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For Immediate Release
April, 20 2020, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Gabby Brown, gabby.brown@sierraclub.org, 914-261-4626
WASHINGTON
Today, multinational investment bank Citigroup released an updated energy policy that rules out financing for oil and gas exploration, development and production projects in the Arctic, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The policy also rules out direct funding for new thermal coal mines or coal-fired power plants worldwide, or expansions of existing mines or plants, and sets a timeline for ending financing of coal mining companies. However, the policy fails to rule out funding for fracking or tar sands.
The release of this change to the bank's policy comes in the wake of similar announcements by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo, as well as more than a dozen global banks. Over the last two years, leaders from the Gwich'in Steering Committee and the Sierra Club have met with representatives from major banks to discuss the threats fossil fuel operations pose to the Arctic Refuge and why action by the financial industry is necessary.
Citigroup was set to face pressure at its annual shareholder meeting tomorrow over Arctic drilling. Tens of thousands of Sierra Club members and supporters have sent messages to Citigroup, and the bank faced a digital ad campaign this week calling for a change to its policy on the Arctic. Activists and shareholders plan to continue to turn up the heat on Bank of America and Morgan Stanley, the two major American banks that have yet to rule out funding for Arctic drilling.
"The dominoes continue to fall, and now four of the top six American banks have recognized that Arctic drilling is a toxic investment to be avoided," said Sierra Club campaign representative Ben Cushing. "Drilling in the Arctic Refuge would be a disaster for wildlife, the climate, and the human rights of the Gwich'in Nation, and any company associated with this destruction will suffer a massive public backlash and long-lasting damage to their reputation. Banks like Morgan Stanley and Bank of America should act immediately to follow along with their peers or risk getting left behind."
"For years, we have been speaking out about the need to keep drill rigs out of our sacred lands in the Arctic Refuge, and it's amazing that a growing number of major banks are listening," said Gwich'in Steering Committee Executive Director Bernadette Demientieff. "The Arctic Refuge is critical to our people's food security and way of life. Our human rights will not be dismissed. The fight to protect this place is far from over, and we will continue to hold accountable any bank, oil company, or politician that seeks to benefit from its destruction."
The Sierra Club is the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. We amplify the power of our 3.8 million members and supporters to defend everyone's right to a healthy world.
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Sanders Says US Complicity in Gaza 'Must End' Ahead of Senate Vote to Block Arms to Israel
"The United States government is currently in violation of the law, and every member of the U.S. Senate who believes in the rule of law should vote for these resolutions," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Nov 19, 2024
A group of U.S. senators led by Bernie Sanders of Vermont held a press conference Tuesday urging their colleagues to support resolutions that would block the sale of tank rounds, bomb kits, and other weaponry to the Israeli government, which has repeatedly used such arms to commit horrific war crimes in the Gaza Strip over the past 13 months.
"The truth of the matter is, from a legal perspective, these resolutions are not complicated; they're cut and dry," said Sanders (I-Vt.), who introduced the joint resolutions of disapproval last month alongside several other members of the Senate Democratic caucus.
"The United States government is currently in violation of the law, and every member of the U.S. Senate who believes in the rule of law should vote for these resolutions," Sanders continued, pointing to U.S. statutes prohibiting the sale of weaponry to countries violating internationally recognized human rights or obstructing American humanitarian aid.
Sanders was joined at Tuesday's press conference by Sens. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), each of whom made their case to fellow senators ahead of a scheduled floor vote on Wednesday.
"What's unfolding before our very eyes right now is mass starvation and the spread of disease," said Welch. "Is the United States and its foreign policy... forced to be blind to the suffering before our very eyes?"
Surrounding the senators as they spoke were photographs of destruction and emaciated children in Gaza, where most of the population is displaced and crowded into small segments of the enclave as Israeli bombs rain down and famine takes hold.
Watch the full press conference:
The resolutions will hit the floor for a vote Wednesday with the backing of a broad coalition that includes Jewish Voice for Peace Action, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, J Street, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Oxfam, and other organizations and activists.
"For over a year, the Biden administration has funded the Israeli government's brutal genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, despite overwhelming opposition from across the country," said Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, which said it has driven more than 56,200 letters and more than 20,790 phone calls to senators imploring them to support the measures.
"These joint resolutions of disapproval are one of the last chances that Senate Democrats have before Republicans take control in January to uphold human rights, honor the will of the American people, and stand on the right side of history by blocking weapons to the Israeli military," Miller added.
"It is time to tell the Netanyahu government that they cannot use U.S. taxpayer dollars and American weapons in violation of U.S. and international law, and in violation of our moral values."
