October, 18 2013, 05:46am EDT
Global Protests Call for Release of Arctic 30 as Masked Men Break into Grounds of Greenpeace Office
AMSTERDAM
As the Arctic 30 face their 30th day of imprisonment by Russian authorities, nearly 10,000 people are taking to the streets at more than 100 events in 36 countries to call for their immediate release.
Meanwhile in Murmansk -- where the 30 are being held -- the grounds of the Greenpeace office were last night broken into. A mock cage, which was going to be used to highlight the injustice of the Arctic 30's imprisonment during a solidarity protest in the city, was stolen. CCTV footage, released today by Greenpeace International, shows six men in balaclavas scaling a fence and entering the grounds -- which belong to the building which houses the Greenpeace office -- last night.
As the global activities kicked off, bail hearings began for four more activists: Faiza Oulahsen of the Netherlands, Anne Mie Roer Jensen of Denmark, Alexandre Paul of Canada and Alexandra Harris of the UK. Alexandre and Alexandra both had their bail requests denied; the other cases are ongoing.
Today Alexandra's mother Linda Harris said: "Alex is a caring, sensitive person, who cares for the environmental future of the planet. She was on board the Arctic Sunrise as part of a peaceful protest, in international waters, in the radio room doing her job, and we hope and pray that the Russian authorities will let our daughter come home to us soon."
In a letter to a journalist, published today in the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant, Faiza writes of being held "in a dirty cell, alone, isolated from the rest", only able to "catch a glimpse of other Russian prisoners in the corridor". She says: "Once in a while a rat crawls across the floor. I've lost weight and am not sleeping too well, but I am still holding my head high." She complains of having been denied the right to call home and not receiving most of the books and letters people are sending her. She adds: "I crave letters from my family, friends, and colleagues." She also says the highlight of her day is the exercise hour, when she "walks around in a dark concrete space of about 5x5 meters, where you're lucky if you can see the sky through the cracks in the rotten and leaky roof."
Protests worldwide today include:
* A protest at the base of Mount Everest with activists from Greenpeace East Asia.
* In Mexico City, protesters are visiting Mahatma Gandhi's monument and will build a prison cell around it.
* In the Netherlands, people erected a giant cage in the centre of Groningen, the hometown of one imprisoned activist and the sister city of Murmansk, Russia.
* In Bangkok, people gathered in Wat Phra Kaeo, one of the most iconic temples of Thailand, where volunteers shaped the words Free the Arctic 30 using flower bouquets.
* In Bangalore, people gathered in Freedom Park, where a prison once stood.
* In Germany, a 30-hour vigil is taking place with more than 100 people, on top of the ongoing solidarity vigil in front of the Russian embassy in Berlin that started on September 19.
* A 24-hour sit-in vigil is happening in the central square of Naples, Italy, the home city of one of the Arctic 30 detainees.
Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo said:
"It is now 30 days since our ship was seized and our 30 friends and colleagues were detained. They now face a charge of piracy -- an absurd charge that carries a maximum 15 year jail sentence.
"The Arctic 30 were standing up for all of us, defending a fragile environment and a climate in crisis and now we must stand with them. Their detention is an attack against every single person who has ever been willing to raise their voice to demand a better future for themselves and their children. Now these 30 people are prisoners of conscience and we are all responsible for their fate.
"Greenpeace does not think it is above the law, but those 30 brave men and women are not pirates and this charge is a clear attempt to deter peaceful protest. We are here today to show our solidarity with the Arctic 30 and defend the right to peaceful protest. We call for their immediate release."
Last month, 28 Greenpeace activists, and a freelance photographer and a videographer, were charged with piracy by the Russian authorities following a peaceful protest against Arctic oil drilling at a Gazprom oil platform in the Pechora Sea. If convicted, the offence carries a maximum 15 year jail term. The Murmansk Lenin District Court ordered that the Arctic 30 could be detained up until at least November 24 while allegations against them are investigated by the country's authorities. Lawyers acting to defend the thirty have appealed against their detention.
