February, 28 2021, 11:00pm EDT
WASHINGTON
Today the Environmental Health Network released a groundbreaking study, years in the making, that finds alarming ties between fracking operations and dangerous exposure to toxic chemicals in residents of nearby communities in Pennsylvania. In response, Sandra Steingraber, PhD, of Concerned Health Professionals of New York, issued the following statement:
"Concerned Health Professionals of New York congratulates Environmental Health News and lead reporter Kristina Marusic for the release today of a groundbreaking investigation of toxic exposures from drilling and fracking operations. This two-year, four-part investigation reveals the presence of industrial solvents and other harmful chemicals known to be linked to fracking inside the bodies of children and other family members living southwestern Pennsylvania.
"This investigation represents the first comprehensive body burden analysis of residents living in areas targeted by fracking. As such, it fills in an important data gap and strongly suggests that the toxic emissions from fracking operations are entering the bodies of nearby residents at levels known to cause harm. Like the body burden results that documented lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan from contaminated drinking water, today's findings show that fracking is poisoning children. We now know from today's findings that the toxic emissions from fracking operations, which we have documented in our own Compendium of Findings, become actual human exposures.
"And the results are truly shocking. Levels of toxic industrial solvents linked to drilling operations--including the metabolic breakdown products of ethylbenzene, styrene, and toluene--were detected in the urine of children living nearby at levels up to 91 times higher than those found in the average American.
"Further, cancer-causing chemicals in drinking water and indoor air were found at concentrations that exceed threshold levels for safety. This study also corroborates and extends previous research that finds connections between fracking and mental health problems.
"Consider together with the results of previous studies, the findings of this multi-part investigation serve as a powerful moral indictment of the Pennsylvania Department of Public Health, which has long privileged gas industry interests over protecting the health of Pennsylvania residents. Pennsylvania's children should not be used as laboratory rats in an uncontrolled human experiment involved toxic exposures.
"In light of today's revelatory investigation, Concerned Health Professionals of New York reiterates our call: The risks and harms of fracking to public health are inherent to its operation. The only method of mitigating fracking's grave threats to public health is a rapid, comprehensive phase-out of fracking."
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
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'Unlawful and Catastrophic': IDF Begins Forced Evacuation of Rafah
The head of one humanitarian group called the Israeli military's directives "a serious violation of international law."
May 06, 2024
Israel's army on Monday ordered roughly 100,000 people living in eastern Rafah to evacuate ahead of an imminent military assault on the area, terrifying families who have been forcibly displaced to the southern Gaza city in recent months and intensifying warnings of a bloodbath.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) dropped leaflets over Rafah ordering some of its 1.4 million residents to move to a strip along Gaza's coast, a signal that a long-feared ground assault on the overcrowded city is set to begin in the face of vocal opposition from the international community and humanitarian organizations.
The U.S., Israel's top arms supplier, has said it would oppose a Rafah assault without a credible plan to evacuate civilians from the city. Humanitarian groups and analysts have said such a plan is impossible because there is no genuinely safe place for Gazans to go. Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked so-called "safe zones" and designated routes Palestinians have used to flee in compliance with past IDF orders.
"Israel's military offensive in Rafah could lead to the deadliest phase of this conflict, inflicting horrific suffering on approximately 1.4 million displaced civilians in the area," said Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. "The relocation orders issued by Israel today to thousands of Gazans, directing them to move to Al-Mawasi, are beyond alarming. The area is already overstretched and devoid of vital services. It lacks the capacity to house the number of people currently seeking refuge in Rafah, with no assurances of safety, proper accommodation, or return once hostilities end for those forced to relocate."
"The absence of these fundamental guarantees of safety and return, as required by international humanitarian law, qualifies Israel's relocation directives as forcible transfer, amounting to a serious violation of international law," Egeland said. "Any Israeli military operation in Rafah—which has become the largest cluster of displacement camps in the world—will cause potential mass atrocities."
"If large-scale military operations start, not only will children be at risk from the violence, but also from chaos and panic, and at a time where their physical and mental states are already weakened."
