Paris (France) (AFP) – A meeting of G7 nations on the environment begins in Paris on Thursday but climate change has been left off the agenda to avoid a row with the United States.

The office of France's ecology minister Monique Barbut said the two-day meeting would focus on "less contentious issues" in an effort to appease the largest and most powerful G7 member.

"We chose not to address the climate issue head-on... because the United States' positions on this subject are well known," the ministry said.

"We wanted to prioritise G7 unity, particularly to protect this forum."

President Donald Trump's administration has withdrawn the United States from global agreements on climate change and weakened environmental protections since he returned to office in 2025.

France, Italy, Canada, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom are sending their environment ministers to the meeting of the Group of Seven industrialised economies.

Washington will be represented by Usha-Maria Turner, assistant administrator for the Office of International and Tribal Affairs at the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Barbut's office said attendees would discuss themes including ocean conservation, biodiversity funding, and the transformation of dry areas into desert.

Activists were critical of the decision to leave climate off the agenda.

Gaia Febvre from activist group Climate Action Network said "a G7 moving at the pace of the United States cannot claim to respond to the crises of the century".

"By yielding to pressure, it weakens collective action and renounces its potential leading role," she told AFP.

It takes place just days before more than 50 countries meet in Colombia for the first-ever global conference dedicated to phasing out fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change.

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cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/50954848

Ukraine has become an innovator in defense tech, as the full-scale invasion by Russia has forced the domestic defense sector to develop and test weapons on the battlefield. This has transformed Ukrainian equipment from local solutions into highly sought-after assets for international militaries looking to modernize their own arsenals.

The interest extends beyond NATO members and the EU, with the UAE contacting 19% of the companies. The UK, at 17%, rounded out the top five countries seeking partnerships with Ukrainian manufacturers.

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Paris (France) (AFP) – An envoy to US President Donald Trump has asked world football's governing body FIFA to replace Iran with Italy at the World Cup, according to the Financial Times.

US special envoy Paolo Zampolli told the FT on Wednesday it would be a "dream" to see four-time World Cup winners Italy at the finals in the United States, Mexico and Canada despite the fact they lost in a qualification playoff last month.

The Iranian embassy to Rome responded saying that the suggestion showed US "moral bankruptcy" and that Italy did not need "political privileges" to demonstrate its football greatness.

The idea was an effort to repair ties between Trump and Giorgia Meloni after the Italian prime minister fell out with the president after criticising his attack on Pope Leo XIV over the Iran war, the FT reported.

"I confirm I have suggested to Trump and (FIFA President Gianni) Infantino that Italy replace Iran at the World Cup. I'm an Italian native and it would be a dream to see the Azzurri at a US-hosted tournament. With four titles, they have the pedigree to justify inclusion," Zampolli said.

Italy has won the World Cup four times but it missed out on the tournament for a third successive time after losing a penalty shootout to Bosnia and Herzegovina in their qualifying playoff final.

"Italy has earned its greatness in football on the pitch, not thanks to political privileges," the Iranian embassy said on X.

"The attempt to exclude Iran from the World Cup only reveals the 'moral bankruptcy' of the United States, which is afraid even of the presence of eleven young Iranians on the field of play."

Iran's participation in the World Cup has been thrown into doubt by the war [...].

The Iranian football federation (FFIRI) had said in April it was "negotiating" with FIFA to relocate the country's World Cup matches from the United States to Mexico.

But Infantino told AFP last month, while attending Iran's friendly against Costa Rica in Turkey, that Iran will be at the World Cup and that they will play "where they are supposed to be, according to the draw".

The FIFA chief reiterated that stance in Washington last week.

When contacted by AFP about Zampolli's suggestion on Thursday, FIFA referred to Infantino's recent comments.

In 2022, Zampolli made a similar suggestion, proposing to FIFA that Italy should replace Iran at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar because of the Islamic Republic's crackdown on protesters at that time. His proposal fell on deaf ears.

Zampolli is an Italian-American socialite, businessman and founded a modelling agency, who claims to have introduced Trump to his current wife Melania Trump.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/8512380

Op-ed by Rushan Abbas, Founder and executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs Chairperson of the Executive Committee at World Uyghur Congress; and Dean Baxendale, CEO of China Democracy Fund.

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The vocabulary of diplomacy has always struggled to keep pace with the realities of power. Today, as technoauthoritarianism reshapes global influence, Canada faces a stark test: whether its economic and diplomatic engagement with Beijing can be reconciled with mounting evidence of systemic human rights abuses, most notably the ongoing genocide against the Uyghur people. Recent public statements and testimonies have only sharpened that dilemma, exposing not just policy tensions, but a deeper moral fault line.

