November, 18 2008, 10:31am EDT
In Wake of Russia-Georgia Conflict, Return, Security and Truth a Long Way Off, Says Amnesty International
New Report by Human Rights Group Points to Violations of International Law by All Parties, Thousands Still Displaced
LONDON
In a new report, Amnesty International
says that the evidence it has collected strongly suggests that serious
violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed
by all sides in the August conflict between Russian, Georgian and South
Ossetian forces.
"The Georgians and Russians have accused
each other of war crimes for their conduct during the conflict. It
is essential that such serious allegations be investigated thoroughly and
impartially by all parties. If found to be true, those responsible must
be brought to justice," said Nicola Duckworth, Europe and Central Asia
program director at Amnesty International.
Between August 7-8 and 13, villages and residential
areas in towns were bombed and shelled, and some civilians even reported
being bombed while fleeing. The overall number of civilian deaths significantly
outnumbered that of combatants. Homes, hospitals, schools and other mainstays
of civilian life were damaged or destroyed in communities across the conflict
zone.
Cluster bombs were fired on and near inhabited
areas by both Georgia and Russia, resulting in numerous civilian casualties
and the contamination of large areas of land with unexploded ordinance.
They continue to present risk as civilians return home after the conflict.
In the report released today, Civilians
in the line of fire: The Georgia-Russia conflict, Amnesty International
calls on both parties to request an inquiry by the International Humanitarian
Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC) and to report publicly on its findings.
"There can be no reconciliation, nor lasting
peace, without truth and accountability," added Duckworth.
The report also pointed to the major humanitarian
concern posed by the many people who are still displaced as a result of
the August conflict. At its peak, the conflict displaced nearly 200,000
people. Now, one hundred days later, over 20,000 ethnic Georgians are still
unable to return to their homes in South Ossetia, while many of those on
both sides of the conflict who have gone back have found their homes pillaged
or destroyed.
"A new twilight zone has been created
along the de facto border between South Ossetia and the rest of Georgia,
into which people stray at their peril. Looting, shooting, explosions
and abductions have all been reported in the last few weeks," said Duckworth.
"International monitors must be allowed to go to all places and all sides
need to intensify their efforts to guarantee the safe return of displaced
people without discrimination."
Background
Amnesty International's report is based
on several research missions to the main areas of the conflict carried
out as early as August and as late as October 2008, as well as interviews
with victims and correspondence with the relevant authorities of Georgia,
Russia and the de facto South Ossetian administration.
The IHHFC is a permanent body of independent
experts provided for by Article 90 of Protocol 1 to the Geneva Convention
to investigate allegations of serious violations of international humanitarian
law. Russia made a declaration under Article 90 when it ratified Protocol
1 (in 1989), authorizing the IHFFC to enquire into any conflict that may
arise between itself and another state that has made the same declaration.
Georgia did not make such a declaration.
In order to enable the IHFFC to conduct an
enquiry, under the rules of Article 90, both Georgia and Russia would now
have to accept the Commission's competence and request that it investigate
violations in this particular conflict. Consent to such an enquiry may
be limited to this specific conflict and would not constitute permanent
acceptance of the Commission's competence. Investigations by the IHHFC
are conducted by a Chamber constituted of five members of the Commission
and two ad hoc appointees. (Each party to the conflict nominates one of
the ad hoc members.)
Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning
grassroots activist organization with more than 2.2 million supporters,
activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human
rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates
and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice,
freedom, truth and dignity are denied.
Amnesty International is a global movement of millions of people demanding human rights for all people - no matter who they are or where they are. We are the world's largest grassroots human rights organization.
(212) 807-8400LATEST NEWS
Majority of US Voters Want the Fed to Stop Raising Rates Before It Tanks the Economy: Poll
"People understand that pushing millions of workers out of a job is a terrible way to address inflation," said one economist.
Mar 06, 2023
Survey data released Monday shows that a majority of U.S. voters want the Federal Reserve to stop raising interest rates before it plunges the economy into recession, a position that aligns with the view of many economists and lawmakers who fear the central bank is on the verge of needlessly throwing millions out of work.
Conducted by Lake Research Partners and published by the Groundwork Collaborative, the new poll found that 56% of U.S. voters believe the Fed should bring its rate hikes to a halt as top central bankers indicate that more increases are coming in the near future—even though rates are already at their highest level in 15 years.