Since the October 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, the U.S. has supplied its ally with more than 50,000 tons of weaponry and approved billions of dollars in additional arms and military equipment to be delivered in years to come. U.S. military support has helped Israel carry out a large-scale military assault on Gaza, killing more than 43,000 people so far—a majority of them women and children.
To sustain the flow of American weapons, the Biden administration has contradicted the findings of its own experts and outside analysts by declaring publicly that it has not found Israel to be illegally blocking U.S. humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, aid groups on the ground say humanitarian assistance has plummeted to an all-time low in recent weeks, with an average of just 37 aid trucks entering Gaza per day in October.
During Tuesday's press conference, Sanders said the "most important point to be made" ahead of Wednesday's vote is that "the United States of America is complicit in these atrocities."
"That complicity must end, and that is what these resolutions are about," said Sanders. "It is time to tell the Netanyahu government that they cannot use U.S. taxpayer dollars and American weapons in violation of U.S. and international law, and in violation of our moral values."
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Putin Shifts Nuclear Posture as Ukraine Fires Long-Range Missiles into Russia
The "window to avert catastrophic miscalculation is now that much narrower," warned one expert after Biden lifted restrictions on U.S.-supplied weapons.
Nov 19, 2024
Fresh fears of escalation were expressed Tuesday after Ukraine struck territory deep inside of Russia using long-range missiles for the first time within hours of the Kremlin announcing changes to its nuclear weapons posture.
In the pre-dawn hours, Ukraine reportedlyused U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles to attack an ammunition depot in the Bryansk region of Russia, located less than 200 miles north of a small strip of Russian territory currently held by Ukraine thanks to an incursion mounted in summer 2024. Russian forces are working to push back Ukrainian forces in the area.
The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that there was an attack. "At 3:25 a.m. this morning the enemy struck a site on the territory of the Bryansk Region with six ballistic missiles. According to confirmed data, US-made ATACMS tactical missiles were used. As a result of an anti-missile battle, five missiles were shot down and one was damaged by crews of S-400 and Pantsir missile defense systems," the ministry said in statement, according to the Russian government-run news agency TASS.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia would respond "accordingly."
The attack comes on the 1,000th day of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine that began in 2022, and mere days after President Joe Biden green lit Ukraine's use of these specific weapons – in what The New York Times characterized as a "major shift of American foreign policy" and one foreign policy expert called a "needlessly escalatory step."
Ukraine President Vlodomyr Zelenskyy has long sought permission from the U.S. government to use Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, according to the Financial Times. Zelenskyy has also asked for the lifting of restrictions on other long-range weapons provided by NATO countries – including Storm Shadow missiles from the United Kingdom. The U.S. began supplying the Lockheed Martin-produced ATACMS earlier this year, according to Defense One, but imposed restrictions on their use due to the escalatory implications of Ukraine using them to strike targets far inside Russian territory.
Also on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree implementing changes to the country's nuclear doctrine that lower the threshold for potential nuclear weapons use.
Under the updated doctrine, "aggression against the Russian Federation and (or) its allies by any nonnuclear state with the participation or support of a nuclear state is considered as their joint attack," according to the The New York Times.
"The big picture is that Russia is lowering the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a possible conventional attack," Alexander Graef, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, toldReuters.
"Russia's new nuclear doctrine means NATO missiles fired against our country could be deemed an attack by the bloc on Russia. Russia could retaliate with WMD against Kiev and key NATO facilities, wherever they're located. That means World War III," wrote former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on X early Tuesday.
U.S. intelligence analysts have also concluded that granting Ukraine the ability to use U.S., French and U.K.-supplied long-range missiles could prompt forceful retaliation by Russia, but that the move would likely not fundamentally alter the course of the war.
Mark Episkopos, a Eurasia research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, warned Monday that use of such weapons by the Ukraine military would likely not impact the battlefield advantages of either side in the immediate term but puts "Russia and NATO one step closer to a direct confrontation."
"With such weapons now in play," added Episkopos, "the window to avert catastrophic miscalculation is now that much narrower."
Meanwhile, in a Tuesday statement on X, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), said it was "dangerously complacent" for Western politicians and pundits to dismiss Putin's shift as some kind of bluff.
"We can’t know if Putin—or any leader of a nuclear-armed country—will use nuclear weapons at any time," argued ICAN. "No matter the size of a nuclear weapon any use would escalate rapidly into a nuclear war devastating the world. The stakes are simply too high to assume Putin is bluffing."
ICAN, the 2017 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, said that the "way to prevent nuclear weapons from ever being used again is to eliminate them, and treaties like the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons are here for that."
