Yearly Archives: 2024

Solidarity protests erupt across Tamil Nadu as Samsung workers’ strike enters fourth week

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Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Across Tamil Nadu, workers and cadre of CITU and CPI (M) staged road blockades in support of the Samsung workers’ strike and the demand for recognition of their union. Photo: CPI(M) TN

Major left parties have called for a joint protest against the state government’s failure to recognize the SIWU and management’s anti-workers attitude on October 5.

Hundreds of workers at the Samsung electronics factory in India’s Tamil Nadu state staged roadblocks and a sit-in on Monday, September 30 as their strike entered its fourth week. Thousands of cadres of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) from across Tamil Nadu also joined the call of the Samsung workers and risked arrest and police repression.

According to the news reports, over 900 striking workers were detained by the police in the Kanchipuram district. The police also detained the state president of the Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU), A Soundararajan. They were released later that evening.

Over 1,300 workers of Samsung electronics factory in Sriperumbudur, part of the Kanchipuram district near Chennai have been on strike since September 9 under the leadership of newly formed Samsung India Workers’ Union (SIWU) demanding recognition of their union, a salary increase, an end of discrimination, and better working conditions at the factory.

Samsung has only two factories in India. Its Chennai factory has been operating since 2007 without any union. The SIWU was formed in July 2023. According to its president E Muthukumar, over 90% of workers at the Chennai factory have already joined the union.

The call for roadblocks was given following the failure of five rounds of talks between the management and the SIWU under the mediation of the Tamil Nadu Ministry of Labor. The last talks on September 24 were held by the state government after it faced strong reactions from the unions and left parties following the police action on the striking workers earlier.

The state government intervened after the management refused to have direct talks with the SIWU calling it illegitimate. The management has maintained that it does not recognize the newly formed union and instead constituted a “workers committee” and arbitrarily appointed workers to it. The management has even lodged objections to SIWU’s registration claiming its use of the company’s name is illegal.

Monday’s sit-ins and roadblocks also targeted the state government’s delaying the registration of the union in violation of legal procedures and using its security forces to unleash repression on striking workers.

SIWU is affiliated to CITU, one of India’s largest trade unions, affiliated to the left party CPI(M). As per labor law, the registration application must be processed within 45 days of filling of such an application. The SIWU claims it has been more than three months since it filed for registration.

When SIWU tried to call a rally in support of its demands on September 16 the police attacked the workers and arrested its leadership even trying to dismantle the protest site erected almost a kilometer away from the factory.

State units of all left parties in Tamilnadu, including the Communist Party of India (CPI), CPI (M) and Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation on Wednesday launched the call for a statewide protest on Saturday, October 5 in support of the SIWU workers. They issued a joint statement asking the state government to immediately recognize SIWU. They blamed that the strike is continuing because of the “anti-worker attitude” of the management of Samsung electronics.

Kannan, a state committee member of CITU, told Peoples Dispatch that the management is adamant but the workers are ready to fight till their demands are met.

Kannan also informed that workers are observing a day of hunger strike on October 2 on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi to press the point that they will continue to protest peacefully in support of their demands.

Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

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How A British-owned PR Firm Helped ‘Squash’ Pipeline Protests in Uganda

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Original article by TJ Jordan at DeSmog

MetropolitanRepublic staff celebrating at the Silverback Awards, November 2023. (Credit: MetropolitanRepublic Uganda)

MetropolitanRepublic enlisted social media influencers to promote giant oil project as climate campaigners suffered beatings and arrests.

Last November, a beaming group of staff from MetropolitanRepublic collected their gorilla-shaped trophy at the Silverback Awards, Uganda’s top advertising and public relations gala.

The South African PR agency had won its prize for promoting the “sustainable development” of Uganda’s untapped oil reserves by French oil company TotalEnergies.

MetropolitanRepublic — which is part-owned by British communications giant WPP — described the brief for the award-winning “Action for Sustainability” campaign in its entry to the Silverback Awards: to devise an approach that “squashed all the negative PR” from protests against TotalEnergies’ plans for a 1,443-kilometre pipeline to export oil from Uganda’s Lake Albert via neighbouring Tanzania.

An accompanying video featured photographs of Ugandan anti-pipeline campaigners to illustrate this “backlash” and described them as “haters”.

