February, 17 2020, 11:00pm EDT
"Stop the Money Pipeline" Announces Nationwide Day of Action to Protest the Financing of Climate Destruction
Chase, Liberty Mutual, and BlackRock Among the Top Targets for Climate Campaigners
WASHINGTON
Stop the Money Pipeline, a coalition of dozens of groups dedicated to ending the financing of climate destruction, is announcing a major Day of Action for this April 23, 2020, as part of three days of youth-led Climate Strikes around the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day.
Stop the Money Pipeline organizers are expecting hundreds of events to take place on April 23rd targeting the financial institutions who are doing the most to wreck the climate. There will be sit-ins, teach-ins, and petition deliveries at bank branches; protests outside of company headquarters; actions on university campuses; and more.
At the top of its target list is JP Morgan Chase, the largest bank financier of fossil fuels. In the three years following the Paris Climate Agreement, Chase poured over $196 billion into new fossil fuel projects, according to the Banking on Climate Change fossil fuel finance report card released by the Rainforest Action Network. Chase has come under increasing pressure from activists over the past few months, with demonstrators interrupting a recent speech by CEO Jamie Dimon in Florida this February, and nearly weekly demonstrations at bank branches across the country. The Stop the Money Pipeline campaign began with a sit-in at a Chase Bank branch in Washington, D.C. that garnered national media attention.
Other targets for the April 23rd day of action include: Liberty Mutual, a leading insurer of fossil fuel projects; BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world, who despite its recent announcements, continues to pump billions of dollars into fossil fuels and deforestation; and universities and pension funds who have failed to divest from fossil fuels. At many universities, students have given their administrations until Earth Day to divest or face protests on campus. Last week, there were divestment rallies on over 50 campuses across the country for Fossil Fuel Divestment Day.
The April 23rd Stop the Money Pipeline day of action is being organized as the second of three days of Climate Strikes that young people are planning around the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day. The three days will demonstrate the growing power of the climate movement and go after the two drivers of the climate emergency: money and politics.
On Day 1 of the strikes, Earth Day, the mobilization will begin with actions designed to show the breadth and depth of the climate movement, centering the leadership of Indigenous people, frontline communities, and people of color. Day 2, Thursday, April 23, will be Stop the Money Pipeline Day, focused on ending the financing of climate destruction. Day 3, Friday, April 24, will target elected officials and include a massive voter registration push.
The April actions will be accompanied by a major online push to get individuals and institutions to ditch their banks, insurance companies, and asset managers that are fueling the climate crisis and switch to sustainable alternatives. A video of Jane Fonda cutting up a Chase credit card has already been viewed nearly a million times and inspired hundreds of comments from people saying that they're prepared to do the same if Chase doesn't stop funding fossil fuels.
The Stop the Money Pipeline Day of Action will take place just weeks before shareholder season, when JP Morgan Chase and others are expected to come under pressure from shareholders to do more to address the climate emergency. Last week, Majority Action, a member of the Stop the Money Pipeline coalition, launched a campaign to oust former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond from his position as chair of the board of JP Morgan Chase. Meanwhile, at Barclays a group of influential shareholders is pressuring the bank to cut its ties with fossil fuel firms. And all eyes will be on BlackRock and State Street, as this shareholder season is the first test of recent announcements from both asset managers that they will starting using their voting power to push companies on climate change and vote out corporate leadership that doesn't act on climate.
According to the organizers at Stop the Money Pipeline, this is just the beginning. Now that the climate movement is following the money, it won't let up until not a penny more is invested in climate destruction.
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'Children Are Starving': Rafah Suffers as Israel Halts All Aid and Escalates Assault
"People have been fearing this for a long, long time and it is now upon us. There is constant bombardment. There is smoke on the horizon. There are people on the move," said one humanitarian worker.
May 10, 2024
United Nations experts on Friday used U.S. President Joe Biden's own language regarding Israel's offensive in Rafah, Gaza to demand that the president follow through with his statement that an Israeli invasion of the southern city would be a "red line" and would push him to halt military support for Israel.
