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Category: France

  • Pro-independence Palika ready to join dialogue on future of Kanaky New Caledonia

    RNZ Pacific

    One of New Caledonia’s pro-independence parties, Palika, says it is prepared to meet the French ministers due in Noumea this month to follow up on the aftermath of the 1998 Noumea Accord.

    Among a dearth of formal contact this year, the Palika said the talks could be about a possible framework allowing for New Caledonia’s independence in partnership with France.

    Last week, Palika, along with the other parties making up the FLNKS movement, stayed away from what Paris called the Convention of Partners, hosted by French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne to discuss the future status of New Caledonia.

    The meeting was the first gathering involving the prime minister since last December’s third and last referendum, in which 96 percent voted against full sovereignty.

    The Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) refuses to recognise the result as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process, calling instead for bilateral talks with the French government.

    A Palika spokesperson, Charles Washetine told La Premiere television that Palika wanted to attend the Paris talks but followed the stance of other FLNKS parties which had reneged on a commitment made in September to travel to France.

    Washetine said he was keen to start discussions as quite a bit was on the agenda for 2024 when the next provincial elections are due.

    Dealing with decolonisation
    He said for his side it was important to know how to deal with the decolonisation as outlined in the Noumea Accord, which is transitional in nature.

    At the heart of it, he said, was the transfer of power from France to New Caledonia, adding that work had to be done to complete the process.

    He said the outstanding powers, which include defence and policing, could be shared in a partnership with France.

    At last Friday’s Paris talks, attended by New Caledonia’s leading anti-independence politicians, Borne said they marked the beginning of discussions on the future status of New Caledonia.

    She added that Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and Overseas Minister Jean-Francois Carenco would visit Noumea in November.

    With a target date of mid-2023, Borne wants to conclude an audit of the decolonisation to assess the support given to New Caledonia by the French state since 1988.

    She said it was agreed with the anti-independence leaders in attendance that they would broaden the scope of the discussions beyond the institutional questions, by also addressing vital subjects for the future of New Caledonians.

    Equal opportunities
    These include equal opportunities and social cohesion, economic development and employment, energy sovereignty and ecological transition as well as common values and reconciliation.

    Borne said working groups would be organised in Noumea by the High Commissioner.

    Washetine said the pro-independence side would co-operate but added that amalgams should be avoided as some powers were within the competences of New Caledonia.

    This year, there has been little formal contact between the pro-independence leaders and the French government, with Paris being accused of being deaf to their demands.

    Washetine said if the referendum had been held under normal conditions, the situation would perhaps be different.

    In Paris, however, Borne said after meeting the anti-independence politicians that she was delighted with the spirit of responsibility and consensus of the exchanges, describing them as “faithful to the tradition of the agreements of 1988 and 1998”.

    With talks now likely in New Caledonia, Washetine said he hoped that the upcoming period would deal with the fundamental questions, adding that “things can’t be done without the Kanak people”.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • French PM meets New Caledonia’s anti-independence leaders in Paris

    RNZ Pacific

    French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne says her meeting with New Caledonia’s anti-independence leaders in Paris marks the beginning of discussions on the future status of New Caledonia.

    The meeting was called as the decolonisation process under the 1998 Noumea Accord had concluded with rejection of full sovereignty in last December’s third referendum on independence from France.

    All key parties were invited to chart the next step, but the pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) — who reject the third referendum as they did not participate because of the covid-19 pandemic — stayed away from the gathering, labelled the Convention of Partners.

    In September, the Overseas Minister Jean-Francois Carenco said the FLNKS would be at the Paris talks.

    French Junior Minister for Overseas Jean-Francois Carenco speaks during a session of questions to the government at The National Assembly in Paris on July 12, 2022. - French Prime Minister survived on July 11, 2022 her first no-confidence vote in parliament, which had been sponsored by the hard-left opposition. (Photo by BERTRAND GUAY / AFP)
    French Overseas Minister Jean-Francois Carenco . . . said the FLNKS would take part in the Paris talks. Image: RNZ Pacific/AFP

    In comments after the meeting, Borne said she was delighted with the spirit of responsibility and consensus of the exchanges, describing them as “faithful to the tradition of the agreements of 1988 and 1998”.

    She said as a transition period begins, the delegates noted the need to base their reflections on the lessons of experience.

    Borne said they agreed to launch an audit of the decolonisation to assess the support given to New Caledonia by the French state since 1988 with regard to the international law.

    Broaden the discussions
    She said it was agreed to broaden the scope of the discussions beyond the institutional questions, by also addressing the vital subjects for the future of New Caledonians.

    These include equal opportunities and social cohesion, economic development and employment, energy sovereignty and ecological transition as well as common values and reconciliation.

    Borne said working groups would be organised in Noumea by the High Commissioner in November.

    The work is expected to be concluded in mid-2023, with her adding that it would only succeed if all political forces contributed to it.

    Last year, Paris announced plans for a new referendum in June on a new statute, but the project has been deferred in the face of the pro-independence parties’ refusal to engage in the process outlined by France.

    To progress negotiations, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin will travel to New Caledonia in November together with Carenco, who in September was the first French minister to visit Noumea since the formation of the Borne government in June.

    Got ‘best they could’
    One of New Caledonia’s members of the French National Assembly, Nicolas Metzdorf, said they got the best they could in the absence of the pro-independence politicians.

    He said with a timetable and a working method, he hoped they would come back to the discussion table.

    Metzdorf said if they wanted to add working groups of their own, they had every opportunity to do so.

    None of the parties making up the FLNKS attended the talks in France because in part they refuse to recognise the vote as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process.

    The FLNKS has signalled that its discussions with Paris will have to centre on ways to complete the territory’s decolonisation.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Haiti: The “Gardeners” are Coming Back to the “Jungle”

    Coups-d’etat, U.N. “humanitarian” massacres, a President assassinated by U.S.-trained, Colombian mercenaries, earthquakes, cholera… and even the “aid” of the Clinton Foundation! Now, the country ravaged by decades of natural and man-made disasters braces itself for a new “humanitarian” military invasion.

    *****

    In a recent speech, Josep Borrel, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, explained to the world how “Europe is a garden”, while the rest of the world is a “jungle” that “could invade the garden”. This is his solution:

    …gardeners have to go to the jungle. Europeans have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world. Otherwise, the rest of the world will invade us, by different ways and means.

    In reality, racist “gardeners” have been invading the “jungle” for centuries, plundering and scheming genocidal massacres, and Haiti knows it better than most countries. Their “gardening” has also ensured that the so-called jungle remains underdeveloped.

    In another recent speech, this time at the United Nations General Assembly, Colombian president Gustavo Petro apologized to Haiti. The first leftist head of state of the South American country – also ravaged by decades of hypocritical U.S. “war on drugs”– was referring to the assassination of Jovenel Moise during a July 2021 attack, perpetrated by a group of mostly Colombian ex-soldiers. It also included 2 Haitian-Americans. The foreign gang, trained in part by the U.S. Army, posed as a team of DEA officers to gain entry to the presidential compound.

    Since then, social unrest has severely increased all over the country, and there’s an almost complete breakdown of the rule of law and many basic social services. The Haitian elite — including its U.S.-approved, de facto President, Ariel Henry — is calling for another foreign “humanitarian intervention” (a.k.a. “gardening”). Western corporate media argue that Haiti is calling for such an intervention. By “Haiti”, they mean its corrupted and U.S.-aligned political and oligarchic elite. What many people on the streets of the convulsed country really demand — besides the ousting of Henry — is that foreign forces stay the hell out of Haiti.

    Regarding Western (U.S. and vassal states) support for Henry, who already received armored vehicles, let’s read what the U.S. representative to Haiti said after renouncing his post on September 22, 2021:

    Last week, the U.S. and other embassies in Port-au-Prince issued another public statement of support for the unelected, de facto President Dr. Ariel Henry as interim leader of Haiti, and have continued to tout his ‘political agreement’ over another broader, earlier accord shepherded by civil society.

    The embassies referred to in his quote, as Canadian writer Yves Engler explains, compose the U.N.-approved Core Group, “made up of ambassadors from Germany, Brazil, Canada, Spain, the United States, France, and the European Union.” The group, he adds:

    …has heavily shaped Haitian affairs ever since American, French and Canadian troops assisted in the overthrow of the country’s elected government in 2004 and installed a United Nations occupation force.

    What President Henry, himself a suspect in the killing of Moise, intend is for a foreign military or U.N. “peace-keeping” mission to enter the country and neutralize the gangs, particularly those not armed and directed by the government itself, as they currently control parts of the country and, most importantly, many vital highways and a sequestered oil refinery. Haitian gangs kidnap people to ask for ransom money, which then finances their criminal exploits, including the illegal trafficking of arms manufactured in the U.S. They have turned Haiti into the new kidnapping capital of the world. Murder and rape are widespread as well (more detail below).

    Despite the many suspects arrested so far, the situation surrounding Moise’s killing remains obscure: there’s still no mastermind identified as responsible for ordering the assassination.

    From the Brazilian Favelas to the Haitian Shantytowns

    The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH, 2004-2017) was purportedly intended to ameliorate the chaos that overtook the country after the aftermath of the foreign coup against the first democratically elected President of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which happened in February 2004, two hundred years after Haiti’s heroic independence from France. In 2004, as mentioned above, the U.S., Canada, and France collaborated in the ousting of the popular leftist politician and priest from the Fanmi Lavalas party.

    Conveniently, a group of Brazilian Army generals, many of them tied to the dictatorship that controlled their country until 1985, were placed in command of the U.N. mission, which was quickly associated with a handful of civilian massacres, particularly in the overpopulated slums of Cité Soleil, in Port-au-Prince, where around 300,000 people live in extremely precarious conditions. Cité Soleil is also where thousands of Fanmi Lavalas Party supporters live. These criminal raids resembled police and military incursions into many Sao Paulo and Rio favelas. There, under the cover of fighting criminal gangs, racist state actors killed innocent civilians, including boys, and unleashed terror over thousands of mostly black men, women, and children.

    While the Haitian massacres were occurring, as documents released through the Freedom of Information Act attest, the U.S. and its intelligence services were aware of the brutality being unleashed over Cité Soleil. On their part, the most important human rights organizations –like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Organization of American States– “remained conspicuously disinterested and silent about the evidence”.

    Some of the pictures of the chaos and murderous actions of the MINUSTAH –comprised of soldiers from 13 countries– are too explicit to be shown here, but the reader can visit HaitiAction.net to understand the extent of the cruelty exerted by these “peace-keepers”, who didn’t care to shoot at women and children with high caliber guns, even from helicopters, another terrorist tactic used by Brazilian police and military over the favelas.

    The idea behind raiding Cité Soleil and other shantytowns around Port-au-Prince in reality was to eliminate and terrorize Aristide supporters, rightly infuriated by the 2004 brazen postcolonial coup d’etat ordained and executed by the usual “gardeners”. They demanded the return of their democratically elected President, forcefully exiled to Africa. Those demands would be a regular feature for many years after the coup.

    Only between July 8 and July 17 of this year, 209 people were murdered in Cité Soleil. Half of them were innocent bystanders, without ties to any gang, and the rest, according to the BBC, were gang members “or people with links” to them (whatever that means). Other sources refer to many of these gangs as “paramilitary forces”, a regular feature when the Western “gardeners” control a puppet third-world government immersed in violent conflict. Between January and March of this year, 225 persons were kidnapped, 58% more than during the same three months of 2021.

    The U.N. mission in Haiti was also accused of unleashing a plague of cholera by dumping infected waste into the tributary of an important river, killing more than 10,000 people. The U.N. blue helmets also stand accused of raping Haitian girls and women –or trading food for sex– leaving behind many “petit-MINUSTAH” as their abandoned offspring is often referred to.

    The Montana Accord

    Last September 29, in line with the Western “gardener” tradition, U.S. ambassador Pamela A. White said before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, referring to Haiti, that her country must put “boots on the ground right now!”

    If history offers any kind of lesson, her declaration should be more than enough to understand that nothing good is coming toward Haiti in the next months or years of foreign occupation, now a very probable outcome as the U.N. Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution “demanding an immediate end to violence and criminal activity in Haiti and imposing sanctions on individuals and groups threatening peace and stability in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation — starting with a powerful gang leader.”

