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"I Want a World of Peace": In Exclusive Interview UK Labour Head Jeremy Corbyn Opposes Bombing Syria
Three months ago, Jeremy Corbyn shocked the world when he was elected head of the Labour Party in Britain, becoming the country’s opposition leader, vowing to return the Labour Party to its socialist roots, championing the renationalization of public transportation, free university tuition, rent control and a national maximum wage to cap the salaries of high earners. Corbyn has been a longtime antiwar activist who once chaired the Stop the War Coalition. Last week he voted against authorizing Prime Minister David Cameron to begin bombing Syria. A day before the vote, Cameron accused Corbyn of being a terrorist sympathizer for opposing airstrikes. At the U.N. climate summit in Paris, Amy Goodman sat down with Jeremy Corbyn in his first U.S. TV/radio interview since being elected Labour leader. He discusses why he opposed the bombing of Syria, his refusal to drop a nuclear bomb anywhere if he were prime minister, and his call to determine who is funding ISIL.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting live from COP21, the U.N. climate summit in Paris, France. Three months ago, Jeremy Corbyn shocked the world when he was elected head of the Labour Party in Britain, becoming the country’s opposition leader. Corbyn vowed to return the Labour Party to its socialist roots, championing the renationalization of public transportation, free university tuition, rent control and a national maximum wage to cap the salaries of high earners. Corbyn has been a longtime antiwar activist who once chaired the Stop the War Coalition.
Well, last week, he led the charge to vote against authorizing British Prime Minister David Cameron to begin bombing Syria. A day before the vote, Cameron accused Corbyn of being a
"terrorist sympathizer" for opposing airstrikes. I sat down with Jeremy Corbyn last night in Paris in his first U.S. TV/radio interview since being elected Labour leader.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We’re in Paris, France, with the head of the Labour Party of Britain, the opposition party in Britain. He was just elected a few months ago. Jeremy Corbyn, it’s great to have you with us.
JEREMY CORBYN: Happy to be with you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: So, how did you do it?
JEREMY CORBYN: Well, we launched a campaign for the leadership of the Labour Party after the general election defeat in May. We were all—obviously, all very sad at losing the general election. And I felt that we lost for a number of reasons. One was that we weren’t offering a sufficiently radical alternative to the austerity agenda being put forward by the Conservative and Liberal Democratic government. And I was asked by colleagues in Parliament and a number of people outside if I was prepared to contest the leadership election. I did. Initially, we were completely written off by the media. I don’t know if you do gambling, but we were given odds of 200 to one. So it was a good investment.
And we launched our campaign by taking part in public debates in Hastings and then traveling around the country. And we did a hundred events in different towns and cities all over Britain. And a lot of people came together—young, old, all groups, everybody. And the support grew, because what we were offering was an opening up of politics in Britain. And the result, you know: We won with 60 percent of the vote, the highest-ever vote cast in a party election in Britain. And the membership of the Labour Party has now reached 400,000, which has more than doubled in six months. So it’s been an interesting time.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, you’ve just had a major vote that you lost, and it was around the bombing of Syria. You were opposed. Other members of your party were for and against. Your thoughts on what this means? And almost immediately, Britain started bombing Syria.
JEREMY CORBYN: I’ve been in Parliament since 1983, and I’ve been involved in many issues over the time. Indeed, we first met when I was opposing the Iraq War in 2003. What happened in Paris was appalling, disgraceful, disgusting. And this afternoon I was at one of the cafés that was affected, and signed a remembrance book there. Is the response to that to start bombing Syria, or is the response to that to actually bring about and speed up a political dialogue, which at the end of the day is the only thing that’s going to bring about peace in Syria? I support the political dialogue, not the military intervention.
I realized this was going to be a difficult issue in the British Parliament, a difficult issue within my own party. And I’m a leader, not a dictator. I want to persuade people rather than threaten or control them. And so I decided that I would allow all our members of Parliament a free vote on the subject—they can make up their own minds on it—and also consult the public. And so, what I did was wrote an email to all 400,000 of our party members, and we got a huge response, which was 75 percent against bombing. And I invited members of my parliamentary group—you’d call it a caucus—to vote against, and three-quarters—well, 60 percent—of them did, and a smaller number voted for the bombing. And of my own Shadow Cabinet, a majority voted against the bombing. And I hope this will be seen as a sign that the Labour Party is looking to peaceful solutions to the world’s problems. But above all, we’re going to hold our government to account. I know the vote went the way I didn’t want it to, and I know the bombing started a few hours later.
AMY GOODMAN: What would a diplomatic solution look like?
JEREMY CORBYN: A diplomatic solution would look like this. The Vienna process involves the Syrian government, all the neighboring governments—of Iran, of Iraq, of Turkey. It involves all of those—and Jordan, of course. In involves all the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. It involves Russia, involves the European Union. It involves the USA. It’s not going to be easy, any of this. But are we going to go into a proxy war between all those competing groups in already what is a four-way civil war in Syria, or can we bring enough of them together to get at least a ceasefire in the Syrian civil war and real isolation of ISIL for its money, for its arms and for the way it sells its oil?
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the role of Saudi Arabia.
JEREMY CORBYN: Well, I’ve been concerned about the sale of weapons within the region, a massive sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia. And I’ve also raised, a number of occasions, the issue of human rights in Saudi Arabia. And indeed, in my speech to our annual party conference in Brighton in September, I raised the issue of a British prison contract that was being sought in Saudi Arabia and also the question of the death penalty on Mohammed al-Nimr, a young man who was guilty of nothing more than going to a protest. That speech and the brilliant work of many, many, many other people—not just me—helped to ensure that Britain withdrew from the prison contract. And an older man, a British prisoner, who was in prison in Saudi Arabia, has been released, and others have not been executed. We’ve got to keep up the pressure.
But I’m also concerned about the issues of where the financial support for ISIL comes from. And so what I’ve done is asked our government, as indeed we ask all governments, look into your banks, look into your banking system. Who is laundering this money? Look at the manufacturers’ labels on those weapons that are used by ISIL. They didn’t all come from nowhere. Somebody’s been selling those weapons. But also, look at the question of how we treat communities across the world, so that we isolate ISIL for what it is, but we don’t blame people in the Muslim community or any other communities. Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism are all part of the same degree of intolerance. We’ve got to oppose those and bring communities together.
AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Corbyn, Prime Minister David Cameron called you a "terrorist sympathizer" for opposing the airstrikes. You’ve demanded an apology.
JEREMY CORBYN: He was asked many times to apologize. Indeed, I paused my own speech in Parliament to invite him, said, "Prime Minister, this is not a time for these kind of remarks. Can you please apologize now for it? Not just to me, but to all the people that maybe have the same kind of opinion that I do." He declined to do so. People can judge for themselves. I want a world of peace. I’m not interested in bombs. I’m not interested in wars. I’m interested in peace. And I think it demeans his office to make remarks like that.
AMY GOODMAN: You occupy the same position that Tony Blair once did—Tony Blair, the prime minister who issued a kind of culpa around Iraq, the invasion of Iraq, by saying that—well, let’s go to a clip.
FAREED ZAKARIA: When people look at the rise of ISIS, many people point to the invasion of Iraq as the principal cause. What do you say to that?
TONY BLAIR: I think there are elements of truth in that. But I think we’ve, again, got to be extremely careful; otherwise we’ll misunderstand what’s going on in Iraq and in Syria today. Of course, you can’t say that those of us who removed Saddam in 2003 bear no responsibility for the situation in 2015.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Tony Blair responding to Fareed Zakaria’s question on CNN whether in fact ISIS came out of the invasion of Iraq. Your response?
JEREMY CORBYN: I thought it was interesting. I fundamentally disagreed with Tony Blair, when he was leader of my party and prime minister, on the question particularly of Iraq. And it’s interesting that in his interview on CNN he did say that one of the effects of the war in Iraq has been the growth of irrational forces like ISIL. Indeed, President Obama said something broadly similar about his thoughts on the long-term effects of what had happened in the whole region since Iraq. And I think we have to remember not just Afghanistan and Iraq, but also think of Libya. The West went in to bomb Libya to protect the people of Benghazi against an apparent immediate threat from the forces led by Colonel Gaddafi. They then went on to a bombing campaign across the whole country. All of the state infrastructure was destroyed. All the system of government was destroyed. And we now have a huge country which is dominated by a series of competing factions and is an ever-present problem for everyone in the region, for Tunisia and other countries around there. Again, it was Western policy that decided on that, just as much as Western policy after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 went on the de-Baathification policy, which actually destroyed all civil—normal civil structures of society, which have taken more than 10 years to rebuild, and they’re not rebuilt yet.
AMY GOODMAN: According to The Independent, an unnamed general said the armed forces would stage a coup or mutiny if you became prime minister.
JEREMY CORBYN: Well, I’ve asked for the source of this remark. None has been forthcoming. I have written to the secretary of state for defense to ask him to remind everyone that we live in a democracy, where members of Parliament are elected, from which government is formed, and that government is elected to run the country with a democratic mandate. It is up to all those that work in the public sector to recognize that democratic mandate. That includes generals.
AMY GOODMAN: A lot of controversy around a BBC question whether you would drop a nuclear bomb, to which you said no. Can you expand on this?
JEREMY CORBYN: Well, I’ve spent my life opposing nuclear weapons, and I was asked if I would be prepared to use nuclear weapons, and I gave the answer I think everybody expected me to give. And so, that is my view.
AMY GOODMAN: How did it feel—for so many years you’ve been involved with the Stop the War Coalition, along with the late Tony Benn—that it was his son, Hilary Benn, who spoke out for the bombing of Syria in the Parliament?
JEREMY CORBYN: Tony Benn and I were very close, very close friends for 30, 40 years. We talked to each other a great deal, and we were great friends. And I was with him shortly before he died, talking about prospects of the world and prospects for peace. And I’m very sad that he’s gone. He taught me a great deal. He taught an awful lot of other people a great deal. And he did something that I haven’t done: He kept a good diary of everything he did and learned from it. So, perhaps I should do the same. I don’t think one should ever start on the family connections one way or the other. Everybody makes their own mind up. Everybody makes their own decisions. And I would never involve myself in that sort of argument.
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Top Climate Expert: Crisis is Worse Than We Think & Scientists Are Self-Censoring to Downplay Risk
Ahead of the U.N. climate change summit in Paris, France, more than 180 nations pledged to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but many climate justice groups say far more needs to be done to keep global warming in check. We speak with one of the world’s leading climate scientists who has come to the Paris talks with a shocking message: The climate crisis is more severe than even many scientists have acknowledged. Kevin Anderson is deputy director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and professor of energy and climate change at the University of Manchester in Britain. He has said many scientists are self-censoring their work to downplay the severity of the climate crisis.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We’re broadcasting from the U.N. climate summit, the COP21 here in Paris, France. Ahead of the talks, more than 180 nations pledged to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but many climate justice groups say far more needs to be done to keep global warming in check.
We’re joined now by one of the world’s leading climate scientists who has come to the Paris talks with a shocking message: The climate crisis is more severe than even many scientists have acknowledged. Kevin Anderson is deputy director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and professor of energy and climate change at the University of Manchester in Britain. He said many scientists are self-censoring their own work to downplay the severity of the climate crisis. Dr. Anderson recently wrote, quote, "Yet so far we simply have not been prepared to accept the revolutionary implications of our own findings, and even when we do we are reluctant to voice such thoughts openly, many are ultimately choosing to censor their own research."
Kevin Anderson, welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us.
KEVIN ANDERSON: It’s nice to be here.
AMY GOODMAN: You came in from Britain?
KEVIN ANDERSON: Yes, I did. Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: How did you get here?
KEVIN ANDERSON: By train. I always travel by train or ship.
AMY GOODMAN: I remember when we were in Copenhagen, you refused to fly.
KEVIN ANDERSON: Yeah, I haven’t flown for 11 years. Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Why?
KEVIN ANDERSON: Because I think it’s really important that those of us who think climate change is an essential, pivotal issue for modern society demonstrate that we can lead good lives, we can carry out our jobs, without having very high carbon footprints. So whilst the emissions from my particular activities aren’t quite so important—I’m just one person—the sort of symbolic message that it sends is actually very important. And it’s already sort of engendered a different attitude amongst some of the academic colleagues, who now also take a similar approach. They try to avoid flying wherever they reasonably can. And sometimes that can make things quite difficult, but we have to—we have to make that sort of effort.