“How do you launch a successful project off the back of this?” asks the narrator in the video. “Well, you develop a 360 PR campaign that retells your story the way it should be told.”

A screenshot from the award submission published on the Silverback Awards’ website. The Tilenga pipeline is a feeder pipeline under construction to carry oil from the Tilenga oilfields to the start of EACOP. (Credit: Silverback Awards)

Now, DeSmog can reveal that Ugandan police or military personnel have arrested, beaten, threatened, or harassed at least eight of the 15 campaigners pictured in MetropolitanRepublic’s award submission video.

These incidents — documented via video taken at protests, interviews with the campaigners, and police records — took place both before and after the video was published on the Silverback website in March.

There is no indication that MetropolitanRepublic’s campaign or the award submission led directly to any specific incidents affecting the activists. Nevertheless, DeSmog found that the agency engaged a network of social media influencers to post hundreds of times in support of TotalEnergies’ plans to mitigate the impact of the pipeline — even as protestors were being beaten and harassed.

“These PR firms are sponsoring our oppression,” said Hillary Innocent Taylor Seguya, one of the campaigners pictured in MetropolitanRepublic’s award submission video. “The more you push misinformation to the rest of the world, the more it means that you don’t care about our rights.”

Protestors from student human rights group Justice Movement Uganda opposing the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline. (Credit: Bruce Nahabwe)

Since the pipeline project was first announced in 2017, advocacy groups have highlighted concerns over the displacement of communities in Uganda and Tanzania, damage to ecosystems and wildlife, and the climate impact of burning Uganda’s oil. The outcry has prompted some banks, insurers, and the PR company Edelman — which has represented oil companies for decades — to shun the project, known as the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline, or EACOP.

In June this year, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged communications agencies to stop working for fossil fuel companies, saying PR campaigns run by “Mad Men fuelling the madness” were making the climate crisis harder to address.

MetropolitanRepublic, however, defended its role in promoting the pipeline — a joint venture between TotalEnergies and state oil companies from Uganda, Tanzania, and China.

…

Original article by TJ Jordan continues at DeSmog

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Britain ‘emboldening’ Israel to commit further atrocities

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/britain-emboldening-israel-to-commit-further-atrocities

Smoke rises from neighbourhoods hit by Israeli airstrikes in Dahieh, Beirut, Lebanon, October 2, 2024

Starmer accused of hypocrisy for quickly condemning Iran’s missile attack on Israel, but not condeming Israel’s genocide in Gaza, strikes on the Iranian embassy, or attacks on civilians in Lebanon

BRITAIN was accused of emboldening Israel to commit further atrocities today.

Israel continued its murderous rampage across the Middle East, bombing Yemen, Syria, and Gaza over the last week.

Tel Aviv also invaded neighbouring Lebanon after killing over 1,000 people in the country in a fortnight.

Iran launched multiple missiles at Israeli targets on Tuesday evening in response, which was “utterly condemned” by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in a national address.

Affirming his support for Tel Aviv, he said: “We stand with Israel, and recognise her right to self-defence in the face of this aggression.”

Sir Keir emphasised the need for “de-escalation” in the region and called on Iran to “stop these attacks.”

That evening, Israel stepped up its bombardment of Gaza, which has already killed at least 40,000 Palestinians, murdering dozens more in attacks on an orphanage and a school-turned shelter.

Ben Jamal, director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said: “Keir Starmer was quick to announce he ‘completely condemns’ Iran’s missile strikes but he has never found these words to address Israel’s genocide in Gaza, strikes on the Iranian embassy, or attacks on civilians in Lebanon. The hypocrisy is stark.

“It is appalling that the UK government would ally itself with a state committing genocide and violating the sovereignty of neighbouring states though indiscriminate bombing that in past week alone have killed over 1,000 people, mostly civilians.”

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/britain-emboldening-israel-to-commit-further-atrocities

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US Doctors Tell Biden, Harris They ‘Witnessed Crimes Beyond Comprehension’ in Gaza

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Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Razan Arafat Barbah, a 14-year-old Palestinian girl who lost both of her legs in an Israeli attack on her home in Rafah in southern Gaza, is treated at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis on October 1, 2024.  (Photo: Hani Alshaer/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“A cease-fire must be imposed on the warring parties by withholding military support for Israel and supporting an international arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian armed groups.”

