PLANS for even more draconian limits on people’s right to protest — including outside Parliament — will be resisted, campaigners insisted today.
Government “violence adviser” Baron Walney, who was Labour MP John Woodcock before his elevation, has recommended that “threatening” protests outside Parliament, MPs’ offices and council buildings be banned and dispersed by police.
The clampdown adds to existing new limits on protests including for being “too noisy” or causing inconvenience.
The Stop the War Coalition pledged to mobilise against any new laws or regulations banning protests outside Parliament, and humanitarian campaign group Liberty condemned the proposals as “knee-jerk and deeply concerning.”
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Peaceful protests have been condemned by reactionary politicians and the media as “hate marches” and calls for Palestinians to have freedom “from the river to the sea” have been dubbed “anti-semitic.”
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Sam Grant, advocacy director at human rights campaign group Liberty, said: “When people care deeply about an issue, it’s natural for them to make their voices heard at the place where decisions are made.
“For centuries, protesting outside Parliament has been how people have campaigned for positive change in society, from the right to vote to equal marriage.
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“We’ve already seen a tightening on how people protest outside Parliament through the Policing Act 2022, and these plans could extend that much further.”
In recent days and weeks Truss has also claimed that the system is rigged against Conservative policies
Former Prime Minister Liz Truss, whose premiership ended in disaster, has announced that she is willing to work with Nigel Farage in order to change the Conservative Party and the country.
Truss, who was booted out of office after just 49 days after her disastrous policies resulted in financial turmoil, has recently being trying to relaunch her political career with the launch of her Popular Conservatism group, also known as PopCon.
The group describes itself as a “new movement aiming to restore democratic accountability to Britain and deliver popular conservative policies.” Its supporters include right wing Tory MPs such as Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lee Anderson.
In recent days and weeks Truss has also claimed that the system is rigged against Conservative policies as she sought to blame a deep state conspiracy behind her downfall.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle MP was elected Speaker of the House of Commons in November 2019.
The fact that Westminster is content to play cynical games while Palestinians suffer is beneath contempt writes Lindsey German
The shameful scenes in parliament where Labour manoeuvred to stop a principled motion calling for immediate ceasefire in Gaza are bad enough. But even worse is the justification of many Labour MPs for the coercion of the Speaker: that they were fearful of intimidation and violence from demonstrators over Gaza.
Firstly, this is a lie: the protests that take place at MPs’ offices are overwhelmingly peaceful and no threat to MPs or their staff. They are a longstanding and valid form of expressing disagreement and concern over issues in a democracy. But such is the state of politics in Britain that they are now equated with intimidation of MPs. Perhaps these MPs – highly salaried and privileged in comparison with most of their constituents – should have reflected when they stood for office that being involved in politics of necessity involves disagreement and controversy at certain times.
There is a huge movement in support of the Palestinians across Britain and real anger that politicians have for the most part stood by as we witness a genocide in Gaza. None of these protests would take place if the MPs concerned had taken the very minimal step of backing an immediate ceasefire.
But there is also a second and more important question: why MPs are so self-centred to highlight the minimal inconvenience to them while people are starving in Gaza, while over 12,000 children have been killed and where the population is being ethnically cleansed? And why did the Labour leadership refuse to accept an amendment which talked about the collective punishment of the people of Gaza? The Labour position on Gaza has been a disgrace from the beginning and this is why they are facing a wave of protest.
The fact that they are trying to demonise protestors and to paint them as violent extremists shows their political and moral bankruptcy. The fact that they are content to play their cynical and pathetic games while the Palestinians suffer is beneath contempt.
Displaced Palestinians wait for food at Al-Shaboura camp, in Rafah. Photo: WHO via UN Photo
A new report found that that over 15% of children under the age of 2 in northern Gaza are acutely malnourished, with 3% of them suffering from wasting. The World Food Programme has warned that without a ceasefire, a famine may ravage Gaza by May
Nutrition indicators among children in Gaza have been declining at an unprecedented rate since the beginning of Israeli attacks on October 7, 2023. Without a ceasefire, there will be a famine ravaging through the region by May, warned the World Food Programme (WFP).
