From The Guardian

UK students launch Barclays ‘career boycott’ over bank’s climate policies

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Campaign at leading universities such as Oxbridge and UCL warns lender it will miss out on top talent if it finances fossil fuels

Hundreds of students from leading UK universities have launched a “career boycott” of Barclays over its climate policies, warning that the bank will miss out on top talent unless it stops financing fossil fuel companies.

More than 220 students from Barclays’ top recruitment universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, and University College London, have sent a letter to the high street lender, saying they will not work for Barclays and raising the alarm over its funding for oil and gas firms including Shell, TotalEnergies, Exxon and BP.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene among US public figures hit by threats and swatting

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Congresswoman said hoaxer tried to trigger police response while Colorado justices who ruled against Trump face threats

The political became personal over the Christmas holiday as the homes of politicos and judges were targeted by threats, protests and “swatting” hoaxes by pranksters who call in fake emergencies to authorities in the hopes of prompting a forceful police response.

A swatting hoax targeted the Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. Authorities said they were investigating threats against the Colorado supreme court justices who ruled that Trump could not appear on the state’s ballots in the 2024 presidential election because he incited an insurrection on the day of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

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New breed of climate protesters vows to take fight to ‘cowards’ of US politics

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Climate Defiance, trying to make the climate crisis a top issue in 2024 election, isn’t afraid to anger ‘cowards’ and ‘criminals’

A climate protest group backed by a cadre of Hollywood film-makers is preparing to take action against “cowards” and “criminals” of all political stripes as the 2024 election approaches.

Climate Defiance, which disrupted events featuring a string of Biden administration officials this year, and targeted Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, in December, will consider protesting at events staged by both Democrats and Republicans on the campaign trail after concluding that its “very disruptive” action was bearing fruit.

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Tuesday briefing: Why 2023 was a watershed year for the climate crisis

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In today’s newsletter: The last 12 months will be remembered for record-breaking temperatures, but also for government-backed clampdowns on climate protesters

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Good morning.

Record after record has been broken this year. Antarctic sea ice hit “mind blowing” lows; greenhouse gas levels and global temperatures hit record highs, as did ocean temperatures, and there has been unprecedented mass coral bleaching. Another alarming record was hit on 17 November when the Earth briefly hit 2C of warming above pre-industrial levels for the first time.

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‘We’re tired of being good girls’: Russia’s military wives and mothers protest against Putin

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Female-led movements are challenging the official narrative that mobilised troops are required for war against Ukraine

Against a backdrop of snow-capped birch trees, a group of women wearing white headscarves blend into the Russian winter landscape. In a country where public dissent is rare, their blunt message to Vladimir Putin stands out: bring our men back from Ukraine.

“We want a total demobilisation. Civilians should not be engaged in the fighting,” says one of the women at the start of the nine-minute address this month. “There are many of us, and our numbers will only grow.”

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Protest in central London calls for Gaza ceasefire and boycott of brands

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Demonstrators in and around Oxford Street campaign against retailers they say are linked to Israel

Hundreds of people have marched along Oxford Street in London calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a boycott of “Israeli-linked” brands, as traffic in the busy shopping district was brought to a standstill days before Christmas.

“There can be no Christmas as usual while a genocide is happening,” the organisers and activist group Sisters Uncut wrote on social media on Saturday, calling for the boycott of brands including Puma, Hewlett-Packard and Axa.

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2023 was the year governments looked at the climate crisis – and decided to persecute the activists | Owen Jones

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Around the world, the people fighting for the survival of our planet are being shamefully silenced and villified

Injustice is easy to oppose after it has receded into the past, and there is no cost to imagining yourself as a hero long after the event. Everyone celebrates the suffragettes now, but at the time they were vilified as hateful spinsters and terrorists. McCarthyism is a pejorative political label on right and left alike now, but at his peak, more Americans approved of Senator Joseph McCarthy than frowned on his witch-hunt. Most people would like to believe they’d have stood up against the homophobia of 1980s Britain – yet, by 1987, only 11% of the British public believed same-sex relations to be “not wrong at all”.

Which takes us to climate activism. This year has seen a global onslaught against people agitating for more action to mitigate the worst effects of the climate crisis. Courts can issue stern judgments, but so can history, and you have to wonder its future verdict on how the persecution and silencing of those raising the alarm only escalated when the scientific evidence had become so cast-iron, and when extreme weather events hammered home the imminent danger facing the human species. Here in Britain, a government which is reneging on its climate commitments – not least by expanding oil and gas licences – is simultaneously introducing repressive legislation to silence those holding them to account.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

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Surveillance Britain: where police are quietly trying to access 50m photos for one mass lineup | Katy Watts

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A sneaky provision in the criminal justice bill seeks to extend the use of deeply intrusive facial recognition technology

When you send off your details and photo to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) for your first driving licence, you’re probably thinking about being able to do things like taking friends on a road trip, dropping the kids off to school or helping elderly relatives get around. Few of us, I imagine, are willingly signing up to join a massive police lineup.

But that’s what new powers that the government is trying to sneak through in the new criminal justice bill mean. The measures – not referred to explicitly in the bill – will allow the police to run facial recognition searches on a database containing 50 million UK driving licence holders, to compare the biometric data contained in their photographs with images captured by CCTV or on social media. This new sweeping power should worry anyone who cares about the fundamental rights to privacy and free expression.

