May, 12 2016, 11:30am EDT
Hundreds to Protest Fracking in Colorado on May 12
Colorado Tells President Obama to “Keep it in the Ground,” Echoing Protests Against Fossil Fuels Around the World
DENVER
On May 12, hundreds of Colorado community, climate and fracking activists will protest a Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease auction at the Holiday Inn in Lakewood, Colorado (just outside Denver). Groups plan to rally and engage in peaceful civil disobedience to demand that public lands be no longer drilled, mined, or fracked. The protest is part of a global week of action focused on citizen action to keep fossil fuels in the ground and promote clean renewable energy, and comes days after the Colorado Supreme Court denied local authority to regulate fracking.
What: Keep it in the Ground protest of BLM oil and gas leasing auction
When: Noon, Thursday, May 12
Where: Holiday Inn Denver Lakewood 7390 W. Hampden Ave, Lakewood, CO 80227
Who: Residents and activists from Colorado and surrounding states, along with national environmental allie
Media availability: Protesters will be available for interviews before and after the action
Images: Protest photos and video will be available for media use; the url will be included on the press release
Background: The rapidly growing "Keep it in the Ground" movement is calling on President Obama to halt new federal fossil fuel leases on public lands and oceans -- a step that would remove up to 450 billion tons from the global pool of potential greenhouse gas pollution. Similar "Keep It in the Ground" protests have challenged fossil fuel auctions nationwide, with the BLM preemptively canceling nearly 10 auctions this past year.
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Florida House Republicans Advance Bill to 'Deny the Legal Existence' of Trans People
"Rest assured that the passage of this discriminatory bill would have a detrimental and real-life impact on the trans community," said one Florida ACLU leader.
Mar 01, 2024
The ACLU of Florida on Friday led condemnation of a bill passed by the Republican-controlled lower chamber of the state Legislature that "seeks to deny the legal existence of transgender individuals by requiring individuals to identify as their sex assigned at birth instead of their gender on their driver's licenses and ID cards."
Dubbed the Trans Erasure Bill by opponents, H.B. 1639 passed by a vote of 75-33. The ACLU notes that the legislation "also requires health plans to cover the widely discredited practice of conversion therapy and creates additional obstacles for health plans to cover gender-affirming care."
"H.B. 1639 is harmful, vague, and does nothing to improve the lives of Floridians," ACLU of Florida policy strategist NR Hines said in a statement. "It is eerily silent on the consequences for transgender individuals who identify their gender on their driver's license or other government-issued identification instead of their sex assigned at birth."
"It weaponizes state agencies and private insurance companies to threaten the safety and inclusion of transgender people," they asserted. "It is a cruel bill aimed at erasing transgender Floridians out of public life entirely. We have deep concerns about the life-altering impacts on the trans community."
Hines continued:
Last month, we learned of the death of a transgender student after they experienced violence on school grounds in Oklahoma. Nex Benedict should still be alive today. While this violence didn't occur in Florida, the fear and hate towards trans people that some elected officials are spreading directly leads to these unsafe situations.
Rest assured that the passage of this discriminatory bill would have a detrimental and real-life impact on the trans community. Thankfully, there is currently no Senate companion bill, and Senate leadership has stated the bill will not be heard.
"We hope this remains true," Hines added. "Trans people belong and deserve the freedom to be who they are."
LGBTQ+ rights—and especially trans rights—are under attack across the country. The ACLU is currently tracking 471 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in a majority of states, including 11 pieces of proposed legislation in Florida.
Last year, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a failed GOP presidential candidate, signed a bundle of bills that activists condemned as the most extreme slate of anti-trans laws in modern history. Among these were S.B. 254, which bans gender-affirming care for minors, while prohibiting nurse practitioners from providing such healthcare to adults.
Last June, federal Judge Robert Hinkle temporarily blocked the enforcement of certain provisions of S.B. 254, saying they constituted "purposeful discrimination" against transgender people.
DeSantis also signed H.B. 1069, which expands the so-called "Don't Say Gay or Trans" law to prohibit educators from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity in grades K-12.
H.B. 1521 empowers cisgender people to order transgender people to leave publicly available restrooms—in places including airports, sports arenas, convention centers, beaches, parks, and public and even private healthcare and educational institutions—or face criminal trespass charges that could result in up to a year behind bars for those who refuse to comply.
The Human Rights Campaign—the largest LGBTQ+ political advocacy group in the United States—issued a first-ever national emergency declaration for LGBTQ+ people last June, citing the torrent of discriminatory and dangerous legislation emerging from Republican-controlled legislatures across the country.