In a new report based on data collected by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, the Global Nutrition Cluster found that over 15% of children under the age of 2 in northern Gaza are acutely malnourished, with 3% of them suffering from wasting.
The numbers in the southern regions, including Rafah, where most of Gaza’s population has been displaced to, are somewhat lower, yet still represent a massive increase compared to the situation before October 7. The report indicates that by January, 5% of under-2-year-olds in Rafah were acutely malnourished. Previously, less than 1% of children younger than 5 experienced such circumstances across the entire Strip.
The extent of malnourishment is creating the perfect conditions for the spread of communicable diseases, which could drive the devastating number of children killed by Israeli attacks even higher. As most children can only consume food of low variety, their bodies become more vulnerable to the effects of otherwise treatable conditions, like diarrhea. Additionally, the lack of clean potable water, affecting all households in Gaza, further decreases the chances of treating these conditions.
Children are not the only group affected by the lack of food. Their parents, including pregnant mothers, are choosing to forgo meals to feed their children. Approximately 95% of pregnant and breastfeeding women in Gaza are not getting enough to eat. If they have access to food, it is of low nutritional value, adding to the pre-existing burden of anemia and undermining maternal health.
The WFP has documented much of this situation but stopped delivering aid to northern Gaza as the occupying forces did not ensure conditions for safe delivery. The aid entering southern regions of Gaza remains only a small fraction of what is needed, and the effects of malnutrition are exacerbated by the destruction of the health infrastructure.
No hospital or health center is spared in this process, and attacks have also been noted against civilian infrastructure where health workers and their families are seeking shelter. In one of the most recent attacks of this kind, the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) targeted a house where 64 Doctors Without Borders (MSF) staff members and their families were staying. The building was clearly marked with an MSF flag, and the IOF were informed of their presence, yet they attacked the house, killing several people inside.
According to MSF, the IOF’s action “shows a complete disregard for human life and a lack of respect for the medical mission. This makes it almost impossible to sustain medical humanitarian activities in Gaza.”
As the IOF persists in its attacks on hospitals, not only the shelling but also the evacuation orders and sieges further jeopardize the health of people who are already sick or wounded. Commenting on recent cases of hospital evacuation in Gaza, Guillemette Thomas from MSF pointed out that patients were forced to leave on foot, in wheelchairs, or even rolled in hospital beds, despite being in no condition to be moved.
Their treatment increases the risk of infection and lowers the chances of recovery, Thomas stated. “This can be extremely dangerous for them. When someone with a severely fractured leg starts to walk, it compromises their possibility to regain mobility and can have life-threatening consequences.”
Even after most patients, medical staff, and forcibly displaced people are evacuated from the hospitals, Israeli forces continue to besiege them. On February 22, after a full month of besieging and targeting Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, the IOF damaged the hospital’s communication devices, which are used by the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) for locating and dispatching teams. This is only one in a series of IOF attacks that hit the PRCS, following the kidnapping of several staff members, destroying ambulance vehicles dispatched to rescue children, and raids on Al-Amal, which left behind damaged medical equipment and vehicles.
The situation is far from better in Nasser Hospital. While the WHO and other organizations were finally able to reach the complex to evacuate one part of the patients who had stayed behind following a violent incursion into the buildings by the IOF, over 100 patients who cannot move and about a dozen medical staff providing them care still remain behind.
The UN health agency was granted permission to enter Nasser Hospital only earlier this week, after several attempts were blocked by the Israeli forces. “Prior to the missions, WHO received two consecutive denials to access the hospital for medical assessment, causing delays in urgently needed patient referral. Reportedly, at least five patients died in the Intensive Care Unit before any missions or transfers were possible,” the organization said in a statement.