AMY GOODMAN: So why are you here?
KEVIN ANDERSON: I’m here because there’s a, I think, very important scientific message still to be made and to be related to not just the policymakers and the people here, but also to wider society, to the civil society groups, to the NGOs, but, I mean, even, of course, for us to discuss amongst the scientists that are here, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: And what is that message?
KEVIN ANDERSON: The message is that the voluntary submissions that have been put forward by all of the countries, when you add all of these up, they are far, far above the level of what we call dangerous climate change, that all of our leaders have committed to, to avoid going above this 2 degrees C rise, I think about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. But actually, when you add up all of the commitments that the countries are making in terms of their reductions in emissions, then actually it’s far, far above that, nearer 3 or 4 degrees C temperature rise, which is a huge increase. That’s a global average. Remember, that is a global average. And most of the globe is covered in water, so on land that’s an average of, if we carry on like we’re going now, 4, 5, possibly even as high as 6 degrees C temperature rise.
AMY GOODMAN: So what does that look like on the ground?
KEVIN ANDERSON: If we saw those sorts of changes, we’d see dramatic reductions in the staple food crops. So that’s a really big issue, if we have big 40 percent or so reductions in rice, maize, wheat, sorghum, those sorts of crops. Huge changes in sea level rise by the end of the century, but also locking in very large sea level rise changes going forward beyond that. And we’d see increase in droughts and in flooding, increase in severity of typhoons in the Southern Hemisphere. So, really, a lot of the—you know, we have all learned to live with the weather that we’ve had. And actually, what we’d be seeing are significant increases in the extremes around the planet, so we’d all suffer very significantly from a 4 degrees C temperature rise.
AMY GOODMAN: You have said that scientists, climate scientists, are self-censoring. What are they saying?
KEVIN ANDERSON: Well, those of us who look at the—running between the science and then translating that into what that means for policymakers, what we are afraid of doing is putting forward analysis that questions the sort of economic paradigm, the economic way that we run society today. So, we think—actually, we don’t question that. So what we do is we fine-tune our analysis so it fits within a sort of a—the political and economic framing of society, the current political and economic framing. So we don’t really say that—actually, our science now asks fundamental questions about this idea of economic growth in the short term, and we’re very reluctant to say that. In fact, the funding bodies often are reluctant to fund research that raises those questions. So the whole setup, not just the scientists, the research community around it that funds the research, the journalists, events like this, we’re all being—we’re all deliberately being slightly sort of self-delusional. We all know the situation is much more severe than we’re prepared to voice openly. And we all know this. So it is a—this is a collective sort of façade, a mask that we have.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s just talk about the headlines today.
KEVIN ANDERSON: OK.
AMY GOODMAN: On Democracy Now!, we talked about Beijing issuing its first-ever red alert for air pollution, as China’s capital city is engulfed in thick smog rife with poisonous chemicals that can make residents sick from simply stepping outside. This isn’t because there’s some catastrophic meltdown at a coal plant or some factory.
KEVIN ANDERSON: No.
AMY GOODMAN: This is just daily life in Beijing.
KEVIN ANDERSON: Yes, and that’s because the sorts of power that they’re using in Beijing, and lots of it is being generated in Beijing, and the cars, as well, are there running in Beijing, they’re not running cleanly. So they’re putting lots of very nasty pollutants in the atmosphere. They’re also obviously putting a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, as well. So it’s both then a local air pollution issue and a real issue for climate change. And to the Chinese’ credit, they are significantly trying to reduce the amount of local air pollution in their cities, because they know it has a big health impact, they know it has a big economic impact. So the Chinese are moving in the right direction, but nowhere near fast enough for us to avoid this 2 degrees C temperature rise.
AMY GOODMAN: And then you have what’s happening in England right now, in Cumbria. You have in Norway, for example—
KEVIN ANDERSON: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —an absolute crisis—
KEVIN ANDERSON: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —that they’re saying they’re seeing problems like they haven’t seen in a hundred years.
KEVIN ANDERSON: Yeah, and, again, in India. There’s some big floods in India, as well. So we are seeing—we are seeing lots of extreme weather events. Now, it is always—we have to be very careful as scientists. Scientists are always slightly annoyingly conservative here. We cannot say that any one of these events is a climate change event. But we can say that our climate change science and analysis makes it very clear that the sorts of things that we’re doing in terms of emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere means we will see more of these sorts of events and increased severity of these events, as well. So these are indicative of exactly what we would expect to see.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what we consume in the United States, what you consume in Britain, compared with what is consumed in other parts of the world?
KEVIN ANDERSON: Well, when we think about carbon dioxide emissions, which is basically how much fossil fuel we’re burning, 50 percent of the global carbon dioxide emissions from our burning of fossil fuels comes from just 10 percent of the population. So it’s quite a small percent of the population are responsible for the lion’s share of the emissions. And if you sort of dig down a little bit deeper than that, you find some even more disturbing figures—that the top 1 percent in the U.S., they emit two-and-a-half thousand times more—two-and-a-half thousand times more—than the bottom 1 percent globally. So there’s a huge difference between who is responsible for the CO2 emissions, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and therefore the climate change that we are beginning to witness now. And I think when we think about this in terms of what we need to do in terms of policy, this is not about everyone in the world making big reductions in their energy consumption. It’s about those of us who are responsible for the lion’s share of the emissions making those big changes.
AMY GOODMAN: Compare what Americans consume and what Europeans consume.
KEVIN ANDERSON: Well, the Americans are roughly twice as much as a typical European. So, you know—and really, your quality of life is—when we look at all the indices for a pure quality of life, the quality of life of a typical American is no better than the quality of life for a typical European. But your cars are much heavier and bigger. Your refrigerators are bigger. I mean, I think sort of bigness probably captures the difference between the U.S. and the EU. So, you know, I think—so, the Americans could live just as good a quality of life as they do today, and they could probably do almost all the things that they do today and significantly reduce their emissions down to sort of the EU level. Now, that would not be enough for us to avoid dangerous climate change, but it would be a huge step in the right direction.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you say to, oh, presidential candidates, like Donald Trump says he doesn’t believe in human-made global warming, says sometimes there’s global warming and sometimes there’s global cooling?
