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Clemency Wells in Reprieve’s press office, on +44 (0) 207 553 8161
A divisional bench of the Lahore High Court has stayed the execution of a man scheduled for execution Tuesday morning because of his severe mental illness.
Khizar Hayat, who suffers from schizophrenia, was scheduled for execution early Tuesday morning local time. However the bench, made up of Justice Mazhar Ali Akbar Naqvi and Justice Syed Shabaz Ali Rizvi, stayed the execution in light of a petition from Hayat's lawyers based on jail medical records documenting his mental illness.
A divisional bench of the Lahore High Court has stayed the execution of a man scheduled for execution Tuesday morning because of his severe mental illness.
Khizar Hayat, who suffers from schizophrenia, was scheduled for execution early Tuesday morning local time. However the bench, made up of Justice Mazhar Ali Akbar Naqvi and Justice Syed Shabaz Ali Rizvi, stayed the execution in light of a petition from Hayat's lawyers based on jail medical records documenting his mental illness.
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A former police officer, Khizar was arrested and sentenced to death in 2003 for murder. In 2008 he started being treated for schizophrenia and a formal diagnosis was confirmed in 2009. He was moved to the prison hospital in 2012 because of his worsening psychiatric state and repeated attacks by fellow prisoners.
In 2009 Khizar was diagnosed with schizophrenia and has been prescribed medication since including: the anti-psycotic Epsidone (otherwise known as Risperidone); Serenace, which is an antipsychotic medication used in the treatment of schizophrenia; and Tegral, which is used for the treatment of resistant schizophrenia. Medical records show comments from Khizar's doctors on his condition including: "he is suffering from active symptoms of severe psychosis"; he is "suffering from extremely irrelevant talk."
Today, after meeting with Khizar just hours before news of the stay reached them, Khizar's mother reported that he had no idea that he was just hours from his execution and instead believed that his release had recently been authorised. He asked her to take him home.
The execution of people with mental illness is illegal under Islamic and international law. The jail authorities now have three days to respond to the lawyers' petition.
Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve which is representing Khizar Hayat said: "We are hugely relieved the judge has agreed with his lawyer's arguments that Khizar is an extremely unwell man. He suffers from constant delusions, does not understand why he is in prison and did not know that he was set for execution. It would be a flagrant violation of Islamic and international law - not to mention basic common humanity - to execute someone in his state. Khizar's death sentence must be commuted."
Reprieve is a UK-based human rights organization that uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantanamo Bay.
"We are getting more extreme weather because of the warming oceans and that has tremendous consequences all around the world," said one scientist.
As the death toll from the extreme weather facing California this week rose to at least 17 and thousands in the state were displaced by mudslides and flooding, scientists from 16 international universities and institutes published a study Wednesday showing that a major driver of extreme weather—the heating of the world's oceans—was worse than ever in 2022.
Experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other institutes found that the oceans had their hottest year on record last year. Record-keeping began in 1940 and the planet's oceans have been heating steadily for more than six decades—with the trend accelerating particularly after 1990—but scientists believe the oceans are now the hottest they've been in 1,000 years.
"Measuring the oceans is the most accurate way of determining how out of balance our planet is," John Abraham, a professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota and one of 24 scientists who authored the study, toldThe Guardian. "We are getting more extreme weather because of the warming oceans and that has tremendous consequences all around the world."
"The Earth's energy and water cycles have been profoundly altered due to the emission of greenhouse gases by human activities, driving pervasive changes in Earth's climate system."
The oceans absorb more than 90% of excess greenhouse gas emissions that enter the atmosphere largely as a result of fossil fuel extraction, and study co-author Michael Mann of the University of Pennsylvania warned that as long as humans continue extracting fossil fuels, record-breaking ocean heating will remain likely each year.
"The oceans are absorbing most of the heating from human carbon emissions," Mann told France 24. "Until we reach net zero emissions, that heating will continue, and we'll continue to break ocean heat content records, as we did this year. Better awareness and understanding of the oceans are a basis for the actions to combat climate change."
The public can "thank your fossil fuel friends" for the "supercharged storms" and other devastating weather patterns that have been linked to warming oceans, said U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
\u201cSupercharged storms.\n\nSea level rise.\n\nBleached reefs.\n\nMelted ice.\n\nDamaged fisheries.\n\nThank your fossil fuel friends.\n \nhttps://t.co/jWXQ9wREuX\u201d— Sheldon Whitehouse (@Sheldon Whitehouse) 1673449471
The scientists evaluated temperature data on the 2,000 meters (6,561 feet) of the oceans closest to the surface, where most heating occurs, and measured heating in zetta joules, finding that the oceans absorbed about 10 zetta joules more heat in 2022 than in 2021.
