https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIogXmBRKss
Saturday, September 5, 2020
Portuguese Youth File 'Unprecedented' Climate Lawsuit Against 33 European Countries
"I am very afraid for my future," said one plaintiff, "with so little time to stop this situation, we have to do everything in our power to compel governments to protect us."
by
Brett Wilkins, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/03/portuguese-youth-file-unprecedented-climate-lawsuit-against-33-european-countries
Six Portuguese young people on Thursday filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against 33 European countries accusing them of violating their human rights by failing to take adequate action to combat catastrophic global heating.
Jornal de Noticias reports the youths' case was filed in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France.
The suit claims that the countries'—the 27 European Union member states plus Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom—climate policies are "too weak" to achieve the objectives of the Paris agreement, which mandates a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of at least 50% by the year 2030 in order to limit the warming of the planet to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius.
The six plaintiffs in the case are 21-year-old Cláudia Agostinho, Catarina Mota (20), Martim Agostinho (17), Sofia Oliveira (15), André Oliveira (12), and Mariana Agostinho (8). They are supported by Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), a nonprofit advocacy group. Climate Home News reports it is the first-ever climate case brought before the ECHR, and could establish a precedent for future suits based on human rights arguments.
"It scares me to know that the record heatwaves that we have endured are just the beginning," Mota said at a Thursday press conference announcing the lawsuit. "With so little time to stop this situation, we have to do everything in our power to compel governments to protect us properly."
"I am very afraid for my future," Mota added. "I live with the feeling that every year my home becomes a more hostile place."
Mota, who lives in the central Portuguse city of Leiria, said it was so hot there that she could no longer exercise outdoors.
"If I have children, what kind of world shall I bring them up in?" she asked. "These are real concerns that I have every day. After the 2017 fires we realized that we must change and urgently stop climate change."
If the suit succeeds, the defendant nations—and their multinational corporations operating abroad—will be legally obligated to increase cuts in fossil fuel emissions.
GLAN legal officer Gerry Liston told Climate Home News that the new case will "seek to build on the truly historic precedent" set by a Dutch court ruling ordering that country's government to make immediate emissions reductions in the name of human rights, including under the European Convention on Human Rights.
While the ECHR does not have direct enforcement powers, Marc Wilpers QC, the lead counsel in the case, said that—if successful—it could "encourage domestic courts to take decisions that force European governments into taking the action needed to address the climate emergency."
According to a 2018 Climate Action Network report (pdf), "No single E.U. country is performing sufficiently in both ambition and progress in reducing carbon emissions." The report ranks Sweden and Portugal as leaders, followed by France, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. "Aside from this group, a vast majority of member states achieve a score of less than half of the possible points," it states.
The climate action group 350.org cites an expert report prepared for the case by Climate Analytics which describes Portugal as a climate change "hot spot" prone to increasingly deadly heatwaves. Four of the young plaintiffs live in Leiria, which is located in a region devastated by climate change-driven wildfires that killed scores of people in 2017. The other two are from the capital Lisbon, which in 2018 set a new all-time temperature record of 44° Celsius (111°F).
Climate scientists predict (pdf) that there will be a 30-fold increase in heatwave deaths in Western Europe by the end of the century.
Barr Repeatedly Claims He Doesn't Know Whether It's Illegal to Vote Twice Following Trump Comments
"As the attorney general, you are expected not to be an idiot when it comes to basic legal principles," said Rep. Ted Lieu.
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/03/barr-repeatedly-claims-he-doesnt-know-whether-its-illegal-vote-twice-following-trump
Pressed late Wednesday to respond to President Donald Trump's remarks encouraging North Carolina residents to try to cast two ballots in the November election, Attorney General William Barr—the top law enforcement official in the U.S.—repeatedly claimed to not know whether it's illegal to vote twice.
"Well, I don't know what the law in the particular state says," Barr repeated."I don't know what the law in the particular state says," Barr said in a CNN appearance when host Wolf Blitzer told the attorney general that it is, in fact, illegal to vote twice.
Watch:
Democratic lawmakers and other critics quickly slammed Barr for what they characterized as feigned ignorance in defense of Trump's open encouragement of voter fraud. In an interview with a North Carolina reporter Wednesday, Trump said residents of the state should attempt to vote by mail and in person to test the ballot-counting system.
If the mail-in ballot "isn't tabulated," the president said, "they will be able to vote [in person]. So that's the way it is, and that's what they should do." Under North Carolina law, it is a felony to vote twice or "induce" others to do so.
In response to Barr's remarks Wednesday, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) pointed to federal law, tweeting: "As the attorney general, you are expected not to be an idiot when it comes to basic legal principles. Federal law prohibits voting more than once in the same election. 52 U.S. Code § 10307."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said "Barr once again made clear today that he is not serving as the attorney general for the American people."
"He is serving as the personal henchman for Donald Trump," Jayapal added.
During the same CNN appearance Wednesday, Barr floated the claim that new expansions of mail-in voting amid the coronavirus pandemic leave "open the possibility" that either someone in the United States or a foreign nation could counterfeit ballots. Asked to provide evidence for that claim, Barr said he is basing it on "logic."