The Biden administration's rollback of restrictions comes after thousands of North Korean troops have joined the Russian military effort, and as President-elect Donald Trump's January inauguration approaches. Trump has said he will seek a swift end to the war and criticized the amount of aid the United States has provided Ukraine.
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Tens of Thousands March for Indigenous Rights at New Zealand Parliament
The Māori Party co-leader called Parliament's consideration of a bill that would reinterpret a key treaty "the deepest betrayal that we've ever had from a National government."
Nov 19, 2024
An estimated 55,000 people marched outside New Zealand's Parliament in Wellington on Tuesday to protest legislation that critics argue would dilute Indigenous rights by reinterpreting a treaty signed in 1840 by the British Crown and more than 500 Māori chiefs.
The peaceful demonstration was the culmination of a nine-day march, or hīkoi, that began at Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of New Zealand and the most spiritually significant place in the country for Māori, who are about 20% of the 5.3 million-person population.
Reutersreported that some "dressed in traditional attire with feathered headgear and cloaks and carried traditional Māori weapons, while others wore T-shirts emblazoned with Toitu te Tiriti (Honor the Treaty). Hundreds carried the Māori national flag."
"We have gathered in our tens of thousands, not just Māori, but others who support an inclusive, diverse, equal partnership that our country has been a world leader in pioneering."
The Treaty Principles Bill targeting the Treaty of Waitangi, or Te Tiriti o Waitangi, is being pushed by the ACT New Zealand party, a junior partner in the center-right coalition government, which also includes the National Party and New Zealand First (NZF).
Although the National and NZF have said that they are only supporting the legislation for the first of the three readings—meaning it is highly unlikely to pass—Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, co-leader of the Māori Party, or Te Pāti Māori, told the podcastThe Front Page that even allowing it to be tabled is a "deep shame."
"We deserve better than to be used as political pawns," Ngarewa-Packer argued. "The fact that National has decided that we were tradeable and the mana of the coalition agreement was so much more important than the mana of Te Tiriti and tāngata is the deepest betrayal that we've ever had from a National government."
Pointing to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who won earlier this month after being ousted in the previous cycle, Ngarewa-Packer added, "We're a country that had the first women's vote, we have always punched above our weight in the anti-nuclear space, the anti-discrimination space, and here we are in 2024 with the sort of Trump-like culture coming into our politics."
The New York Timesnoted Tuesday that "a year before American voters' anger over the cost of living helped Donald J. Trump win the presidency, similar sentiments in New Zealand thrust in the nation's most conservative government in decades. Now, New Zealand bears little resemblance to the country recently led by Jacinda Ardern, whose brand of compassionate, progressive politics made her a global symbol of anti-Trump liberalism."
As the newspaper detailed:
The new government—a coalition of the main center-right party and two smaller, more populist ones—has reversed many of Ms. Ardern's policies. It has rescinded a world-leading ban on smoking for future generations, repealed rules designed to address climate change, and put a former arms industry lobbyist in charge of overhauling the nation's strict gun laws.
And in a country that has been celebrated for elevating the status of Māori, its Indigenous people, it has challenged their rights and the prominence of their culture and language in public life, driving a wedge into New Zealand society and setting off waves of protests.
Parliament was briefly suspended last Thursday after Maori members staged a traditional dance called a haka to disrupt the first reading. The haka—which garnered global attention—was started by Member of Parliament Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, who tore up a copy of the bill.
Speaking to the Wellington crowd on Tuesday, Maipi-Clarke—who at 22 is the country's youngest MP—said, "We are the sovereign people of this land and the world is watching us here, not because of the system, not because of the rules, but because we haka."
Other participants in the Tuesday action included the Māori Queen, Ngā Wai Hono i te Pō, and Te Pāti Māori Co-Leader Rawiri Waititi, who led the crowd in a chant to "kill the bill."
According toThe Northern Advocate, ACT Leader David Seymour, "the architect of the Treaty Principles Bill, was booed back inside the Beehive today by the tens of thousands protesting against his controversial bill."
While Seymour has framed the bill as an effort to end division and ensure equal rights for all, critics like Ella Henry, professor of Māori Entrepreneurship at Auckland University of Technology, warn that it is an effort to roll back New Zealand's previous progress in terms of relations with Indigenous people.
"So we have gathered in our tens of thousands, not just Māori, but others who support an inclusive, diverse, equal partnership that our country has been a world leader in pioneering," Henry toldSBS News. "Those are the people who are marching."
Hayley Komene, who is from the Ngāti Kauwhata tribe, similarly toldThe Guardian that there was a "real strength and pride" at the march, and "there are people from lots of different backgrounds here for the same reason—it's beautiful."
Komene also slammed the government's Māori policies as "absolutely ridiculous" and stressed that "Te Tiriti is a constitutional document of our country."
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