That amount of added heat is the equivalent of "every person on Earth running 40 hairdryers all day, every day," The Guardian reported.
"The Earth's energy and water cycles have been profoundly altered due to the emission of greenhouse gases by human activities, driving pervasive changes in Earth's climate system," the researchers concluded.
The study also found that rising water temperatures combined with record-high salinity contribute to the "stratification" of oceans, in which water separates into layers. This process can lead to a loss of oxygen in the oceans because it alters "how heat, carbon, and oxygen are exchanged between the ocean and the atmosphere above it."
"Deoxygenation itself is a nightmare for not only marine life and ecosystems but also for humans and our terrestrial ecosystems," the researchers said in a statement. "Reducing oceanic diversity and displacing important species can wreak havoc on fishing-dependent communities and their economies, and this can have a ripple effect on the way most people are able to interact with their environment."
The heating of the oceans can cause "shockwaves of disruption in the food chain [that] will lead to food shortages for many marine mammals," said U.K.-based advocacy group Surfers Against Sewage. "For a thriving ocean we need a drastic reduction in CO2 emissions."
"More drilling and more fracking is just a recipe for more climate disaster. For our future, President Biden needs to get real."
More than 300 environmental and Indigenous rights groups said Wednesday that the Biden administration must take a number of concrete actions to protect the nation's public lands and waters from fossil fuel industry exploitation and bring U.S. policy into line with climate science—and the president's own campaign pledges.
In a letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, the climate coalition noted that President Joe Biden "made a bold promise to ban new oil and gas leasing on public lands and waters, and within days of taking office issued his Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad."
"However, since then, the Biden administration and Interior's leadership has fallen short Interior issued new permits to drill at a rate faster than the Trump administration during Biden's first year in office," the letter continues. "The Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management pushed forward with new oil and gas lease sales, including a sale in the Gulf of Mexico that was vacated by a federal court for a faulty environmental review. And Interior's final report on the leasing program failed to take into account climate impacts from extraction on public lands and waters."
The groups also pointed to the Biden administration's recent decision to go ahead with a major oil and gas lease sale off Alaska's coast, ignoring warnings that the auction would imperil marine life, pollute coastal communities, and contribute to the nation's rising carbon emissions.
"The climate science is clear: Several analyses show that climate pollution from the world's already-producing fossil fuel fields, if fully developed, will overshoot the targets in the Paris Climate Agreement and push warming past 1.5 degrees Celsius," the letter states. "Avoiding such warming requires ending new investment in fossil fuel projects and phasing out production to keep as much as 40% of already-developed fields in the ground."
In a press release, the coalition outlines nine steps the Biden administration can and must take to manage "public lands and waters in a manner consistent with climate science":
"Indigenous and frontline communities continue to bear the brunt of the climate crisis, and we are calling for the administration to end fossil fuel expansion and implement a just transition," Lake continued. "There is simply no time to lose and our public lands need to be a part of the solution."
Recent research estimates that fossil fuel extraction on public lands and waters has accounted for nearly a quarter of all U.S. greenhouse gas pollution since 2005, making the end of such development critical to efforts to bring the country's emissions into line with its domestic and international commitments.
"More drilling and more fracking is just a recipe for more climate disaster," Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians, said in a statement Wednesday. "For our future, President Biden needs to get real, start keeping oil and gas in the ground, and truly drive meaningful action to save our climate."
"That's the behavior of a company with no intention of changing course from management decisions that seek to enrich shareholders while leaving consumers holding the bag."
After canceling nearly 17,000 flights around the Christmas holiday—the worst customer service meltdown in the history of the U.S. airline industry—Southwest announced this week that it is promoting several of its executives, a move that watchdogs decried as a slap in the face of the travelers impacted by the company's incompetence and greed.
In a press release, Southwest said it is elevating five executives across different departments at the company, including network operations control and communications. The announcement came just over a week after the Southwest pilots' union published a scathing letter calling the corporation's management a "headquarters-centric cult" that has "eroded our company from within."