Israel
reportedly notified the U.S. of the evacuation orders overnight, and CIA Director William Burns is set to arrive in Israel on Monday to discuss the operation in Rafah, a city along Gaza's border with Egypt that has become a critical point of entry for humanitarian aid. The new evacuation orders, expected to be just the first round of directives, include Rafah's largest medical facility.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the main relief agency in Gaza, said in response to the IDF's orders that it would not leave Rafah.
"An Israeli offensive in Rafah would mean more civilian suffering and deaths. The consequences would be devastating for 1.4 million people," the organization wrote in a social media post. "UNRWA is not evacuating: The agency will maintain a presence in Rafah as long as possible and will continue providing lifesaving aid to people."
BREAKING: #Israel drops leaflets over #Rafah southern #Gaza, ordering inhabitants of eastern Rafah to immediately move to Al Mawasi (a desolate strip along the Gaza coast), cautioning them from moving to north Gaza or towards its southern and eastern perimeter fence. pic.twitter.com/tBum9ULewF
— Itay Epshtain (@EpshtainItay) May 6, 2024
The far-right Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been threatening a ground invasion of Rafah for months, characterizing the city as Hamas' last major stronghold. Avichay Adraee, an IDF lieutenant colonel, said Monday that the Israeli military would use "extreme force" in the evacuation areas and warned that "anyone who is close to terrorist organizations puts his life and the life of his family at risk."
According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), around 600,000 children are currently sheltering in the city, including many who have been displaced multiple times since Israel's assault began in October following a Hamas-led attack.
"More than 200 days of war have taken an unimaginable toll on the lives of children," Catherine Russell, UNICEF's executive director, said Monday. "Rafah is now a city of children, who have nowhere safe to go in Gaza. If large-scale military operations start, not only will children be at risk from the violence, but also from chaos and panic, and at a time where their physical and mental states are already weakened.”
Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, called the IDF's evacuation push in Rafah "unlawful and catastrophic."
"There's nowhere safe to go in Gaza," Shakir added. "The international community should act to prevent further atrocities."
The IDF began issuing its evacuation orders in Rafah a day after the Netanyahu government voted to shut downAl Jazeera's operations in the country, a brazen attack on press freedom.
"The fact that Israel banned
Al Jazeera hours before beginning its assault on Rafah is not a coincidence," said author and Middle East analyst Assal Rad. "After everything we’ve seen in the last seven months, imagine what they'll do when they think no one is watching."
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Belgian Police Arrest 132 Climate Defenders Demanding End to Fossil Fuel Subsidies
"The fact that national governments are subsidizing fossil fuels is akin to a crime against humanity," said one Extinction Rebellion organizer.
May 05, 2024
The climate action group Extinction Rebellion Belgium on Saturday decried what it called "disproportionate police violence" against nonviolent demonstrators who were arrested during a protest in Brussels demanding an end to fossil fuel subsidies.
Hundreds of Extinction Rebellion-led climate defenders blocked Rue Belliard in the European Quarter, the de facto European Union capital, during EU Open Day, when agencies of the 27-nation bloc open their doors to the public. In what Extinction Rebellion called an "unprecedented police response," officers allegedly struck protesters with batons and used chemical agents against demonstrators.
Brussels police said 132 activists—some of whom glued themselves to the ground—were arrested.
"This police behavior toward nonviolent protesters exercising their freedom of assembly is illegal and authoritarian," Extinction Rebellion Belgium said in a statement Saturday.
"We call on the police to exercise restraint and respect the right to demonstrate peacefully and without violence," the group added.
The activists are calling on European governments to stop subsidizing fossil fuels amid a worsening planetary crisis. They're also demanding the declaration of a climate emergency.
"National and European governments are spending at least €405 billion each year subsidizing major fossil fuel corporations," protest spokesperson Bertina Maes toldThe Brussels Times. "That's ten times more than what's spent on climate policy."
Maes said the Belgian government alone spent as much as €20 billion ($21.5 billion) on fossil fuel subsidies in 2020, more than 2% of the country's gross domestic product.