Nearly 100 U.S. healthcare providers who have volunteered in the Gaza Strip over the past year sent President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris a Wednesday letter detailing “the massive human toll from Israel’s attack” and urging the administration to “end this madness now!”

Israel has been waging war on Gaza since the Hamas-led attack that killed over 1,100 people last year. During that time, the physicians, surgeons, nurse practitioners, nurses, and midwives who signed the letter have collectively spent 254 weeks volunteering in hospitals and clinics throughout the besieged enclave.

As of Wednesday, Israeli forces have killed at least 41,689 Palestinians in Gaza and injured another 96,625, according to local officials. Thousands more remain missing in the rubble of civilian infrastructure. Israel—which also launched a ground invasion of Lebanon this week—faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.

“This letter and the appendix show probative evidence that the human toll in Gaza since October is far higher than is understood in the United States. It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 118,908, an astonishing 5.4% of Gaza’s population,” the health workers wrote to Biden and Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee for the November election.

“Our government must act immediately to prevent an even worse catastrophe than what has already befallen the people of Gaza and Israel,” they argued. “A cease-fire must be imposed on the warring parties by withholding military support for Israel and supporting an international arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian armed groups. We believe our government is obligated to do this, both under American law and international humanitarian law. We also believe it is the right thing to do.”

“Gaza was the first time I held a baby’s brains in my hand. The first of many.”

Even before the October 7, 2023 attack, the United States had given Israel billions of dollars in annual military aid. Throughout Israel’s assault on Gaza—and now Lebanon—the Biden administration has continued to provide weapons and diplomatic support.

The American medical volunteers’ new letter—published on a website that also features a July missive along with similar ones that Canadian and U.K. health workers sent to their governments—shares accounts from individual signatories. Dr. Thalia Pachiyannakis, an OB-GYN, said that “I saw so many stillbirths and maternal deaths that could have been easily prevented if the hospitals had been functioning normally.”

Those who survived birth faced a warzone where thousands of children have died. Last month, Gaza’s Ministry of Health released a 649-page document with names and ages of Palestinians killed in the past year—and the first 14 pages are babies.

“Every day I saw babies die,” said Asma Taha, pediatric nurse practitioner. “They had been born healthy. Their mothers were so malnourished that they could not breastfeed, and we lacked formula or clean water to feed them, so they starved.”

Israeli bombings in the past year have claimed thousands of lives. Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an orthopedic and hand surgeon, said that “Gaza was the first time I held a baby’s brains in my hand. The first of many.”

The letter to Biden and Harris states:

Children are universally considered innocents in armed conflict. However, every single signatory to this letter saw children in Gaza who suffered violence that must have been deliberately directed at them. Specifically, every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis. It is impossible that such widespread shooting of young children throughout Gaza, sustained over the course of an entire year is accidental or unknown to the highest Israeli civilian and military authorities.

President Biden and Vice President Harris, we wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned: dreams of children maimed and mutilated by our weapons, and their inconsolable mothers begging us to save them. We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget. We cannot fathom why you continue arming the country that is deliberately killing these children en masse.

“I’ve never seen such horrific injuries, on such a massive scale, with so few resources,” said Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma and critical care surgeon and the letter’s organizer. “Our bombs are cutting down women and children by the thousands. Their mutilated bodies are a monument to cruelty.”

The letter notes that “Israel has destroyed more than half of Gaza’s healthcare resources and has killed nearly 1,000 Palestinian healthcare workers, more than 1 out of every 20 healthcare workers in Gaza. At the same time, healthcare needs have increased massively from the lethal combination of military violence, malnutrition, disease, and displacement.”

It also challenges Israeli forces’ attempts to justify attacking the enclave’s medical infrastructure, stressing that “not once did any of us see any type of Palestinian militant activity in any of Gaza’s hospitals or other healthcare facilities.”

“We urge you to see that Israel has systematically and deliberately devastated Gaza’s entire healthcare system, and that Israel has targeted our colleagues in Gaza for torture, disappearance, and murder,” the American volunteers wrote, describing Palestinian healthcare workers as “among the most traumatized people in Gaza, and perhaps in the entire world.”