"Our new poll makes it clear that people across the country want the Federal Reserve to stop raising interest rates before it pushes us toward a devastating and completely avoidable recession," said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative.
"People understand that pushing millions of workers out of a job is a terrible way to address inflation and will do nothing to address root causes of inflation like supply-chain interruptions, the war in Ukraine, and big corporations manipulating the market to increase profits," Mabud added. "And they want a Federal Reserve that prioritizes workers and families, not Wall Street and Big Business."
The survey, which reached 1,240 registered voters nationwide, found that just 14% believe the Fed is on the side of "average Americans." Nearly 40% said they feel the central bank serves the interests of big businesses or banks.
"Voters believe overwhelmingly that the Federal Reserve is on the side of Big Business, banks, and Wall Street," Celinda Lake, the president and founder of Lake Research Partners, said during a press call Monday.
\u201c\ud83d\udea8 NEW POLL: Voters believe the @federalreserve is on the side of big business (38%), banks (38%), and Wall Street (30%). \n\nLess than 1 in 5 across partisan lines think the Fed is on the side of average Americans.\n\nFull memo here: https://t.co/65jSnYGFuU\u201d— Groundwork Collaborative (@Groundwork Collaborative) 1678117489
The findings were released a day ahead of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's scheduled appearance before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, where he will likely face sharp questioning from central bank policy critics such as Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Elizabeth Warren(D-Mass.).
On Wednesday, Powell is set to testify before the House Financial Services Committee.
The Fed is widely expected to raise interest rates again during its policy meeting later this month, even with inflation easing and despite mounting calls for a pause as previous increases—which are taking a toll on wage growth and the housing market—work their way through the economy.
Powell and other central bankers have repeatedly claimed that the U.S. labor market—which has thus far remained strong in the face of the Fed's rate increases—is running too hot and must be weakened in order to curtail inflation, sparking accusations that the Fed is prioritizing just one side of its dual mandate and "trying to engineer a recession."
The latest U.S. job figures are set to be released on Friday.
Critics have said the Fed's chosen policy approach—aggressive attempts to curb demand—is misguided and will do little to tackle the primary drivers of inflation, including corporate concentration and profit-seeking price increases.
During Monday's press call, economist J.W. Mason argued that "it's absolutely possible for inflation to drop without much job destruction."
"Over the past few months, we've seen a substantial fall in inflation without significant job destruction," said Mason. "You can have disinflation without falling wages and without unemployment. The question is: Are higher interest rates really a tool that can deliver that? I think the answer is no."
The new polling shows that an overwhelming majority of U.S. voters—77%—believe that "we should be focusing on the legislative tools Congress can use to fight inflation instead of simply relying on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates."
While the survey doesn't mention specific legislative fixes, campaigners and experts have floated a range of proposals over the past year, from a crackdown on Big Oil profiteering to targeted price controls.
Pointing to the public earnings calls of major corporations, Mabud noted Monday that "you don't actually have to look too hard to hear the CEOs being pretty crystal clear that they're jacking up their profit margins by raising prices on consumers."
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100+ Groups Urge Congress to Abandon 'Carbon Utilization Fantasy'
"Promoting the utilization of captured CO2 in petrochemicals, plastics, and fuels, as your legislation would encourage, will perpetuate environmental justice harms and subsidize the oil and gas industry to do it."
Mar 06, 2023
More than 100 organizations on Monday urged the congressional sponsors of a new proposal that would boost the tax credit for certain carbon capture projects to shift their focus to solutions that will actually address the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.
The groups—including 350.org, Beyond Plastics, Center for Biological Diversity, Food & Water Watch, Indigenous Environmental Network, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Science and Environmental Health Network (SEHN), and Waterspirit—oppose the Captured Carbon Utilization Parity Act (S. 542/H.R. 1262).
Introduced last week by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Reps. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) and Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), the legislation would increase the 45Q tax credit for carbon capture and utilization (CCU) "to match the incentives for carbon capture and storage (CCS) for both direct air capture (DAC) and the power and industrial sectors."
The groups sent a letter to the four sponsors arguing that:
This bill does not advance climate solutions, but is rather a giveaway to fossil fuel companies and other corporate polluters under the guise of climate action. Promoting the utilization of captured CO2 in petrochemicals, plastics, and fuels, as your legislation would encourage, will perpetuate environmental justice harms and subsidize the oil and gas industry to do it. Rather than perpetuating these climate scams, we encourage you to support the elimination of subsidies for the fossil fuel industry instead of enriching them through carbon capture schemes.