This morning the non-executive Chairman of Shell told media in Finland that the Finnish activist imprisoned in Russia, Sini Saarela, should be released. This is significant because Shell has a close business relationship with Gazprom in the Russian Arctic. Greenpeace's Jim Footner said: "This message should be coming from Shell's CEO Peter Voser. He should break his company's ties with Gazprom and do everything he can to ensure the Arctic 30 are freed."
Greenpeace is a global, independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
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'Landmark Victory': US Proposes Endangered Species Protections for Monarch Butterfly
"We're hoping that this is a call to everybody to say this species is in decline, and now is our opportunity to help reverse that decline," said one federal scientist.
Dec 10, 2024
Biodiversity defenders on Tuesday welcomed a "long overdue" move by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service toward protecting the monarch butterfly under the Endangered Species Act—the result, the Center for Biological Diversity said, of a lawsuit filed by several groups to safeguard the pollinators and their fragile habitat.
The FWS proposed designating the butterfly as threatened with extinction, four years after monarchs were placed on a waiting list for protection.
"For too long, the monarch butterfly has been waiting in line, hoping for new protections while its population has plummeted. This announcement by the Fish and Wildlife Service gets this iconic flier closer to the protections it needs, and given its staggering drop in numbers, that can't happen soon enough," said Steve Blackledge, senior director of conservation campaigns for Environment America.
Monarch butterflies journey from Mexico each spring to points across the United States east of the Rocky Mountains to pollinate and reproduce. When cooler weather arrives they migrate back to the south for the winter.
But their populations have declined by more than 95% from over 4.5 million in the 1980s, leaving the western monarch with a 99% chance of becoming extinct over the next six decades, according to federal scientists.
The decline has been driven by the widespread use of herbicides like Roundup on milkweed, the monarch's sole food source, as well as the use of neonicotinoid insecticides. Millions of monarchs are also killed by vehicles annually during their migration, and in their winter habitats they face the loss of forests due to logging.
"The monarch butterfly is an iconic North American species and like other such iconic species, including the bald eagle and American peregrine falcon, it too deserves a chance at recovery."
Rising temperatures have also disrupted the monarch's reproduction and migration, with warmer weather tricking them into staying in the north later in the year.
"The species has been declining for a number of years," FWS biologist Kristen Lundh toldThe Washington Post. "We're hoping that this is a call to everybody to say this species is in decline, and now is our opportunity to help reverse that decline."
Western monarchs are down to an estimated 233,394 butterflies, while experts say there are several million eastern monarchs in existence.
"The protections that come with Endangered Species Act listing increase the chance that these precious pollinators will rebound and recover throughout their historic range," said Andrew Carter, director of conservation policy for Defenders of Wildlife. "The monarch butterfly is an iconic North American species and like other such iconic species, including the bald eagle and American peregrine falcon, it too deserves a chance at recovery."
The FWS is also proposing to designate 4,395 acres of the western monarch's overwintering sites as a critical habitat.
If the butterfly's protections are finalized—a process that could be completed by the end of 2025—landowners would be required to get federal approval for development that could harm the monarch.
During his first term, President-elect Donald Trump weakened the Endangered Species Act, limiting the definition of a "critical habitat."
"Today's monarch listing decision is a landmark victory 10 years in the making. It is also a damning precedent, revealing the driving role of pesticides and industrial agriculture in the ongoing extinction crisis," said George Kimbrell, legal director at the Center for Food Safety. "But the job isn't done... The service must do what science and the law require and promptly finalize protection for monarchs."
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'It Had to Be Done': Luigi Mangione Manifesto Revealed
"A reminder: the U.S. has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy," the 26-year-old accused of assassinating a health insurance CEO reportedly wrote.
Dec 10, 2024
This is a breaking story… Please check back for possible updates...
A day after Luigi Mangione was arrested and charged as the alleged killer of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, independent journalist Ken Klippenstien on Tuesday published what he said was the 26-year-old's highly reported on manifesto.
The existence of the handwritten document found on Mangione when he was taken into custody in Pennsylvania on Monday was confirmed by the New York Police Department, and major media outlets have quoted from it, but none had released it in full.
"My queries to The New York Times, CNN, and ABC to explain their rationale for withholding the manifesto, while gladly quoting from it selectively, have not been answered," Klippenstein explained on his Substack.