Upon their return from Nasser, WHO staff said the destruction was indescribable. “Gaza has become a death zone,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Greenpeace Italy released a new report that shows oil major Eni is using climate denier technical consultants as a defense strategy in its climate warming lawsuit. Flickr via PRP Channel (CC BY-2.0)
The case coincides with a new Greenpeace Italy and ReCommon report showing Eni’s technical consultants have wide links to climate denier groups.
Italy’s first climate change lawsuit brought by Greenpeace Italy and climate advocacy group ReCommon against Italian oil giant Eni opened with its first hearing on February 16, alleging the company contributed to global warming.
The hearing comes alongside a new report by Greenpeace Italy and ReCommon, which describes how Eni’s technical consultants in the case have deep ties to the fossil fuel industry and climate deniers.
The lawsuit “aims to build on a similar case targeting Anglo-Dutch oil major Royal Dutch Shell in the Netherlands to force Eni to slash its carbon emissions by 45 percent by 2030,” as DeSmog has previously reported.
At issue in the case is whether or not Eni knowingly contributed to climate change and if it’s responsible for past and future damages. The case is also assessing if the oil giant violated human rights that are protected by the Italian Constitution and international agreements.
The cache of documentary evidence in the lawsuit includes two “technical reports” produced for Eni’s defense by consultants who Greenpeace Italy’s new report describes as climate deniers.
Last week, the two environmental organizations pushed to have the judge hear their witnesses, which include 12 Italian citizens who have been impacted by climate change, the groups’ lawyer Alessandro Gariglio told DeSmog.
“Now it will be up to the judge to assess whether he considers the documentary evidence presented to be sufficient or, instead, whether he thinks it might be appropriate to hear witnesses and, above all, to order a court-appointed expert opinion,” Gariglio noted. He added that he and his parties are in favor of such a move, “and the counterparties [Eni included] are not.”
In a statement to DeSmog, an Eni spokesperson said the company “will prove the groundlessness of Greenpeace and ReCommon’s claims, both legally and factually, in the legal proceedings.” Documentation related to the current lawsuit is available for review on Eni’s website.
Eni’s Technical Reports
The technical reports are addendums to one of Eni’s statements of defense and are authored by Carlo Stagnaro, director of research and studies at the think tank Istituto Bruno Leoni (IBL), and Stefano Consonni, professor of Energy and Environmental Systems at the Department of Energy of the Politecnico University in Milan.
According to Greenpeace Italy, the two consultants are “anything but independent,” and “have expressed climate denial positions” on more than one occasion.
Consonni’s resume states that since 1993 he has been “lead investigator” for research financed by multiple oil and gas companies, including Eni, ExxonMobil, and BP Alternative Energy, and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Stagnaro’s technical report, Greenpeace says, includes references to Eni’s key climate delay tactics, such as “whataboutism” to obscure the Italian oil giant’s true contribution to global warming. For example, it mentions China’s lack of responsibility in controlling emissions and also the tactic of diverting accountability towards consumers – a reference that is repeated 19 times throughout the text.
Ties to the U.S. Climate Denial Machine
According to Greenpeace’s report, the think tank IBL has denied man-made anthropogenic climate change in the past and, in the early 2000s, Stagnaro was “among the most active figures” within the institution to import U.S. climate denial theories into Italy.
In 2006, for example, Stagnaro wrote a briefing called “Climate. We want to be Amerikans,” which includes delayer phrasing such as “climate alarmists.” The briefing states, “Unfortunately, the Kyoto Protocol presupposes a ‘choice of field’ in science: it rests, that is, on the assumption that humans are the root cause,” which is “an assumption that is justified neither by the uncertainty of actual scientific knowledge nor by the complexity of the atmospheric dynamics.”
