Leeds has become the first UK university to divest from firms involved in the Israeli arms trade, after a boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign by Palestine solidarity activists.
A spokesperson revealed to the Leeds student newspaper The Gryphon on Friday that the university has “divested of our holdings in Airbus, United Technologies and Keyence Corporation.”
The holdings had been worth more than $1.2 million.
The university’s almost $1.7 million holdings in HSBC remain in place for now, despite the bank’s $1 billion investment in companies that arm Israel.
The university claimed to The Gryphon that its HSBC holdings involved “no direct investment in armament companies,” but said it was “in dialogue to understand investments in this area.”
“Massive success”
Leeds Palestine Solidarity Group welcomed the news in a statement on Friday.
“This is a massive success,” said the group’s co-president Evie Russell-Cohen. “We hope that it will only be the beginning of a wave change across UK universities.”
She said it was “clear that the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions is being heard in the UK.”
The group’s media officer Yousef Abdel Fattah said, “We hope all UK universities heed our call and divest just like they did with apartheid South Africa in the 1980s.”
Abdel Fattah said that, “Palestinian students on campuses, like myself, have to live with the knowledge that our tuition fees are invested in companies manufacturing the same weapons used in violence against our loved ones.”
The open letter, signed by 23 staff members, 19 student societies and hundreds of students, criticized university management for using tuition fees “to invest in business activity which enables Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights.”
It cited the killing of 2,251 Palestinians during Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, including 526 children.
Still work to do
The letter called on the university to divest from the four companies, and for the university to “adopt a stronger screening policy” for its investments.
It demanded management “impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against the state of Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.”
Although the UK’s National Union of Students has for years had a pro-BDS policy, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign told The Electronic Intifada that Leeds was the first university to actually divest holdings in firms involved in the Israeli occupation.
Last year the Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa announced it was joining the academic boycott of complicit Israeli institutions, saying it supported the call to “boycott Israel and Israeli institutions for as long as Israel continues to violate the basic human rights of the Palestinian people.”
As is common when big businesses divest from Israeli-linked holdings, the University of Leeds sought to downplay the role of the BDS movement, telling The Gryphon, the student newspaper, that its divestment from the three arms firms was part of it “climate active strategy.”
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s core machinery orders tumbled by the most on record in September, the Cabinet office said on Thursday, after a severe earthquake and typhoons disrupted business activity.
The 18.3 percent slump in machinery orders far outpaced the median market estimate for a 10.0 percent decline and follows a 6.8 percent increase in August.
Despite the slump, manufacturers surveyed by the government expect core machinery orders to rise 3.6 percent in October-December after a 0.9 percent increase in July-September, but some economists worry this forecast is overly optimistic.
The northern island of Hokkaido lost power after a severe earthquake in September, which followed a series of typhoons and floods that damaged infrastructure in western Japan.
Businesses quickly resumed operations after these natural disasters, but a 12.5 percent decline in machinery orders from overseas suggests weakening export demand.
Orders from manufacturers fell 17.3 in September after a 6.6 percent in August, due to declining orders from makers of chemicals, electronics, and autos, the data showed.
Service-sector orders fell 17.1 percent, versus a 6.0 percent increase in the previous month, due to a decline in orders for railway cars, heavy machinery, and computers.
“Core” machinery orders exclude those for ships and from electricity utilities.
The government changed its assessment of machinery orders to say they are recovering but fell sharply in September.
The machinery orders data followed news that Japan’s index of coincident economic indicators worsened in September.
The coincident index, which consists of indicators such as industrial output, jobs figures and retail sales data, fell a preliminary 2.1 points in September from the previous month, the Cabinet Office said on Wednesday.
The government cut its assessment of the coincident index for the first time since May 2015, saying it is stalling.
Japan’s economy is expected to have contracted an annualized 1.0 percent in July-September due to the natural disasters and a slowdown in overseas demand, a Reuters poll found. The government will release the data on Nov. 14.
Analysts believe Japan’s economy will recover from the setbacks caused by the quarter’s natural disasters.
However, there is a risk companies will curb capital expenditure if overseas demand weakens further.
Declining momentum in the global economy and possible spillover effects from the US-China trade dispute pose risks to the outlook.