    The gang leader referred to is the former police officer and “G9” gang boss Jimmy Cherizier, sanctioned by the U.S. and, now, also by the U.N. Despite the presence of many other gangs and their leaders, Cherizier, linked to various human rights violations he denies, is the only one to receive such sanctions so far. He is also the gang leader calling for revolution against the Henry regime.

    The U.N. Security Council resolution (October 21) opens the door for a second resolution, already in the making by the U.S. and Mexico, to authorize a “non-U.N. International Security Assistance Mission”, which is what the “gardeners” are desperately pushing for.

    The Washington Post Editorial Board, on its part, recently stated that the Montana Accord is “the right move for Haiti”. To be clear, the boots on the ground “right now!” option, in the form of a non-U.N. security mission, doesn’t exclude the Montana Accord, an assortment of Haitian political groups that include some shady characters. In fact, they are probably meant to work together, hand in glove.

    The putative leader of the Montana Accord is Magali Comeau-Denis, Minister of Culture under Gerard Latortue, de facto President of Haiti from 2004 to 2006 (right after the coup that ousted Aristide). As Haiti Liberté reported, she was harshly criticized for starting unilateral negotiations –after the U.S. pressured her to do so– with Ariel Henry, which led to other participants leaving the Montana Accord. According to the leader of the Movement for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity (MOLEGHAF), a revolutionary and progressive party from Port-au-Prince that left the coalition:

    MOLEGHAF agreed to sign and join the Montana Accord because we were supposed to find this ‘Haitian solution,’ without bowing to the dictates of (then U.S. Chargé d’Affaires) Kenneth Merten, (and former) U.S. State Department officer and current head of the U.N. Office in Haiti, Helen La Lime, or the French, Canadian, and U.S. Embassies.

    In other words, the accord supported by the Washington Post, a mouthpiece in the service of Western elites, marches on behind the façade of a “Haitian-led” solution but is nothing of the sort.

    Certainly, the Haitian gangs –some of them substantially supported by the Haitian government as a way to control society, and armed with guns that the U.S. seems surprisingly incapable of controlling– must be stopped. But thinking that the way to achieve this is by allowing another occupation of the country goes stubbornly (and disingenuously) against, at least, a few hundred years of recorded history. The racist and colonial mentality of the “gardeners” imply that Haiti cannot rule itself, so it must be controlled from Washington.

    The post Haiti: The “Gardeners” are Coming Back to the “Jungle” first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Solution to Foreign Control Mess in Haiti is Not More Colonialism

    “The only way to save Haiti is to put it under UN control,” noted a recent Globe and Mail headline. Robert Rotberg, founding director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Intrastate Conflict, demonstrates a scarcity of imagination and knowledge in making his colonialist appeal.

    Highlighting an openly colonial streak in Canadian politics, prominent voices have repeatedly promoted “protectorate” status for Haiti. In 2014 right-wing Quebec City radio host, Sylvain Bouchard, told listeners, “I would transform Haiti into a colony. The UN must colonize Haiti.” During the 2003 “Ottawa initiative on Haiti” conference to plan the ouster of elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide US, French and Canadian officials discussed putting the country under UN trusteeship while a 2005 Canadian Military Journal article was titled “The case for international trusteeship in Haiti”.

    In a Canadianized variation of the protectorate theme, constitutional law professor Richard Albert penned a 2017 Boston Globe opinion titled “Haiti should relinquish its sovereignty”. The Boston College professor wrote, “the new Haitian Constitution should do something virtually unprecedented: renounce the power of self-governance and assign it for a term of years, say 50, to a country that can be trusted to act in Haiti’s long-term interests.” According to the Canadian law professor his native land, which Albert called “one of Haiti’s most loyal friends”, should administer the Caribbean island nation.

    In a similar vein, L’Actualité editor-in-chief, Carole Beaulieu, suggested Haiti become the eleventh Canadian province. In an article just after the 2004 coup titled “Et si on annexait Haïti?”, she wrote “Canada should annex Haiti to make it a little tropical paradise.”

    At the less sophisticated conservative end of the political spectrum André Arthur, a former member of Parliament, labeled Haiti a “hopeless” and “sexually deviant” country populated by thieves and prostitutes that should be taken over by France as in the “heyday of colonial Haiti” (“belle époque de l’Haïti colonial”). “There is no hope in Haiti until the country is placed under trusteeship”, bellowed the Quebec City radio host in 2016. “We will never dare to do it, political correctness, it would be racism to say: So you say to France: … ‘For the next thirty years, you are the owner of Haiti, put it right. Kick the asses that need to be kicked.”

    In his Globe commentary Rotberg displays a startling level of ignorance about Haitian affairs. While writing that “Haiti needs to become a ward of the United Nations”, Rotberg fails to recognize that the UN and foreign powers have dominated Haiti over the past 18 years. Haitians widely view the head of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), Helen LaLime, a US diplomat, as colonial overseer. In 2019 BINUH replaced the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH), which replaced La Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en Haïti (MINUSTAH) in 2017.

    MINUSTAH was responsible for countless abuses during its 13-year occupation, which consisted of 8,000 foreign troops and 2,000 police. After helping oust thousands of elected officials in 2004, 500 Canadian soldiers were incorporated into MINUSTAH as it backed up a coup government’s violent crackdown against pro-democracy protesters between March 2004 and May 2006. The UN force also killed dozens of civilians directly when it pacified Cité Soleil, a bastion of support for Aristide. The UN force was responsible for innumerable sexual abuses. The foreign forces had sex with minors, sodomized boys, raped young girls and left many single mothers to struggle with stigma and poverty after departing the country.

    Aside from sexual abuse and political repression, the UN’s disregard for Haitian life caused a major cholera outbreak, which left over 10,000 dead and one million sick.

    The 2004 coup and UN occupation introduced a form of multilateral colonial oversight to Haiti. The April 2004 Security Council resolution that replaced the two-month-old US, France and Canada Multinational Interim Force with MINUSTAH established the Core Group. (Unofficially, the Core Group traces its roots to the 2003 “Ottawa Initiative on Haiti” meeting where US, French, OAS and Canadian officials discussed overthrowing Haiti’s elected government and putting the country under UN trusteeship.) The Core Group, which includes representatives of the US, Canada, France, Spain, Brazil, OAS, EU and UN, periodically releases collective statements on Haitian affairs and meet among themselves and with Haitian officials. It’s a flagrantly colonial alliance. After President Jovenel Moise was killed 15 months ago, for instance, the Core Group effectively appointed Ariel Henry prime minister through a press release. Implicated in Moise’s assassination, Henry has overseen the country’s descent in chaos.

    Those calling for foreign control of Haiti ignore its loss of sovereignty since the 2004 coup. By what standards was the usurpation of Haitian sovereignty successful? By basically any metric, 18 years of US/Canada, UN, Core Group influence in Haiti has been a disaster. But imperialists don’t simply ignore the damaging impact of foreign intervention. In a stark demonstration of how power affects ideology, the more Haitian sovereignty is undercut the more forthright the calls to usurp Haitian sovereignty.

    As has been said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

    The post Solution to Foreign Control Mess in Haiti is Not More Colonialism first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Tens of thousands march in Paris against cost-of-living crisis, climate inaction

    An estimated 140,000 people marched in Paris, France, on October 16 to demand greater investment in climate action, higher wages and an emergency freeze on the prices of groceries, rent, and energy, reports Julia Conley.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • Fijiana hopes up with one game away from World Cup quarterfinals

    By Finau Fonua, RNZ Pacific journalist

    The Fijiana are one step away from reaching the quarterfinals of the Women’s Rugby World Cup — but they have to beat favourite France first.

    To qualify, they need to overcome the in-form French team at the Northland Events Centre in Whangārei on Saturday.

    It is an opportunity that has arisen as a result of a thrilling 21-17 last-gasp upset over favourites South Africa last weekend, with Fijiana stealing the game with a try scored in the final minute.

    Most commentators did not expect Fijiana to win, having entered the game off the back of an 84-19 thrashing at the hands of England in their opening game.

    “I have no words for it. I am just so grateful for the girls. We talked about leaving everything on the field and playing with our hearts,” Fijiana captain Asinate Serevi said.

    Vika Matarugu of Fiji scores a try during the Pool C Rugby World Cup 2021 match between Fiji and South Africa at Waitakere Stadium on October 16, 2022, in Auckland, New Zealand
    Vika Matarugu of Fiji scores a try during the Pool C Rugby World Cup 2021 match between Fiji and South Africa at Waitakere Stadium last Sunday. Image: Fiona Goodall/World Rugby/RNZ Pacific

    “One thing that Fijians are known for is that even with three or one minute left on the clock, we can still win a game — and that’s what we did,” Asinate added.

    “As a captain they made me look good, so I’m forever grateful for the game they put on.”

    First Pacific qualifier
    Being the first Pacific Island nation to qualify for the Women’s Rugby World Cup is an accomplishment, but for Fijiana, qualifying for the quarterfinals is the driving goal.

    Despite a disheartening loss to England, Senirusi Serivakula said Fijiana’s winning ambitions have never faltered.

    “The message was clear from the beginning, which was that we must beat South Africa. That was the message, that we are not going to walk away without a win over South Africa,” coach Senirusi Seruvakula said.

    “I’m proud that the girls stuck to it, and they played as a team to the last minute.”

    That message was delivered in a stunning fashion, with a last-minute try scored right between the posts by forward Karalaini Naisewa. The number eight had to crash through three tacklers to get the ball over the line.

    That try has since gone viral and Fijiana players have now become overnight celebrities in Fiji.

    The star of the team, prop forward Siteri Rasolea, was awarded player of the match. She relentlessly ploughed through South Africa’s forwards from beginning to end.

    Public admiration
    Rasolea had already won public admiration in Fiji after she turned down an offer to play for her home nation Australia, opting to represent her heritage nation Fiji.

    Rasolea said the team were still coming to terms with their accomplishment.

    “Our girls had to dig deep and really fight for each other,” said Rasolea.

    “I’m still in awe of it now. I want to dedicate this to everyone who supported me at home. It wasn’t easy leaving Australia to go to Fiji, so I fulfil my dreams.”

    Like Rasolea, many of Fijiana’s players flocked from overseas with the purpose of representing their heritage.

    Fijiana captain Asinate Serevi, who is the daughter of 7s legend Waisele Serevi, represented the United States for three years before switching to Fiji.

    “It means the whole world to me. I can’t thank God enough for all the support. My plan was just to play for Fiji and represent my country. And being named captain is honestly beyond dreams,” Serevi said.

    ‘Huge step to win’
    “It’s a huge step for us to win one game in the World Cup means to us like we’ve won the world cup already. We know France is going to be tougher and we have things to work on.”

    Regardless of Fijiana’s big win, France remains the overwhelming favourite, having easily defeated South Africa 40-5 and narrowly losing to England 13-7.

    However, they have been weakened by the loss of their staff halfback Laure Sansus, who is out if the World Cup due to a knee injury in the first quarter of the game against England.

    Sansus, the 2022 Women’s Six Nations Player of the Championship tore her anterior cruciate ligament and will be replaced by centre Marie Dupouy. However, she will stay on in New Zealand as France’s “chief fan”.

    Coach Seruvakula is optimistic that Fijiana can win if they play a perfect game.

    “I believe in the girls, that they’ll play to the last minute,” said Seruvakula.

    “If we want to play in the quarterfinals, we have to do right during training and through the process everything will take care of itself come game day against France.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Other Russia-West War: Why Some African Countries are Abandoning Paris, Joining Moscow

    The moment that Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba was ousted by his own former military colleague, Captain Ibrahim Traore, pro-coup crowds filled the streets. Some burned French flags, others carried Russian flags. This scene alone represents the current tussle underway throughout the African continent.

    A few years ago, the discussion regarding the geopolitical shifts in Africa was not exactly concerned with France and Russia per se. It focused mostly on China’s growing economic role and political partnerships on the African continent. For example, Beijing’s decision to establish its first overseas military base in Djibouti in 2017 signaled China’s major geopolitical move, by translating its economic influence in the region to political influence, backed by military presence.

    China remains committed to its Africa strategy. Beijing has been Africa’s largest trading partner for 12 years, consecutively, with total bilateral trade between China and Africa, in 2021, reaching $254.3 billion, according to recent data released by the General Administration of Customs of China.

    The United States, along with its western allies, have been aware of, and warning against China’s growing clout in Africa. The establishment of US AFRICOM in 2007 was rightly understood to be a countering measure to China’s influence. Since then, and arguably before, talks of a new ‘Scramble for Africa’ abounded, with new players, including China, Russia, even Turkiye, entering the fray.