That fault line was laid bare during Margaret McCuaig-Johnston’s parliamentary hearing on the risks of strengthening ties with China, when MP Michael Ma’s remarks on forced labour drew justified outrage. His dismissal of credible evidence and reports, and his claim that only what can be seen with one’s own eyes should be believed, reflect a broader pattern in which economic pragmatism is invoked to downplay China’s human rights abuses. It also speaks to a broader pattern of whitewashing and propaganda efforts by the Chinese government designed to obscure Uyghur forced labour and make it harder to detect.

The federal government’s broader posture on forced labour, echoed in remarks attributed to Prime Minister Mark Carney, further complicates this landscape. By framing forced labour as a phenomenon that “happens everywhere,” Ottawa adopts this diffuse, globalized lens that, while not inaccurate in the abstract, has the effect of diluting scrutiny on the specific, state-directed system operating in Xinjiang, Tibet, and elsewhere in China.

The state-imposed forced labour system in Xinjiang has been codified into Chinese government policy. The forcible recruitment, transfer, and assimilation of Uyghurs are framed as “poverty alleviation,” with the Uyghur population having no agency to refuse government employment. In 2024 alone, Chinese government data recorded 3.34 million instances of transfers into labour placements. The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) 2024 handbook explicitly includes “labour transfers” targeting marginalized groups for forced relocation, directly addressing the Uyghur context. United Nations experts have further noted that the severity of such coercion may amount to enslavement in early 2026.

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This rhetorical positioning functions as a form of tacit relativism. By universalizing the problem, it avoids directly confronting its most acute manifestation. Notably absent from the current public framing is any sustained acknowledgment of the Uyghurs’ suffering. Instead, policy emphasis has remained tethered to economic considerations, including the strategic benefits of deepening trade ties and facilitating the influx of low-cost Chinese electric vehicles into Canadian markets. In this light, human rights concerns risk being subordinated to industrial and consumer priorities.

To understand why this tension matters, one must situate it within the broader architecture of technoauthoritarianism. The Chinese state’s fusion of advanced surveillance technologies with centralized political control has enabled a system that not only suppresses dissent domestically but also projects influence internationally.

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The Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs’ 2025 capstone project, Shining A Light On Uyghur Genocide, provides a sobering synthesis of available evidence: mass detention, forced labour transfers, family separations, and the systematic erosion of cultural and religious identity.

What distinguishes the Uyghur case is not only the scale of alleged abuses, but also the industrial integration of repression. The report details how coerced labour is not an isolated phenomenon but part of a broader state-directed apparatus that feeds into global supply chains—from textiles to technology components. In this sense, technoauthoritarianism is not confined within China’s borders; it is embedded, often invisibly, within the very networks that sustain international commerce.

For Canada, this presents a profound policy contradiction. Efforts to deepen economic ties with Beijing, whether through trade, investment, or research collaboration, risk entangling Canadian institutions in systems that contradict the country’s stated commitment to human rights. The argument that engagement can serve as a moderating influence on China’s behaviour has grown increasingly tenuous in light of evidence suggesting that economic integration, absent stringent safeguards, may inadvertently reinforce coercive practices.

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Canada’s credibility on the global stage, particularly in forums where it advocates for a rules-based order and human rights, depends on the coherence of its actions. To condemn abuses rhetorically while expanding ties that may facilitate them is to invite accusations of selective principle.

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This is why the growing public outcry over forced labour and Uyghur persecution should not be dismissed as activist excess or geopolitical posturing. It is, rather, a reflection of shifting societal expectations that governments align their economic policies with ethical standards. The case of Dr. Gulshan Abbas, who remains imprisoned in apparent retaliation for the advocacy of her sister and co-author Rushan Abbas, is emblematic of the broader pattern of transnational repression affecting Uyghur families, including Canadians, and highlights the human cost at the center of these policies.

Uyghur forced labour is not a distant issue. It is in our homes, our wardrobes, and our hands. It affects more than 17 industries worldwide and taints the Canadian market.

For Canada, the question is no longer whether this reality should inform its approach to Beijing, but how and how urgently it is willing to act.

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Bangkok (AFP) – Vast tracts of Indonesian rainforest home to endangered orangutans have been cleared for plantations supplying a maker of "carbon-neutral" packaging, an investigation by AFP and The Gecko Project has found.

Pulp and paper firm Asia Symbol has a no-deforestation policy and supplied major companies like Haleon, the British pharmaceutical giant behind household brands Panadol and Sensodyne.