Reporting by Stanley White, editing by Eric Meijer
US envoy for Iran says Washington wants to ensure sanctions on Tehran don't lead to spike in global oil prices
Renewed US sanctions on Iran's crucial oil sector came into effect on Monday (AFP)
Thursday 8 November 2018
Iran can flourish under US sanctions and Tehran will defeat Washington in its “economic war” against the Islamic Republic, Revolutionary Guards Brigadier General Hossein Salami said on Wednesday.
“The enemy is trying to strike a blow against Iran through a soft war and an economic war, but they will face a heavy defeat,” said Salami, quoted by Iran’s state news agency IRNA.
US President Donald Trump’s administration reimposed sanctions on Iran on Monday aimed at isolating the country’s banking sector and oil exports.
Salami said the measures, which Washington says are also designed to stop Tehran's weapon programmes and curb its regional influence, will not succeed.
"Iran has been able to advance in any area that the enemy has placed sanctions on Islamic Iran," he said.
Separately, Salami said Lebanon’s Hezbollah has Israel in a "death grip".
“Today the Zionists are surrounded and are flailing between life and death,” he said.
Meanwhile, the US envoy for Iran said on Wednesday that Washington has succeeded in ensuring that reimposed sanctions on Tehran do not lead to a spike in global oil prices.
Brian Hook, the US special representative for Iran, said that the administration has been careful in the way it is applying sanctions on Tehran’s crucial oil sector.
Speaking at a briefing, Hook said Washington’s “maximum pressure” strategy was also going to apply to escrow accounts holding Iranian oil revenues.
He said an expected increase in oil supplies in 2019 will help the US in asking countries to further reduce their imports of Iranian oil.
Hook warned all ports and insurance companies to steer clear of Iranian ships, calling them a "floating liability".
He said the US sanctions extended to insurers and underwriters. "Knowingly providing these services to sanctioned Iranian shipping companies will result in the imposition of US sanctions," he said.
"From the Suez Canal to the Strait of Malacca and all choke points in between, Iranian tankers are now a floating liability."
In May, Trump pulled Washington of a multinational agreement that saw Iran drastically scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for lifting economic sanctions, angering America's European allies.
This week, Trump said he intended to impose the measures against Iran's oil sector gradually to prevent a shock to the global oil market.
The sanctions affect more than 700 individuals and entities, according to the US Treasury Department, including Iranian banks and their subsidiaries, the country’s shipping sector and its national airline, Iran Air.
The US granted eight exemptions to bypass the sanctions.
Turkey, one of the US’s key allies in the region and a major importer of Iranian oil supplies, received one of the exemptions. Earlier this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara would not abide by the sanctions in any case, describing them as a violation of international law.
“The rest of the world is using WTO rules.What is so special about the European Union? Particularly as its economy is shrinking and we are actually trading far more with the rest of the world and that is increasing every year”
That’s what Brexit-backing Labour MP Kate Hoey told the Express at a Labour Leave event last week.
But two out of three of her claims are wrong.
“The rest of the world is using WTO rules”
Many prominent Brexiteers – including Wetherspoons boss Tim Martin – have said that leaving the EU without a deal would not be a problem because, they say, we’d be able to fall back on World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.
It’s true that 164 countries, including the UK, are members of the WTO and are therefore subject to its rules.
But if she means that the rest of the world is trading solely on the basis of WTO rules – i.e. without any international trade deals – Ms Hoey is wrong. In fact, there’s not a single WTO member operating on this basis.
Until recently, Mauritania was the only country without any international free trade agreements. But it’s now in talks with Brussels to gain access to EU markets alongside the Economic Community of West African States.
Perhaps Ms Hoey meant to say that the rest of the world trades with the EU on WTO rules. Even if that’s the case, we’re still not convinced. Here’s why.
In terms of tariffs, there are currently 24 countries that trade with the EU on WTO rules.
But crucially, many of those countries – including China, Russia, Japan, India and the United States – also have non-tariff agreements with the EU that are outside the remit of the WTO. These bilateral arrangements cover everything from the language used on wine bottles to plane safety.
The Institute for Government (IfG) points out that such agreements “go well beyond the terms of WTO trade” and that “if the UK left the EU with no agreements of any kind, then technically its relationship with the EU would be weaker than any of the EU’s main trading partners”.
And if there’s no deal with the EU, there’s no guarantee that we’d even be able to fall back on WTO rules. The Organisation’s director-general, Roberto Azevedo, warned in August that it is “very unlikely” that Britain will have secured the agreement it needs from all 164 WTO members by March 2019.
