river conservation efforts globally."
"By recognizing the Marañón River as a subject of rights, this decision is significant not only in terms of environmental protection but also in advancing the rights of nature and the rights of rivers," said Aguirre. "It establishes a groundbreaking legal framework that acknowledges the inherent rights of natural entities, paving the way for similar legal recognition and protection of rivers worldwide."
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Trump Son-in-Law Jared Kushner Calls for Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza to 'Finish the Job'
Kushner, who served as a key Middle East adviser to Trump, said that Gaza's "waterfront property could be very valuable" and urged Israel to "clean it up."
Mar 19, 2024
Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former president and presumptive 2024 Republican nominee Donald Trump, said in a recent interview that if he were in charge of Israeli policy, he would push Gaza civilians into Egypt or Israel's Negev desert—a proposal that critics denounced as ethnic cleansing.
"You want to get as many civilians out of Rafah as possible," Kushner told the faculty chair of Harvard University's Middle East Initiative, Tarek Masoud, in a March 8 interview that was first reported widely on Tuesday. "I think that you want to try to clear that out. I know that with diplomacy maybe you get them into Egypt."
"I know that that's been refused, but [with] the right diplomacy I think it would be possible," Kushner added. "But in addition to that, the thing that I would try to do if I was Israel right now is I would just bulldoze something in the Negev, I would try to move people in there. I know that won't be the popular thing to do, but I think that that's a better option to do so you can go in and finish the job."
Kushner played a central role in crafting Trump's Middle East policy during his first four years in the White House, and the former president's son-in-law's remarks provided a potential glimpse of how the U.S. would approach Gaza if Trump wins another term in November.
Earlier this month, Trump said he wants Israel to "finish the problem" in Gaza—a remark that Kushner echoed just three days later in his March 8 interview.
In addition to advocating the removal of civilians from Rafah—which is currently packed with more than 1.5 million people, including hundreds of thousands of children—Kushner said Gaza's "waterfront property could be very valuable."
"It's a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel's perspective I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up," Kushner said.
Just days after the @ADL’s @JGreenblattADL gave him an award for “his record of policy work,” Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner openly advocates for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza: https://t.co/VFhidPf60W
— Dylan Williams (@dylanotes) March 19, 2024
Kushner responded flippantly to concerns that if Gazans were forced out of their territory, the Israeli government wouldn't let them return—something that top Israeli officials have publicly advocated.
"Maybe," he said, "but I'm not sure there's much left of Gaza at this point."
Kushner also claimed that Israel has gone "way more out of its way" than other countries would to protect civilians—despite the
abundance of evidence to the contrary.
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Rights Groups Tell Biden Israeli Claims About US Weapons Use in Gaza 'Not Credible'
Human Rights Watch and Oxfam lay out "for the Biden administration why any assurances from Israel that they have not delayed, restricted, and impeded aid into Gaza cannot be relied upon."
Mar 19, 2024
As the Biden administration formally reviews the use of U.S. weapons by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip, a pair of human rights groups on Tuesday submitted a joint memorandum detailing Israel's abuse of Palestinians and demanding an end to all arms transfers.
"There are good reasons why U.S. law prohibits arms support for governments that block lifesaving aid or violate international law with U.S. weapons," said Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch (HRW). "Given ongoing hostilities in Gaza, the Israeli government's assurances to the Biden administration that it is meeting U.S. legal requirements are not credible."
HRW and Oxfam's memo comes after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant last week signed a letter claiming his country has not arbitrarily blocked humanitarian aid and U.S.-supplied arms have been used in line with international law, assurances required under a national security memorandum about weapons support that U.S. President Joe Biden released in February.
The United States provides Israel $3.8 billion in annual military aid and Biden has sought billions more while bypassing Congress to arm Israeli forces. The administration is now reviewing Gallant's letter and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken—who is headed back to the Middle East this week for cease-fire talks—has until March 25 to notify Congress about the credibility of Israeli claims.