In addition to stressing that such projects consume a lot of water while producing emissions and chemical waste—further endangering frontline communities that are disproportuantely home to people of color and low-income individuals—the organizations pointed out that "carbon capture has a long history of overpromising and under-delivering."
"The overwhelming majority of captured carbon to date has been used to increase oil production via enhanced oil recovery (EOR)," the letter highlights. "The myth of a massive carbon management paradigm that uses and re-uses carbon dioxide on any large scale serves only to greenwash the reality of how carbon dioxide is used: for oil production."
"As laid bare in an investigation from the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the 45Q tax credit is rife with abuse as credits are improperly claimed," the letter further notes. "Moreover, documents uncovered by the House Oversight Committee's investigation into major oil companies and climate disinformation revealed that the biggest proponents of CCS also understand the technology to be costly, ineffective, and requiring continued and increasing government subsidization."
"The myth of a massive carbon management paradigm that uses and re-uses carbon dioxide on any large scale serves only to greenwash the reality of how carbon dioxide is used: for oil production."
Citing a report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the organizations also explained that "in contrast to things like solar power and batteries, carbon capture is not the kind of technology that gets significantly cheaper over time, and increasing public subsidies to spark a carbon management industry will not result in a self-sustaining system."
According to dozens of groups representing communities across the country, "The carbon utilization fantasy should be abandoned, with focus restored on the solutions we know will help combat the climate crisis, like renewable energy and storage, electrification, energy efficiency, real zero-waste materials systems, agroecology, and more."
SEHN executive director Carolyn Raffensperger told Common Dreams that her group is supporting the letter "because carbon capture use and sequestration (CCUS) is the fossil fuel industry's diabolical plan to line its investors' pockets with public money" and "the antithesis of a climate solution in that it delays real, tried and true solutions."
"Further, the entire 45Q tax credit program turns sound environmental policy on its head: Instead of requiring the polluter to pay for its damage, 45Q tax credits pay the polluter to pollute," Raffensperger added. Pointing to proposed CO2 pipelines in Iowa, she said:
Keenly aware of the climate crisis, we investigated the claims that industry was making that we could address climate by putting a big machine on top of various polluting facilities and transporting the CO2 across the countryside and burying it deep underground. What we discovered was that the entire enterprise would require more energy than the original facility required. It will disrupt farm land and pose grave risks in case of a pipeline rupture. Even worse, we found that this vast complex system of carbon capture, transportation, and either use or disposal is horribly under-regulated by [the Environmental Protection Agency], the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the [Internal Revenue Service], and others. The frosting on this toxic cake is that the public pays the fossil fuel industry with public money and the public gets no climate benefit. If anything, CCUS makes climate change worse.
"Heed the lessons of the recent train derailment and pipeline disasters. That is, fix the regulatory mess before pouring money into 45Q tax credits," she urged U.S. lawmakers. "The tax credits are like shoveling coal into the boiler of a runaway train."
As Rachel Dawn Davis, public policy and justice organizer at Waterspirit, said Monday in an email to Common Dreams, independent science has already shown that investments in carbon capture "would be a waste of money and time," and "we are experiencing the sixth mass extinction; we have no time to continue wasting."
"If we are to provide a livable future for current and future generations of young people and all creation, we must invest solely in renewable energy, not furthering fossil fuel fallacies," she emphasized. "Subsidies going to the most heinous polluters are only continuing through this legislation; congressional representatives must know better by now."
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Investigation Reveals Global Collagen Demand Driving Deforestation, Rights Abuses in Brazil
"Did you sprinkle a little collagen in your smoothie this morning? Might be worth looking into where it came from," said one reporter.
Mar 06, 2023
Global demand for collagen—touted as an anti-aging "wonder product"—is driving deforestation and abuses against Indigenous people in Brazil, an investigation published Monday revealed.
The investigation—which involved numerous media outlets and organizations including the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), the Pulitzer Center's Rainforest Investigations Network, the Center for Climate Crime Analysis, ITV, O Joio e O Trigo, and The Guardian—is the first to link bovine collagen with tropical forest loss and violence against Indigenous people, according to its collaborators.
"While collagen's most evangelical users claim the protein can improve hair, skin, nails, and joints, slowing the aging process, it has a dubious effect on the health of the planet," Elisângela Mendonça, Andrew Wasley, and Fábio Zuker wrote in the report.