    The Russia-Ukraine war, however, has altered geopolitical dynamics in Africa, as it highlighted the Russian-French rivalry on the continent, as opposed to the Chinese-American competition there.

    Though Russia has been present in African politics for years, the war – thus the need for stable allies at the United Nations and elsewhere – accelerated Moscow’s charm offensive. In July, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda, and the Republic of Congo, fortifying Russia’s diplomatic relations with African leaders.

    “We know that the African colleagues do not approve of the undisguised attempts of the US and their European satellites .. to impose a unipolar world order to the international community,” Lavrov said. His words were met with agreement.

    Russian efforts have been paying dividends, as early as the first votes to condemn Moscow at the United Nations General Assembly, in March and April. Many African nations remained either neutral or voted against measures targeting Russia at the UN.

    South Africa’s position, in particular, was problematic from Washington’s perspective, not only because of the size of the country’s economy, but also because of Pretoria’s political influence and moral authority throughout Africa. Moreover, South Africa is the only African member of the G20.

    In his visit to the US in September, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa defended his country’s neutrality and raised objections to a draft US bill – the Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act – that is set to monitor and punish African governments who do not conform to the American line in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

    The West fails to understand, however, that Africa’s slow, but determined shift toward Moscow is not haphazard or accidental.

    The history of the continent’s past and current struggle against western colonialism and neocolonialism is well-known. While the West continues to define its relationship with Africa based on exploitation, Russia is constantly reminding African countries of the Soviet’s legacy on the continent. This is not only apparent in official political discourses by Russian leaders and diplomats, but also in Russian media coverage, which is prioritizing Africa and reminding African nations of their historic solidarity with Moscow.

    Burning French flags and raising Russian ones, however, cannot simply be blamed on Russian supposed economic bribes, clever diplomacy or growing military influence. The readiness of African nations – Mali, Central African Republic and, now, possibly, Burkina Faso – has much more to do with mistrust and resentment of France’s self-serving legacy in Africa, West Africa in particular.

    France has military bases in many parts of Africa and remains an active participant in various military conflicts, which has earned it the reputation of being the continent’s main destabilizing force. Equally important is Paris’s stronghold over the economies of 14 African countries, which are forced to use French currency, the CFA franc and, according to Frederic Ange Toure, writing in Le Journal de l’Afrique, to “centralize 50% of their reserves in the French public treasury”.

    Though many African countries remain neutral in the case of the Russia-Ukraine war, a massive geopolitical shift is underway, especially in militarily fragile, impoverished and politically unstable countries that are eager to seek alternatives to French and other western powers. For a country like Mali, shifting allegiances from Paris to Moscow was not exactly a great gamble. Bamako had very little to lose, but much to gain. The same logic applies to other African countries that are fighting extreme poverty, political instability and the threat of militancy, all of which are intrinsically linked.

    Though China remains a powerful newcomer to Africa – a reality that continues to frustrate US policymakers – the more urgent battle, for now, is between Russia and France – the latter experiencing a palpable retreat.

    In a speech last July, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that he wanted a “rethink of all our (military) postures on the African continent.” France’s military and foreign policy shift in Africa, however, was not compelled by strategy or vision, but by changing realities over which France has little control. 

    The post The Other Russia-West War: Why Some African Countries are Abandoning Paris, Joining Moscow first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • When Will the Stars Shine Again in Burkina Faso?

    Wilfried Balima (Burkina Faso), Les Trois Camarades (‘The Three Comrades’), 2018.

    Wilfried Balima (Burkina Faso), Les Trois Camarades (‘The Three Comrades’), 2018.

    On 30 September 2022, Captain Ibrahim Traoré led a section of the Burkina Faso military to depose Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who had seized power in a coup d’état in January. The second coup was swift, with brief clashes in Burkina Faso’s capital of Ouagadougou at the president’s residence, Kosyam Palace, and at Camp Baba Sy, the military administration’s headquarters. Captain Kiswendsida Farouk Azaria Sorgho declared on Radiodiffusion Télévision du Burkina (RTB), the national broadcast, that his fellow captain, Traoré, was now the head of state and the armed forces. ‘Things are gradually returning to order’, he said as Damiba went into exile in Togo.

    This coup is not a coup against the ruling order, a military platform called the Patriotic Movement for Safeguarding and Restoration (Mouvement patriotique pour la sauvegarde et la restauration or MPSR); instead, it stems from young captains within the MPSR. During Damiba’s brief tenure in power, armed violence increased by 23%, and he failed to fulfil any of the promises that the military made when it overthrew former President Roch Kaboré, an ex-banker who had ruled the country since 2015. L’Unité d’Action Syndicale (UAS), a platform of six trade unions in Burkina Faso, is warning about the ‘decay of the national army’, its ideological disarray manifested by the high salaries drawn by the coup leaders.

    Kaboré was the beneficiary of a mass insurrection that began in October 2014 against Blaise Compaoré, who had been in power since the assassination of Thomas Sankara in 1987. It is worth noting that in April, while exiled in Côte d’Ivoire, Compaoré was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia for his role in that murder. Many of the social forces in the mass uprisings arrived on the streets bearing pictures of Sankara, holding fast to his socialist dream. The promise of that mass movement was suffocated by Kaboré’s limited agenda, stifled by the International Monetary Fund and hindered by the seven-year jihadist insurgency in northern Burkina Faso that has displaced close to two million people. While the MPSR coup has a muddled outlook, it responds to the deep social crisis afflicting the fourth-largest producer of gold on the African continent.

    Adokou Sana Kokouvi (Togo), L’un pour l’autre (‘For One Another’), 2020.

    In August 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron visited Algeria. As Macron walked through the streets of Oran, he experienced the anger of the Algerian public, with people yelling insults – va te faire foutre! (‘go f**k yourself’) – forcing him to hurriedly depart. France’s decision to reduce the number of visas provided to Moroccans and Tunisians fuelled a protest by human rights organisations in Rabat (Morocco), and France was forced to dismiss its ambassador to Morocco.

    Anti-French feeling is deepening across North Africa and the Sahel, the region south of the Sahara Desert. It was this sentiment that provoked the coups in Mali (August 2020 and May 2021), Guinea (September 2021), and then in Burkina Faso (January 2022 and September 2022). In February 2022, Mali’s government ejected the French military, accusing French forces of committing atrocities against civilians and colluding with jihadi insurgents.

    Over the past decade, North Africa and the Sahel have been grappling with the detritus produced by NATO’s war on Libya, driven by France and the United States. NATO emboldened the jihadi forces, who were disoriented by their defeat in the Algerian Civil War (1991–2002) and by the anti-Islamist policies of Muammar Qaddafi’s administration in Libya. Indeed, the US brought hardened jihadi fighters, including Libyan Islamic Fighting Group veterans, from the Syria-Turkey border to bolster the anti-Qaddafi war. This so-called ‘rat line’ moved in both directions, as jihadis and weapons went from post-Qaddafi Libya back into Syria.

    Inoussa Simpore (Burkina Faso), Rue de Ouaga (‘Ouaga Road’), 2014.

    Inoussa Simpore (Burkina Faso), Rue de Ouaga (‘Ouaga Road’), 2014.

    Groups such as al-Qaeda (in the Islamic Maghreb) as well as al-Mourabitoun, Ansar Dine, and Katibat Macina – which merged into Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (‘Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims’) in 2017 – swept from southern Algeria to Côte d’Ivoire, from western Mali to eastern Niger. These jihadis, many of them Afghanistan War veterans, are joined by common cause with local bandits and smugglers. This ‘banditisation of jihad’, as it is called, is one explanation for how these forces have become so deeply rooted in the region. Another is that the jihadis used older social tensions between the Fulani (a largely Muslim ethnic group) and other communities, now massed into militia groups called the Koglweogo (‘bush guardians’). Drawing various contradictions into the jihadi-military conflict has effectively militarised political life in large parts of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. France’s involvement through Operation Barkhane, a military intervention into Mali in 2014, and its establishment of military bases has not only failed to contain or root out the insurgencies and conflicts; it has exacerbated them.

    The Union d’Action Syndicale has released a ten-point plan that includes immediate relief for the areas facing starvation (such as Djibo), an independent commission to study violence in specific areas (such as Gaskindé), the creation of a plan to deal with the cost of living crisis, and an end to the alliance with France, which would include the ‘departure of foreign bases and troops, especially French ones, from national territory’.

    Françoise Huguier (France), Pays Lobi, Burkina Faso (‘Lobi Country, Burkina Faso’), 1996.

    Françoise Huguier (France), Pays Lobi, Burkina Faso (‘Lobi Country, Burkina Faso’), 1996.

    A recent United Nations report shows that 18 million people in the Sahel are on ‘the brink of starvation’. The World Bank notes that 40% of Burkinabé live below the poverty line. Neither civilian nor military governments in Burkina Faso, nor those in other Sahel countries, have articulated a project to transcend this crisis. Burkina Faso, for instance, is not a poor country. With a minimum of $2 billion per year in gold sales, it is extraordinary that this country of 22 million people remains mired in such poverty. If this revenue were divided equally amongst the population, each Burkinabé citizen would receive $90 million per year.

    Instead, the bulk of the revenue is siphoned off by mining firms from Canada and Australia – Barrick Gold, Goldrush Resources, Semafo, and Gryphon Minerals – as well as their counterparts in Europe. These firms transfer the profits into their own bank accounts and some, such as Randgold Resources, into the tax haven of the Channel Islands. Local control over gold has not been established, nor has the country been able to exert any sovereignty over its currency. Both Burkina Faso and Mali use the West African CFA franc, a colonial currency whose reserves are held in the Bank of France, which also manages their monetary policy.

    The coups in the Sahel are coups against the conditions of life afflicting most people in the region, conditions created by the theft of sovereignty by multinational corporations and the old colonial ruler. Rather than acknowledge this as the central problem, Western governments deflect and insist that the real cause of political unrest is the intervention of Russian mercenaries, the Wagner Group, fighting against the jihadi insurgency (Macron, for instance, described their presence in the region as ‘predatory’). Yevgeny Prigozhin, a founder of the Wagner Group, said that Traoré ‘did what was necessary… for the good of their people’. Meanwhile, the US State Department warned the new Burkina Faso government not to make alliances with the Wagner Group. However, it appears that Traoré is seeking any means to defeat the insurgency, which has absorbed 40% of Burkina Faso’s territory. Despite an agreement with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) made by Damiba and continued by Traoré that Burkina Faso will return to civilian rule by July 2024, the necessary conditions for this transfer seem to be the defeat of the insurgency.

    Francis Mampuya (Democratic Republic of Congo), Sankara, 2018.

    In 1984, President Thomas Sankara went to the UN. When he took power in his country the previous year, its colonial name was Upper Volta, solely defined by its geographical status as the land north of the Volta River. Sankara and his political movement changed that name to Burkina Faso, which means the ‘Land of Upright People’. No longer would the Burkinabé hunch their shoulders and look at the ground as they walked. With national liberation, the ‘stars first began to shine in the heavens of our homeland’, Sankara said at the UN, as they realised the need for ‘revolution, the eternal struggle against all domination’. ‘We want to democratise our society’, he continued, ‘to open up our minds to a universe of collective responsibility, so that we may be bold enough to invent the future’. Sankara was killed in October 1987. His dreams have held fast in the hearts of many, but they have not yet influenced a sufficiently powerful political project.

    In the spirit of Sankara, the Malian singer Oumou Sangaré released a wonderful song, Kêlê Magni (‘War Is a Plague’), in February 2022, which speaks for the entire Sahel:

    War is a plague! My country might disappear!
    I tell you: war is not a solution!
    War has no friends nor allies, and there are no real enemies.
    All people suffer from this war: Burkina, Côte d’Ivoire… everyone!

    Other instruments are needed: new stars in the sky, new revolutions that build on hopes and not on hatred.

    The post When Will the Stars Shine Again in Burkina Faso? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Black Ferns: a new dawn for global women’s rugby

    ANALYSIS: By Jamie Wall, RNZ sports writer

    The Blacks Ferns 41-17 win over the Wallaroos on the field at Auckland’s Eden Park last night was good, but the one off it was better.

    There had been a lot of conjecture going into the Rugby World Cup about just how people would respond, given the team’s recent history and the fact that women’s rugby has never really been a priority for those running the game in Aotearoa New Zealand.

