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For Immediate Release
June, 15 2021, 03:25pm EDT
Contact:
Mike Stankiewicz, mstankiewicz@citizen.org
Katie Parrish, kparrish@citizen.org
Dropped by U.K.'s Largest Asset Manager Over Fossil Fuel Underwriting, AIG Must Act on Climate
Public Citizen pressures AIG to stop insuring the climate crisis.
WASHINGTON
On Monday, global insurer American International Group (AIG) lost a major investor over its insufficient action on climate change. Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), the largest asset manager in the U.K., announced that it would divest from AIG and three other companies that have failed to adequately address climate change. AIG is one of the last major global insurers without a coal policy, while over 26 insurers worldwide have taken action to restrict coal underwriting. Public Citizen has been pressuring AIG to stop insuring and investing in fossil fuels. Hannah Saggau, climate campaign coordinator at Public Citizen, issued the following statement:
"It is unacceptable that AIG still underwrites new, multibillion-dollar coal projects. Any company that continues to support this sector will only face increasing scrutiny from investors as the urgency of the climate crisis escalates. LGIM's divestment from AIG puts much-needed pressure on this climate laggard.
"AIG has no commitments to end its underwriting and investments in fossil fuels and has insured devastating fossil fuel infrastructure like the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline, which violates Indigenous rights. Failing to rule out projects that destroy our climate and harm local communities is not just bad practice, it's clearly bad business. AIG only stands to lose if it fails to act on climate."
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Jayapal Rips 'Cruel and Failing' US Policy After Trump Says 'Cuba Is Gonna Fall'
Trump's threats against Cuba are "just a plain attempt to open up Cuban markets to his billionaire buddies," warned the Washington Democrat.
Mar 06, 2026
As the Trump administration celebrates its broadly unpopular war on Iran—one in which an estimated 1,332 people have been killed in the country, including nearly 200 children at a girls' school—US Rep. Pramila Jayapal noted that President Donald Trump is still imposing a blockade on Cuba and denounced his stated plan to take over the island.
"The US maximum pressure campaign on Cuba is a cruel and failing policy that has caused incredible harm to the Cuban people," said Jayapal (D-Wash.).
Trump's oil blockade on Cuba in recent weeks and his threats to push out its communist government are "just a plain attempt to open up Cuban markets to his billionaire buddies," said Jayapal.
Trump announced last week that US companies would be permitted to sell small amounts of oil to Cuba if they circumvent the government and that Venezuelan fuel could be sold to private businesses in the communist country.
That decision came after weeks of a worsening fuel crisis on the island, triggered by Trump's push to take control of Venezuelan oil and his threat to hit any country that provided oil to Cuba with tariffs. In January, he issued an executive order accusing the country of supporting terrorism and posing a security threat to the US.
The blockade has left cities struggling to provide sanitation services and pushed Cuba's healthcare system to the brink of collapse, according to the country's health minister. Officials blamed the US this week for a blackout that plunged millions of people into darkness for 16 hours.
On Friday, as Trump's Iran war sent US oil prices soaring and the attack on girls' school was found by numerous investigations to have "likely" been carried out by the US, the president attempted to change the subject to his plans for Cuba, telling CNN, "Cuba is gonna fall too."
He told the outlet that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has long advocated for regime change in Cuba, would turn his attention to pushing out the country's government after the war in Iran—which the president and his officials have estimated could take anywhere from four weeks to six months.
"Your next one is going to be, we want to do that special Cuba,” Trump told CNN. “[Rubio]’s waiting. But he says, ‘Let’s get this one finished first.’ We could do them all at the same time, but bad things happen. If you watch countries over the years, you do them all too fast, bad things happen. We’re not going to let anything bad happen to this country.”
The president made similar comments to Politico on Thursday, saying the US is "talking to Cuba" and that his decision to cut off the island's crucial Venezuelan oil supply is pressuring the government.
"Well, it’s because of my intervention, intervention that is happening,” Trump said. “Obviously, otherwise they wouldn’t have this problem."
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) also warned this week that "Cuba's next."
Jayapal said Friday that Trump's takeover of Venezuela, after which administration officials admitted the White House was after the country's oil supply and claimed the administration has the right to take over any country if doing so serves US interests, "is a clear example that Trump doesn't care about democracy or civil society."
Trump's threats against Cuba, she said, are "just a plain attempt to open up Cuban markets to his billionaire buddies."
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US-Israeli Bombs Strike 'The Fourth School in 6 Days' in Iran: Report
"There are straight lines between what Israel has attempted to do… in Gaza, to completely decimate and collapse the systems that existed there, to what we are seeing in Iran," said one expert.
Mar 06, 2026
US and Israeli missiles have hit a school in Iran for the fourth time in six days, according to videos shared on social media by a spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Friday.
Spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said that the Shahid Hamedani School, an elementary school in Niloufar Square, Tehran, had been "targeted by the American/Israeli aggressors."
He posted a video showing the school filled with dozens of young students prior to the attack, followed by scenes of the school in ruins, with several empty classrooms filled with rubble.
Baquaei said it showed "how the United States administration is helping the people of Iran." He did not include any information about the number of casualties or the circumstances of the attack.
According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), at least 192 children have been killed across the Middle East since the US and Israel launched a regime change war this past Saturday.