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Nicaragua Hits Germany With ICJ Case for Aiding Israel in Gaza Genocide
"The Global South strikes again against the morally and politically decayed West," said one supporter of the case.
Mar 01, 2024
Nicaragua on Friday launched a case against Germany at the International Court of Justice, accusing the nation responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust of helping Israel commit genocide in the Gaza Strip over the past five months.
Germany has provided financial, military, and political support to Israel and
halted contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East in response to unverified Israeli allegations that a dozen employees were involved in the Hamas-led attack that sparked the war on October 7.
Nicaragua's application to the ICJ argues that Germany "has not only failed to fulfill its obligation to prevent the genocide committed and being committed against the Palestinian people... but has contributed to the commission of genocide in violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."
"Although the United States richly deserves it too, it would be difficult for Nicaragua to successfully sue the United States... because of its disingenuous reservation to Article 9 of the Genocide Convention denying such jurisdiction to the World Court."
Germany has also "failed to comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law, derived both from the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and its Protocols of 1977 and from the intransgressible principles of international humanitarian law,
by not respecting its obligations to ensure respect for these fundamental norms in all circumstances," the document states.
The application further accuses Germany of failing to "comply with other peremptory norms of general international law" by rendering aid or assistance "in maintaining the illegal situation of the continued military occupation of Palestine including its ongoing, unlawful attack in Gaza," as well as "not preventing the illegal regime of apartheid and the negation of the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people."
Nicaragua is seeking emergency action from the ICJ, which has already taken a genocide case against Israel led by South Africa. The U.N. court issued provisional measures for that case in January—though rights groups said this week that Israeli forces are ignoring them—and last month reiterated Israel's obligations under the Genocide Convention.
"When emergency measures are requested, the ICJ usually sets a date for a hearing within weeks of a case being filed," noted Deutsche Welle. The German public broadcaster also reported that there was no comment from Berlin.
While the case against Germany was widely welcomed by Palestinian rights advocates around the world, many also pointed out that—as Michael Paarlberg an assistant professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, put it—Nicaragua is "maybe not the best plaintiff for making charges of human rights violations."
In its latest annual report on Nicaragua, Human Rights Watch states that "the government of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, deepened its systematic repression against critics, journalists, and human rights defenders. Dozens of people arbitrarily detained remain behind bars."
As the U.N. Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua released its own report Wednesday, its chair, Jan Simon, said that Ortega, Murillo, and other top officials "should be held accountable by the international community, as should Nicaragua as a state that goes after its own people, targeting university students, Indigenous people, people of African descent, campesinos, and members of the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations."
Nicaragua's filing at the World Court, as it's also called, comes as Israeli forces have killed over 30,200 Palestinians in Gaza and injured 71,000 more. Most of the Hamas-governed enclave's 2.3 million residents are displaced. They face devastated civilian infrastructure and limited supplies of food, water, and medicine, as Israel restricts humanitarian aid. Children are starving to death.
The Central American country's move follows lawyers in Germany who represent Palestinian families suing top German officials, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, for "aiding and abetting" Israel's genocide in the federal court last week.
University of Illinois College of Law professor Francis Boyle told Jordanian-Palestinian writer Sam Husseini that Nicaragua's application "could lead to World Court lawsuits... for aiding and abetting Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, an emergency hearing by the World Court, another round of oral arguments, and new provisional measures of protection for the benefit of the Palestinians."
New provisional measures would go to the U.N. Security Council—where the U.S. has veto power—for enforcement, he said, and, "if that does not succeed, to the United Nations General Assembly for enforcement under the Uniting for Peace Resolution (1950),"
"It is telling that Nicaragua is doing this because they won a resounding World Court lawsuit against the United States from 1984 to 1986 for illegally mining their harbors," Boyle added. He also explained why the United States isn't expected to face an ICJ case, despite giving Israel nearly $4 billion in annual military aid.
"Although the United States richly deserves it too, it would be difficult for Nicaragua to successfully sue the United States for aiding and abetting Israeli genocide against the Palestinians because of its disingenuous reservation to Article 9 of the Genocide Convention denying such jurisdiction to the World Court," he said.
However, there is a U.S. genocide complicity case in the federal court system. The Center for Constitutional Rights has sued U.S. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on behalf of groups and Palestinians in Gaza and the United States. After a district-level dismissal, an appeal hearing is expected in June.
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Sanders Says US Gaza Aid Airdrops 'No Substitute for Sustained Ground Deliveries'
"Israel MUST open the borders and allow the United Nations to deliver supplies in sufficient quantities."