    But it took a World Cup to finally get one thing right.

    The people in charge knew that the most important ones at a sporting event aren’t the players. They’re not the volunteers, or the entertainers, or even the guy cooking Fritz’s Wieners.

    It’s the ones who are there for the first time ever, most usually children but occasionally adults who are giving something new a go.

    They’re the most important because their entire experience could well mean they come back next time, and again and again until they call themselves true fans. They will bring their friends, their family and eventually their own children.

    If the sporting event can get it right, they lock in that person for life.

    Lacklustre experiences
    It’s something rugby hasn’t been very good at lately. Lacklustre game day experiences have played a huge role in crowds for everything below (and sometimes including) the All Blacks gradually declining, to the point where NPC attendances are pretty much non-existent. There is nothing unique, very little that’s special.

    Last night at Eden Park flipped that notion on its head. While there is a conversation to be had around just exactly how many fans were in attendance (43,000) and whether a clearly not full stadium can be described as “sold out”, in the end it didn’t really matter.

    Looking around showed a different sight than an All Black test match, far more children and families. Groups of people who were clearly drawn to women’s rugby and its World Cup for reasons they’d arrived at themselves.

    It was up to the day itself to carry them further.

    If it was their first time at a rugby game, what they got most definitely ensured that they’d be coming back. The wave ridden by new fans of a fixture that, for a while there, the Black Ferns had no right to win, is a wonderful and unique experience of its own.

    It was an evening of making sure the fan experience was paramount: from Rita Ora’s performance to affordable tickets to the Black Ferns making sure every single kid got a photo after the game – even if it meant they didn’t get into the sheds until well after 10pm.

    Black Ferns' Portia Woodman celebrates with fans after the match. Australia v New Zealand Black Ferns, Women’s Rugby World Cup New Zealand 2021 (played in 2022) pool match at Eden Park, Auckland, New Zealand on Saturday 8 October 2022.
    The Black Ferns’ Portia Woodman celebrates with fans after the match. Image: Photosport/RNZ

    The energy of the crowd was clearly different too to one usually found at Eden Park. For a start, there were no massive howls of protest at refereeing decisions. No one was getting rotten drunk either, despite it being Saturday night.

    Happy and safe
    The general feel was that this was an environment that you could feel happy and safe in, something that is less directly quantifiable than numbers but infinitely more valuable in the broader context.

    Does it mean that every Black Ferns test can be assured of a big crowd if they are held in a big stadium? Probably not, as the World Cup factor plays a huge role in getting people along.

    But it’s a new dawn for women’s rugby, this time with an actual professional NZ Rugby competition to follow it up and a commitment by World Rugby to continue the momentum in test matches. It is proof that if you do things right and invest properly, people will show up in numbers.

    From an elite level perspective, this all makes sense as it should have all happened years ago. But there was a sign during the week that the penny had finally dropped in regard to what it will mean in the long term.

    When asked about how the Black Ferns would inspire player numbers, coach Wayne Smith said that “the future generations will be inspired to play rugby, be fans and follow the game”.

    That’s the nail on the head, because it’s not going to matter whether those future fans are girls or boys. They will grow up and fill the seats at Eden Park and other stadiums.

    While the World Cup opener should rightfully be held up as a celebration of women’s rugby right now, years from now it will be remembered as an important day for the national game of New Zealand in general.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  • Red Roses hot favourite to win 2022 Women’s Rugby World Cup

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Sri Krishnamurthi

    The Red Roses of England are overwhelming favourites to win the 2022 Rugby World Cup being hosted by New Zealand starting on Saturday.

    While much of New Zealand’s parochial media is unashamedly giving wide coverage to the Black Ferns and little space to the other 11 teams in the tournament, it is England’s form that warrants them being taken seriously.

    How good are the Red Roses? Very good as they have won 25 tests on the trot, including beating the Black Ferns by record margins — 43-12 and 56-15 — in 2021 when New Zealand toured Europe.

    Not only that, but France who are in pool C with England, Fiji and South Africa, also beat the Black Ferns last year — in Castres 29-7 and in Pau 38-13 on that miserable tour for New Zealand.

    The Red Roses won the Grand Slam and the Six Nations this year when they beat France 24-12 in a come-from-behind win in front of a sold-out crowd at Stade Jean Dauger.

    The Red Roses form will come as no surprise when you realise the whole squad turned professional way back in January 2019, whereas the Black Ferns moved closer to fulltime rugby players this year with contracts worth $35,000.

    Those at the lower end of the Black Ferns contracts will make about $60,000 a year, with leading players earning in excess of $130,000.

    Triple header
    The tournament kicks off with a triple header at Eden Park on Saturday with France playing South Africa in pool C, then England playing Fiji — who will undoubtedly be the dark horses of the pool with many of the women coming from the victorious Fijiana Drua team that won the Women’s Super W Rugby title this year 32-26 over New South Wales.

    They will be captained by No 8 Sereima Leweniqila who hails from the Marist club in Fiji.

    As she says, “the most memorable game I played this year was beating the Waratahs in the Super W rugby final”. No doubt those memories will be enhanced should Fiji pull a David versus Goliath result when they take on the English juggernaut.

    The final game at Eden Park on Saturday features traditional foes New Zealand and Australia from pool A which also has Scotland and Wales.

    While the trans-Tasman rivals will be top dogs in the pool, they will be wary of their European rivals who could on their day cause an upset.

    The next day at the only other venue outside Auckland — the Northland Events Centre in Whangarei — Italy takes on USA in pool B followed by the other pool B game between Japan and the powerhouse of North America, Canada.

    Scotland and Wales do battle in the third game in Whangarei with the winners set to take points towards the quarterfinals.

    Titans of European rugby
    The following Saturday, October 15, the titans of European rugby — the Red Roses of England — face-off against France who are known for having a committed forward pack.

    “Where women’s rugby is now is just crazy compared to the first World Cup I played in,” says Sarah Hunter, England’s captain, as she prepares to feature in her fourth global adventure.

    With in excess of 35,000 people expected to pack Eden Park, it shows how much women’s rugby is being followed.

    As an aside, this month’s Rugby News has All Black winger Caleb Clarke on the cover so you would be forgiven for thinking misogyny is still alive in Aotearoa despite hosting the World Cup.

    In fairness to editor Campbell Burnes, he did put out special publication for the World Cup and has been an advocate for women’s rugby.

    As the England captain says, “Every World Cup has been special but I genuinely feel this World Cup will be the biggest and most competitive there has ever been.

    “And I genuinely don’t think we’ve realised the potential of this England team yet. The blend of youth and experience across the board, the versatility of the players — the talent in this side is incredible.

    ‘Exciting time’
    “It’s a really exciting time for English rugby.”

    England lost the last World Cup final to New Zealand 41-32 in Belfast in 2017 and are sure to be out for a measure of revenge against the Black Ferns should the two sides make the final, if not clashing in the previous knockout rounds of the tournament.

    The Black Ferns featuring the amazing Portia Woodman had to have a major rebuild this year with the affectionately dubbed “professor” Wayne Smith named as coach this year.

    Along with scrum guru Mike Cron they have halted the slide of the Black Ferns who face an almost herculean task if they are to win.

    They began the year winning the Pacific Four series against USA, Canada and Australia to show we are on the right track.

    They beat the USA 50-6, Australia 23-10 and Canada 28-0 then played Australia in home and away series winning 52-5 and 22-14 win in Adelaide.

    As England head coach Simon Middleton says philosophically, “we acknowledge that if we have a bad day and France, New Zealand or possibly Canada have a good one we could be in trouble.

    “If we play against France or New Zealand in the knockout stages we’re going to have to be at our very best. Any team coached by Wayne Smith and Mike Cron is going to be quite good, I reckon.”

    While Waitakere Stadium in West Auckland will also host games, the final will be played at Eden Park on Saturday, November 12.

    • Day 1 matches: 2.15pm: South Africa v France (Pool C), Eden Park
      4.45pm: Fiji v England (Pool C), Eden Park
      7.15pm: Australia v New Zealand (Pool A), Eden Park
    • Full match schedule

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Delegates from French Polynesia head to UN decolonisation committee

    RNZ Pacific

    Delegates from French Polynesia have flown to New York for the annual meeting of the UN Decolonisation Committee.

    The veteran pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru is heading his team while the French Polynesian government has sent the Equipment Minister Rene Temeharo as its spokesperson.

    The territory was reinscribed on the list on non-self-governing territories in 2013, but France refuses to accept the inscription and engage in any UN-supervised process.

    Temeharo said the inscription occurred at a time of political instability and without putting the issue to the voters.

    He said French Polynesia was not a colony as it had a democratically elected territorial government.

    Head of the French Olympic Committee Denis Massiglia and the French Polynesia Sports Minister, Rene Temeharo.
    French Polynesian cabinet minister Rene Temeharo (right) … Tahiti “is not a colony”. Image: RNZ Pacific

    France has not responded to calls to hold a referendum on independence.

    The other main French territory in the Pacific, Kanaky New Caledonia, has been on the UN Decolonisation List since 1986, which France has recognised.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Human rights lawyer in Israeli prison goes on hunger strike

    Salah Hamouri stages protest against being imprisoned without charge for the last six months

    A prominent Palestinian-French human rights lawyer has gone on hunger strike in protest against his imprisonment without charge by Israeli authorities for the last six months.

    Salah Hamouri, 37, a father of two from occupied East Jerusalem, has been held in administrative detention since 7 March, and his detention order has been renewed until at least early December based on undisclosed evidence.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • The Killer Inside Me

    Both merciless and humane, Happening presents abortion in the spirit of Simone de Beauvoir in the Manifesto of the 343—as something necessary to allow women the ability to realize their full potential as citizens.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • Will the United Nations Finally Deliver Justice for Palestine?

    In his anticipated speech at the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is expected to, once more, make a passionate plea for the recognition of Palestine as a full member.

    Abbas’ ‘landmark speech’ would not be the first time that the President of the Palestinian Authority has lobbied for such a status. In September 2011, the PA’s quest for full recognition was stymied by the Barack Obama Administration, forcing Palestinians to opt for the next best option, a ‘symbolic’ victory at the General Assembly the following year. In November 2012, UNGA Resolution 67/19 granted the State of Palestine a non-member observer status.

    In some ways, the Resolution proved to be, indeed, symbolic, as it altered nothing on the ground. To the contrary, the Israeli occupation has worsened since then, a convoluted system of apartheid deepened and, in the absence of any political horizon, Israel’s illegal Jewish settlements expanded like never before. Moreover, much of the occupied Palestinian West Bank is being actively annexed to Israel, a process that initiated a slow but systematic campaign of expulsion, which is felt from occupied East Jerusalem to Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron hills.

    Proponents of Abbas’ diplomacy, however, cite such facts as the admission of Palestine into over 100 international treaties, organizations, and conventions. The Palestinian strategy seems to be predicated on achieving full sovereignty status at the UN, so that Israel will then be recognized as an occupier, not merely of Palestinian ‘territories’ but of an actual state. Israel and its allies in Washington and other Western capitals understand this well, thus their constant mobilization against Palestinian efforts. Considering the dozens of times Washington has used its veto power at the UN Security Council to shield Israel, the use of veto is also likely, should Palestinians return to the UNSC with their full-membership application.

    Abbas’ international diplomacy, however, seems to lack a national component. The 87-year-old Palestinian leader is hardly popular with his own people. Among the reasons that resulted in his lack of support, aside from the endemic corruption, is the PA’s continued ‘security coordination’ with the very Israeli occupation that Abbas rages against in his annual UN speeches. These ‘coordinations’, which are generously funded by Washington, translate into the daily arrest of anti-occupation Palestinian activists and political dissidents. Even when the Donald Trump Administration decided to cut off all aid, including humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in 2018, the $60 million allocated to funding the PA’s security coordination with Israel remained untouched.

    Such a major contradiction has taught Palestinians to lower their expectations regarding their leader’s promises of full independence, albeit symbolic.

    But the contradictions did not start with Abbas and the PA, and certainly do not end with them. Palestine’s relationship with the world’s largest international institution is marred with contradictions.

    Though the Balfour Declaration of November 1917 remains the main historical frame of reference to the colonization of Palestine by the Zionist movement, United Nations Resolution 181 was equally, and to some extent, even more important.

    The Balfour Declaration’s significance stems from the fact that colonial Britain – which was later granted a ‘Mandate’ over Palestine by the League of Nations, the predecessor of today’s UN – has made the first officially written commitment to the Zionist movement to grant them Palestine.