FactCheck verdict
Kate Hoey said that “the rest of the world is using WTO rules”.
If she means that the rest of the world is trading solely on the basis of WTO rules, she’s wrong. There are no WTO members that do not also have at least one free trade agreement with another country or countries.
On a generous interpretation, Ms Hoey might have been talking about countries trading with the EU on WTO rules, of which there are currently 24.
But while these nations do not have a free trade deal with the EU, they do have a number of other bilateral deals that cover non-tariff policies like safety and quality standards. If this is what she had in mind, her claim is misleading without further context – and not relevant in a discussion about no-deal Brexit.
The EU’s “economy is shrinking”
This is wrong.
Early figures estimate that the EU’s economy grew by 0.3 per cent in the third quarter of 2018 compared to the previous three months. The same figures show an annual growth rate of 1.9 per cent compared to the same to the same quarter of last year.
And in case you’re wondering whether the EU is relying on the UK to boost its overall growth figures… it’s not.
In fact, between April and September 2018 (the latest quarter for which we have finalised like-for-like estimates), UK GDP growth was exactly the same as the EU average: 0.4 per cent. That’s lower than Germany, Portugal, Spain, Austria, Lithuania and Poland, to name a few.
FactCheck verdict
Kate Hoey is wrong to say the EU’s economy is shrinking. Latest figures suggest an annual GDP growth rate of 1.9 per cent.
The UK is “actually trading far more with the rest of the world and that is increasing every year”
According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics the EU accounted for 42.6 per cent of UK exports by value in 2017. That leaves over 57 per cent of UK export values coming from the rest of the world.
On that basis, Ms Hoey is right that the UK trades more with the rest of the world than it does with the EU.
The cash value of UK exports to non-EU countries rose from £402.6 billion in 2016 to £464.1 billion in 2017.
And as a proportion of all UK exports by value, non-EU trade rose slightly from 57.3 per cent in 2016 to 57.4 per cent in 2017.
FactCheck verdict
Kate Hoey is right to say that we trade more with non-EU countries than we do with other EU member states. We also think it’s fair to say that non-EU trade is “increasing every year”.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman, celebrate Tuesday at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Washington. (Evelyn Hockstein for The Washington Post)
Democrats seized control of the House while Republicans held the Senate on Tuesday in a national referendum on President Trump that drew record numbers of voters to the polls and opened the door to tougher oversight of the White House over the next two years.
The dramatic conclusion of the most expensive and consequential midterms in modern times fell short of delivering the sweeping repudiation of Trump wished for by Democrats and the “resistance” movement. But Democrats’ win of the House still portended serious changes in Washington, as the party prepared to block Trump’s agenda and investigate his personal finances and potential ties to Russia.
An immediate post-election change to Trump’s Cabinet came Wednesday when Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigned at the president’s request. The move threw the future of the special counsel’s Russia investigation into uncertainty and clarified partisan battle lines after light talk of compromise following the election.
Trump had declined to answer a question about Sessions’s fate hours earlier at a combative news conference where he vowed to adopt a “warlike posture” in response to any attempt by House Democrats to investigate his administration.
Democrats have gained more than the 23 House seats needed to win a majority. But some other key races remained too close to call, including the Senate contests in Arizona and Florida and the gubernatorial matchup in Georgia. Republicans appeared to lead in all three as of Wednesday afternoon.
Following Democratic House gains and Republican Senate gains, The Fix's Aaron Blake analyzes the winners and losers from the 2018 midterm elections.(JM Rieger/The Washington Post)
House Democrats are prepared to launch investigations of Trump and to closely scrutinize his policies on immigration, education and health care. But they are wary of immediately pursuing impeachment, concerned that such a move would undermine lawmakers who represent districts that Trump won in 2016.
Trump said that investigations launched by the House would jeopardize prospects for bipartisan deals on issues such as trade, infrastructure and prescription drug costs.
“They can play that game, but we can play it better, because we have a thing called the United States Senate,” Trump said, referring to GOP control of the upper chamber. “ . . . I think I’m better at that game than they are, actually, but we’ll find out.”
At her own news conference, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Democrats have a “responsibility for oversight” but said committees’ efforts would not be “scattershot.”
“We’ll know what we are doing and we’ll do it right,” she said.
Jockeying for House leadership positions began in earnest Wednesday. Pelosi is widely considered to be the front-runner to retake the speaker’s gavel, despite dozens of Democratic candidates calling for new leadership during the campaign.