Mar 01, 2024
Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday gave a qualified endorsement of American military airdrops of desperately needed humanitarian supplies into Gaza, echoing assertions from other human rights defenders that Israel must allow massive, immediate ground shipments of aid to reach the bombed and besieged Palestinians who are beginning to starve to death.
President Joe Biden announced Friday that the U.S. would soon begin humanitarian airdrops into Gaza, vowing to "pull out every stop we can."
"In the coming days we’re going to join with our friends in Jordan and others who are providing airdrops of additional food and supplies," Biden said at the White House alongside his guest, far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The president added that he would also "seek to open up other avenues, including possibly a marine corridor," to deliver aid to Gaza.
Joe Biden says the U.S. aims to airdrop humanitarian aid to Gaza and insists on Israel's help.https://t.co/CRU38GsJsB pic.twitter.com/inWnkSPSsM
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) March 1, 2024
A senior Biden administration official who asked to remain anonymous toldPolitico that while there have been internal discussions regarding airdrops for weeks, Thursday's attack by Israeli forces on starving Palestinians gathered to receive food aid on al-Rashid Street in Gaza City prompted the president's decision. More than 1,000 civilians were killed and wounded in the massacre.
"The United States, which has helped fund the Israeli military for years, cannot sit back and allow hundreds of thousands of innocent children to starve to death," Sanders (Vt.) said in a statement. "As a result of Israeli bombing and restrictions on humanitarian aid, the people of Gaza are facing an unprecedented humanitarian disaster."
"But while an airdrop will buy time and save lives, there is no substitute for sustained ground deliveries of what is needed to sustain life in Gaza," he added. "Israel MUST open the borders and allow the United Nations to deliver supplies in sufficient quantities. The United States should make clear that failure to do so immediately will lead to a fundamental break in the U.S.-Israeli relationship and the immediate halt of all military aid."
Sanders has advocated strong measures including limiting U.S. military aid in an effort to compel Israel to stop the slaughter. However, the 82-year-old democratic socialist has come under fire for his unwillingness to call for Gaza cease-fire. Instead, Sanders has repeatedly urged a "humanitarian pause."
Israeli forces have killed more than 30,200 Palestinians in Gaza—most of them women and children—while wounding over 71,300 others and displacing around 90% of the besieged enclave's 2.3 million people. Children are now starving to death, and experts say adults, especially elders and other vulnerable people, will soon follow absent urgent intervention.
Israeli forces have bombed food production and distribution centers, destroyed crops, and killed livestock. They have also attacked fishers and fired on aid convoys. Israeli extremists have blocked convoys at border crossings, setting up encampments and even a giant bouncy castle where organizers served popcorn, cotton candy, and slushies to children.
Meanwhile, Palestinians desperately trying to survive are eating whatever they can find, including grass, livestock feed, and horses.
United Nations food experts said this week that Israel's forced starvation of Gazans is genocidal.
Other human rights defenders also stressed the need for a massive ground-based relief effort for Gaza.
"Airdrops will not be effective in blunting the humanitarian crises in Gaza," said Dave Harden, a former assistant administrator at the United States Agency for International Development. "Airdrops are inefficient, expensive, dangerous, and only helpful when there are no other delivery options. Airdrops are primarily for the Biden administration's benefit—to paper over a massive policy failure."
Oxfam America president and CEO Abby Maxman
asserted on social media that "people in Gaza are starving, and any aid can feel like a lifeline to hold on to—but airdrops are not the answer."
"They are a chaotic and potentially dangerous fig leaf in the face of starvation and desperation," she added. "Full unfettered humanitarian access is needed now to save lives."
Echoing Maxman, Scott Paul, who runs humanitarian policy at Oxfam America, said that airdrops "would mostly serve to relieve the guilty consciences of senior U.S. officials whose policies are contributing to the ongoing atrocities and risk of famine in Gaza."
Joyce Ajlouny, the general secretary of the American Friends Service Committee—a Quaker organization—met with Biden administration officials Friday and pleaded for "an immediate and permanent cease-fire and full access for humanitarian aid."
"While we are happy to see any aid reaching people in Gaza, airdrops are not enough," Ajlouny said. "It is a cruel irony to drop food when at the same time you are directly responsible for dropping bombs. We need a cease-fire and full humanitarian access."
"But we also know that a cease-fire and humanitarian relief are not enough," she continued. "As a Palestinian, I know the history that got us here very intimately. And as a Palestinian and a Quaker I know that a just and lasting peace will only come when we address the apartheid state imposed on Palestinians for decades."
"Fourteen successive presidential administrations have supported the Israeli occupation. Now the Biden administration is funding a genocide," Ajlouny added. "Calls for restraint mean little when Israel is ignoring us and our tax dollars are used to pay for Israel's aggression."
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