To support this, the briefing cites retired astrophysicist Sallie Baliunas, who is associated with many climate denier organizations, including the George C. Marshall Institute. In 2002, in a hearing in the U.S. Senate, Baliunas declared that “since no warming trend in the lower layers of the troposphere was observed, most of the surface warming in recent decades cannot be attributed to a greenhouse effect enhanced by human causes.”
Stagnaro’s briefing also cites climate denier Bjorn Lomborg and was co-authored by Mario Sechi, current editor-in-chief of far-right Italian newspaper Libero, who is the former director of Eni-owned news agency, AGI, and a former spokesperson for current right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
At a summit in Rome at the end of January, Meloni unveiled the “Mattei Plan,” named after Enrico Mattei, founder of Eni. The program aims to transform Italy into “an energy hub” distributing fossil fuels extracted from Africa that creates “a bridge between Europe and Africa.” Campaigners in Italy and across Africa have criticized the plan, saying it will promote fossil fuel exploitation and “false solutions.” Before the initiative was announced, over 50 African groups signed a letter to the Italian government calling for an “end of neo-colonial approaches” and “a more consultative approach.” “This ‘dash for gas’ in Africa is dangerous and short-sighted,” the letter states.
Eni has also recently come under fire in some Italian media for sponsoring the week-long music and entertainment TV show, Sanremo, which was seen by 70 percent of Italian viewers this year during one of its broadcasts. According to Greenpeace, this sponsorship is “yet another greenwashing operation.”
Greenpeace’s report underscores the fact that IBL, under Stagnaro’s direction, is part of the Atlas Network, a group of more than 500 “free market” organizations in nearly 100 countries that have supported climate science denial positions and lobbied against legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
According to previous DeSmog reports, the Atlas Network is also behind efforts to “brand climate activists as extremists” and “pass anti-protest legislation.”
Greenpeace’s report reveals that in 2004, IBL also joined the Cooler Heads Coalition (CHC), a U.S.-based pressure group that has worked to promote climate denialism. After calling climate science a hoax for two decades, CHC played an important role in President Donald Trump’s 2017 decision to pull the U.S. from the Paris Agreement.
Eni’s technical consultants with the Istituto Bruno Leoni (IBL) have ties to U.S. climate denial organizations like the Heartland Institute. Credit: Wikipedia
According to the Climate Investigations Center, from 1997 to 2015, members of CHC received “upwards of $98 million dollars in donations from Exxon Mobil, conservative foundations, and dark money organizations.”
According to another report by Italian news outlet Il Fatto Quotidiano, in 2010, Exxon contributed $30,000 to IBL and Eni gave the group 12,000 euros.
IBL’s position seems to have softened over the years, Greenpeace’s report mentions, with Stagnaro tweeting in November 2019 that, “The position of the @istbrunoleoni on #climate is that: 1. climate change exists and is also due to humans 2. Emissions must be reduced 3. Not all policies that aim to reduce emissions work or are efficient.”
However, in 2018, IBL promoted the launch of “In Defense of Fossil Fuels,” a book by Alex Epstein who, according to investigative group Documented, “influences oil policy directly as a member of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission,” which is “a powerful quasi-regulatory body that lobbies for oil and gas interests.”
“Can the report of someone who has often personally embraced and disseminated climate change denialist positions be considered reliable in the context of climate litigation?” asks Greenpeace Italy and ReCommon, who have named their campaign for the lawsuit “The Just Cause.” Can it “be considered free of judgment if that same expert has received funding from that same company in the past?” the plaintiffs ask.
In response, Eni’s website reads, “There is little that is ‘just’ about this action. “The plaintiffs are in fact asking the court to declare Eni “responsible” for damages suffered and future damages resulting from climate change, to which the company has allegedly contributed with its conduct over the past decades.”
This “false narrative,” Eni continues, is based on an “obvious instrumental approach” aimed at “demonizing” the business.
Greenpeace Italy and ReCommon stated that they hope the judge will “reject the numerous and specious objections made by Eni” to allow “a radical change in the company’s industrial strategies.”