KEVIN ANDERSON: There’s certainly a small but very vociferous contingent in the U.S. who basically do not believe in science, if we’re really blunt about it. They don’t believe in climate change, which is—there’s nothing new about climate change. We’ve been doing scientific analysis on this for at least 200 years. It’s not a new science. They don’t often believe in Darwin and evolution. And I think, really, the particular group that don’t really like the idea of what science has to say about many subjects, that group, we’re not going to change their minds. I think we have to talk to the other people who actually are open to the fact that what we are looking at is a scientifically well-understood area. We are very clear—the science is categorical—that the emissions we put in the atmosphere from burning of our fossil fuels are changing the climate. Even the skeptics are saying that. Maybe not the denialists, but the climate skeptics do not deny the fact that the human emissions of carbon dioxide emissions are changing the temperature.
AMY GOODMAN: You are very critical of models that rely on negative emissions through technologies that remove carbon dioxide. Explain.
KEVIN ANDERSON: Yes. This comes back to this idea we all want to sit within our current political and economic framework. We don’t want to question it. But when we are looking at a temperature—a 2 degrees C temperature rise, which I say, you know, is a huge shift in the average temperature for the planet, then we have a certain carbon budget, a certain amount of carbon dioxide that we can emit into the atmosphere over the century. And we know that very well from the science. The problem is, we have emitted so much of that, we’ve used up so much of that budget—like money in your bank account, we’ve spent that money already—that what’s left is so small, so that if we are going to stay within that budget, we now have to either make dramatic changes to how we live our lives—people like me and you, we have to, you know, fly much less, if fly at all, live in smaller houses, drive much less, consume less goods. So, those of us that—the wealthy parts of the society will have to make those sorts of changes. But because we’re—the scientists are reluctant to make that point politically, what they’re saying is, we can increase the size of the carbon budget by this dial here, which means that we will—can suck the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in 2050 to 2070 with a technology that just does not exist at the moment. So we are putting already almost all of our eggs in a basket that—a technology that does not exist. At some point a long way in the future, we’ll suck the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Kevin Anderson, deputy director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester in Britain. If you could address what is happening here? I think especially for Americans, there’s hardly any coverage of what’s going on here. The world leaders came the first two days, and that got maybe a little bit of coverage, because it was the largest gathering of world leaders in the history of the world. But now, what’s being worked out?
KEVIN ANDERSON: OK. All the leaders arrived very early here in this event in Paris. They also all arrived with their voluntary contributions, what each country would do. So Obama came with what the U.S. would do. The EU has its versions. Tanzania has—says, "This is what we can do." So every country—almost every country in the world has said, "We can make this level of change."
AMY GOODMAN: Voluntary. Voluntary.
KEVIN ANDERSON: Voluntary, yes, voluntary. There’s no legal basis to this. This is a real concern.
AMY GOODMAN: And that’s because?
KEVIN ANDERSON: Well, I mean, politically, it’s hard to get a legal basis, but very significantly, because we know that it will not be passed in the States, that what comes out of this agreement—
AMY GOODMAN: In the United States.
KEVIN ANDERSON: In the United States. So the United States really is—it’s almost, I say, blackmailing the rest of the world, because they’re saying, "You cannot have a legal framework because we will not sign it." So—and everyone has recognized that. And because they say it’s very important for us to have an inclusive political agenda coming out of Paris, we are prepared to accept this voluntary arrangement system, which, I mean, personally, I think, is a real problem, in terms of what it means about people having to make those adjustments in their own countries. I mean, I think a legally binding commitment would be something that would drive us a little bit further than a voluntary agreement, which we, of course, like most voluntary goals and targets, will no doubt breach.
But anyway, every leader arrived here, was saying, "This is what our country can do." And then the leaders go away, but they leave their negotiators here. And then there are the scientists here and others who are saying, "What you’ve put together is not enough for 2 degrees C temperature rise, and we need to do lots more." So then the discussions that go on for the following two weeks are on the detail of how can we tighten up those agreements, can we have a review procedure so every few years we go back and review those agreements on the basis of what’s happened in terms of emissions and the latest science.
So, you know, by the end of this two weeks, what we hope to have is a strong agreement, even though it won’t be legally binding, a strong agreement that says that countries will do particular levels of—deliver particular levels of emission reductions and that we will review those every few years. But it’s very unlikely what we will get by the end of this event is a document that is in line with the 2 degrees C temperature rise—in other words, with avoiding dangerous climate change. So Paris is not the endgame. What happens after Paris is very important, indeed.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the climate fund. What is it? What has—I remember in Copenhagen when it was Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, who announced how much money would go into the climate fund.
KEVIN ANDERSON: Yeah. Well, this is this discussion about what we call "loss and damage." And basically, it’s money from the wealthy parts of the world that they see as giving to the poorer parts of the world to help the poorer parts of the world deal with adaptation and the impacts of climate change and adaptation. And when we think about that, the amount of money that is on the—well, it’s not on the table. The amount of money that was proposed was $100 billion per year, $100 billion every year. Now, we haven’t got that. The countries haven’t come together to agree on that. But when we really think about $100 billion, that’s 1/15th of the size of the U.K. economy, a relatively small country on the globe. And that’s all we are prepared to give as a collective—the collective, all the wealthy countries—to the poorer countries to deal with the impacts of climate change. So—and we are all arguing about this. Should it be 110? Should it be 90? Who’s it going to come from? This is a small crumb that has fallen off the table, and we are all fighting over what size that crumb should be.
But actually, the real argument is, we should be—on the table, we should be talking about trillions of dollars that are necessary to help the poorer parts of the world not build high-carbon infrastructure, to deal with the impacts of climate change, to make their societies resilient to the climate change that is locked into the system because we have carried on emitting when we knew what the science has been telling us for at least 25 to 30 years. So this fund is there to help the poor parts of the world, but it’s such a small amount of money. And then, very cleverly, they make us argue about this small amount of money. So, it’s all part of, I think, this sort of sad indictment of modern society, that we were not prepared to make the sorts of changes that are necessary, either in terms of reducing our carbon dioxide emissions or even helping the more impoverished poor people who have not made any contribution to the problem that we’re trying to solve now.