But wood from plantations where tens of thousands of hectares of forest were felled -- including orangutan habitat -- was processed at an Indonesian mill supplying Asia Symbol.

Haleon said it was cutting ties with Asia Symbol after the investigation, which used satellite data, audit documents, trade records and ship-tracking to trace wood grown on cleared rainforest in Borneo to Asia Symbol's supply chain.

Experts and locals blame the plantations that supplied Asia Symbol for destroying their livelihoods and causing flooding, wildlife loss and land disputes.

"My eyes well up remembering how it was," local village leader Agau told AFP, describing the devastation in Central Kalimantan, one of the most biodiverse places on the planet.

The investigation also raises questions about Asia Symbol's parent company, Singapore-headquartered conglomerate Royal Golden Eagle (RGE).

It committed to a deforestation-free supply chain in 2015 and secured a $1 billion "sustainability-linked loan" in 2024.

It is currently trying to win back Forest Stewardship Council certification designating its products as responsibly sourced.

But the investigation found that its Asia Symbol affiliate received pulp from a mill fed by plantations that cleared nearly 30,000 hectares of forest between 2016 and 2024 -- an area almost three times the size of Paris.

"The findings of this investigation indicate that RGE is still very much in the business of deforestation," said Robin Averbeck, forest programme director at Rainforest Action Network.

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Karex produces over 5 billion condoms annually and is a supplier ​to leading brands like Durex and Trojan, as well as state health systems such ​as Britain's NHS

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/karex-bhd-condom-shortage-price-b2962435.html

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

Regardless of whether it will be put into effect, the new law alters the existing legal framework in ways that appear to violate international law—as a public statement composed by 25 Israeli international law scholars (including the two of us) suggests. Israel is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), adopted in 1966. The ICCPR is one of the foundational instruments of international human rights law, ratified by the vast majority of the world’s states (175 states parties). Among its core protections, the covenant guarantees the right to life and imposes strict limitations on the continued use of the death penalty. Although Israel has previously contested the application of the covenant to the occupied territories, this legal claim has been rejected by all international bodies that have reviewed it, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It is hard to see how such a claim can be made with respect to Knesset legislation, which purports to apply not only in Israel proper but also in the West Bank.

The Human Rights Committee’s General Comment 36 (2018), which represents a broadly accepted interpretation of state obligations relating to the protection of the right to life under the ICCPR, states (in paragraph 34) that the Article 6 prohibition on reintroducing the death penalty, once abolished, includes a ban on extending the list of crimes to which the death penalty applies or relaxing associated procedural safeguards, even for states that have not formally abolished the death penalty. Furthermore, states are required to put themselves on a path toward the abolition of the death penalty. In any event, legal proceedings relating to its imposition must meet all due process safeguards, including the right to seek commutation of the death sentence (a parallel requirement exists under Article 75 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, governing military trials in occupied territories).

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/8502219

The Australian government has been urged to take stronger action to protect overseas students from political repression.

Archived version

The Australian government has been urged to take stronger action to protect Chinese international students from political repression by authorities on their return after a Chinese student was allegedly sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for joining pro-democracy protests in Australia.

The student, who the Guardian has chosen not to name, lost contact with his friends in Sydney after returning to China in December 2024.

He was known to have plans to stay in Australia after graduation. Two employers also confirmed with Guardian Australia that they have lost contact with the student since January 2025.

A representative of the student’s family in Australia told the Guardian that the student was arrested and charged with secession for participating in pro-democracy protests in Sydney, including two solidarity protests for China’s ethnic minorities.

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The student allegedly went on trial ahead of China’s introduction of the ethnic unity law, which human rights advocates have argued worsens existing restrictions on minority groups’ use of their languages.

A number of people who previously participated in rallies in Sydney critical of the Chinese government said they knew the student through the events.

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Maya Wang, the deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said his arrest could be part of broader political repression targeting Chinese international students who arrived in the west after the 2022 “white paper” protests.

In December 2022, hundreds of young Chinese people gathered and held white papers in several cities in China to protest amid anger over harsh Covid lockdown measures.

The protest, which was one of the biggest youth-led rallies in China since the 1989 Tiananmen protest, had pushed Beijing to end Covid lockdown measures, while authorities began arresting protesters.

Wang said that while China traditionally focused on suppressing activism within the country, its focus has shifted to overseas after migration waves in recent years.

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“They have kind of intimidated enough people inside China, and then people move abro

ad and continue to activism, or experience new activism – because many of these students are new activists – then naturally, your focus of enforcement moves abroad,” said Wang.

“The young students today, are, as a group, more problematic from the Chinese government point [of view].”

