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For Immediate Release
June, 06 2016, 01:15pm EDT
Contact:
Franziska Achterberg – Greenpeace EU food policy director: +32 (0)498 36 24 03,
franziska.achterberg@greenpeace.org
Greenpeace EU press desk: +32 (0)2 274 19 11, pressdesk.eu@greenpeace.org
Greenpeace Comment: EU Vote on Glyphosate Extension
BRUSSELS
The European Commission has failed to secure sufficient support from EU governments for its proposal to extend a licence for glyphosate by up to 18 months. The outcome shows that governments remain sceptical about the continued use of the controversial weedkiller, said Greenpeace.
Greenpeace EU food policy director Franziska Achterberg said: "Extending the glyphosate licence would be like smelling gas and refusing to evacuate to check for a leak. As long as there is no meaningful EU-wide restriction on glyphosate use, we will continue to live in a world that is awash in a weedkiller which is a likely cause of cancer."
"It's scandalous, but not unusual for the Commission to keep dangerous pesticides on the market after their licences expire. It has even extended the licence for substances that Europe's own chemicals agency has identified as highly damaging to our health. What's new this time is that governments paid attention and didn't just sign off on the Commission's proposal," added Achterberg.
This year alone the Commission has already extended the licences of 37 chemical pesticides [1], including substances that the European Chemicals Agency has classified as a serious threat to our health. This includes Sumitomo Chemical's flumioxazine [2] and Bayer's linuron [3], both classified as likely to damage the human reproductive system. This means they should no longer be licenced.
The original EU licence for glyphosate expired at the end of June 2012 and has already been extended twice. The latest proposal for extension could stretch that licence to a total of 15 years and a half, until the end of 2017, depending on when the European Chemicals Agency has completed its assessment of glyphosate's negative effects on human health and the environment.
EU country representatives will again vote on the Commission's proposal before the glyphosate licence expires at the end of June. No date has yet been set for the new vote.
For more information on the glyphosate controversy, please see our media briefing.
Notes:
[1] This includes extensions that were approved by EU governments, but not yet formally adopted.
[2] The extension of the EU licence for flumioxazine by one year was approved on 8 March. The Commission adopted the final decision on 8 April.
[3] The extension of the EU licence for linuron by one year was approved on 19 May. The Commission has not yet formally adopted the decision.
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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Sanders, Warren Help Form Senate Democratic ‘Fight Club’ Challenging Schumer’s Leadership
"So glad there are some Senate Dems willing to fight back," said one progressive strategist.
Nov 25, 2025
Angered by the Democratic leadership's fecklessness and lack of a bold vision for the future, a group of senators including Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has formed an alliance to push back on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the party's campaign arm ahead of next year's critical midterm elections.
The existence of the group, known as the "Fight Club," was first revealed Monday by the New York Times, which reported that the senators are pressing the Democratic Party to "embrace candidates willing to challenge entrenched corporate interests, fiercely oppose the Trump administration, and defy their own party’s orthodoxy."
Sens. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Tina Smith of Minnesota, and Chris Murphy of Connecticut are also members of the alliance, and other senators—including Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Jeff Merkley of Oregon—have taken part in group actions, according to the Times.
"The coalition of at least half a dozen senators... is unhappy with how Mr. Schumer and his fellow senator from New York, Kirsten Gillibrand, the head of Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, have chosen, recruited and, they argue, favored candidates aligned with the establishment," the newspaper reported. "The party’s campaign arm, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, has not made any formal endorsements in contested primaries. However, the senators are convinced that it is quietly signaling support for and pushing donors toward specific Senate candidates: Representative Angie Craig in Minnesota, Representative Haley Stevens in Michigan, and Gov. Janet Mills in Maine."
Members of the "Fight Club" have endorsed Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan's bid for US Senate. In addition to Flanagan, Sanders has backed Abdul El-Sayed's US Senate run in Michigan and Graham Platner's campaign to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in Maine.
Platner's top opponent in the primary race, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, was "aggressively recruited" by Schumer.
