Tag Archives: Netherlands

‘North Sea Fossil Free’: Activists in 6 Countries Protest ‘Unhinged’ Oil and Gas Development

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“Going full steam ahead with new North Sea oil and gas is a sure fire route to the worst climate scenarios,” one campaigner said.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 3-16-2024 by Common Dreams

The “oil slicks” performance artist group demonstrates the impacts of a potential oil spill on Scotland’s Moray Firth as part of a North Sea-wide day of action on March 16, 2024. Photo: Extinction Rebellion Scotland/X

Climate activists in six North Sea countries came together on Saturday to carry out acts of civil disobedience in protest of their governments’ continued fossil fuel development.

Demonstrators in the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands blockaded roads, ports, and refineries; dropped banners; and held solidarity concerts as part of the North Sea Fossil Free campaign to demand that their governments align their plans for the shared body of water with the Paris agreement goal of limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.

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Instead of Holocaust Museum, Detour Signs Direct Israel’s Herzog to The Hague

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“How is it possible that such a sacred space is being used to normalize genocide today?” asked one Dutch Jewish organizer behind the protest.

By Common Dreams. Published 3-10-24

Human rights activists of Amnesty International hold traffic boards showing the way to the International Criminal Court for the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog on March 10, 2024 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The President of Israel is in Amsterdam to open the Holocaust Museum. Photo: Trita Parsi/X

Human rights activists in The Netherlands greeted Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Sunday with large protests and directed him towards the International Criminal Court at The Hague over his nation’s alleged war crimes against the Palestinian people in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Herzog was in Amsterdam to attend the opening of the new National Holocaust Museum, but demonstrators said Herzog’s presence needed to be challenged given the large scale death and destruction that Israel’s military has unleashed in Gaza over the last five months.

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Win for ‘Hateful Far-Right Islamophobe’ Geert Wilders Sends Shockwaves

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The outspoken Dutch xenophobe often compared to Donald Trump is poised to become the next prime minister of the Netherlands if he can cobble together enough support to form a coalition government.

By Jon Queally. Published 11-23-2023 by Common Dreams

Geert Wilders, Dutch right-wing politician and leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV). Photo: uair01/flickr/CC

National election results in the Netherlands on Wednesday sent shockwaves across Europe as “hateful far-right Islamophobe” Geert Wilders and his party have won the most seats in parliament and positioned Wilders himself to become the nation’s next prime minister.

Wilders, a xenophobic nationalist who is regarded as the “Dutch Donald Trump—but worse” by many of his critics, has for years spewed anti-immigrant rhetoric and speaks openly about making the Netherlands a home only for those he considers pure Dutchmen.

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Is This or Isn’t This a Photo of a Broken US Nuclear Weapon?

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“If the image is indeed from a nuclear weapons accident, it would constitute the first publicly known case of a recent nuclear weapons accident at an air base in Europe,” according to the Federation of American Scientists.

By Kenny Stancil.  Published 4-3-2023 by Common Dreams

A photo in a Los Alamos National Laboratory student briefing from April 2022 shows four people inspecting what appears to be a damaged B61 nuclear bomb. (Photo: Federation of American Scientists)

 

Was a U.S. nuclear bomb damaged in a recent accident at a European air base?

This question is being asked Monday after the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) discovered and published a photo—used in an April 2022 student briefing at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico—that shows four people inspecting what looks like a damaged B61 atomic bomb. The U.S. is set to soon deliver a new generation of this so-called “tactical” nuclear weapon to Europe.

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Fearing Future Probes of US Atrocities, Pentagon Blocks ICC From Russian War Crimes Evidence

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“The Ukrainian people deserve accountability. By blocking the sharing of evidence with the ICC, the administration, contrary to its stated position, is undermining it,” said one expert.

By Brett Wilkins.  Published 3-9-2023 by Common Dreams

Bucha after Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo: rbc.ua, CC BY 4.0 GFDL, via Wikimedia Commons

The Pentagon is helping to shield Russia from International Criminal Court accountability for its atrocities in Ukraine, fearing such a reckoning could set a precedent allowing the tribunal to prosecute U.S. war crimes, a report published Wednesday revealed.