According to Klippenstein—who previously published dossiers on Vice President-elect JD Vance and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the nominee for U.S. secretary of state—Mangione's manifesto reads:
To the Feds, I'll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.
Common Dreams has not independently verified its authenticity.
Klippenstein
said on social media that the manifesto he published is "the real one, not the fake one circulating online."
NBC News deputy technology editor Ben Goggin noted that language shared by Klippenstein "matches what NBC has reported here as real."
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Pesticide Scorecard Exposes Which Food Retailers Are Failing Bees
"Under the incoming Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency will likely do even less to mitigate the damage of pesticides, putting even more onus on companies to address the escalating risks," said one climate advocate.
Dec 10, 2024
A report released Tuesday from the environmental group Friends of the Earth finds that the U.S. food retail sector's use of pesticides on just four crops—almonds, apples, soy, and corn—could result in over $200 billion worth of financial, climate, and biodiversity risks for the industry between 2024 and 2050. Pollinators, including bees, form a crucial link between pesticide use and these risks.
The report was released in tandem with the group's annual retailer scorecard, which ranks the largest U.S. grocery stores on the "steps they are taking to address the use of toxic pesticides in their supply chains and to support the expansion of organic agriculture and other ecological solutions."
While it highlights some industry leadership on this issue, the authors of the scorecard say that, on the whole, retailer action to curb the impact of pesticides falls short. The following retailers received an "F" grade from Friends of the Earth: Wakefern, Publix, Dollar General, 7-Eleven Inc., Hy-Vee, Walgreens, H-E-B, BJ's, Amazon, and Wegmans.
Although its owner, Amazon, received an F grade, the grocery store Whole Foods was the only retailer that was given an A grade.
A handful of the companies, including Whole Foods, have made time bound pledges to address pesticide use by requiring fresh produce suppliers to adopt ecological farming methods and to confirm their practices through third-party verifications. Eight companies have created policies that encourage suppliers to reduce the use of "pesticides of concern—including neonicotinoids, organophosphates, and glyphosate—and to shift to least-toxic approaches," according to the scorecard.
Friends of the Earth's report on risks associated with pesticide use explains why scrutiny around retailers' use of pesticides is warranted, and why retailers themselves ought to be motivated to reduce these risks.
For one thing, "under the incoming Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency will likely do even less to mitigate the damage of pesticides, putting even more onus on companies to address the escalating risks," according to Kendra Klein, deputy director of science at Friends of the Earth.
"Food retailers must urgently reduce their use of pesticides and advance organic and other ecologically regenerative approaches. They have the opportunity to lead in the fight against biodiversity collapse and climate change, helping to ensure Americans have continued access to healthy food," she said in a statement.
An estimated one-third of world crops rely on pollination, and a little less than three-fourths of fruit and vegetable crops require pollination from insects and other creatures, according to the report. Pollinators are often studied as an indicator for biodiversity risk and general environmental health—and experts cite pesticides as among the reasons that pollinators are in decline. Research also shows that pesticides poise a threat to healthy soil ecosystems.
According to the report, an estimated one-third of world crops rely on pollination, and a little less than three-fourths of fruit and vegetable crops require pollination from insects and other creatures. Pollinators are often studied as an indicator for biodiversity risk and general environmental health—and experts cite pesticides as among the reasons that pollinators are in decline, per the report. Research also shows that pesticides poise a threat to healthy soil ecosystems, the report states.
The report states that 89% of the almond crop area, 72% of apples, 100% of corn, and 40% of soy receives more than one "lethal dose" of an insecticide that is considered toxic to bees. This "quantification of the risk of pesticides to pollinators" for the four crops "provides the values to conduct the financial analysis in this study."
The document details how the food retail industry's use of pesticides creates direct costs for the industry—for example, the money spent purchasing and applying the pesticides, the CO2 emissions associated with using or producing pesticides, and the impact on crop yields, as well as indirect costs.
When it comes to climate damage costs, the report estimates that U.S. food retailer sales for products that include soy, corn, apples, and almonds will suffer $4.5 billion over the period of 2024-50. Biodiversity risk stemming from using pollinator-harming pesticides on those four crops is valued much higher, at $34.3 billion, over the same time period.
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