    “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” the text read, in part. This quest, or ‘promise’, as known by many, would have culminated to nothing tangible, if it were not for the fact that the Zionist movement’s other colonial, western allies successfully managed to turn it into a reality.

    It took exactly 30 years for the Zionist quest to translate the pledge of Britain’s Foreign Secretary at the time, Arthur James Balfour, into a reality. UN Resolution 181 of November 1947 is the political basis upon which Israel existed. Though the current boundaries of the State of Israel by far exceed the space allocated to it by the UN’s partition plan, the Resolution nonetheless is often used to provide a legal foundation for Israel’s existence, while chastising the Arabs for refusing to accept what they rightly perceived then to be an unjust deal.

    Since then, the Palestinians continue to struggle in their relationship with the United Nations, a relationship that is governed by numerous contradictions.

    In 1947, the United Nations “was largely a club of European countries, English white-settler states and Latin American countries ruled by colonial Spanish-descendant elites,” former UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestine, Michael Lynk, wrote in a recent article regarding the partition of historic Palestine.

    Though the geographic and demographic makeup of the UN has vastly changed since then, real power continues to be concentrated in the hands of the former western colonial regimes which, aside from the US, include Britain and France. These three countries represent the majority of the UNSC permanent members. Their political, military and other forms of support for Israel remain as strong as ever. Until the power distribution at the UN reflects the true democratic wishes of the world’s population, Palestinians are deemed to remain at a disadvantage at the UNSC. Even Abbas’ fiery speeches will not alter this.

    In his memoir, referenced in Lynk’s article, former British diplomat, Brian Urquhart, ‘who helped launch the UN’, wrote that “the partition of Palestine was the first major decision of the fledgling United Nations, its first major crisis and, quite arguably, its first major misstep”.

    But will the UN’s current power paradigm allow it to finally correct this historic ‘misstep’ by providing Palestinians with the long-delayed justice and freedom? Not quite yet, but global geopolitical changes underway might present an opening which, if navigated correctly, could serve as a source of hope that there are alternatives to western bias, US vetoes and Israel’s historic intransigence.

    The post Will the United Nations Finally Deliver Justice for Palestine? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • NZ consul hails long-standing ties with New Caledonia

    RNZ Pacific

    The Consul-General of New Zealand for the French Pacific territories, Felicity Roxburgh, says New Zealand’s presence in New Caledonia is historical.

    She said she was looking to strengthen economic and political ties with the French Pacific territories.

    This comes as New Zealand marks 50 years of its consulate in New Caledonia, which also covers ties with French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna.

    Felicity Roxburgh said her job is to take New Zealand’s relationship with the French Pacific to the next level.

    “This year is 50 years since New Zealand opened the consulate in Noumea, and it is also 80 years since New Zealand military presence which was here during World War Two,” she said.

    “Which is notably in Bourail, so there is a lot of history to the relationship. So my job is to try and deepen those connections and take our relationship with the French Pacific territories to the next level economically and politically.”

    Roxburgh also said her visit to French Polynesia showed her a deeper connection to the territory.

    First visit to Pape’ete
    She was appointed to the French Pacific position in June last year and has just recently made her first visit to Pape’ete.

    Roxburgh was unable to make the trip earlier due to the French legislative elections and the covid-19 pandemic.

    She said her visit to French Polynesia showed a deep connection to New Zealand whakapapa.

    “That’s been the case … there was the Polynesian connection, there is trade, there is tourism and there is also an important source of students from New Zealand and there is also a lot of whakapapa links with Tainui,” she said.

    “When I was over there they showed me the outlet where Tainui left with their waka.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • “I Do Not Think I Know”: Scott Morrison’s Submarine Deception

    When it was revealed that former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison had not only shown contempt for his own government in secretly appointing himself, via the Governor-General’s approval, to five portfolios, the depths of deception seemed to be boundless.   His tenure had already been marked by a spectacular, habitual tendency to conceal matters.  What else would come out?

    The latest revelation in the Morrison Mendacity Roadshow came in a leaked document authored by a former Department of Defence deputy secretary, Kim Gillis, a key figure in submarine contract negotiations with the French Naval Group.  The contract to build twelve French-made diesel-powered Attack class submarines was spectacularly scuppered by the Morrison government with the announcement last September of the AUKUS security pact.  A key provision of that agreement between Canberra, Washington and London was that Australia would be acquiring nuclear-propulsion technology for submarines sourced from either the United Kingdom or the United States.

    France was kept in the dark of both the AUKUS negotiations and the fact that their treasured, lucrative submarine contract would cease to exist after September.  It ruined, for a time, the relationship between Australia and France, and led President Emmanuel Macron to publicly accuse Morrison of lying.  “I don’t think,” he memorably responded to a journalist’s question when asked about the conduct of Australia’s prime minister, “I know.”

    Morrison, in a poisonous spirit of retaliation, proceeded to leak the content of private text conversations conducted with the French president. The selective leaking purportedly showed Macron asking a mere two days before the AUKUS announcement whether he should “expect good or bad news for our joint submarines ambitions”.  As ever, Australia’s duplicitous leader was attempting to restore his own tattered credibility by claiming that Macron should have had an inkling that something was rotten in the submarine project.

    The 10-page document by Gillies, designed as an explainer to staff, is something of a tell-all about a gross failure of planning and vision. He is understandably defensive about his pet project, insisting, from the outset, that the “cost and schedule blow outs” noted in the media were “wrong and devalues the achievements and the tremendous work by our teams in Australia and France”.  Estimates, for instance, that the submarine program would cost A$50 billion were deemed reasonable at the time, given inflation projects from the Department of Finnce (2.5% to 3%).

    Confusion on this point arose because of 2016 testimony given by Program Manager Rear Admiral Greg Sammut to Senate estimates, whose figure of $A50 billion was arrived at in constant dollars.  This was largely due to the fact that the production schedule had yet to be concretely ascertained, though the first class of submarine was intended to be delivered in 2032, and the last in the 2050s.  The larger sum of A$90 billion generated by the Department of Finance in 2017, because it incorporated inflation over the course of 35 years, was then misrepresented by both parliamentarians and the media as “cost blow out”.  This was, Gillis mockingly wrote, nothing more than a “factoid”, “an item of unreliable information that is reported and reported so often that it becomes accepted as fact”.

    Despite scepticism about a nuclear submarine model being retooled and adjusted to conventional parameters, Gillis was all praise for a design that “would be the most advanced lethal conventionally powered submarine ever built.”  Even “my American submariner colleagues who assisted in the evaluation concluded that the new Attack class would provide capabilities in a range of operational environments that would exceed some of the capabilities of the US nuclear boats.”

    The note also extols the merits of the Australian Defence Department’s own Project Team.  There is almost starstruck admiration for the ability of the Naval Group Australia section (NGA) “to develop the company, including all its policies, systems and processes, whilst executing one of the most complex and demanding programs in Australian Defence procurement history.”  There was little doubt, in the mind of this particularly dedicated public servant, that moves were being made to create “a truly sovereign capability to design, build and operate submarines” in Australia.

    While Gillis may be straying from hard-nosed reality into the realm of streaky hope, he is adamant that the behaviour of the Morrison government in ending the contract without the awareness of those intimately connected with the process was unpardonable.

    Special reference is made to the sidelined role of the Commonwealth contract manager, who was, at the time, Admiral Sammut.  “I believe it is totally unacceptable when the Commonwealth contract manager is excluded from discussions regarding the termination of the contract for what now appears to be six or more months.”  Critically, “there was an alternate strategy being developed behind closed doors and outside the accepted contractual processes.”

    On September 15, 2021, the day of the AUKUS announcement, the Naval Group Australia Board had received a letter from the Defence Project Office informing them that they “had met the final exit point to move on to the next phase of the project.”  There was no inkling on what would happen next.  Had it been otherwise, no agreements would have been reached to send staff to France the week prior to the “fateful decision”, nor enter into more subcontracts with new Australian companies.

    The calamitous episode prompted Gillis to come up with his own assessment about bureaucratic machinations.  While not quite in the same league of tormented language as the “known unknowns” of the late former US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, the Naval Group submarine fiasco had given us a new argot: “[T]he phrase ‘I do not think I know’ will now become an integral part of the Australian vernacular.  It will relate to a lie or to a mistruth told by someone in high office.”

    The post “I Do Not Think I Know”: Scott Morrison’s Submarine Deception first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Standing Ovation Closes €12 Million Series A for Precision Fermentation Casein

    Standing Ovation dairy
    3 Mins Read

    Paris-based food tech company Standing Ovation has closed an oversubscribed €12 million Series A financing round to scale its animal-free casein and alt-cheese products. The new funding was led by Astanor Ventures, with participation from Peakbridge, Seventure Partners, Big Idea Ventures, and Good Startup, among others.

    Standing Ovation’s Series A funding comes less than two years after the company launched. It’s leveraging the raise to scale its technology and output to meet the growing demand for animal-free cheese.

    ‘Tremendous potential’

    “Standing Ovation’s technology has a tremendous potential,” Frederic Paques, CEO of Standing Ovation, said in a statement. “However, bringing the products rapidly to the market requires significant resources, and substantial funding had become necessary. Astanor Ventures, which had already supported us at an earlier stage, understood it as did the other participants in this round. We would like to thank all our investor partners for their support and their confidence in the team.”

    Standing ovation cheese
    Standing ovation cheese | Courtesy

    According to Romain Chayot, Scientific Director of Standing Ovation, in only two years, the company has developed a unique and highly technological process. “We are now in a strong position to build on this momentum and transition towards more logistically intensive stages, especially scaling up,” he said.

    “Standing Ovation’s technology represents a paradigm shift for the animal-free dairy market,” Eric Archambeau, co-founder of Astanor Ventures, said. “Casein is the holy grail for the production of alternative options that match conventional products in nutrition, taste and texture yet it has remained notoriously difficult to create. The founders’ experience in biotechnology enabled them to find the key to casein development, a step ahead of many companies. We are greatly impressed by the team’s advancements over the past year both in product and process development and are excited to support them in this next step of their journey.”

    Harnessing the power of casein

    Standing Ovation says its process is “simple but innovative” and harnesses the power of casein without any animal material. Casein is what gives cheese its melting and stretching properties. It says it’s proven that its fermented casein can be combined with other products to produce “true replicas” of both fresh and soft cheese.

    Nutropy cheese | Courtesy

    Last week, another Paris-based cheese startup, Nutropy, raised €2 million in a pre-seed round for its fermented cheese.

    Both companies are targeting French cheese and the increasing demand for more sustainable options. The country has been championing sustainability in its wine production in recent years as the impact of climate change has taken a toll on wine producers.

    Livestock production makes up about 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and cattle is the leading livestock producer of methane, a greenhouse gas that traps more heat than CO2.

    The post Standing Ovation Closes €12 Million Series A for Precision Fermentation Casein appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Prosecutors urged to examine French role in Egyptian airstrikes on civilians

    NGOs want investigation into border counter-terrorism operation that allegedly ended up bombing suspected smugglers

    Two international NGOs have asked French prosecutors and the UN to investigate the French state’s involvement in Egypt allegedly committing crimes against humanity in a secret military operation on the Egyptian-Libyan border.

    A 2021 leak appeared to show how French officers complained they were being asked to facilitate Egyptian airstrikes, codenamed Operation Sirli, on the Egyptian-Libyan border, even though the original counter-terrorism purpose had been subverted by the Egyptian military into taking out vehicles containing nothing more than contraband. Dozens are estimated to have been killed or injured.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • France must rethink case of IS-linked women refused re-entry, rules ECHR

    Families argued detention in Syria exposed the two women and their children to inhumane treatment

    The European court of human rights has condemned France over its refusal to repatriate French women who travelled to Syria with their partners to join Islamic State and are currently being held with their children at Kurdish-run prison camps.

    The ruling will be studied closely by other countries who still have citizens detained in camps in north-eastern Syria, including the UK.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • France defers referendum on new statute for New Caledonia Kanaky

    RNZ Pacific

    Plans to hold a referendum in Kanaky New Caledonia next year on a new statute for the territory are being deferred.

    French Junior Overseas Minister Jean-Francois Carenco told the television station Caledonia that there would be no referendum in July.

    Carenco said a vote would happen once everybody is ready, noting there had been no dialogue for two years to advance matters.