According to The New York Times, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III and other Pentagon brass are blocking the Biden administration from sharing evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies with the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the objections of officials in those agencies, as well as in the State and Justice departments. Continue reading →

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‘Worst Yet to Come’ as Global Civil Unrest Index Hits All-Time High

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“Over the coming months, governments across the world are about to get an answer to a burning question: Will protests sparked by socioeconomic pressure transform into broader and more disruptive anti-government action?”

By Jessica Corbett  Published 9-2-2022 by Common Dreams

Protesters at Plaza Baquedano, Santiago, Chile in 2019. Photo: Carlos Figueroa/Wikimedia Commons/CC

The risk of civil unrest is rising in over 100 nations, with the “worst yet to come,” according to an analysis published Thursday by the U.K.-based consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft.

Incorporating data going back to 2017, the latest update to the firm’s civil unrest index (CUI) shows that the last quarter of this year “saw more countries witness an increase in risks from civil unrest than at any time since the index was released,” the analysis states. “Out of 198 countries, 101 saw an increase in risk, compared with only 42 where the risk decreased.” Continue reading →

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Global Climate Movement Warns Nations Have Just 6 Months to End Fossil Fuel Finance

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“The pandemic has shown that governments can rapidly mobilize massive sums of public money,” says one campaigner. “This is the moment to do it, and accelerate the transition.”

By Brett Wilkins  Published 5-19-2022 by Common Dreams

Clean energy advocates march in an anti-fossil fuel protest in San Francisco. (Photo: Greenbelt Alliance/flickr/cc)

More than 120 civil society groups from around the world on Thursday warned that nations have only six months left to meet a collective commitment made at last year’s United Nations Climate Conference to end public financing of fossil fuels.

The organizations detailed steps nations must take as soon as possible to comply with their obligations under the Glasgow Statement on International Public Support for the Clean Energy Transition, a product of last year’s COP26 summit. Continue reading →

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Rebellious Climate Scientists Have Message for Humanity: ‘Mobilize, Mobilize, Mobilize’

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In face of the “escalating climate emergency,” the advocacy group Scientist Rebellion warns that IPCC summary to global policymakers remains “alarmingly reserved, docile, and conservative.”

By Kenny Stancil  Published 4-6-2022 by Common Dreams

Scientists in the Netherlands blocked an entrance to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy in The Hague on Wednesday, April 6, 2022. (Photo: Scientist Rebellion / @ScientistRebel1)

Amid a weeklong global civil disobedience campaign to demand climate action commensurate with mounting evidence about the need for swift decarbonization, Scientist Rebellion is highlighting specific gaps between what experts say is necessary and what governments allowed to be published in a summary of the United Nations’ latest climate assessment.

The landmark report on mitigation by Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—part of the U.N.’s sixth comprehensive climate assessment since 1992 and possibly the last to be published with enough time to avert the most catastrophic consequences of the planetary crisis—was compiled by 278 researchers from 65 countries. Continue reading →

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Afghans left to pick up the pieces of the West’s failed war

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As the Taliban rapidly expand in the shadow of US and NATO allies’ retreat, has anyone considered the impact on innocent civilians?

By Paul Rogers.  Published 7-3-2021 by openDemocracy

Photo: Piqsels

Military leaders in the United States and Britain, as well as allied countries, now accept that they have lost their war with the Taliban.

When US President Joe Biden confirmed his predecessor Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, this was tacit acceptance of a position that is rarely stated so bluntly in public. Although General Austin S Miller, the US commander in Afghanistan, came close this week when he admitted it was worrisome that as his troops pull out, there has been a rapid loss of districts throughout the country to the Taliban. Continue reading →

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It’s too late for court rulings: Shell must fall

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It’s time for a proper debate about how to dismantle fossil fuel companies

By #ShellMustFall . Published 6-9-2021 by openDemocracy

Dressed as construction workers, #ShellMustFall took a wrecking ball to the Shell headquarters | Alex Bleu, CC BY-SA 2.0

On 26 May a Dutch court ordered the oil giant Shell to reduce its global carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 in a landmark ruling. That Shell is finally being held accountable for its role in the climate crisis is a victory not only for Friends of the Earth Netherlands (Milieudefensie) and the more than 17,000 co-plaintiffs who brought the case, but for the entire global movement against the fossil fuel industry.

But despite the excitement that we at action coalition #ShellMustFall share, we want to remind the world: litigation will not be enough to stop Shell’s leaders from damaging our planet. Continue reading →

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