While welcoming the administration’s efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting, they emphasized that “the United States can impose a cease-fire on the warring parties by simply stopping arms shipments to Israel, and announcing that we will participate in an international arms embargo on both Israel and all Palestinian armed groups.”

“President Biden and Vice President Harris, we are 99 American physicians and nurses who have witnessed crimes beyond comprehension,” they added. “Crimes that we cannot believe you wish to continue supporting. Please meet with us to discuss what we saw, and why we feel American policy in the Middle East must change immediately.”

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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Scientists, Experts Demand ‘Immediate End’ to EU Fossil Fuel Subsidies

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Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Oil storage tanks and a container terminal are seen in the Port of Le Harve, northern France on June 12, 2023. (Photo: Peter Titmuss/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

“E.U. leaders must make a choice: Stand with the people and the planet, or continue propping up an economy that’s driving us towards climate catastrophe,” said one advocate.

Warning that policymakers in the European Union are undermining the bloc’s own climate goals by continuing to subsidize fossil fuel extraction, climate scientists and other experts from across Europe were among the signatories of an open letter released Wednesday, demanding that officials redirect hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to “turbocharge climate solutions.”

The coalition United for Climate Justice spearheaded the letter, which comes ahead of a planned march in Brussels on Saturday, October 5.

“These subsidies go against Europe’s plans for a sustainable and just transition and fuel the devastating heatwaves we have seen this past summer in our continent,” reads the letter. “Europe is now the fastest warming continent; we have reached a turning point and cannot afford to delay any further.”

Groups including Extinction Rebellion, 350.org, and Greenpeace E.U. pointed to goals the bloc has set in recent years, including the 8th Environmental Action Program, which entered into force in 2022 and included a commitment to “phasing out fossil fuel subsidies.”

The subsidies, which were estimated at more than €400 billion ($441 billion) in 2023, also stand in the way of meeting climate targets put forward in the European Green Deal, said the signatories. The plan aims to make Europe “the first climate-neutral continent,” with no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 and “interim targets of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 and by 90% by 2040,” notes the letter.

“This will not happen without an immediate phaseout of fossil fuel subsidies,” said the groups bluntly, “as a step towards a fossil-free Europe.”

By continuing to subsidize fossil fuel projects, they added, the E.U. is also flouting its own Parliament’s declaration of a climate emergency in 2019.

To act in line with the declaration and its climate commitments, said the groups, the E.U. must:

  • Set a timeline for the phaseout of fossil fuel subsidies by 2025, providing technical and financial assistance to member states
    facing challenges in meeting phaseout deadlines and offer incentives for achieving milestones ahead of schedule;
  • Adopt comprehensive methodological guidance for member states that accurately and transparently accounts for both explicit and implicit subsidies associated with fossil fuels; and
  • Develop a binding framework to monitor and report on member states’ progress towards phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, with noncomplying members facing consequences such as financial penalties and reduced access to E.U. funding.

The bloc’s fossil fuel subsidies “distort energy demand, perpetuate dependence on polluting energy sources, and undermine European energy security, while subsidizing industries that contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions,” said the groups.

Phasing out the subsidies would “future-proof the European economy, reducing climate-related financial risks,” they added.

The letter comes weeks after Storm Boris dumped record-breaking rains on European countries including Romania, Austria, and Poland, leading to deadly flooding.

“The E.U. cannot claim leadership on climate action while continuing to support polluting industries with billions,” said Angela Huston Gold, spokesperson for United for Climate Justice. “E.U. leaders must make a choice: Stand with the people and the planet, or continue propping up an economy that’s driving us towards climate catastrophe. The recent disastrous floods in Central and Eastern Europe are yet another wake-up call. We must end our fossil fuel dependency and therefore eliminate all fossil fuel subsidies.”

Also last month, the Portuguese government declared a “state of calamity” over wildfires that killed at least seven people. Last year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the E.U.’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) determined the Europe is the fastest-warming continent.

“Year after year, commitments have been made and left unfulfilled, and we can no longer accept inaction,” said the signatories of Wednesday’s letter, who also included Luca Mercalli, president of the Italian Meteorological Society, and Paul Stubbs of the Institute of Economics in Croatia. “Until these necessary changes occur, people will continue to take to the streets to make our voices heard and hold you accountable.”

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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