AMY GOODMAN: As we wrap up, Kevin Anderson, what do you think is the most important takeaway from this conference right now, from your work, from what you see is happening in the world?
KEVIN ANDERSON: The most important thing is that we can all trigger change. This is not just about world leaders. It’s not just about the big charities, the NGOs. It’s not just about the scientific community. This is a problem for all 7 billion people on the planet. And we all need to be driving—in our own lives, with our colleagues and friends at work, with our local politicians, we ought to be pushing really hard for an agreement or for a change in the way we run our society to become very, very low-carbon, and very quickly indeed. So, it is up to all of us. There are 7 [billion] stakeholders involved with climate change, and we all have a role to play.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you hopeful?
KEVIN ANDERSON: No, I’m not hopeful. But if we don’t try, we are guaranteed to fail.
AMY GOODMAN: Kevin Anderson, deputy director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester in Britain. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Patricia Gualinga of the Sarayaku of the Ecuadorean Amazon, singing at the indigenous kayak flotilla here in Paris, France, this weekend.
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"A Legal Black Hole": Jeremy Corbyn Calls for Closing of Guantánamo, Hails Release of Shaker Aamer
In his first U.S. TV/radio interview since being elected the U.K. Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn calls for the closure of Guantánamo Bay. "What on Earth are we doing in this world, where we lock people up for now 14 years in Guantánamo Bay, with no charge, no trial, no process, no habeas corpus? A legal black hole," Corbyn says. "It has got to be closed." He recently welcomed Shaker Aamer, the last British resident to be released from Guantánamo, to the British Parliament.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Your thoughts on Guantánamo? President Obama said—it was one of his first acts after he became president, was to issue an executive order saying he would close Guantánamo. It’s been almost seven years, and the prison remains open.
JEREMY CORBYN: I was very pleased when President Obama issued that order, because it was the fulfillment of a campaign pledge that he made. And I have worked with people who have been campaigning to close down Guantánamo Bay and get prisoners released from there. We did get the British nationals who were held there released, after some pressure. We then had a much longer campaign over Shaker Aamer, who is a British resident. He’s not a British national; he’s a Saudi national, but his family are British nationals. I mean, they all live in London. And I’ve got to know his family. We’ve been campaigning for his release, and I went to Washington in May with an all-party delegation of Conservative and Labour MPs to lobby for the release of Shaker Aamer and the closure of Guantánamo Bay. Whether it had any effect on Obama’s decision, I don’t know. We all do what we have to do.
And there was a sense of extraordinary fulfillment when Shaker Aamer came into Parliament two weeks ago. And I met him in a special room we have for the Shadow Cabinet, with all the sort of very English oak paneling all around. And Shaker Aamer was there with friends celebrating his release, and a great moment. But what on Earth are we doing in this world, where we lock people up for now 14 years in Guantánamo Bay, with no charge, no trial, no process, no habeas corpus? A legal black hole, of the equivalent there is in outer space, where we don’t know what goes on there. It’s simply wrong. It has got to be closed. You cannot put people in prison for that length of time, treat them in that way, and call it justice and say we’re in favor of a world based on rules and laws. You can’t do it. They’ve got to—it’s got to be closed.
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Jeremy Corbyn Connects Western Bombing Campaigns & Refugee Crisis: "What Goes Around Comes Around"
In his first televised U.S. interview since becoming U.K. Labour leader three months ago, Jeremy Corbyn addresses the refugee crisis. "I think we’ve got to both open up and take in far more of the Syrian refugees, but also take in those people that are living in these desperate camps, because it is inhuman," Corbyn says. "We’re not going to secure the world’s future with razor wire and electronic surveillance of borders. You only secure the world’s future if you deal with the desperate levels of inequality in the world and deal with the disproportionate effects of environmental change around the world."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Corbyn, we just came back from a refugee camp about two hours north of Paris—Calais. There are 6,000 to 7,000 refugees there who are desperately trying to make it through the Chunnel, the Channel Tunnel, into Britain. What should happen? Should Britain open its doors?
JEREMY CORBYN: What we’ve got to do is, first of all, ensure those people have decent conditions in which to live. But they shouldn’t be there. That’s the principle. They shouldn’t be there. And there are people in my community collecting food and clothing and so on to take to them, and they’re doing a great job supporting them. They shouldn’t be there. They’ve got to be—their position has got to be regularized. They’ve got to be allowed to remain in Europe. Various countries should be prepared to open their doors for them. Britain has so far refused to join in with the European refugee program on Syria. And indeed, the British government has said it will take 20,000 Syrian refugees, but only from camps adjoining Syria, in Lebanon mainly, and we’ll bring them in over five years. Germany has taken hundreds of thousands already of people who managed to get to Europe looking for a place of safety. I think we’ve got to both open up and take in far more of the Syrian refugees, but also take in those people that are living in these desperate camps, because it is inhuman.
When we just had a meeting here tonight in Paris, I was pointing out that people are refugees for lots of reasons—from war, from environmental degradation and disaster, from natural disasters—lots of reasons why people become refugees. We’re not going to secure the world’s future with razor wire and electronic surveillance of borders. You only secure the world’s future if you deal with the desperate levels of inequality in the world and deal with the disproportionate effect of environmental change around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: In fact, we were just talking to Nicolas Hénin. He’s the French journalist who was an ISIS hostage for 10 months. He said that the way that the Western powers are dealing with refugees is only fueling ISIS, acting as a great recruitment for ISIS, by not opening their arms and letting people in so people can see what the alternative is.
JEREMY CORBYN: All that I’ve read indicates that the bombing campaigns over the past few months against ISIL—or years, I suppose—has actually increased the number of recruits, has fueled the allure of ISIS. I don’t believe there is an allure of ISIL, but apparently for some people there is. We have to find a different and better way of doing it.
AMY GOODMAN: The map of the camp, it’s divided into different populations from different countries.