    Last December, Paris said a new statute would be drawn up and put to a vote in June after 96 percent of voters rejected independence from France in the third and last referendum under the 1998 Noumea Accord.

    However, the vote was boycotted by the pro-independence camp after France dismissed pleas to postpone it because of the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the indigenous Kanak population.

    Pro-independence parties refuse to recognise the result and reject any discussions about reintegrating New Caledonia into France while insisting that the decolonisation process was yet to be completed.

    Until there is a new statute, the institutional framework of the Noumea Accord, with its restricted electoral roll, remains in place.

    Carenco is the first French minister to visit New Caledonia since the re-election of President Emmanuel Macron in April.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Peace Talks Essential as War Rages on in Ukraine 

    Peace talks in Turkey, March 2022. Photo credit: Murat Cetin Muhurdar / Turkish Presidential Press Service / AFP

    Six months ago, Russia invaded Ukraine. The United States, NATO and the European Union (EU) wrapped themselves in the Ukrainian flag, shelled out billions for arms shipments, and imposed draconian sanctions intended to severely punish Russia for its aggression.

    Since then, the people of Ukraine have been paying a price for this war that few of their supporters in the West can possibly imagine. Wars do not follow scripts, and Russia, Ukraine, the United States, NATO and the European Union have all encountered unexpected setbacks.

    Western sanctions have had mixed results, inflicting severe economic damage on Europe as well as on Russia, while the invasion and the West’s response to it have combined to trigger a food crisis across the Global South. As winter approaches, the prospect of another six months of war and sanctions threatens to plunge Europe into a serious energy crisis and poorer countries into famine. So it is in the interest of all involved to urgently reassess the possibilities of ending this protracted conflict.

    For those who say negotiations are impossible, we have only to look at the talks that took place during the first month after the Russian invasion, when Russia and Ukraine tentatively agreed to a fifteen-point peace plan in talks mediated by Turkey. Details still had to be worked out, but the framework and the political will were there.

    Russia was ready to withdraw from all of Ukraine, except for Crimea and the self-declared republics in Donbas. Ukraine was ready to renounce future membership in NATO and adopt a position of neutrality between Russia and NATO.

    The agreed framework provided for political transitions in Crimea and Donbas that both sides would accept and recognize, based on self-determination for the people of those regions. The future security of Ukraine was to be guaranteed by a group of other countries, but Ukraine would not host foreign military bases on its territory.

    On March 27, President Zelenskyy told a national TV audience, “Our goal is obvious—peace and the restoration of normal life in our native state as soon as possible.” He laid out his “red lines” for the negotiations on TV to reassure his people he would not concede too much, and he promised them a referendum on the neutrality agreement before it would take effect.

    Such early success for a peace initiative was no surprise to conflict resolution specialists. The best chance for a negotiated peace settlement is generally during the first months of a war. Each month that a war rages on offers reduced chances for peace, as each side highlights the atrocities of the other, hostility becomes entrenched and positions harden.

    The abandonment of that early peace initiative stands as one of the great tragedies of this conflict, and the full scale of that tragedy will only become clear over time as the war rages on and its dreadful consequences accumulate.

    Ukrainian and Turkish sources have revealed that the U.K. and U.S. governments played decisive roles in torpedoing those early prospects for peace. During U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s “surprise visit” to Kyiv on April 9th, he reportedly told Prime Minister Zelenskyy that the U.K. was “in it for the long run,” that it would not be party to any agreement between Russia and Ukraine, and that the “collective West” saw a chance to “press” Russia and was determined to make the most of it.

    The same message was reiterated by U.S. Defense Secretary Austin, who followed Johnson to Kyiv on April 25 and made it clear that the U.S. and NATO were no longer just trying to help Ukraine defend itself but were now committed to using the war to “weaken” Russia. Turkish diplomats told retired British diplomat Craig Murray that these messages from the United States and United Kingdom killed their otherwise promising efforts to mediate a ceasefire and a diplomatic resolution.

    In response to the invasion, much of the public in Western countries accepted the moral imperative of supporting Ukraine as a victim of Russian aggression. But the decision by the U.S. and British governments to kill peace talks and prolong the war, with all the horror, pain and misery that entails for the people of Ukraine, has neither been explained to the public, nor endorsed by a consensus of NATO countries. Johnson claimed to be speaking for the “collective West,” but in May, the leaders of France, Germany and Italy all made public statements that contradicted his claim.

    Addressing the European Parliament on May 9, French President Emmanuel Macron declared, “We are not at war with Russia,” and that Europe’s duty was “to stand with Ukraine to achieve the cease-fire, then build peace.”

    Meeting with President Biden at the White House on May 10, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi told reporters, “People… want to think about the possibility of bringing a cease-fire and starting again some credible negotiations. That’s the situation right now. I think that we have to think deeply about how to address this.”

    After speaking by phone with President Putin on May 13, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz tweeted that he told Putin, “There must be a cease-fire in Ukraine as quickly as possible”

    But American and British officials continued to pour cold water on talk of renewed peace negotiations. The policy shift in April appears to have involved a commitment by Zelenskyy that Ukraine, like the U.K. and U.S., was “in it for the long run” and would fight on, possibly for many years, in exchange for the promise of tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons shipments, military training, satellite intelligence and Western covert operations.

    As the implications of this fateful agreement became clearer, dissent began to emerge, even within the U.S. business and media establishment. On May 19, the very day that Congress appropriated $40 billion for Ukraine, including $19 billion for new weapons shipments, with not a single dissenting Democratic vote, the New York Times editorial board penned a lead editorial titled, “The war in Ukraine is getting complicated, and America isn’t ready.”

    The Times asked serious unanswered questions about U.S. goals in Ukraine, and tried to reel back unrealistic expectations built up by three months of one-sided Western propaganda, not least from its own pages. The board acknowledged, “A decisive military victory for Ukraine over Russia, in which Ukraine regains all the territory Russia has seized since 2014, is not a realistic goal.… Unrealistic expectations could draw [the United States and NATO] ever deeper into a costly, drawn-out war.”

    More recently, warhawk Henry Kissinger, of all people, publicly questioned the entire U.S. policy of reviving its Cold War with Russia and China and the absence of a clear purpose or endgame short of World War III. “We are at the edge of war with Russia and China on issues which we partly created, without any concept of how this is going to end or what it’s supposed to lead to,” Kissinger told The Wall Street Journal.

    U.S. leaders have inflated the danger that Russia poses to its neighbors and the West, deliberately treating it as an enemy with whom diplomacy or cooperation would be futile, rather than as a neighbor raising understandable defensive concerns over NATO expansion and its gradual encirclement by U.S. and allied military forces.

    Far from aiming to deter Russia from dangerous or destabilizing actions, successive administrations of both parties have sought every means available to “overextend and unbalance” Russia, all the while misleading the American public into supporting an ever-escalating and unthinkably dangerous conflict between our two countries, which together possess more than 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons.

    After six months of a U.S. and NATO proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, we are at a crossroads. Further escalation should be unthinkable, but so should a long war of endless crushing artillery barrages and brutal urban and trench warfare that slowly and agonizingly destroys Ukraine, killing hundreds of Ukrainians with each day that passes.

    The only realistic alternative to this endless slaughter is a return to peace talks to bring the fighting to an end, find reasonable political solutions to Ukraine’s political divisions, and seek a peaceful framework for the underlying geopolitical competition between the United States, Russia and China.

    Campaigns to demonize, threaten and pressure our enemies can only serve to cement hostility and set the stage for war. People of good will can bridge even the most entrenched divisions and overcome existential dangers, as long as they are willing to talk — and listen — to their adversaries.

    The post Peace Talks Essential as War Rages on in Ukraine  first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Fossil Fuel Ad Ban In France Has Loopholes, Says Greenpeace

    gas pump
    4 Mins Read

    In a move that was heralded as a sign of the times amid dangerous heat waves and flooding across the globe as a result of climate change, France became the first European country to ban fossil fuel ads. But the environmental group Greenpeace among others, says it provides too much leeway for the industry.

    Under the new law, which passed last month, energy products related to fossil fuels including oil, coal, and hydrogen-containing carbons, are banned across France. Penalties include fines ranging from €20,000 and €100,000 with them doubling for repeat offenses.

    Fossil fuel ads

    The ban was proposed as part of a 150-person assembly in 2019 aimed at reducing exposure to companies that promote fossil fuels linked to climate change. Globally, energy is the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions at more than 30 percent.

    But the law is facing backlash from the groups that pushed for its existence in the first place. The environmental group Greenpeace pushed for the legislation several years ago as part the country’s efforts to address climate change.

    Now, the group is saying the legislation doesn’t do enough to properly address greenwashing.

    “You will read everywhere that advertising for fossil fuels is now prohibited, but that’s not true,” Greenpeace France tweeted after the country announced the ban.

    Total ad.

    “Ads for gas can continue, patronage, sponsorship, institutional communication and financial advertising on fossil products remain authorised.”

    François Chartier, an oil campaigner at Greenpeace called the move political greenwashing. “This is not a law that is going to bring about change,” he said.

    The group says companies have room to skirt the ban such as signing on as sponsors for events. And natural gas that contains 50 percent biogas has no restrictions at all.

    “This is not a law that is going to bring about change,” François Chartier, oceans campaigner for Greenpeace France, told The Times of London. He points to Total, leading French energy company, which will still be allowed to sponsor next year’s Rugby World Cup, which will include ads seen by hundreds of millions of viewers. The last tournament in 2019 drew nearly 900 million viewers across the globe.

    Photo by Markus Spiske at Pexels.

    “According to legal and regulatory standards, environmental claims in advertising must match scientific evidence. Often, this is as much about what adverts don’t say as what they do say,” Johnny White, a lawyer from Client Earth and Jonathan Wise, co-founder of Purpose Disruptors, write in The Drum.

    “The evidence is unequivocal that we must phase out fossil fuels for a fair chance at a liveable future. But too many fossil fuel companies are heading in the opposite direction – expanding production at a rate that will blow the world’s carbon budget,” said Wise and White.

    Climate change tipping point

    They say recent protests by Greenpeace and the “wave of anti-green-washing litigation and regulation,” is moving the industry toward an “inevitable” tipping point.

    “This moment is the one where one agency or network group sees there are greater rewards in severing its ties with fossil fuel companies than maintaining them,” they write. “The question is: who is going to be the leader, and who is going to be left as laggards?”

    Mumbai to Go Net-Zero: 'We Don't Have the Luxury of Time'
    Atharva Tulsi on Unsplash

    The Climate Action Network (CAN) also criticized the legislation, calling it “potentially costly.” The group say billions of euros could be “diverted away from investing in a just transition to a sustainable economy to finance the construction of new nuclear and fossil gas power plants, until at least 2045 and 2030 respectively.”

    It says nuclear power does not meet the principle of “do no harm” to the environment.

    “Fossil gas is a proven source of greenhouse gas emissions and its consumption should be reduced by 30 percent by 2030 to reach the European climate target,” CAN said.

    “To consider it as useful for the transition is a dangerous misstep that would divert the European Union from its climate target.”

    Featured photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

    The post Fossil Fuel Ad Ban In France Has Loopholes, Says Greenpeace appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Jean Luc Mélenchon and the France Insoumise

    Around 5000 people attended the radical left summer school of the France Insoumise (FI), held at the end of August at Valence in the South of France, reports John Mullen.

  • Pro-independence Kanaks sign pact with West Papuan movement

    RNZ Pacific

    New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), which wants independence from Indonesia.

    The Kanak-Papuan deal was signed by Roch Wamytan, President of New Caledonia’s Congress, and the visiting ULMWP leader Benny Wenda.

    Wamytan told La Premiere television in Noumea that both territories were involved in a process of decolonisation and emancipation — one with France, the other with Indonesia.

    “We have signed this accord because each of us are confronted by a process of decolonisation and emancipation. The people of Papua with Indonesia and us with the French state,” he said.

    “This process of decolonisation has not ended for us, it has been ruptured over time, to say the least.”

    The memorandum aims to support each other internationally and to develop a list of common goals.

    Indonesia took over the western half of New Guinea island after a controversial 1969 UN-backed referendum that is rejected as a sham by Papuans, with West Papuan activists now seeking inscription on the UN decolonisation list.

    New Caledonia has been on the UN decolonisation list since 1986, and between 2018 and 2021 has held three referendums on independence from France.