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In 2021, a report by Human Rights Watch revealed Chinese pro-democracy students faced intimidation and harassment and fear of reprisal.

In September, the Guardian reported that 22-year-old Chinese student Yadi Zhang was detained in China allegedly over her involvement in activism for Tibet.

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The shadow home affairs and immigration minister, Jonno Duniam, said the case of the missing student was “deeply concerning”, and said universities have “a clear responsibility to ensure all students can speak freely without intimidation”.

“The Albanese government and universities must have strong safeguards against foreign interference and ensure robust protections for students exercising free speech. This includes clear reporting mechanisms and consequences for intimidation or coercion,” he said.

In a statement, a Department of Home Affairs spokesperson said it won’t comment on individual cases for privacy reasons, but “it is unacceptable for any foreign government to target members of our community in ways that prevent individuals exercising their fundamental rights and freedoms in Australia”.

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The drug is being increasingly found in waterways and presents an environmental challenge.

Study: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(26)00315-5

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/australianz/salmon-exposed-to-cocaine-swim-further-study

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

Spain's government on Tuesday approved a sweeping plan to alleviate the country's housing problem, one of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's main political vulnerabilities ahead of next year's elections.

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/04/22/spain-launches-7bn-public-housing-plan-to-tackle-soaring-rents-and-housing-crisis

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

A draft law in the UK to create a "smoke-free generation" by banning smoking for anybody born after 2008 has cleared both houses of parliament. Only the king's signature remains for it to become law.

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.dw.com/en/uk-moves-to-ban-smoking-for-everyone-born-after-2008/a-76884561

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

The blueprint aims to deepen the construction of “youth-development-oriented cities".

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/china-unveils-plan-to-make-cities-more-youth-child-friendly

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/62998193

Energy companies in Ukraine and Hungary have both said that oil flows through the Druzhba pipeline from Russia via Belarus have restarted. Hungary and Slovakia expect the first supplies to arrive by Thursday.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/50884376

Firsthand testimony from Zhang Yabo — a former Han Chinese police officer who served in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region from 2014 to 2023 — proves that state-imposed forced labor in Xinjiang has not ended but has grown more pervasive and deliberately harder to detect.

Parts of Zhang Yabo’s testimony, accompanied by VOC’s [Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation's] latest findings, are published in Foreign Policy, Sourcing Journal, and The Spectator along with a companion profile of the witness by Der Spiegel.

Zhang’s account and corroborating documentation are the most operationally detailed insider testimony yet obtained from within Xinjiang’s security apparatus. Between 2014 and 2016, while working as a detention center officer, Zhang witnessed the routine beating and torture of Uyghur detainees, the rape of a female detainee by a colleague during interrogation, and deaths resulting from abuse. He estimates that approximately 25 percent of the adult population in his jurisdiction was interned in re-education camps.

Between 2018 and 2020, Zhang supervised forced labor transfers to Xinjiang’s cotton fields, describing government convoys escorted by armed forces, identity cards confiscated to prevent escape, ten-hour workdays, and strict prohibitions on prayer and any religious expression.

Beginning in early 2023, authorities initiated a campaign of short-term arbitrary detentions to enforce total obedience among Uyghur populations. Residents who had previously failed to participate in state labor transfers were subjected to detentions lasting up to 15 days under intentionally harsh conditions.

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Forced labor transfers have since reached a record 3.4 million deployment instances in 2025, and direct exports from Xinjiang to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union surged 465 percent during Ma’s tenure, according to official customs data.

Zhang’s testimony further documents how Beijing’s repression evolved under Ma Xingrui, who succeeded Chen Quanguo as the region’s Communist Party secretary in December 2021 and remained in power until July 2025. Rather than dismantling the coercive apparatus, Ma transitioned the campaign of repression from high-visibility internment to decentralized, normalized coercion that is far harder for the outside world to detect.

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“Zhang Yabo risked everything to bring this testimony to light. Beijing has frozen his accounts, threatened his family, and charged him with endangering national security,” said Dr. Eric Patterson, VOC’s President and CEO. “This is not history. It is happening now, woven directly into global supply chains. VOC will continue to expose these atrocities until the international community acts with the urgency this crisis demands.”

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cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/50886341

A majority of Russian companies have effectively frozen hiring through the end of the year as weakening demand ripples through the economy, according to a report by the Central Bank.

The findings point to a broad shift in the labor market after several years of acute worker shortages, suggesting that slowing economic activity is beginning to ease pressure on employers — though without triggering widespread layoffs.

Some 64% of companies surveyed by the regulator said they do not plan to change staff numbers this year, citing subdued demand for their products.