"States with influence over Israel have described any incursion into Rafah as a 'red line,'" said experts including Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, and Michael Fakhri, special rapporteur on the right to food. "They must immediately put those words into practice and stop this disastrous campaign by ending the flow of arms into Israel and withholding investment and political support."
The latest call for the U.S. to end its support for Israel comes as humanitarian workers in Rafah, where 1.4 million people have been living in improvised tent encampments for weeks following the forced displacement of 90% of Gaza residents, are grappling with rapidly dwindling aid supplies.
Israel seized control of the crucial Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt this week, shutting off all humanitarian aid—which was already a fraction of what's needed—as the enclave's entire population suffers from acute food insecurity.
Along with food, said the U.N. experts, Rafah now has no access to shipments of other survival supplies and fuel, which is needed to run Gaza's remaining hospitals and water desalination plants.
As a full-scale ground assault on Rafah is threatened, Sam Rose, director of planning for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), toldAl Jazeera, people in Rafah "are petrified" of a potential "scorched earth" war on Palestinian civilians.
"People have been fearing this for a long, long time and it is now upon us. There is constant bombardment. There is smoke on the horizon. There are people on the move," Rose said. "No aid has come into Gaza now since Sunday. No aid, no fuel, no supplies, nothing. And we really are now down to our last reserves. We have a few more days of flour that we can provide. But everything else will start to shut down very soon without fuel, without water. So the situation is really desperate."
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has long demanded that Biden end unconditional military support for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), warned that the U.S. can no longer be "complicit" in Israel's starving of Palestinians, dozens of whom have already died of malnutrition due to Israel's blockade on nearly all aid since October.
Biden stopped a shipment of bombs to Israel last week, but NBC Newsreported Friday that shipments of "both offensive and defensive weaponry" have been sent to the IDF in recent days despite Israel's incursion.
UNRWA said Friday that 110,000 people have fled Rafah this week, with Israel claiming the coastal town of Al-Mawasi, about six miles from the city, is a new "expanded humanitarian area" where Palestinians will be safe. Rafah is one of many places in Gaza that have been previously designated as safe zones but were then bombarded by the IDF.
The U.N. experts said Al-Mawasi, a narrow strip of land, "cannot cope with a population influx."
The town is "already without sufficient food, water, medicine, hygiene products, electricity, shelter, and access to education for children," they said.
"In light of the grievous humanitarian situation on the ground, no evacuation order issued by Israel can be considered compliant with international humanitarian law," said the rapporteurs. "Further displacement of Gaza's population through evacuation orders or military operations contravenes binding provisional measures imposed on Israel by the International Court of Justice."
On Friday, Israeli troops were advancing in eastern Rafah as cease-fire talks brokered by the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt appeared to stall. Hamas said the "ball is now completely" in the hands of Israel, which on Monday rejected a cease-fire deal that Hamas had accepted, just as the IDF launched strikes on Rafah.
Hamas, which has governed Gaza for nearly two decades, said Israel had "raised objections" to Hamas' demands on "several central issues"; the Palestinian group has demanded a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, the return of displaced Palestinians, and swapping Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called on the international community to "speak with one voice for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza."
"The long-threatened Rafah invasion must not be seen as a foregone conclusion," said the U.S. experts. "Israel must halt this assault."
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'Watershed Moment': Anti-Apartheid Conference on Palestine Kicks Off in South Africa
South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said the movement to end Israeli apartheid is "following in the footsteps of Nelson Mandela" and "will not rest until the freedom of the peoples of Palestine is realized."
May 10, 2024
As Israeli forces continued their devastating assault on the Gaza Strip and deadly occupation of the West Bank, human rights defenders from around the world gathered Friday in South Africa—which is leading a genocide case against Israel at the World Court—for the inaugural Global Anti-Apartheid Conference on Palestine.
The conference began with a moment of silence for the nearly 35,000 Palestinians—most of them women and children—killed by Israeli troops during the 217-day war and "complete siege," which has also wounded more than 78,000 people, displaced around 90% of the strip's population, and starved at least hundreds of thousands of others—dozens of whom have died.