Trump, who demonized Pelosi on the campaign trail, threw his support behind her bid.
“I think she deserves it,” he told reporters. “She’s fought long and hard. She’s a very capable person.”
On the Republican side, House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan (Ohio) said in an interview with Hill.TV that he would challenge Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) for the role of minority leader.
The move, while expected, underscored conservatives’ desire to expand their power within the GOP conference after a bruising election.
Lawmakers will return to Capitol Hill next week, and both parties will hold leadership elections this month.
In a new talking point, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) cautioned Democrats against engaging in “presidential harassment” in the form of overly aggressive oversight.
“The Democrats in the House will have to decide just how much presidential harassment is good strategy. I’m not sure it will work for them,” he told reporters Wednesday.
Trump sought to make Tuesday’s elections a referendum on his presidency. Returning to his 2016 campaign playbook, he delivered fiery speeches that drew massive and enthusiastic crowds but were full of falsehoods, invective and demagoguery.
Key suburban districts rejected his pitch, along with most women.
Democrats won women’s support by 19 points, the largest margin in the history of midterm exit polling, compared with their margin of four points in 2014, according to network exit surveys from CNN. Independent women voted for Democratic candidates by a 17-point margin after narrowly supporting Republicans in 2014. And white women, a reliable voting bloc for the GOP, split their votes evenly between the two parties this year, after favoring Republicans by 14 points in 2014 and by 19 points in 2010.
Voters under 30 also favored Democrats this year by a 35-point margin over Republicans, compared with an 11-point margin in 2014, the polls found.
Democrats, who picked up at least seven governorships, performed well in several states Trump won. In Wisconsin, Democrat Tony Evers bested Gov. Scott Walker, the onetime Republican star who ran for president in 2016. Even Kansas elected a Democratic governor, rejecting Trump ally Kris Kobach.
But while the party held onto its Senate seats in West Virginia and Montana — and picked up one more in Nevada — it was disappointed elsewhere.
Sens. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Claire McCaskill of Missouri all lost their seats to Republicans who campaigned as Trump allies. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), with his reelection in doubt, said Wednesday that his race was proceeding to a recount.
In some ways, the outcome was similar to that of 2016, with late polls overestimating Democratic enthusiasm and Republicans showing unanticipated resilience.
The liberal movement’s biggest stars this election cycle struggled against the odds. Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum lost to Republican Ron DeSantis, a Trump ally.
In Texas, Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D) failed to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz (R). And in Kentucky, former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath, a Democrat, was defeated by incumbent Rep. Garland “Andy” Barr (R).
Some Democrats held out hope for Georgia, where gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams refused to concede her too-close-to-call race against Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp. The race might be headed for a recount.
Abrams and Gillum, both African American, confronted some of the most overt racial attacks since the civil rights era as they sought to make history as their states’ first black governors.
Robo-calls in Georgia featured a voice impersonating Oprah Winfrey and calling Abrams “a poor man’s Aunt Jemima.” In Florida, robo-calls mimicked Gillum as jungle sounds and chimpanzee noises were heard in the background.
Trump contributed to the simmering racial tension. Describing himself as a “nationalist,” he vilified a migrant caravan headed slowly toward the U.S. border with Mexico and released a television ad on immigration that was rejected as offensive by the major networks.
Trump also called Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, “not equipped,” and Abrams, a leader in the Georgia state legislature, “not qualified” to be governors.
The racial overtones put that explosive form of politics on the ballot, with major stakes for Republicans. The GOP is now overwhelmingly white, while Democrats have a much more multiracial coalition that represents the direction in which the country’s demographics are heading.
Tuesday’s results were set to transform the House in terms of gender, age and ethnicity. The new Democratic majority will be more female and more racially diverse, with several history-making members, including two Muslim women and two Native American women.
The House Republican Conference will be more white and more male as several GOP women depart.
Philip Bump, Scott Clement, Karoun Demirjian, David A. Fahrenthold, Amy Gardner, Anne Gearan, Emily Guskin, Paul Kane, Beth Reinhard and John Wagner contributed to this report.
The Kremlin can expect more sanctions and more investigations from a Democratic House.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump attend a meeting in Helsinki on July 16. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)
BYAMY MACKINNON,ROBBIE GRAMER-
The results of the U.S. congressional elections marked a setback for President Donald Trump, but they might be worse for Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
The new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives is promising more investigations into Russian meddling in U.S. elections, and both parties are likely to push for more sanctions against Moscow—for everything from its involvement in Ukraine and Syria to its poisoning of a former Russian spy.