    Wenda visited Vanuatu on the first leg of his Pacific trip from his exiled base in London.

    He was a guest of the Vanuatu West Papua Independence Committee.

    FLNKS will boycott Paris talks
    New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS movement said it would not attend talks in September of the signatories to the 1998 Noumea Accord in Paris.

    West Papuan independence leader Benny Wenda
    West Papuan independence leader Benny Wenda … supporting each other internationally. Image: Koroi Hawkins/RNZ Pacific

    A special meeting of the movement’s leadership decided at the weekend that legitimate talks would now have to be bilateral ones, involving the FLNKS and France as the colonising state.

    Newly-elected FLNKS Congress member Laura Humunie said bilateral talks were the only formal way to get their message to the French state.

    “We repeat, that to obtain bilateral talks we will not go to Paris because for us this is the legitimate way of talking to the French colonial state,” she said.

    “Our loyalist partners who have signed the ‘no’ referendum, means that they align with the French state’s ideals.”

    Last December, more than 96 percent voted against independence from France in a referendum boycotted by the pro-independence parties, which refuse to recognise the result as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    West Papuan leader Benny Wenda
    West Papuan leader Benny Wenda (red shirt) signing the memorandum of understanding with the FLNKS. Image: FLNKS

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • AFD: How to link human rights and development

    The French Development Agency (AFD) organised an international conference to consider new ideas and approaches to linking human rights and development

    Report by Marc Limon, Executive Director of the Universal Rights Group on July 8, 2022

    Against a background of the retreat of human rights worldwide, growing doubts about the ability of the international community to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, growing inequalities, and the ecological and climate crises, on Human Rights Day 2021 (10 December) the French Development Agency (AFD) organised an international conference on ‘Human Rights and Development.’ It brought together 500 actors from the development community, covering both the global North and South, and considered how development actors can play a key role in securing improvements in the enjoyment of human rights while at the same time recharging progress towards the achievement of the SDGs ‘leaving no one behind.’

    Key conclusions

    Warning of the risk of failure of the 2030 Agenda if development actors do not promote a development model based on human rights, participants unanimously recommended moving away from both a solely economic vision of development and a purely normative approach to human rights. In that regard, they called for more concerted action to enhance development actors’ contribution to the realisation of human rights on the ground, and to develop more robust indicators for measuring the impact of the human rights based approaches (HRBA).

    Notwithstanding, several recalled the challenges involved in convincing partners of the value-added of integrating human rights with the development agenda, and recommended undertaking research actions to provide evidence.

    Panellists further emphasised that human rights constitute a universal framework that goes beyond the North/South divide and is applicable to all. They noted a strong demand for improvements in the enjoyment of human rights in the global South as evidenced by growing social movements often led by young people. The universal nature of human rights makes it possible to fight against arbitrariness by guaranteeing a minimum essential base for everyone without discrimination. The international corpus of human rights contributes, in this sense, to reducing inequalities, so that everyone can lead a decent and dignified life. This must be reflected in the fiscal resource mobilisation policies of States, but also in their budgetary policies for social investment in health, education and social protection. States and development actors must also address the structural causes of inequality, which include discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, economic status, and minority status, all of which are prohibited under international human rights law. For this reason, development actors are invited to contribute to the collection of reliable data on vulnerable population groups, in order to design projects with a non-discriminatory and inclusive approach.

    Speakers also agreed on the need to support civil society and preserve its space. Its role in observing, documenting, and monitoring the implementation of States’ human rights obligations is essential. It is therefore crucial to establish a culture of dialogue between a State/government and civil society when elaborating public policies, and to strengthen the capacity of CSOs to participate effectively. ‘Power should be fluid, distributed throughout society, shared and exercised collectively,’ argued one speaker.

    In terms of business and human rights, participants recalled companies’ duty of care to prevent and remedy human rights violations in the course of their activities. At the international level, this duty is based on a voluntary approach which, it was argued, showing signs of strain – few companies actually mobilise vigilance mechanisms in their value chains. Nevertheless, there is a progressive movement towards the adoption of national legislation in countries where multinational companies are headquartered to make it compulsory to draw up and implement vigilance plans that cover the impact of their activities, and those of the actors integrated into their supply or value chains, and covering both human rights and the environment. In this way, the objective is to spread human rights throughout the value chain, starting ‘from the top,’ and to contribute to guaranteeing the enjoyment of human rights of those affected by business activities. However, this raises the challenge of the cost and capacity to implement the principles of the duty of care by all actors in the value chain, in particular those in the Global South. Development actors have a role to play in supporting them. A need was also identified to strengthen the dialogue between legislators in the countries where companies are headquartered and those in which they operate in order to build coherent and complementary legislative frameworks.

    Beyond companies’ duty of care, the private sector also plays a key role in contributing to development. Speakers called for multinational companies to be held accountable so that, in addition to respecting human rights, they contribute more directly to reducing inequalities and poverty.

    Throughout the conference, the discussions have also highlighted the inseparable links between the realisation of human rights and the protection of the environment. These two goals are not mutually exclusive, as the rights of nature guarantee the enjoyment of human rights. It is thus crucial to promote an approach to development that is not based solely on human rights, but include the rights of all living things. This is especially important, it was noted, for young people and future generations.

    In this context, the panellists made several recommendations, including the need to develop and disseminate knowledge about human mobility due to climate change. They recommended supporting climate change mitigation and adaptation projects, and called for investment in social protection and parametric insurance mechanisms to mitigate shocks from loss and damage that are already unavoidable. Development actors were also called upon to finance restoration and rehabilitation mechanisms to remedy non-economic damages such as the loss of cultural heritage or biodiversity.

    Finally, participants unanimously agreed that indigenous peoples are key actors in sustainable development. They represent 5% of the world’s population but are the custodians of 80% of the world’s biodiversity. They play a vital role on all continents – in the Amazon alone, they directly influence 48% of the land surface. The protection of the environment cannot and must not be done without them. They should be treated as true co-decision-makers in the management of these spaces and resources, in order to fully respect their free, prior and informed consent, as required under international law. Development actors should therefore seek to empower indigenous peoples by supporting the full enjoyment of their rights.

    Synthesis: Conference: “Human Rights and Development” | AFD – Agence Française de Développement

    The conference proceedings from the meeting were recently released in both French and English

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Barely Legal: The Global Uber Enterprise

    The lobbying of Uber should, along with those of other corporate giants, only surprise those prone to pollyannaish escapism.  Its hungry, desperate behaviour takes place in plain sight, and denials merely serve to emphasise the point.  It resembles, in some crudely distant way, the operating rationale of the notorious British sex pest Jimmy Savile, who preyed upon his victims with the establishment’s complicity.

    In terms of the gig economy, there are few more ruthless buccaneers than this San Franciscan ride-share company that has persistently specialised in cutting corners and remaking them.  Those taken aback by the latest leaked files about Uber’s conduct would do well to remember the initial stages of the company’s growth, and the protests against it.  Globally, the taxi fraternity raged against the encroachment of this new, seemingly amorphous bully.  Some authorities heeded their wishes, seeing an alternative option in transportation.

    In September 2017, Transport for London refused to renew the company’s license, accusing the company of lacking “corporate responsibility in relation to a number of issues which have potential public safety and security implications.”  For all such rowdy, boisterous resistance, the company continued to spread its tentacular reach, inculcating users and drivers with ratings, incessant surveillance and behavioural observation.

    The Uber leaks give us ringside seats to the decision making of the company.  Files numbering some 124,000 spanning the period between 2013 to 2017, were leaked to The Guardian and found their way to 180 journalists across 29 countries through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).  These include the savoury essence of over 83,000 emails, iMessages and WhatsApp messages exchanged between then CEO Travis Kalanick and various company executives.

    The ICIJ brings out a big gun from the off.  In 2015, France’s taxi drivers showed their incensed displeasure with the company by setting fire to tyres, overturning cars and blocking access to airports.  The result of the protest was initially significant, leading to a suspension of the company’s operations and a nationwide ban.  “Needing a friend in government to smooth things over,” states the ICIJ with gotcha confidence, “Uber’s chief European lobbyist sought help from a young French minister on the rise: Emmanuel Macron.”

    They had good reason to feel plucky.  Mark MacGann, the lobbyist in the question, is found sending a text to the then French economy minister on October 21, 2015 expressing concern about the ban.  “Could you ask your cabinet to help us to understand what is going on?”  Macron promises to “look into this personally” and urges “calm at this stage”.

    Within hours, the suspension order was being reconsidered.  “The local government in Bouches du Rhones will modify its decision and press release to clean up the statements that set off such confusion,” a relieved and grateful MacGann informs Macron.  “Thank you for your support.”  Macron expresses his own gratitude for the company’s “measured response.”

    This picture, according to the leaked messages, emerges from some dozen undisclosed communications and, at the latest count, four meetings between representatives of Uber and Macron.  It prompted French MP Aurélien Taché to call it “a state scandal.”  Mathilde Panot, parliamentary leader of the left opposition party France Unbowed gave the perpetrator of the scandal an even better description.  Macron had shown himself to be a lobbyist for a “US multinational aiming to permanently deregulate labour law”.

    The current French President is not the only one to have been taken in by the service.  The Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, had some advice to give the company.  “Right now you are seen as aggressive,” he said with dreary triteness.  His solution to Kalanick: “Change the way people look at the company”.  Focus on the good.  “This will make you seem cuddly.”

    Given the protests against Uber globally, both in terms of drivers and users, the company chewed over a strategy of reverse emphasis.  The true problem, went this line of marketing, was the vicious, lazy, monopolising taxi driver.  Along the way, the company could also discount the welfare of Uber drivers while extolling the merits of a more liberal marketplace hankering for transportation options.  “Violence,” exhorted Kalanick like the privateers of old, “guarantee[s] success.”

    Spokesperson for Kalanick, Devon Spurgeon, comes close to degrading the old cabbies, suggesting that the Uber model was refreshingly competitive in the face of industry sclerosis.  Kalanick and company, explained Spurgeon to the ICIJ, “pioneered an industry that has now become a verb.”  To do so required them to break a few eggs and rules on the way “in an industry where competition had been historically outlawed.  As a natural and foreseeable result, entrenched industry interests all over the world fought to prevent the much-needed development of the transportation industry.”

    Perhaps most revealingly of all, and typical of the East India Company ethos of this titan, was the delight company members found in flouting laws and soiling regulations.   Its “other than legal status” was a point of constant excitement, notably in a range of countries from South Africa to Russia.  In the uncoated words of Uber’s head of global communications, Nairi Hourdajian, written to a colleague in 2014 as attempts in Thailand and India to shut down the company were afoot,  “Sometimes we have problems because, well, we’re just fucking illegal.”

    The battles against Uber’s corporate banditry continue, none more passionately and committedly waged than by the workers themselves.  Uber drivers have managed to make a case in the Netherlands and the UK that they are protected by the jurisdiction’s labour laws.

    The same cannot be said about the United States, where freedom of contract and the tyranny of uneven pay prevail.  As Joe Biden, well wooed by Kalanick as US Vice President, said in his adjusted 2016 speech at the World Economic Forum at Davos, there was a company able to give millions of workers “freedom to work as many hours as they wish, manage their own lives as they wish”.  The Uber cofounder was less enthused by the vice presidential vessel.  “Every minute late [Biden] is,” he wrote in a text to a co-worker, “is one less minute he will have with me.”

    The company’s board can also rest easy in one respect.  They have majority shareholder support to ensure that a lack of transparency regarding spending and lobbying activities will be permitted to continue.  While the veil continues to operate, current CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is also aggressively pursuing a policy of sprucing and cleaning the company’s image.  This pirate of transportation is turning cuddly.

    The post Barely Legal: The Global Uber Enterprise first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Australian Labor isn’t alone. Parties of the Left are making a comeback

    ANALYSIS: By Rob Manwaring, Flinders University

    One aspect of May’s federal election in Australia has been strangely overlooked: Labor’s win follows a pattern among the main centre-left parties in Europe and comparable countries.

    Traditional social democratic and labour-based parties are resurgent, and now hold office (on their own or in coalition) across all of Scandinavia and in Germany, Spain, Portugal and New Zealand.

    Where the past decade has been dominated by talk of a crisis of the left, the debate is increasingly shifting to the crisis of the right.

    SREcholz ran an uncluttered campaign based on simple promises: a higher minimum wage, stable pensions, more affordable housing and a carbon-neutral economy.