Most of them were girls ages 7-12 who were killed on Saturday during an attack at a girls' school in the southern Iranian town of Minab.
At least 175 people were reported to have been killed in the attack, which unnamed officials have said was "likely" carried out by the United States, according to Reuters. HuffPost reported that Pentagon officials have briefed Congress that the US "was most likely responsible."
Eyewitnesses and relatives of the victims have told Middle East Eye that the attack was a "double-tap" strike in which survivors and first responders were targeted following the initial bombing. An Al Jazeera investigation has concluded that the attack was likely "deliberate."
Iranian media have also published CCTV video of a separate strike on the same day, in which a missile landed next to a boys' school in Qazvin, resulting in scenes of terrified students and teachers running for their lives.
On Thursday, two other schools in the town of Parand, southwest of Tehran, were hit by missiles fired by the US and Israel, according to Iranian state media. The Fars News Agency shared photos of a classroom filled with debris. So far, no casualties from the attack have been reported.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said that as it wages its war in Iran, the US is not abiding by "stupid rules of engagement," and has boasted of raining down “death and destruction from the sky all day long."
According to data analyzed by the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), part of a US-based human rights monitor for Iran, at least 1,168 civilians have been killed by US-Israeli attacks since Saturday. The Iranian government on Friday put the death toll at 1,332 people.
More than 3,643 civilian sites have been damaged in attacks attributed to the US and Israel, according to figures released by the Iranian Red Crescent Society—among them have been 3,090 homes, 528 commercial centres, 13 medical facilities and nine Red Crescent centres.
Amjad Iraqi, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that these routine attacks on civilian infrastructure increasingly resemble those carried out by Israel during its more than two-years of genocide in Gaza.
“There are straight lines between what Israel has attempted to do… in Gaza, to completely decimate and collapse the systems that existed there," Iraqi said, "to what we are seeing in Iran, on a much more massive and dangerous scale, to bring down the Islamic Republic and to cause as much devastation as possible.”
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Demanding Peace Talks, UN Chief Warns Iran War 'Could Spiral Beyond Anyone's Control'
"It is time to stop the fighting and get to serious diplomatic negotiations," said António Guterres. "The stakes could not be higher."
Mar 06, 2026
After nearly a week of bloodshed in President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war on Iran—which critics argued violates not only the US Constitution but also the United Nations Charter—UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Friday demanded a return to negotiations.
Trump and Netanyahu launched "Operation Epic Fury" just a day after Badr Albusaidi, the foreign minister of Oman and mediator of recent nuclear talks between the United States and Iran, said on a prominent US news program that "we have already achieved quite a substantial progress" and "the peace deal is within our reach."
The Iranian government said Thursday that at least 1,230 people had been killed in Iran. The US-Israeli assault continued on Friday, as Guterres declared that "all the unlawful attacks in the Middle East and beyond are causing tremendous suffering and harm to civilians throughout the region—and pose a grave a risk to the global economy, particularly to the most vulnerable people."
"The situation could spiral beyond anyone's control," Guterres said. "It is time to stop the fighting and get to serious diplomatic negotiations. The stakes could not be higher."
The UN chief's statement came amid reporting from Drop Site News that "US-Israeli missiles have hit an elementary school in Tehran—the fourth school in six days." The first strike, for which no government has taken responsibility but analyses suggest the United States is to blame, killed around 175 people, mostly children, at a girls' school in Minab on Saturday. Then, on Thursday, two boys’ schools southwest of Tehran were bombed.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk also called for all parties "to give peace a chance," highlighting in a Friday statement that the war "has been spreading like wildfire" and caused significant damage in not only Iran and Israel, but "at least a dozen other countries, mostly in the Gulf, with risks of major economic and environmental ramifications across the world."
"The world urgently needs to see steps to contain and extinguish this blaze—but instead we are only seeing more inflammatory, bellicose rhetoric, more bombings, more destruction, killings, and escalation, that fuels it further," he continued. "Confusion has also been sown around international law—and some have openly derided the fundamental values of our common humanity."
While Türk directed his plea for deescalation at the warring governments, he also urged other states "to call clearly on those involved to pull back," arguing that "cool heads must prevail if we are to prevent further terror and devastation for civilians."
"Given the magnitude of this crisis," he said, "I call on heads of state and government around the world unequivocally to commit to defending international human rights law, international humanitarian law, and the UN Charter itself—we cannot afford for more powder kegs to ignite."
"Lebanon is becoming a key flashpoint," Türk noted. "I am extremely concerned and worried about the latest developments following Hezbollah's attacks on Israel and Israel's heavy counterstrikes, as well as its extensive displacement orders that have already forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes. I call for an immediate cessation of hostilities."
More than half a million people have fled their homes in southern Lebanon, and the death toll there this week is estimated to be over 130 people, as Common Dreams reported earlier Friday. Türk has denounced Israel's "blanket, massive displacement orders" in the country that are impacting hundreds and thousands of Lebanese.
As one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the US has veto power in that body. Considering those circumstances, the group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) this week urged the UN General Assembly to formally declare Trump and Netanyahu's assault on Iran a "war of aggression" in violation of the charter.
"No legal framework, international or domestic, can justify this US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran," DAWN executive director Omar Shakir said in a statement. "This war is patently illegal, and it must be stopped."
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