Here’s a rundown of what to expect.
The House Intelligence Committee to Reopen Its Russia Investigation
House Republicans have shown little appetite for challenging the Trump administration on Russia. Of the five congressional probes launched to investigate Russian meddling, the one conducted in the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Republican Sen. Richard Burr and Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, has been the only major bipartisan investigation of Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential election.
But with Democrats now in control of the House, the chamber is likely to play a more assertive role on the issue.
“There is a decent chance that we will see the center of gravity on Russia sanctions and Russia policy shifting from the Senate to the House,” said Peter Harrell, who served as deputy assistant secretary for counter threat finance and sanctions under President Barack Obama.
In March, House Intelligence Committee Republicans shut down their probe, concluding that there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. In response, committee Democrats published a 21-page document that detailed further lines of inquiry that they argued had not been thoroughly explored. Included in this is a list of some 70 individuals and organizations that Democrats believe may hold more information about the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Now that the Democrats will hold the gavel in the House Intelligence Committee, they are expected to reopen the probe and use their subpoena powers to investigate Trump’s finances, as well as allegations of Russian interference.
(Read Foreign Policy’s interview with committee member Rep. Eric Swalwell of California (D) on the Democrats’ plans to investigate Trump’s Russia ties here.)
One challenge for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee is how to pursue an investigation without hindering the work of special counsel Robert Mueller. “I think they’re going to show considerable deference to Bob Mueller,” said Richard Nephew, who served during the Obama administration as principal deputy coordinator for sanctions policy at the State Department.
Further Sanctions Expected
New sanctions on Russia were likely regardless of who won the elections. While the Russia question may have been a thorn in Trump’s side, the Republican-controlled Congress has been able to pass sanctions on Russia with large majorities in both houses.
There are already signs that Moscow is bracing for more sanctions. Reuters reported this week that state-owned oil giant Rosneft had included language in its new contracts with Western buyers stating that they would be liable to pay compensation if they terminate their agreements with the energy company because of sanctions.
The most wide-ranging bill in Congress is the Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act, which aims to deter Russia from meddling in U.S. elections and to hamper its activities in Ukraine and Syria. Written by senators from both parties, the bill would impose sanctions on Russian sovereign debt, Russian energy projects, oligarchs, and national banks. The bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R), described it as “a sanctions bill from hell.”
Another significant piece of legislation to watch is the Deter Act, introduced in January by Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio. The bill would require automatic sanctions to be passed if a foreign power was suspected of interfering in a U.S. election.
One likely scenario is that elements of both bills may be fused to produce a final piece of legislation, Harrell said.
Additionally, several congressional aides said that they expect the new Democratic majority to reintroduce several key bills aimed at cracking down on Russian election meddling in the House Foreign Affairs Committee. That includes the Secure Our Democracy Act, put forward by Democratic Reps. Eliot Engel and Gerry Connolly. The bill requires the secretary of state to compile and regularly update lists of specific foreigners involved in U.S. election interference, who would be targeted for sanctions. It also requires the State Department to submit a report to Congress following each federal election cycle outlining any foreign election interference attempts.
As voting took place on Tuesday, the State Department announced that Russia would be subject to further sanctions under the 1991 Chemical and Biological Weapons Act for its use of the Novichok nerve agent against former spy Sergei Skripal. One round of sanctions was already imposed in August. Moscow then had 90 days to provide verifiable reassurance that it would not use chemical weapons again and to allow weapons inspectors into the country. These requests were rebuffed, triggering a second, harsher, round of sanctions, though it’s not clear yet when they will be implemented.
“If there’s a shred of consensus anywhere in Congress, it’s on beating up on Russia,” said one congressional aide who preferred not be named.
Nephew, the senior Obama-era sanctions official, said Russia was paying a price for alienating the Democratic Party with an influence campaign designed to help Trump’s election.
“What they may have done that’s most damaging is take away any political incentive for the Democrats to say, ‘Let’s try and get along with the Russians,’” he said.
Daniel Fried, a former assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs who until his retirement last year was America’s longest-serving diplomat, said many Democrats had discovered their “inner Harry Truman.” It was Truman’s eponymous doctrine that sought to check Soviet expansionism after World War II.