    The picture isn’t uniform, of course. Some countries have experienced the de facto demise of their main centre-left party. We might call this the “PASOKification” syndrome, after the sharp loss of support for Greece’s PASOK party, but it extends to other parts of Europe.

    The Netherlands’ once-dominant Labour Party was placed sixth in last year’s election, with just 5.7 percent of the vote.

    France’s main party of the left, the Socialist Party, was reduced to just 6.4 percent in the first round of the 2017 presidential elections and just 1.7 percent this year, but it sealed a deal to join the French Left’s first broad coalition pact in 20 years.

    British Labour, meanwhile, lost the 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019 elections. Despite the toxicity that surrounds the Conservative government, Labour leader Keir Starmer remains unpopular and unlikely to win the next election.

    In Belgium and Italy, the Left’s situation is less bleak, though its main parties are far from hegemonic. In the highly fragmented Belgian system, the Flemish and Walloon socialist parties are part of the seven-party (yes, seven!) “Vivaldi coalition”.

    Italy’s Democratic Party is part of the current Draghi-led national unity government, and in more recent times has held the prime ministership.

    Outside Europe, the new “pink tide” in South America has seen, for example, 35-year-old Gabriel Boric win Chile’s presidential election.

    Scholz ran an uncluttered campaign based on simple promises: a higher minimum wage, stable pensions, more affordable housing and a carbon-neutral economy.

    Why the bounce back?
    Some common factors help us understand the partial return of the left.

    First, the vote share of the two main centre-right and centre-left parties has declined in most of these countries, yet the centre-left can still assemble a majority where the electoral system enables it.

    Australian Labor’s record low primary vote of 32.6 percent is part of that trend, with centre-left parties in Norway, Sweden and Spain now capturing between 25 percent and 30 percent of the vote. And even when parties win larger vote shares (as in Portugal), they have usually needed coalition partners.

    Nevertheless, centre-left parties remain a fixture in many party systems, and have found ways of getting back into office.

    Second, the reinvigorated centre-left parties — including Anthony Albanese’s Labor — share common policy positions. We might sum them up as a “back to basics” strategy, with a clear focus on improved wages and conditions, job security and reinvigorated public institutions.

    Albanese’s win has parallels with the victory of Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrat–led “rainbow coalition” in Germany. As one commentator described it:

    Scholz ran an uncluttered campaign based on simple promises: a higher minimum wage, stable pensions, more affordable housing and a carbon-neutral economy.

    Social democrats have sought to (mildly) rebuild public institutions. The Danish Social Democrats have pledged to increase public and welfare spending by 0.8 percent per year for five years.

    Jacinda Ardern’s NZ Labour government has increased the minimum wage. Antonio Costa’s recent majority government in Portugal was built on a coalition united in seeking to reverse the austerity measures that followed the eurozone crisis.

    Common features …
    This “new” minimalist social democracy has several entwined elements. First, the incoming governments have captured a mood, amplified by the pandemic, that centre-right governments have neglected key public goods.

    Second, these centre-left governments have turned away from “third way” policies associated with leaders like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. As catalogued here, centre-left parties have turned leftwards since the 1990s and 2000s.

    Many of their party manifestos have a renewed focus on tackling inequality and increasing welfare spending.

    Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin
    Modern social democracy … Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin at an EU summit in Brussels last month. Image: The Conversation/Olivier Matthys/AP

    Third, the centre-left parties have been gradually “greening”. Many are seeking to make renewables part of their reinvigorated industry and manufacturing agendas.

    As Albanese and his colleagues know, this is a delicate balancing act, aimed at protecting employees in fossil-fuel-intensive industries while setting out modest climate targets. This “balance” seems to be hitting the electoral sweet spot by capturing public demand for action while allaying fears about the speed of transition — even if the targets fail to keep up with the science.

    The final element is the longstanding “feminisation” of the parties. Many are reaping the rewards of the struggles by feminist MPs, allies and members to improve representation.

    It’s no coincidence that four of Scandinavia’s five current centre-left prime ministers are female. The centre-left parties look modern and representative, and most have strong gender policies, especially on issues like the gender pay gap.

    … And one significance difference
    It’s worth noting a key difference between Australian Labor and its resurgent counterparts. Many centre-left parties in Europe have made strong pledges to invest in their welfare states — in part to see off the welfare chauvinism of radical right challengers.

    In New Zealand, the Ardern government has announced a new unemployment insurance scheme.

    The dynamics seem different in Australia, and Labor apparently sees little electoral value in shifting from its “modest” welfare agenda.

    One important lesson for Labor is that in almost all the cases internationally, the centre-left has had to learn to govern in partnership with other key players.

    This will be a pressing issue for Albanese as he deals with a record crossbench in both houses. It could even determine how long Australia’s centre-left party governs.The Conversation

    Dr Rob Manwaring is associate professor, Politics and Public Policy, Flinders University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Tahitian pro-independence MP slams ‘bad signal’ for French Pacific

    RNZ Pacific

    France’s abolition of the status of an overseas minister has received mixed reactions in both France and its overseas territories, with a pro-independence Tahitian member of the National Assembly condemning the “bad signal”.

    The position was abolished in yesterday’s government reshuffle and replaced with a minister delegate, a post given to Jean-Francois Carenco.

    He will work alongside Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.

    A French Polynesian member of the French National Assembly, Moetai Brotherson, said the change of of status “sends a bad signal to the overseas territories”.

    “We remember the way Mr Darmanin sent forces to Guadeloupe. We also remember the declarations [against independence] in New Caledonia,” he said.

    Brotherson said the new representatives were unknown to French Polynesia and New Caledonia, adding he would rather have a single minister exercising full power over the overseas territories.

    Negative reactions also came from the French right-wing opposition’s Marine Le Pen as well as overseas territory officials.

    Newly elected MP in favour
    However, a newly elected New Caledonian French National Assembly member and anti-independence politician, Nicolas Metzdorf, said he supported this new move.

    “An association of overseas territories minister and minister of interior is excellent news for our territories,” he said.

    “It is a demonstration that Emmanuel Macron considers the overseas territories in the same way as mainland France.”

    Darmanin and Carenco are set to tour all of the overseas territories, starting with a visit to Reunion on Thursday.

    Darmanin said he put the institutional questions of New Caledonia at the top of his priorities.

    “I think of the subject of ecology but also institutional questions,” he said.

    “I think of New Caledonia and the Ministry of the Interior that has for a long time pondered on the subject with many colleagues there. There is a clear need for two ministers to take care of the overseas territories.”

    Resigned after one month
    The previous minister, Yael Braun-Pivet, resigned last month after just one month in office to successfully run for the presidency of the French National Assembly.

    Carenco was Secretary-General of New Caledonia in 1990 and 1991.

    Last December, New Caledonia voted against independence in the third and final referendum under the Noumea Accord.

    The vote was boycotted by the pro-independence side which refuses to accept the result as the legitimate outcome for the indigenous Kanak people to be decolonised.

    It regards the rejection of full sovereignty at the ballot box as the Noumea Accord’s failure to entice the established French settlers to join it to form a new nation.

    However, the anti-independence camp says the three “no” votes are the democratic expression of the electorate to remain part of France.

    Paris wants to draw up a new statute for a New Caledonia within France and put it to a vote in New Caledonia in June 2023.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  • Vegan Food Gets Protection In India, a Labeling Blow in France

    3 Mins Read

    What exactly is vegan food? While France moved last week to ban language commonly used to describe plant-based products such as “steak” or “sausage,” India says it is now moving to further clarify the definition of vegan food in order to curb the sales of fake vegan options.

    “Vegan food means the food or food ingredient, including additives, flavourings, enzymes and carriers, or processing aids that are not products of animal origin and in which, at no stage of production and processing, ingredients, including additives, flavourings, enzymes and carriers, or processing aids that are of animal origin has been used,” India’s Food Safety and Standards Authority (FSSAI) said in its definition.

    FSSAI regulations

    The FSSAI says labeling items as vegan that do not fall under the description violates the agency’s regulations. It’s also putting similar restrictions on imports.

    The agency is also restricting animal testing—an ethical component to veganism, meaning something could not contain animal ingredients but if it was tested on animals, as is the case with many cosmetics, it wouldn’t qualify. Here, though, the agency is extending that to food items.

    “The food products to be called vegan, shall not have involved animal testing for any purpose, including safety evaluation, unless provided by any Regulatory Authority,” it said.

    Courtesy GoodDot

    More than 80 percent of Indians limit meat intake with 39 percent identifying as vegetarian. The vegan diet is also gaining in popularity. According to Statista, a survey conducted in India last year found more than 47 percent of respondents had consumed plant-based food products due to their concerns regarding animal welfare in food production. A further 44.5 percent did so to follow a vegetarian or vegan diet.

    That issue came up when U.S.-based vegan meat manufacturer Impossible Foods submitted its novel heme ingredient to voluntary animal testing to earn the FDA’s GRAS status (generally recognized as safe). The company’s testing involved close to 200 rats. The 2017 study earned backlash from animal rights groups including PETA, which has since removed much of its comments from the Internet.

    Impossible Foods’ founder Pat Brown claimed it was the necessary evil in being able to save millions, if not billions more animals. The approval has helped the company expand its market presence.

    Labeling vegan food in France

    But in France, where Impossible is still not yet approved, it may have to rethink the names of some of its products. Last week, the county banned animal nomenclature from being used on vegan food.

    Courtesy Impossible

    “It will not be possible to use sector-specific terminology traditionally associated with meat and fish to designate products that do not belong to the animal world and which, in essence, are not comparable,” the official decree reads.

    France is the first E.U. country to ban the use of common terms on vegan foods in a move it says is to protect the country’s animal product producers as well as consumers. It initially pushed the E.U. to take similar bloc-wide measures, but that motion was rejected. Producers selling vegan food in France will have until October to update their packaging.

    The post Vegan Food Gets Protection In India, a Labeling Blow in France appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Greenpeace condemns NZ silence on Pacific deep sea mining risks

    Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

    Greenpeace Aotearoa has condemned New Zealand for “standing by” while “deep wounds are inflicted on its Pacific neighbours” by silence over deep sea mining.

    Greenpeace’s seabed mining campaigner James Hita made the critical statement today after a dramatic shift at the UN Oceans conference in Lisbon this week when several Pacific governments formed an alliance to oppose deep sea mining in international waters.

    The environmental movement said the continued silence from the New Zealand government on the issue was “deafening”.

    To standing ovations, Fiji and Samoa joined the alliance opposing deep sea mining announced by Palau on Monday.

    The following day Tuvalu, Tonga, and Guam announced their support for a halt to deep sea mining and France is now also calling for a legal and robust framework to ban deep sea mining in the high seas.

    But so far the New Zealand government has not taken a stance on the issue.

    “New Zealand risks standing by while deep wounds are inflicted on its Pacific neighbours if it continues to stay silent on deep sea mining,” James Hita said.

    ‘Ruthless corporations’
    “This move by ruthless corporations to begin deep sea mining in the Pacific is the latest example of colonisation in a region that has already suffered so much from nuclear testing, overfishing and resource extraction by the developed world.

    “It’s a sad irony that when French nuclear testing threatened the Pacific, Norman Kirk’s Labour government sent a frigate in protest, but now, when corporate seabed mining threatens the Pacific, Jacinda Ardern’s Labour government does nothing while Macron’s French government speaks out to protect the Pacific.

    “New Zealand has a golden opportunity right now to show real solidarity and leadership in the Pacific and we call on Prime Minister Ardern, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta and Minister of Oceans and Fisheries David Parker to seize the day and make us proud.

    “To maintain respect in the Pacific, the Ardern government needs to start standing up for the things that matter to the Pacific.

    “Palau, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa are all calling for a moratorium on seabed mining but so far the New Zealand government is sitting on its hands,” said Hita.

    Deep sea mining is a destructive and untested industry where minerals are sucked up from the ocean floor and waste materials pumped back into the ocean.

    A sediment plume smothers marine life, threatening vulnerable ecosystems, fisheries and the people’s way of life.

    Ocean floor disruptions
    Scientists say that disruptions to the ocean floor may also reduce the ocean’s ability to sequester carbon, adding to the climate crisis.

    Without action from governments to stop it, mining of the deep seas in the Pacific could begin as early as mid-2023.

    • Greenpeace Aotearoa launched a petition in June calling on the NZ government and Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta to support a ban on deep sea mining in the Pacific and around the world. More than 9000 people have signed.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.