Meanwhile, Israel's illegal occupation and settler colonization have intensified in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where soldiers and settlers have killed at least 467 Palestinians and wounded or arrested thousands of others—some of whom were tortured—over the past seven months.
"This conference must make sure that we mobilize the world... and free the people of Palestine," Rev. Frank Chikane of the African National Congress (ANC) and World Council of Churches said at the start of the symposium.
Thanking Chikane for "spearheading" conference organizing efforts, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor hailed the "watershed moment" of "anti-apartheid movements on Palestine from around the globe coming together and joining forces in the struggle for justice for the Palestinian people."
"It has never been so urgent for the progressive forces around the globe to come together in a collective effort to exert maximum pressure to end the genocidal campaign underway in Gaza, and to end the apartheid system in Israel and the occupied territories, which is worse than what we experienced in our own country," she asserted, echoing past remarks by other South Africans and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
Pandor highlighted South Africa's December
filing of a genocide case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, a move supported by over 30 countries and regional blocs and hundreds of advocacy groups. In January, the ICJ found that Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza and ordered its government to prevent future genocidal acts—an order human rights monitors say Israel has ignored, largely by blocking humanitarian aid. In March, the ICJ ordered Israel to allow more aid into Gaza.
"We will continue to do everything within our power to preserve the existence of the Palestinian people as a group, to end all acts of apartheid and genocide against the Palestinian people, and to walk with them towards the realization of their collective right to self-determination," Pandor said. "We continue to do so following in the footsteps of Nelson Mandela and will not rest until the freedom of the peoples of Palestine is realized."
Ronnie Kasrils—a communist who went from being a guerrilla fighter in the ANC's armed wing during the apartheid era to a government minister in a free South Africa—warned against compromising in the fight for freedom. He also reaffirmed Palestinians' legal right to "armed struggle, an international right of resistance against tyranny, against military occupation."
Anti-Apartheid stalwart Ronnie Kasrils gives a passionate address at the Global Anti-Apartheid Conference On Palestine. #PalestineAfrica2024 pic.twitter.com/32i6KQfA85
— Salaamedia (@salaamedia) May 10, 2024
"There is no need to pussyfoot around the fact when we have our discussions about the rights of the Palestinians to resist with arms," Kasrils stressed.
Palestinian lawmaker, physician, and activist Mustafa Barghouti said that "we've woken the people of the world against genocide and injustice... and hypocrisy of international governments."
"Israel initiated this war but Israel will not be the one who decides how it ends," he added.
Lamis Deek, a New York-based attorney specializing in international human rights, called for "liberation of all the land from institutions of Zionist violence and supremacy, return, reparations, justice and accountability for every Zionist crime, and restitution."
"The Palestinian resistance is on the frontline against global descent into darkness and barbarism" @Lamis_Deek speaks powerfully about what it we means when we speak about Palestinian liberation. At The Global Anti Apartheid Conference on Palestine#PalestineAfrica pic.twitter.com/2eKGrS2EZ6
— CAGE International (@CAGEintl) May 10, 2024
Declan Kearney, a member of Northern Ireland's Legislative Assembly and national chairman of the Irish republican and democratic socialist party Sinn Féin, noted that "Palestinian and Irish freedom fighters share a special bond. Our commitment is absolute and unbreakable."
The Republic of Ireland said in March that it would intervene in the South African ICJ case and the country—along with fellow European Union members Spain, Slovenia, and Malta—is set later this month to join the nearly 140 nations that recognize Palestinian statehood.
The United Nations General Assembly voted 143-9 on Friday to approve Palestine's bid for full U.N. membership. The United States—Israel's leading international backer—and Israel voted against the proposal, which will head to the U.N. Security Council and an almost certain U.S. veto.
Kearney echoed other speakers who stressed the importance of international solidarity, applauding the "unprecedented" global outpouring of support for Palestine.
"We are with the Palestinian people on their long walk to freedom and will never abandon them," he vowed.