The share was highest in transport and logistics, while firms in industry, mining and manufacturing were less likely to report a hiring freeze.

...

Web Archive link

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/50858589

A woman who was tortured in one of China’s notorious Uyghur detention camps has launched a blistering attack on [UK Prime Minister} Sir Keir Starmer, accusing him of “disrespecting human rights” by approving plans for a Chinese mega-embassy in London.

Sayragul Sauytbay, an ethnic Kazakh who says she witnessed serious abuses when she was forced to work in one of China’s Xinjiang internment camps, accused the British prime minister of prioritising economic and political gain over international law.

“The recent activities of the current UK government have left us in deep anguish and fear,” she said, adding that Britain has “no right to speak about freedom and democracy” given its efforts to strengthen its relationship with President Xi Jinping’s government.

The activist, who is based in Sweden, now serves as the vice president of East Turkestan’s government-in-exile. In 2020, she led a complaint in the International Criminal Court (ICC) accusing Chinese officials of genocide and crimes against humanity, after fleeing China in 2018.

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Speaking to The Independent, she detailed grave abuses in Chinese internment camps and recalled the horrors of the so-called “black room” in which detainees were tortured.

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In the middle of the night in January 2017, Ms Sauytbay was detained for the first time by authorities in Xinjiang, an autonomous territory known as East Turkestan by several Turkic ethnic minority groups, including Uyghurs and Kazakhs.

She says she was interrogated on the basis that she had family in Kazakhstan, after her husband and two children had emigrated and gained Kazakh citizenship a year earlier.

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At the camp, Ms Sauytbay says she witnessed horrific abuse of detainees.

“They engage in all forms of torture against the detainees, including both psychological and physical torture,” she said. “They routinely rape women. I’ve witnessed gang rapes as well with my own eyes.”

She says that a “black room” existed in the camp: a dark cell without any cameras where detention guards carried out torture against the detainees away from view.

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“You can’t talk, you can’t cry, you can’t smile – even as an instructor, you can’t speak with the detainees unless it’s about teaching them,” she recalled.

When one batch of new detainees arrived, an elderly Kazakh woman ran to Ms Sauytbay crying. She hugged her, and told her she had committed no crimes. She was tortured as a result of the exchange.

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“For several hours, they made me sit in the electric chair. They beat me. I thought I was going to die. Then, after they beat me up, I fainted. I woke up at 6am to the signal of the wake-up alarm of the camp, and pinched myself to see if I was just dreaming or if I was alive.”

Rape, she added, was a “very common occurrence” in the camp, with prison guards taking “whichever woman that they like”.

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‘The UK is hypocritical’

Kazakhs and Uyghurs, Ms Sauytbay said, once looked to the United Kingdom for “hope and help”.

But in recent months, Downing Street has sought to repair the tense relationship between UK and China – despite Beijing’s human rights record and its alliances with Russia and Iran.

The prime minister advocated for a “more sophisticated” relationship with the Chinese government as he paid a landmark visit to Beijing in January, stressing the financial benefits of an improved relationship with the world’s second-largest economy.

Days before the visit, the UK had approved a controversial plan for a Chinese mega-embassy in London, criticised by many as a risk to national security.

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Following a near-six-month stint in one of the detention camps, Ms Sauytbay was officially dismissed from her role at the kindergartens.

It was only a matter of days before the Chinese authorities returned to her door. Again, she was detained and interrogated in the middle of the night and told she would return to the camps for three years to be “re-educated”.

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Ms Sauytbay fled for Sweden, where she now resides after being granted asylum. She is 4,500km from home - but does not feel she has truly broken free from the threat posed by the Chinese government.

“I don’t feel that I’m 100 per cent safe,” she said. “The CCP has a long reach. It has agents in all these countries. It’s able to use its influence and soft power to get its way and intimidate and silence people.

“The CCP’s increasing influence in democratic nations is not only a threat to the security of those nations, but it’s a threat to democracy, and it’s a very serious issue that needs to be confronted.”

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Web Archive link

The ongoing humanitarian blockade has undermined the work of UNRWA, WFP, WHO, and other UN-affiliated organizations.

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://truthout.org/articles/israel-continues-to-kill-aid-workers-in-gaza-seven-months-into-the-ceasefire/

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

Hungary’s incoming Prime Minister Peter Magyar said he would halt the departure from the International Criminal Court that his predecessor Viktor Orban initiated, affirming that Hungary would respect its obligation to detain leaders on its territory sought by the Hague-based tribunal.

Archived version: https://archive.is/20260420172225/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-20/hungary-must-arrest-visiting-leaders-sought-by-icc-magyar-says

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.