"The time has long passed for the Biden administration to end lethal arms sales to Israel, and we call on them to do so now and work to end the death and suffering in Gaza."
According to the memo by Oxfam and HRW, the groups "have observed or documented that the Israeli authorities have carried out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks in violation of international humanitarian law following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks in Israel, imposed collective punishments on the civilian population, deprived the civilian population of objects indispensable to its survival, and used starvation of civilians as a weapon of war."
"These are all grave violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and customary international humanitarian law. The vast majority of Gaza's population has also been forced to flee their homes, many as a result of Israeli actions that amount to war crimes," the document continues. "Israeli authorities have also restricted, delayed, and impeded U.S.-origin humanitarian assistance in contravention of U.S. laws and policy."
The memo is based on the groups' firsthand experiences and investigations, backed by information from reliable news outlets. It explains that "given the widespread insecurity in Gaza and the Israeli government's restrictions on the entry of foreign investigators, journalists, and aid workers, we believe that the examples we cite here reflect a broader pattern of conduct than is currently being assessed by the U.S. government."
Examples cited in the section on international law violations include multiple Israeli airstrikes on or near several major healthcare facilities, including a November bombing of a marked ambulance outside al-Shifa Hospital; the use of white phosphorus and "dumb bombs" in densely populated civilian areas; strikes in southern Lebanon that killed one journalist and injured six others; and the destruction of water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure recently installed by Oxfam and its partners.
The section on depriving Gazans of necessities for survival begins by quoting Gallant, who declared on October 9 that Israel is "imposing a complete siege," meaning the 2.3 million people of Gaza, whom he called "human animals," get "no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel" as they face Israeli bombs and bullets.
After laying out how the Israeli government has delivered on the defense minister's pledge over the past five months— killing at least 31,819 Palestinians and wounding another 73,934—the memo stresses that "international humanitarian law requires Israel, as the occupying power in Gaza, to ensure that the basic needs of the civilian population are provided for."
Breaking: Oxfam America & @HRW show that Israel is using US weapons in violation of international & US law & blocking US humanitarian aid since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel. The US should stop providing military aid and arms to Israel. Read more: https://t.co/zHyWwicI0a pic.twitter.com/ijmnMCMIiM
— OxfamAmerica (@OxfamAmerica) March 19, 2024
The memo concludes with a section about how "the Israeli government has systematically restricted humanitarian aid and entry and exit of commercial goods to Gaza," initially by restricting all imports and then by imposing an "arbitrary and unnecessarily complex inspection process."
"From October 9 to January 31, an average of 95 truckloads of humanitarian aid entered Gaza per day, which is well below the 500 truckloads of goods entering Gaza per day prior to the onset of hostilities," the memo notes. Conditions are particularly dire for "the roughly 300,000 Palestinians who remain in northern Gaza, where the threat of starvation is most acute."
Israel currently faces a South Africa-led case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which in late January found that the country is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza and ordered it to "take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance."
In the month after that ICJ ruling, "the amount of humanitarian convoys entering Gaza actually decreased by 30%," the memo highglights. Multiple rights groups, including HRW, have accused Israel of blatantly ignoring the court's order.
Even before the ICJ's preliminary decisions, HRW was pressuring other countries to suspend weapons transfers to Israel, first making the demand in November. Oxfam joined with 15 other international groups to call for an arms embargo in January.
"Oxfam has repeatedly sounded the alarm that Israel's ongoing bombardment and siege, and its actions to prevent access for humanitarian aid, have escalated a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza," Scott Paul, associate director for peace and security at Oxfam America, said Tuesday. "We have laid out clearly for the Biden administration why any assurances from Israel that they have not delayed, restricted, and impeded aid into Gaza cannot be relied upon."
"Despite this, the United States has continued to provide Israel with deadly weapons," Paul added. "The time has long passed for the Biden administration to end lethal arms sales to Israel, and we call on them to do so now and work to end the death and suffering in Gaza."
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