News of the "Fight Club" alliance comes after a small group of centrist Democrats, with Schumer's tacit blessing, capitulated to President Donald Trump and Republicans earlier this month by agreeing to end the government shutdown without an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, even as health insurance premiums skyrocket nationwide.
The cave sparked widespread fury, much of it directed at Schumer. Indivisible, a progressive advocacy group that typically aligns with Democrats, has said it will not support any Senate Democratic primary candidate who does not call on Schumer to step down as minority leader.
"We must turn the page on this era of cowardice," Indivisible said following Senate Democrats' capitulation. "We must nominate and elect Democratic candidates who have an actual backbone. And we must ensure that the kind of failed leadership we see from Senator Schumer does not doom a future Democratic majority."
Thus far, no sitting member of the Senate Democratic caucus has demanded Schumer's resignation. But the emergence of the "Fight Club" is the latest evidence that the Democratic leader's support is beginning to crumble.
"Absolutely love to see this," progressive strategist Robert Cruickshank wrote on social media in response to the Times reporting. "So glad there are some Senate Dems willing to fight back."
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Meanwhile, newly released documents suggest the administration is gearing up to have troops in the region until the end of Trump's term.
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Following reports that the Trump administration is eyeing a "deadly new phase" of military actions against Venezuela, including land strikes, a new report suggests that the US troops stationed near the South American nation are being denied holiday leave in anticipation of immediate action.
On Monday, NewsNation White House Correspondent Kellie Meyer reported via social media that the United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) is "restricting/limiting leave over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays in preparation for possible land strikes in the next 10 days to two weeks."
SOUTHCOM has denied the claim, with a spokesperson saying: "Our service members and civilian employees are always afforded the opportunity to take leave throughout the year, and that includes holiday periods."
As of yet, reports only suggest that the US may be planning imminent airstrikes against Venezuela. But as documents reported Tuesday by The Intercept revealed, the US is planning to maintain "a massive military presence in the Caribbean almost to the end of President Donald Trump’s term in office—suggesting the recent influx of American troops to the region won’t end anytime soon."
According to the report: "One spreadsheet outlining supplies for 'Puerto Rico Troops' notes tens of thousands of pounds of baked goods are scheduled for delivery from November 15 of this year to November 11, 2028. Foodstuff set to feed the troops include individually wrapped honey buns, vanilla cupcakes, sweet rolls, hamburger rolls, and flour tortillas." The food is slated to be delivered to every branch of the military, including the Coast Guard, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.
“The procurement’s length of time and the level of effort seemed to point to these operations continuing at the current level for several years,” said Mark Cancian, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “That’s significant because it means that the Navy will maintain a large presence in the Caribbean that is far larger than what it has been in recent years. It further implies that the Navy will be involved in these counter-drug operations.”
The Pentagon currently has more than 15,000 troops stationed in the region, the most since 1989, when the US launched a land invasion of Panama to topple the drug-running dictator Manuel Noriega, whom it had previously supported.
The reports came shortly after the US State Department designated the so-called "Cartel de los Soles," which the US accuses Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of leading, as a "terrorist organization." This is despite the fact that it is not actually an organized cartel at all, but a media shorthand developed to refer to the alleged connections that high-level Venezuelan officials have to the drug trade.
“It is not a group,” Adam Isaacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America organization, told the Associated Press Tuesday. “It’s not like a group that people would ever identify themselves as members. They don’t have regular meetings. They don’t have a hierarchy.”
Colombian journalist Juan Esteban Silva explains that the terrorist designation, despite its factual flimsiness, "gives the US authority to conduct covert operations, bring terrorism and drug charges, issue international arrest warrants, freeze assets, and block transactions. It also enables extraterritorial prosecution, travel restrictions, broader law enforcement and military cooperation, and asset seizures."
Maduro's government called the designation an "infamous, vile lie to justify an illegitimate and illegal intervention against Venezuela under the classic US format of regime change."
It comes after Reuters reported Sunday that “covert operations" in Venezuela "would likely be the first part of the new action against Maduro" and that the US was “prepared to use every element of American power” to achieve its goals in the region.