"The president's chief propagandist is still at it," tweeted Walter Shaub, former director of the Office of Government Ethics.
Amazon Accidentally Posts Job Opening To Monitor Labor Threats
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef-lawfELnw
Urging 'New Good Neighbor Policy,' 100 Groups Demand Biden End US Destructive Imperialist Approach to Latin America
"The next administration must undo the brutal harms of the 2016-2020 Trump administration and must understand how past U.S. economic, security, and environmental policies have fueled mass migration."
by
Andrea Germanos, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/03/urging-new-good-neighbor-policy-100-groups-demand-biden-end-us-destructive
A future Joe Biden administration must break with the United States' failed and harmful policies toward Latin America and instead build a new relationship with the region grounded in "diplomacy, multilateralism, and engagement."
That's the call Thursday from 100 progressive groups to the former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee, outlining in a new letter six key areas for reform, such as undoing "the brutal harms" of President Donald Trump's immigration policies.
Signatories to the letter are organizations working on issues related to Latin America and the Caribbean and include Alianza Americas, CODEPINK, Global Exchange, IFCO/Pastors for Peace, and MADRE. The groups sent the same letter to President Donald Trump.
"The Trump administration openly calls its Latin America and Caribbean policy the 'Monroe Doctrine 2.0,' and the Democratic Party hasn't been much better. Its platform calls the entire Western Hemisphere 'America's strategic home base.' The countries and peoples of the Caribbean and Latin America aren't anyone's backyard or home base, they are sovereign and want their relations with Washington to be based on non-intervention, mutual respect, and cooperation for the common good," Leonardo Flores, Latin America campaign coordinator for CODEPINK, said in a statement.
As the groups write, "The Monroe Doctrine—asserting U.S. geopolitical control over the region—served as a pretext for over 100 years of military invasions, support for military dictatorships, the financing of security forces involved in mass human rights violations, economic blackmail, and support for coups against democratically elected governments, among other horrors that have caused many Latin Americans and Caribbeans to flee north in search of safety and opportunity."
The letter notes that a new administration will begin as the Covid-19 pandemic continues it global grip:
In January 2021, the president of the United States will face a hemisphere that will not only still be reeling from the coronavirus but will also likely be experiencing a deep economic recession. The best way for the United States to help is not by seeking to impose its will, but rather by engaging with the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean as equal partners.
To that end, the groups suggest the next president pursue a "New Good Neighbor Policy," referring to the effort put forth by Franklin D. Roosevelt.
A White House working towards such a policy will end economic sanctions—including those targeting Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua—which have brought about "widespread human suffering" and instead aim to "resolve its policy differences through diplomacy, multilateralism, and engagement."
Biden is also urged if he takes office to stop militarization policies, including the dumping of "hundreds of millions of dollars of police and military equipment and training" into the region that have served to advance the failed war on drugs.
The groups further acknowledge that the U.S. "has frequently carried out military invasions to impose or remove political leaders and it has supported rightwing military coups that have invariably resulted in violent repression" when it must instead "respect the political sovereignty" of other nations.
Another key reform detailed in the letter is for the U.S. to defend human rights in region—a step the groups say must begin by signing and ratifying "international treaties including, but not limited to, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the American Convention on Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as other covenants relating to racial discrimination, women, children, persons with disabilities, migrants, and torture."
"The next administration must undo the brutal harms of the 2016-2020 Trump administration and must understand how past U.S. economic, security, and environmental policies have fueled mass migration," the groups add.
Simply picking up the playbook of the Obama administration would be unacceptable as well, the groups argue, given that it "deported more people than any administration ever before and built the infrastructure for the Trump administration to carry out violent anti-immigrant policies."
The letter details specific immigration-related actions:
[E]nact a day-one moratorium on all deportations; end mass prosecutions of individuals who cross the border; re-establish asylum procedures at the border; provide an immediate path to citizenship for the Dreamers and for Temporary Protected Status holders; terminate the Muslim Ban; rescind funding for the border wall; rescind the myriad abusive Trump administration's regulatory changes that have denied basic rights to immigrants; rescind the "zero-tolerance" (family separation) policy and other policies that prioritize migration-related prosecutions; reallocate resources away from immigration enforcement agencies and towards community-based alternatives to detention programs; and end private immigration detention.
A new approach to trade is essential as well. The groups point to previous economic interventions in the region that helped "to promote a neoliberal economic agenda that benefits transnational capital and local elites while generating greater inequality, environmental destruction and living conditions for ordinary citizens."
Forging a different path includes ending "investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions found in trade and investment agreements, which allow corporations to sue countries in supranational tribunal over public interest and environmental regulations that affect their expected profits."
"The principles of non-intervention and non-interference, mutual respect, acceptance of our differences, and working together for the common good could form the foundation of a New Good Neighbor policy that would allow the U.S. to restore peace and make a positive contribution to the well-being of people throughout the hemisphere," the letter says.
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