"The fact that national governments are subsidizing fossil fuels is akin to a crime against humanity," she asserted.
This weekend's demonstration and arrests come a month before E.U. parliamentary elections. According to an April Eurobarometer survey conducted by the European Parliament, climate action is the fifth-most important issue to voters, after poverty and social exclusion, health, jobs, and defense and security.
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Israel Bans Al Jazeera in 'Assault on Freedom of the Press'
"Rather than trying to silence reporting on its atrocities in Gaza, the Israeli government should stop committing them," said one observer.
May 05, 2024
The Jerusalem offices of Al Jazeera were raided Sunday after Israel's far-right Cabinet banned the Qatar-based satellite news network—the sole international media outlet providing 24/7 live coverage from Gaza—from operating in the country.
"If you're watching this… then Al Jazeera has been banned in Israel," correspondent Imran Khan said in a pre-recorded report from occupied East Jerusalem preempting the Israeli Cabinet's unanimous vote to shutter the network.
The order—which does not affect Al Jazeera's ability to operate in Gaza or the illegally occupied Palestinian territories—is believed to be the first of its kind targeting a foreign media outlet operating in Israel. It comes after the Knesset, Israel's parliament, recently voted 71-10 in favor of a law empowering the Israeli communications minister to ban foreign news organizations from working in Israel and to confiscate their equipment.
"The time has come to eject Hamas' mouthpiece from our country," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address.
Ofir Gendelman, Netanyahu's Arab media spokesperson, said Sunday that the closure would be "implemented immediately."
Gendelman said that the network's "broadcast equipment will be confiscated, the channel's correspondents will be prevented from working, the channel will be removed from cable and satellite television companies, and Al Jazeera's websites will be blocked on the internet."
In a statement, Al Jazeera vowed to "pursue all available legal channels through international legal institutions in its quest to protect both its rights and journalists, as well as the public's right to information."
"Israel's ongoing suppression of the free press, seen as an effort to conceal its actions in the Gaza Strip, stands in contravention of international and humanitarian law," the network added. "Israel's direct targeting and killing of journalists, arrests, intimidation, and threats will not deter Al Jazeera."
The New York-based Foreign Press Association issued a statement slamming the move and saying it "should be a cause for concern for all supporters of a free press."
"With this decision, Israel joins a dubious club of authoritarian governments to ban the station," the group said. "This is a dark day for the media. This is a dark day for democracy."
Human Rights Watch Israel and Palestine director Omar Shakir called the order "an assault on freedom of the press."
"Rather than trying to silence reporting on its atrocities in Gaza, the Israeli government should stop committing them," he added.
Al Jazeera is the only international news network providing nonstop on-the-ground coverage of Israel's war on Gaza, often being the first to report Israeli atrocities in what many experts worldwide say is a genocidal campaign in the besieged, starving strip.
Its correspondents and other media professionals work under constant risk to life and limb. More than 100 journalists, the vast majority of them Palestinians, have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7 in what the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and others say are often intentional targetings of not only media workers but also their families.
In December, Israeli forces killedAl Jazeera cameraman Samer Abudaqa as he reported on the war in southern Gaza, an attack that also wounded Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh—whose wife, son, daughter, and grandson were killed in a separate Israeli strike.
Previous probes—like the investigation into Israeli troops' 2022 killing of renowned Palestinian American Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh—have confirmed that Israel has deliberately targeted journalists.
Last May, CPJ published Deadly Pattern, a report that found Israeli troops had killed at least 20 journalists over the past 22 years with utter impunity. While some of the slain journalists have been foreigners—including Italian Associated Press reporter Simone Camilli and British cameraman and filmmaker James Miller—the vast majority of victims have been Palestinian.
Israeli forces have also attacked newsrooms in every major assault on Gaza, including in May 2021 when the 11-story al-Jalaa Tower, which housed offices of Al Jazeera, The Associated Press, and other media outlets, was completely destroyed in an airstrike.
On Friday—World Press Freedom Day—Palestinian journalists covering the war on Gaza were awarded this year's UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize after being recommended by an international jury of media professionals.
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