While stopping drug trafficking was the initial justification for the administration’s push for regime change, White House messaging has shifted in recent days, with officials telling Fox News that it "goes beyond the Maduro regime" and is also about "getting Russia, China, and Iran out of the Western hemisphere."
On Monday, US Rep. María Salazar (R-Fla.) gave a more candid explanation for the potentially imminent military action and the need for regime change on Fox Business.
Maduro, she said, "is understanding that we're about to go in." She went on: "Venezuela, for the American oil companies, will be a field day, because it will be more than a trillion dollars in economic activity. American companies can go in and fix all the oil rigs and everything that has to do with the Venezuelan petroleum companies."
Prior to returning to office, Trump said at a rally in 2023 that he regretted not invading Venezuela during his first term: "We would have taken [Venezuela] over; we would have gotten to all that oil; it would have been right next door.”
Though the White House appears increasingly committed to military action against Venezuela, it is overwhelmingly unpopular among Americans.
A CBS News/YouGov survey published on Sunday found that 70% of Americans—including 91% of Democrats and 42% of Republicans—are against the “US taking military action in Venezuela,” and a majority don’t believe a direct attack on Venezuela would even achieve the Trump administration’s stated goal of reducing the flow of drugs to the United States.
The same poll found that just 13% of Americans consider Venezuela to be a "major threat" to "US security," while 48% consider it a "minor threat," and 39% consider it to be "not a threat."
Alfons López Tena, a former member of the Catalan parliament and an analyst on public and international affairs, expressed shock at the Trump administration's brazenness despite the total lack of public consent for war.
"The US doesn’t feel at all like a country marching into war, 70% oppose military action in Venezuela," he said. "The government's cursory explanations show they are so heedless of public opinion that they don't even feel the need to mount a proper propaganda campaign."
Nathan J. Robinson, the editor-in-chief of the left-wing magazine Current Affairs, meanwhile, said he's not surprised.
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A United Nations report claims that Israel's assault on Gaza has led to "the most severe economic crisis ever recorded," with nearly seven decades' worth of economic development wiped out over the span of two years.
The report, which was released on Monday by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), found that all 2.3 million people in the exclave now live below the poverty line, with per-capita gross domestic product falling to just $161, one of the lowest figures in the world.
Additionally, the report found that the unemployment rate in Gaza was as high as 80%, while inflation in the exclave surged to nearly 240%, as the Israeli military blockade caused a widespread famine by preventing basic necessities from reaching Gaza residents.
One particularly striking metric flagged by the report was the precipitous drop of night-time luminosity, which fell by 73% in Gaza between September 2023 and May 2025, an indication that Israel had completely destroyed most of the exclave's power infrastructure and left the vast majority of its people without electricity.
In fact, a map showing the presence of night-time electric lights in Gaza in May 2025 showed that the only areas in the exclave that had power were ones in the very south on the border with Egypt and in the very north on the border with Israel.
The UNCTAD report also painted a very grim picture of what it will take to rebuild Gaza.
"In an optimistic scenario of double-digit growth rates facilitated by a significant level of foreign aid, it will still take several decades for Gaza to return to pre-October 2023 welfare levels," the report said. "The international community should act to ensure a permanent ceasefire immediately and, once recovery commences, prioritize life-saving interventions, including access to essential healthcare, both physical and mental, clean water, and the restoration of basic infrastructure."
While Gaza suffered the most devastation as a result of Israeli military operations, the UNCTAD report noted that the West Bank was also undergoing significant economic distress.
Specifically, the report said that the West Bank is suffering through "its most severe economic downturn on record, driven by heightened insecurity, movement and access restrictions, and the loss of productive opportunities in all sectors of the economy."
Israel's war in Gaza, which began after Hamas launched a surprise attack inside Israel on October 7, 2023 that killed nearly 1,200 Israelis, has so far killed an estimated 70,000 Palestinians. A report released by Physicians for Human Rights–Israel last week also estimated that nearly 100 Palestinian detainees have died while being held in Israeli custody.
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