JEREMY CORBYN: In Calais, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: It says—in Calais. It says Afghanistan. It says Iraq. It says Syria. And thousands of people live in these wind-swept, freezing pup tents that are ripped open, and the wind goes right through them. No one can get warm. This is a map of the bombing targets of the Western countries—Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria.
JEREMY CORBYN: What comes around goes around. What goes around comes around. And I think we’ve got to think very carefully about the policies we’ve had over the past 14 years, ever since 9/11. 9/11 was a disaster—dreadful, awful, appalling. We bombed Afghanistan. Fourteen years later, Britain, mainly, has left Afghanistan; the U.S. is still there. Is it a country at peace? No, there are many people now fleeing from Afghanistan because of the continued instability there. Surely, the future of this world has to be looking into the fundamental causes of these conflicts, not just dealing with the symptoms.
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War & Climate Change: Jeremy Corbyn on the Brutal Quest for Oil & the Need for a Sustainable Planet
On Monday in Paris, British Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn addressed the link between labor, trade unions and climate change. We also spoke to him about the connections between war, drilling for oil, and climate. "To some extent, the rush to develop frontier oil resources has reduced, but I’m sure it’s going to come back," says Corbyn. "And you look at the brutality of it, the brutality of the way in which oil drilling has been done in a number of countries, in Latin America, the thirst for oil all over the Middle East and the thirst for oil in other places. We need a sustainable planet. We need a sustainable future. We need sustainable energy sources. They don’t have to be like that."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Why are you here in Paris?
JEREMY CORBYN: I’m here to attend the climate change conference, which I was at this morning, and that was extremely interesting. I’ve had meetings with a number of people all day today here in Paris. I’ve been to the—one of the bars, as I said earlier, that was attacked in that awful evening. And I’m here this evening for a very big event we’ve had with Naomi Klein. We’re talking about environmental politics and a sustainable future for the world. And we’re saying, "Don’t be afraid of the future. Embrace the future for all of us by challenging global warming, by challenging environmental destruction, by challenging global inequality."
AMY GOODMAN: I know you have to leave, but the connection between war, between drilling for oil, and climate.
JEREMY CORBYN: Well, if you look at the countries where there is a great rush for oil, OK, at the moment oil prices are well down, but that’s a fairly recent phenomenon. That’s over the past year or two years, they’ve gone down a great deal. And to some extent, the rush to develop frontier oil resources has reduced, but I’m sure it’s going to come back. And you look at the brutality of it, the brutality of the way in which oil drilling has been done in a number of countries, in Latin America, the thirst for oil all over the Middle East and the thirst for oil in other places. We need a sustainable planet. We need a sustainable future. We need sustainable energy sources. They don’t have to be like that. There’s a great deal that can be achieved from using good technology to use less energy and develop it in a sustainable way.
AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Corbyn, I want to thank you for being with us.
AMY GOODMAN: British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn in his first U.S. television interview since being elected leader of Britain’s Labour Party in September, speaking to us here in Paris, France, after a large Labour gathering. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, one of the world’s leading climate scientists. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Ta’Kaiya Blaney, a 14-year-old from the Tla’Amin First Nation in Canada, singing her song, "Turn the World Around," at the International Rights of Nature Tribunal here in Paris this weekend.
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"Loss and Damage": U.S. Stymies Push for Compensation for Climate Devastation at U.N. Climate Summit
On Monday, the prime minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga, said world leaders must prevent the world from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Many of the countries most impacted by climate change—but who did little to cause it—are also calling for the U.N. climate agreement to include compensation for adjusting to climate change, known as "Loss and Damage." But documents obtained by our guest reveal the United States is pushing these countries to forgo such rights. Nitin Sethi is senior associate editor at the Business Standard in India. His recent piece is called "US and EU want Loss and Damage as a toothless tiger in Paris agreement."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We’re broadcasting from Le Bourget, Paris, France, from the COP21, the U.N. climate summit. We’re here for the full two weeks. We end today’s show with an update in the negotiations taking place here at the summit. On Monday, the prime minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga, said world leaders must prevent the world from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
PRIME MINISTER ENELE SOPOAGA: At the current warming, my country, Tuvalu, and many others like us in the Pacific, Caribbean and Indian Ocean, our future is already bleak. We must urgently cut greenhouse gases and dramatically transform the global economy to a renewable energy pathway. Any further temperature increase beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius will spell—will spell the total demise of Tuvalu and other low-lying and island nations.
AMY GOODMAN: Joining us now is Nitin Sethi, senior associate editor at the Business Standard in India. His recent piece is called "US and EU want Loss and Damage as a toothless tiger in Paris agreement." "Toothless tiger," Nitin, what exactly do you mean? You got a hold of documents that most people haven’t seen.
NITIN SETHI: Loss and damage, as an issue, refers to a couple of things. One, primarily, it’s been about that if you cannot adapt to inevitable climate change, what do countries do? They will suffer loss and damage. And will they be able to seek compensation? Will they be able to claim liability cases against countries which have not cut their emissions enough? Now, in this case, the U.S., particularly, on the Umbrella Group, and then supported by EU, they’ve come back and said, "We want to make sure that in Paris you actually forgo all your compensation rights in the future," saying, "You must explicitly say that you shall never, ever ask for compensation hereafter the"—
AMY GOODMAN: Wait. Wait, wait, wait. So they’re saying you can use the words "loss and damage."
NITIN SETHI: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: The United States is saying.
NITIN SETHI: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: But only if you agree that you don’t get compensation.
NITIN SETHI: Absolutely. Now, that really means loss and damage is only a notional idea at the end of the day. You’re looking at risk insurance at the best of the times that might comfort some countries, but the poor countries can’t afford insurance because the premiums are going to be so high. So consider the fact that if you have sea level change, no insurance company is going to ensure you against sea level rise, because it’s almost a certainty. The risk levels are so high. The premiums are going to be so high, the poor countries can’t afford it. So the only option they had in the long run was some hope that you would be compensated, in different ways, and there could be liability charges, where if the countries haven’t cut their emissions enough, which causes the climate change, they should be paying for it. Now, U.S. is saying, "We want to cut this off right away. We should never have a conversation about it hereafter."