Moscow Loses a Friend
Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who had been dubbed “Putin’s favorite congressman,” lost his seat in California’s 48th district after three decades in office. A onetime Cold Warrior, the Republican congressman chaired the House foreign affairs subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia and is known to have received information directly from Moscow and used it to promote Russian government interests in Washington.
One sliver of good news for the Russians may be the change in leadership of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Harrell said. With Sen. Bob Corker (R), a key architect of Russia sanctions, set to retire, committee chairmanship will pass to Trump loyalist Sen. Jim Risch (R).
“I would be surprised if Risch would want to do anything on Russia,” Harrell said.
We should always be aware that the Chinese system is very much of its own kind. It’s very different from anything else, but it is a system that has taken very clear likenesses with the characteristics of fascism under the rule of Xi Jinping.
(
November 7, 2018, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Teng Biao interviewed Prof. Stein Ringen on August 2, 2018 and October 5 via Skype. Stein Ringen is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Oxford and Professor of Political Economy at King’s College London. Teng Biao is a visiting scholar at the U.S.-Asia Law Institute, New York University and a Chinese human rights lawyer.
Christian labourer has left detention facility but has to stay in Pakistan
A protester holds an image of Asia Bibi in Islamabad. Her husband and children are living at a secret address in fear of their lives. Photograph: Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images
Harriet Sherwood@harrietsherwood- Asia Bibi, the Christian farm labourer whose blasphemy case has triggered violent protests and assassinations in Pakistan, has been freed from jail but remains in protective custody, a week after the country’s supreme court overturned her conviction.
Officials said that she left a detention facility in the Punjab province amid tight security on Wednesday and was flown to Islamabad, where she was at a secure location because of threats to her life.
“She has been freed. I have been told that she is on a plane but nobody knows where she will land,” her lawyer Saif-ul-Malook said in a message sent to AFP.
Bibi, who had spent eight years on death row, had been left in limbo after the government struck a deal with religious conservatives to end protests, which erupted after her acquittal.
Her husband and children have been living at a secret address in Pakistan in fear of their lives, and have made repeated appeals to the international community to help secure the whole family’s safety.
“Help us get out of Pakistan. We are extremely worried because our lives are in danger. We no longer have even anything to eat, because we cannot leave the house to buy food,” Ashiq Masih, Bibi’s husband, told Aid to the Church in Need, which campaigns on religious freedom.
He told the BBC World Service that he had not seen Bibi since her acquittal, and the family was worried about her safety. Religious extremists have threatened to kill her.
Authorities now say Bibi may not be able to leave the country because a petition for a review of the court’s ruling was filed by a radical Islamist lawyer requesting the acquittal be reversed. Pakistani courts usually take years to decide such cases.
Bibi’s lawyer, Saiful Mulook, fled Pakistan at the weekend after being issued with death threats, and is seeking asylum in the Netherlands.
Asia Bibi: protests erupt in Pakistan after blasphemy conviction overturned - video
Canada, France and Spain were reportedly considering offering asylum to Bibi and her family. Her husband has also appealed to the UK and the US to offer a safe haven.
In Italy, Matteo Salvini, the hardline anti-migrant interior minister, said he would do “all that is humanly possible” to ensure Bibi and her family were safe, either in Italy or elsewhere.
Bibi was convicted of blasphemy after a row with Muslim women in her village. Two Pakistani politicians were killed for publicly supporting her and criticising the country’s blasphemy laws.
The supreme court’s decision last week to overturn the verdict led to violent protests throughout Pakistan and calls for the judges in the case to be killed.
Asia Bibi at a prison in Sheikhupura near Lahore, Pakistan. Photograph: AP
“Khan swept to power earlier this year on promises to restore the rule of law, to champion the oppressed and marginalised and to deliver justice. His party is, after all, called the Movement for Justice,” said Omar Waraich of Amnesty International.
“But what does that even mean when, in the space of just two days, he went from warning the mob against using violence, to bowing to their demands?”
Khan’s former wife, Jemima Goldsmith, accused him on Twitter of caving in “to extremist demands to bar #AsiaBibifrom leaving [Pakistan], after she was acquitted of blasphemy – effectively signing her death warrant”.
The Religious Liberty Commission, a coalition of organisations campaigning against Christian persecution, have called on Khan to allow Bibi to leave the country.