"Collagen can be extracted from fish, pig and cattle skin, but behind the wildly popular 'bovine' variety in particular lies an opaque industry driving the destruction of tropical forests and fueling violence and human rights abuses in the Brazilian Amazon," the trio added.
\u201cEXCLUSIVE \ud83c\udf0eWe spent months digging into the supply chains for Brazilian bovine collagen \n\nSpoiler alert: they are highly complicated, with numerous middlemen involved, but unlike beef, soy& palm oil, collagen companies have no obligation to track their environmental impacts yet.\u201d— Elis\u00e2ngela Mendon\u00e7a (@Elis\u00e2ngela Mendon\u00e7a) 1678107982
The report's authors linked at least 1,000 square miles of deforestation to the supply chains of two major Brazilian players in the $4 billion annual collagen industry. Some of the collagen is tied to Vital Proteins, a Nestlé-owned U.S. brand whose chief creative officer is the actress Jennifer Aniston.
Collagen is called a "byproduct" of the cattle industry, which is responsible for 80% of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. But experts interviewed for the report said that the "byproduct" narrative is largely a myth.
"I wouldn't call any of them byproducts," Rick Jacobsen, commodity policy manager at the U.K.-based Environmental Investigation Agency, told the report's authors. "The margins for the meat industry are quite narrow, so all of the saleable parts of the animal are built into the business model."
\u201cDid you sprinkle a little collagen in your smoothie this morning? Might be worth looking into where it came from. Fantastic/horrifying investigation from @lilimendonca + colleagues #Brazil https://t.co/R9zbcysBnQ\u201d— Stephanie Nolen (@Stephanie Nolen) 1678115903
The publication also cast doubt on claims made by collagen promoters.
The Guardian reports:
While there are studies suggesting taking collagen orally can improve joint and skin health, Harvard School of Public Health cautions potential conflicts of interest exist as most if not all of the research is either funded by the industry or carried out by scientists affiliated with it.
Collagen companies have no obligation to track its environmental impacts. Unlike beef, soya, palm oil, and other food commodities, collagen is also not covered by forthcoming due diligence legislation in the [European Union and United Kingdom] designed to tackle deforestation.
"It's important to ensure that this type of regulation covers all key products that could be linked to deforestation," Jacobsen stressed.
Nestlé responded to the report by stating it has contacted its collagen supplier to look into the investigation's claims, while assuring it is working to "ensure its products are deforestation-free by 2025."
Vital Proteins told its buyers after TBIJ contacted them for comment that it would "end sourcing from the Amazon region effective immediately."
In addition to harming the environment, the collagen industry is fueling human rights crimes, Indigenous leaders and other critics say.
\u201c\ud83d\udea8REVEALED: #Nestl\u00e9 brand sells collagen linked to deforestation and invasion of Indigenous lands in Brazil. \n\n@pulitzercenter RIN Fellow @lilimendonca, @ZukerFabio & @Andrew_Wasley report for @TBIJ. Read here \ud83d\udc49 https://t.co/z0kxMJFnO8 \n\n\u2795 \ud83e\uddf5 1/5\u201d— Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN) (@Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN)) 1678111914
As Mendonça, Wasley, and Zuker noted:
With sales of beef, leather, and collagen booming, more and more forest has been felled and replaced by pastures in recent years, with land often seized illegally. Virtual impunity for land-grabbing during the [former President Jair] Bolsonaro government also fueled attacks on traditional communities. In 2021, the third year of his presidency, there were 305 invasions of Indigenous lands. This is three times more than the 2018 figures reported by the Catholic Church's Indigenous Missionary Council.
"No cattle ranching expansion in the Amazon can take place without violence," Bruno Malheiro, a geographer and professor at the Federal University of Southern and Southeastern Pará, told the authors.
In January—his first month in office—leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has vowed to protect Indigenous peoples and rainforests from deforestation, oversaw a 61% drop in forest destruction over 2022 levels.
Kátia Silene Akrãtikatêjê, leader of the Akrãtikatêjê Gavião Indigenous people, said her constituents feel "surrounded" and "suffocated" in a "process of territorial confinement" amid creeping deforestation. Last September, a Gavião village was burned to the ground, and residents believe it was no accident.
Land capitalists "destroy what is theirs, and invade what is ours," the Akrãtikatêjê Gavião chief said. "I can't understand why they destroy everything."
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