AMY GOODMAN: So, I think it’s framed in the United States as a kind of—should the U.S. be charitable for those who are less able to take care of themselves in other parts of the world?
NITIN SETHI: Well, I don’t think it’s about charity. You’re paying compensation for the damage you’ve caused to your neighbor, in some sense. You break somebody’s fence, you set it upright. This is when you’re destroying lives of people, you’re paying them compensation for the fact that they will never be able to live in their homelands, perhaps, thereafter. This is not charity. This is a completely different ballgame.
AMY GOODMAN: So what are these documents that you’ve gotten?
NITIN SETHI: Well, the document is an offer that the U.S. made informally to the G77 and other developing country groups, saying, "This is loss and damage. I agree to this. But if you have this explicit one sentence saying you shall forgo all rights to compensation and lability."
AMY GOODMAN: Now, President Obama met with small island nation presidents.
NITIN SETHI: Mm-hmm, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: This is—is this actually what he was telling them? We got the word he said, "I’m an island boy myself, right, grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia."
NITIN SETHI: Absolutely. Well, as per all countries, I think there’s a big degree of game that they all play, a theatric that they play. If you look at what happened after President Obama met these few countries—say, Marshall Islands, Saint Lucia and others—each of them came out saying, "Well, we’re working with the U.S. for a language which is convenient to the U.S." Now, that actually signifies that there’s a break even amongst what’s called the Association of Small Island States, which is comprised of Caribbean island states, those in the Pacific, those in the Indian Ocean and the African region. The Association of the Island States are cracking away under the pressure from U.S. We’ve seen the Caribbean islands move away. In fact, we hear now that even Tuvalu is saying, "Maybe we can live with the fact that we’ll not have compensation." This has happened just about an hour ago, where Tuvalu, behind closed doors, said, "We can look for language that, you know, kind of makes you happy. Just don’t say it so loudly. Say it in a polite fashion that we have a face saver at the end of the day."
AMY GOODMAN: You also talk about U.N. censorship. What is that?
NITIN SETHI: Sorry. Could you say that again?
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about U.N. censorship? What I mean is, we spoke to Yeb Saño the other day. Now he is a pilgrim who walked from Rome here to Paris, but he’s not the chief climate negotiator for the Philippines, as he was. He was pulled right before Lima, Peru, the last COP.
NITIN SETHI: Absolutely.
AMY GOODMAN: What happens to climate negotiators who speak out?
NITIN SETHI: I mean, if you remember, you can go back to Copenhagen, where you had Di-Aping Lumumba from Sudan. If you remember, he was the first one to talk about issues of apartheid, the way developing countries were being treated. We never saw him back in the negotiations thereafter. It’s happened to Yeb Saño two years ago, because he fought really hard to get loss and damage in when nobody else was standing up for it. He disappeared. In fact, so far, the Philippines had to walk away. Philippines was forced to move away from the like-minded developing countries, because they were pretty strong. Now Philippines is part of the vulnerable countries group, where they actually don’t have a stand on loss and damage anymore. This year, again, if you remember, a few days ago, the G77 chair, Ambassador Diseko from South Africa, she actually on the court said, "My country is getting phone calls saying take certain negotiators out of the talking rooms because they’re being hardliners." And we’ve seen one of the key negotiators for the G77 group was Juan Hoffmaister from Bolivia, and he’s nowhere in the room anymore. And he’s the key guy on loss and damage and adaptation.
AMY GOODMAN: Who’s taking him out? Who’s taking all these people out?
NITIN SETHI: Well, nobody said who’s taking them out. But you clearly know in whose favor it is if you take these guys out. It’s primarily the U.S. and other developed countries. They’re the only ones who make this call to say these specific guys should be removed. And this is not the first time it’s happened. If you remember Bernarditas Muller from Philippines, she doesn’t come from the Philippines badge anymore. Again, Philippines being under pressure not to have these people who know the convention, who know the rules, who know the history of these negotiations.
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Indian PM Links Worst Floods in a Century to Climate Change as More Cities Face Extreme Weather
In India, catastrophic flooding in the southern city of Chennai has killed at least 269 people and cut off basic services for more than 3 million people as the army and air force continue rescue operations. The flooding is being described as the worst in more than a century. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has blamed the flooding on climate change. "That region has never seen this a volume of rainfall," says Nitin Sethi, senior associate editor at the Business Standard in India. "Certainly, we are clearly seeing a pattern where rainfall systems are changing and also cities are incapable of adjusting to these kinds of extreme events. That is why I think developing countries like India are saying we need finances and technology to build new cities better rather than making it worse."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Nitin Sethi, I don’t want to end before talking about your home country, India. You have now the air force resuming rescue operations—
NITIN SETHI: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: —in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, Chennai underwater. What is happening?
NITIN SETHI: Well, we’ve seen unprecedented rains, in a fashion that we’ve never seen in the last century in that part of the country. That region has never seen this volume of rain fall so suddenly. We’re clearly seeing a pattern where rainfall systems are changing. We’re also seeing that our cities are incapable of adjusting to these kind of extreme events, which is why I think developing countries like India keep saying we need finances, we need technology, to build our new cities better rather than making it worse.
AMY GOODMAN: And in Delhi, cars have to go alternative days—
NITIN SETHI: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: —based on even and odd license plates?
NITIN SETHI: In some sense, we are following the Beijing model, saying we need to also clean up our act. It signifies the fact that India is trying to do a lot on its own. The fact that it’s moving on this path saying we must have increased public transport is working, but it’s not enough. You do need finances and technology to clean up.
AMY GOODMAN: A new coal power plant every single month is opening until 2020 in India?
NITIN SETHI: Well, that’s what the government suggests. And even after it does that, its total coal production will be about a third of what U.S. produces today. Its per capita consumption of coal will be a fifth. So we’re just [inaudible] to get there. You can’t block us before we reach there.
AMY GOODMAN: We thank you very much for being with us, Nitin Sethi, senior associate editor at Business Standard.
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Donald Trump Calls for Total Ban on Muslims Entering United States
Republican front-runner Donald Trump has called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."
Donald Trump: "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. We have no choice. We have no choice."