“Following her unjust imprisonment and long-awaited release, it is clear that Asia’s life is in danger in Pakistan … As others involved with the case continue to flee the country, we affirm that Asia’s safety is now the responsibility of prime minister Khan,” it said.
CLIMATE change has been labelled the biggest threat to humanity, and we’ve all been urged to pitch in and do our bit if we want to avoid its most devastating impacts. But there’s a lot of information out there and it’s difficult to know what the most effective methods are and if you’re actually making any difference.
It’s easy to feel that your actions are just a tiny drop in an unfathomably huge ocean, but the latest report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) makes it clear that without individual action, we’re pretty much doomed.
With just 12 years before we’re facing climate catastrophe, we need to act now.
Researchers at Lund University examined all of the information we have on preventing climate change and determined the most effective and efficient ways for individuals to make a difference. These are the top ways to reduce your carbon footprint:
5. Go veggie
CO2 saving: up to 1.6 tonnes
Going vegetarian – or even better vegan – can make a significant difference to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that cause warming. Even just cutting down on the amount of meat in your diet can be beneficial.
Agriculture of all types is damaging, but meat production is a special evil, with beef being the most environmentally damaging of them all.
A study from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates it makes up around 18 percent of human-produced emissions worldwide. This is more than all emissions from ships, planes, trucks, cars and all other transport put together.
Cattle on a dry paddock in the drought-hit area of Quirindi in New South Wales, Australia, August 7, 2018. Source: Glenn Nicholls/Shutterstock
4. Buy green energy
CO2 saving: up to 2.5 tonnes
Switching to green energy is one of the easiest ways to lower your carbon footprint. It will make a difference in the fight against climate change without you having to change your lifestyle at all.
The study suggests you can save up to 2.5 tonnes by switching to green. While this is still difficult in many Southeast Asian countries, places with developed energy grids like Australia have the potential to greatly reduce emissions in family homes.
3. Skip just one long flight
CO2 saving: up to 2.8 tonnes (depending on length)
We all enjoy our holidays, or perhaps you travel for work, but the damage caused by those airmiles is significant. Skip out on just one return transatlantic flight, and you personally can save 1.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.
Longer flights will obviously be more. While the many variables – such as, weight of a passenger’s luggage, the occupancy of the plane, wind speed etc – make it difficult to predict exact numbers, it’s undeniable that cutting air travel can make a difference.
American Airlines aircraft are parked at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, U.S., August 8, 2016. Source: Reuters/Joshua Roberts/File Photo
2. Go car-free
CO2 saving: 1 to 5.3 tonnes
An average three litre engine car can produce around 4.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. Even smaller 1.5 litre engines billow out around two tonnes.
By giving up your car, as an individual you’re looking a saving 2.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere on average.
While hybrid vehicles are able to reduce this, they can still generate around 1.8 tonnes per year so by no means to they solve the problem.
Not only is it good for the environment but also beneficial to everyone’s health.
The dangerous cocktail of chemicals in exhaust fumes can cause a whole raft of health issues, including birth defects, low birth weight, cardiovascular disease, and even damaging children’s mental health.
There is one runaway winner when it comes to cutting carbon emissions; so much so it has potentially 20 times the positive impact of its closest competitor. It’s simple – don’t have kids.
Having children is possibly the most destructive thing you can do to the environment. The study found if an American family chose to have one fewer child, it would provide the same level of emissions reductions as 684 teenagers comprehensively recycling for the rest of their lives.
The average carbon saving changes depending on how developed the country is. The study puts the average for developed countries at 59 tonnes. But even at the lower end of the scale, one less child is far and away the best way to reduce your carbon footprint.
Japan had one of the highest suicide rates in 2015 but since preventative measures were introduced, the figures have dropped, according to World Health Organization.
Overall suicides across Japan fell to about 21,000 in 2017, police say, down from a peak of about 34,500 in 2003.
However, child suicide rates remain relatively high - making it the leading cause of death among young people in the country.
"The number of suicides of students have stayed high, and that is an alarming issue which should be tackled," education ministry official Noriaki Kitazaki said as the latest figures were released.
If you are feeling emotionally distressed and would like details of organisations which offer advice and support, click here. In the UK you can call for free, at any time, to hear recorded information on 0800 066 066. In Japan you can get help here.
The University of Leeds Palestine Solidarity Group, which organized the campaign for divestment. (Facebook)
- 6 November 2018
Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump attend a meeting in Helsinki on July 16. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)