While many Israelis and their backers bristle at the apartheid label, Palestinians and individuals ranging from Carter to the late South African bishop and human rights campaigner Desmond Tutu to United Nations special rapporteurs have for decades called Israel's policies and actions in Palestine apartheid.
Major human rights organizations—including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Israeli groups B'Tselem and Yesh Din—have also done so. So have prominent Israelis including a former Mossad chief, multiple former attorneys general and ambassadors, and a growing number of journalists, artists, veterans, and others.
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'Argentina Stopped': Unions Hold Second General Strike Over Milei Austerity
"It is a day of resistance and demand," said trade groups that organized the action "in defense of democracy, labor rights, and the living wage."
May 10, 2024
Argentina's primary trade union federation on Thursday held another nationwide general strike, the second called since President Javier Milei, a far-right economist, took office in December and began pursuing sweeping austerity and deregulation.
The South American nation's unions organized the strike "in defense of democracy, labor rights, and the living wage," according to a statement from the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), the Argentine Workers' Central Union (CTA), and the Autonomous CTA.
"It is a day of resistance and demand," the groups said, blasting the Milei government's "brutal" attacks on labor rights, social security, public health, education, science, and "our cultural identity." The policies of austerity, say opponents, have disproportionately impacted working people and retirees.
The labor groups called out the government for promoting "dangerous policies for the privatization of public enterprises" and pushing for "a phenomenal transfer of resources to the most concentrated and privileged sectors of the economy."
CGT celebrated the 24-hour strike's success on Friday, declaring that "Argentina stopped," and sharing photos of sparsely populated roads, transit hubs, and other public spaces.
As the
Buenos Aires Timesreported:
In the nation's capital, streets were mostly empty, with very little public transport. Many schools and banks closed their doors while most shops were shuttered. Garbage was left uncollected.
Rail and port terminals were closed, while the industrial action forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights, leaving airports semi-deserted. Some buses—from firms that did not take part in the strike—were running in the morning, although with few passengers. Cars were circulating, but traffic levels were similar to that seen on weekends.
The port of Rosario, which exports 80% of the nation's agro-industrial production, was all but paralysed in the midst of its busiest season.
A spokesperson for Milei, Manuel Adorni, claimed the nationwide action was "an attack on the pocket and against the will of the people" by those "who have curtailed the progress of Argentines over the last 25 years," the newspaper noted.
Meanwhile, union leaders stressed that the strike was the result of "a government that only benefits the rich at the expense of the people, gives away natural resources, and seeks to eliminate workers' rights," as CTA secretary general Hugo Yasky put it.
As the action wound down Thursday, Yasky described it as a "display of dignity of the Argentine people" that sent "a strong message" to Milei's government as well as the International Monetary Fund "that intends to govern us" and the country's senators.
Argentina's Senate is now debating an "omnibus" bill that contains some of Milei's neoliberal economic policies—including making privatization easier—after the package was approved last week by the Chamber of Deputies, the lower congressional body.
Rubén Sobrero, general secretary of the Railway Union, signaled that more strikes could come if lawmakers continue to advance the president's policies, tellingThe Associated Press that "if there is no response within these 24 hours, we'll do another 36."
From Europe to North America, trade groups around the world expressed solidarity with Thursday's strike.
"Milei's policies have not tackled the decadence of the elites that he decries, instead he has delivered daily misery for millions of working people. Plummeting living standards, contracting production, and the collapse of purchasing power means some people cannot even afford to eat," said International Trade Union Confederation general secretary Luc Triangle in a statement.
Triangle noted that "the government is targeting the rights of the most vulnerable sectors of the population and key trade union rights, such as collective bargaining, that support greater fairness and equality in society, while threatening those who protest with police repression and criminalization."
"In this context, the work of the trade unions in Argentina is extraordinary. They have emerged as the main opposition to the government's dystopian agenda, uniting resistance and building a coalition in defense of workers' rights and broader democratic principles," he added. "The demands of the trade unions in Argentina for social justice, democracy, and equality are the demands of working people across the world. Their fight is our fight and that is why the global trade union movement stands with them."
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