Trump was speaking at a rally at the USS Yorktown in South Carolina on Monday night. His campaign manager said the proposed ban would apply to both Muslims seeking immigration visas and tourists simply seeking to visit the United States. It came only one day after President Obama spoke in a rare televised address from the Oval Office, calling for the nation to reject Islamophobia in the wake of the San Bernardino shootings, which Obama called an act of terror.
Rival Candidates & Community Leaders Condemn Trump’s Plan to Ban Muslims
Trump’s proposal quickly drew comparisons to policies enacted by Nazi Germany against the Jews and condemnation from both Republican and Democratic candidates, as well as an array of civil society groups. The head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Nihad Awad, compared Trump to the leader of a lynch mob.
Nihad Awad: "We were extremely shocked to hear Donald Trump calling for total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the U.S. This is outrageous, coming from someone who wants to assume the highest office in the land. It is reckless and simply un-American. Donald Trump sounds more like a leader of a lynch mob than a great nation like ours. He and others are playing into the hands of ISIS."
Later, award-winning Nigerian-American writer and New Yorker magazine contributor Teju Cole posted on his Facebook: "Trump is a dangerous clown ... But it is important to understand that his idea of 'banning all Muslims,' scandalous as it is ... is far less scandalous than the past dozen years of American disregard for non-American Muslim lives. And that wasn’t Trump. Trump didn’t murder thousands of innocent people with drones in Pakistan and Yemen. Trump didn’t kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people with bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump didn’t torture people at Bagram, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, or the numerous black sites across the planet. No American president in the past fourteen years has openly championed Islamophobia, but none has refrained from doing to Muslims overseas what would be unthinkable to do here to Americans of any religion."
Beijing Issues First-Ever Pollution "Red Alert" Amid Choking Smog
Beijing has issued its first-ever "red alert" for pollution, as China’s capital city is engulfed in thick smog rife with poisonous chemicals that can make residents sick from simply stepping outside. The government has urged schools to close and has ordered a halt on all outdoor construction work. In some Beijing neighborhoods, residents can see only about 600 feet ahead of them. Beijing resident Li Teng spoke out.
Li Teng: "I think it’s really scary. I guess the pollution is serious enough."
This comes as the western coast of Norway experiences the worst flooding since record-keeping began more than 100 years ago. We’ll speak with climate scientist Kevin Anderson of the University of Manchester in Britain later in the broadcast.
U.N. Asks for $20B to Respond to Mass Forced Displacement
The United Nations has asked for $20 billion to respond to greatest mass displacement of people since World War II. It’s the largest appeal to address forced displacement that the United Nations has ever launched. U.N. officials cited the wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and South Sudan as one of the major reasons there are nearly 60 million people forcibly displaced worldwide. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres warns that at the present level of funding, the agency is "not able to provide even the very minimum in core protection and lifesaving assistance."
Germany on Track to Accept 1 Million Refugees This Year
The U.N. aid appeal comes as Germany releases new figures showing it is on track to accept more than 1 million new refugees this year alone. That’s more than four times the number of refugees who resettled in Germany in 2014. The figures show that in recent months Syrians have constituted more than 30 percent of all refugee applications.
Central American Mothers Search for Children Who Disappeared Along Migration Route to U.S.
Meanwhile, dozens of Central American mothers whose children went missing in Mexico while attempting to flee violence in their home countries are now traversing Mexico on a journey to search for their missing children. The three-week-long Caravan of Central American Mothers includes women from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Their children are among the tens of thousands who disappear each year along what experts call one of the most deadly migration routes in the world. Speaking at a press conference in Mexico City on Monday, Lourdes Sauzo, whose son was killed in Mexico, spoke about his body being returned to her in pieces.
Lourdes Sauzo: "After 26 months, we received his remains, the pieces. We did not receive all the pieces of his body. We demand that, please—not please, but a demand—that the bodies be sent in their entirety, to send the right remains, because bodies have been sent that don’t belong to the victim. They say it’s a woman, and they send the body of a man."
Alabama: Health of Detained Asylum Seekers on Hunger Strike Worsens
In the United States, seven detained asylum seekers on hunger strike have been sent to the medical unit at the Etowah County Detention Center as their strike stretches into its 12th day. They are demanding their freedom. Other hunger strikers report being subject to sleep deprivation and threatened with force-feeding or deportation. Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley have expressed support for the more than 100 asylum seekers on hunger strike across the United States.
Israeli Troops Kill 2 Palestinians in Occupied West Bank
In the Occupied West Bank, Israeli troops have shot and killed two Palestinians. On Tuesday, Palestinian medical sources say Israeli troops shot and killed 19-year-old Malik Shaheen during a raid in the Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. This comes one day after Israeli security forces shot and killed a man in Hebron whom they accused of carrying out a nonlethal stabbing attack. Since October 1, Israeli security forces have killed 105 Palestinians. Nineteen Israelis and one U.S. citizen have been killed by Palestinians during this same time period.
Military Contracts Tell Investors of "Benefits" of Growing Conflicts
Some of the world’s largest military contractors, including Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, have told investors that the companies will see "benefits" from the growing conflicts across the Middle East. In a story first reported by The Intercept, the contractors spoke of the growing demand for F-22 and F-35 fighter jets, rockets and armored vehicles during a West Palm Beach conference this week.
Expert: Freddie Gray Likely Would Have Survived If Taken to Hospital Sooner
In Baltimore, medical experts have testified to a jury that 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who suffered a fatal spinal cord injury in police custody in April, might have survived if the police had taken him to a hospital sooner. The testimony came Monday as the trial against Officer William Porter entered its second week. Porter is the first of six officers who are being charged for Freddie Gray’s death.
Yale: Administrator Resigns After Protests over Racism on Campus
At Yale University, a professor who sparked protests after dismissing concerns about culturally offensive Halloween costumes has resigned. The controversy began in October, when Yale’s administration sent an email reminding students to respect each other’s cultures on Halloween and to avoid wearing offensive or appropriative costumes. In response, professor Erika Christakis sent an email pushing back against the advice, writing: "Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious... a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive?" Her email sparked protests and came amid other instances of racism on campus, including a woman of color reportedly being denied entry to a fraternity party because she is not white. On Monday, a statement issued by Yale said Christakis had voluntarily decided not to teach in the future at Yale University.
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