While Southwest said the new leadership changes "represent phase two of the organizational structure work that began in September 2022," critics argued the decision to go ahead with the promotions following the holiday debacle shows a total disregard for customers and U.S. regulators, who have been accused of doing far too little to crack down on industry abuses.
"Southwest thought its executives deserved a promotion after leaving thousands of its consumers in the lurch in the middle of peak holiday season travel," Liz Zelnick, director of the Economic Security and Corporate Power program at Accountable.US, said in a statement Tuesday. "That's the behavior of a company with no intention of changing course from management decisions that seek to enrich shareholders while leaving consumers holding the bag. We hope that Congress investigates their failures and holds their executives accountable."
Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project, wrote in response to the promotions: "They are just mocking Pete Buttigieg. And why shouldn't they?"
Buttigieg, the head of the U.S. Transportation Department, has faced growing backlash from airline watchdogs and members of his own party in recent days for failing to take decisive action in the lead-up to and in the wake of Southwest's mass cancellations, which pilots and flight attendants say were fueled by the company's refusal to invest in technological upgrades that could have helped the airline giant navigate bad weather and predictable holiday travel chaos.
In recent years, as flight crews pressed for changes to the company's antiquated technology, spent nearly $6 billion buying back its own stock.
"Pete Buttigieg chose to let nearly every domestic airline off scot-free after they were caught completely flat-footed earlier this year," said Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, referring to cancellations surrounding the July 4 holiday. "Despite rampant cancellations and widespread violation of federal law by giving travel vouchers instead of cash refunds, the only domestic airline to face any regulatory scrutiny was the small, politically weak Frontier."
"That is despite the fact that Frontier was responsible for far less of the industry-wide meltdown than major players like United or Southwest," Hauser continued. "Every other U.S.-based airline got off with a warning and promised to do better in the future. When you don't actually enforce the law, you lose credibility as a regulator. Our position is simple: when corporations violate federal law, they should be investigated and held accountable."
"When you don't actually enforce the law, you lose credibility as a regulator."
While the Transportation Department has said it is investigating the latest round of mass cancellations and acting on the flurry of refund complaints from Southwest customers whose travel plans were thrown into chaos, lawmakers and advocates argue the agency's actions thus far have fallen far short of what's needed to hold the company accountable and prevent future disasters.
"In light of the sheer magnitude of Southwest Airlines' most recent operational failures and the devastating impact these failures and other airline cancellations continue to have on American consumers, we believe much more needs to be done," 26 Democratic lawmakers wrote in a letter to Buttigieg last week.
"Refunds and other types of compensation policies quickly become meaningless if there's not a clear mechanism or platform for passenger redress. Ensuring passengers and airlines can effectively communicate with one another will allow passengers
to swiftly receive any owed compensation as well as any other helpful information a passenger may need after a canceled or significantly delayed flight," the lawmakers wrote. "Furthermore, the Department should make sure that airlines are able to maintain a reasonable level of operational capabilities in the event of extreme weather or other type of potential disruption. Of course, not all
disruptions can be controlled. But issuing rules and standards that could help limit or prevent future cancellations and delays arising from these initial disruptions will ultimately benefit consumers much more than any reimbursement policy ever could."
William J. McGee, a senior fellow for aviation at American Economic Liberties Project, wrote in an NBC News op-ed earlier this month that "America's commercial aviation system is broken, but so is the only regulatory agency allowed to oversee it."
"Consider what we've seen from the federal government since Covid hit," McGee wrote. "For starters, airlines withheld at least $10 billion in unpaid refunds and unused flight credits after the pandemic forced people not to fly in 2020 and beyond. In November, Secretary Pete Buttigieg finally imposed what he termed 'historic' fines. But only Frontier and five small foreign carriers were penalized."
"Then, the first half of 2022 had an unprecedented number of delayed and canceled flights, more than in all of 2021," he continued. "Despite warnings from lawmakers and groups like my organization, the American Economic Liberties Project, Buttigieg assured passengers in September that the airlines would address their scheduling problems. Unfortunately, he didn't use his authority under the Transportation Department's unfair and deceptive acts rule to investigate why tens of thousands of flights were scheduled and then paid for by consumers, only to be canceled."
"Worse," McGee added, "there have been no reported penalties for the cancellations. This lack of enforcement may have contributed to Southwest's Christmas meltdown, because it's unlikely Southwest and other airlines would have stranded so many passengers if they feared real consequences."