Katy Watts is the lawyer at Liberty

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Javier Milei’s radical economic policies for Argentina met with protests

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New libertarian president accused of drawing up a ‘battle plan against working people’

Thousands of protesters have poured on to the streets of Buenos Aires after Argentina’s new president announced a far-reaching emergency decree containing dozens of controversial economic measures – a move one prominent critic compared to the actions of an absolute monarchy.

Javier Milei, a radical libertarian economist who was inaugurated less than a fortnight ago, won power promising a dramatic shake-up of Argentina’s moribund economy amid rampant inflation and widespread poverty. On Wednesday night Milei appeared on television, flanked by 12 stony-faced ministers and top officials, to unveil a decree he claimed would haul the South American country out of “the economic hell we are now living through”.

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Environmental campaigners filmed, threatened and harassed at Cop28

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Indigenous campaigners, human rights defenders and climate activists say they are being silenced by fear of reprisals

Incidents of harassment, surveillance, threats and intimidation are creating a climate of fear at UN events including the recent Cop28 climate conference in Dubai, experts have said.

Indigenous campaigners, human rights defenders and environmental activists say they are increasingly afraid to speak out on urgent issues because of concerns about reprisals from governments or fossil fuel industries.

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Protest Song review – grief, rage and a singalong in Occupy movement drama

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Arcola theatre, London
This timely revival of Tim Price’s monologue about a rough sleeper drawn into activism leaves little space for vulnerability

‘Got any change?” asks a man with a woolly hat and a can of beer. He appears on the side of the stage with the look of a genuine rough sleeper seeking succour from the cold outside. He waits for an answer and it is harder to look at our feet or tell him we haven’t anything to give him when he’s standing in this intimate space.

It is a compelling beginning and an apt moment to revive Tim Price’s drama of homelessness, given the approach of winter and its rise of fatalities among rough sleepers.

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US officials monitored pro-Assange protests in Australia for ‘anti-US sentiment’, documents reveal

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Previously classified papers detail how the US embassy in Canberra responded to WikiLeaks’ release of embassy cables in 2010 and ‘sensationalist’ local media

American officials monitored pro-Assange protests in Australia for “anti-US sentiment”, warned of “increasing sympathy, particularly on the left” for the WikiLeaks founder in his home country and derided local media’s “sensationalist” reporting of the explosive 2010 cable leaks, previously classified records show.

Documents released by the US state department via freedom of information laws give new insight into how the US embassy in Canberra and its security team reacted to WikiLeaks’ release of 250,000 embassy cables in late 2010.

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Extinction Rebellion co-founder who broke window at HS2 protest spared jail

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Dr Gail Bradbrook found guilty of criminal damage to Department for Transport building in 2019

An Extinction Rebellion cofounder was spared jail after causing thousands of pounds worth of damage to a government building.

Gail Bradbrook, 51, was found guilty by a jury of breaking a window in a protest at HS2 at the Department for Transport in October 2019.

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Climate groups begin legal actions against Rosebank North Sea oil project

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Greenpeace UK and Uplift are seeking a judicial review in the Scottish courts to stop opening of huge new oilfield

Climate campaigners have launched two separate legal challenges to government plans to open a massive new oilfield in the North Sea.

Greenpeace and the campaign group Uplift argue that the decision to press ahead with the Rosebank development – the UK’s biggest untapped oilfield – is incompatible with the UK’s legally binding climate commitments, and say ministers’ original analysis ignored the devastating impact of burning oil from the site.

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‘Prison or bullet’: new Argentina government promises harsh response to protest

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President Javier Milei and his allies are preparing new security guidelines in anticipation of protests against currency devaluation

Human rights activists in Argentina have expressed consternation over new security guidelines to crack down on an anticipated wave of protests after the incoming government of libertarian president Javier Milei devalued the country’s currency by more than 50%.

Protesting individuals and organizations will be identified with “video, digital or manual means” – and then billed for the cost of sending security forces to police their demonstrations, said Milei’s security minister, Patricia Bullrich, as she announced the new protocol on Thursday.

“The state is not going to pay for the use of the security forces; organizations that have legal status will have to pay or individuals will have to bear the cost,” Bullrich said.

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Pro-Palestine rally leaders credit public ‘pressure’ with Labor’s shift on Gaza

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Change of heart on ceasefire shows ‘collective action is working’, Sydney protest speaker says

Speakers at Sydney’s pro-Palestine rally have said public outcry against the war in Gaza has pushed the Albanese government to shift its position and back calls for a humanitarian ceasefire, while criticising Labor for not calling for a permanent end to the conflict.

On Wednesday Australia joined 152 other nations in voting in favour of a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and an immediate and unconditional release of all hostages in an emergency session of the United Nations general assembly. The move followed Australia’s decision in late October to abstain from casting a vote on a similar motion.

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Marles will ‘make right decision in Australia’s interest’ over deploying navy vessels to Red Sea, Farrell says – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

Up to 49 tonnes of illicit drugs prevented from reaching Australia

Australian federal police and international law enforcement partners have prevented up to 49 tonnes of illicit drugs from reaching Australia throughout the past financial year.

The AFP cannot overstate the amount of harm that 29 tonnes of methamphetamine could have caused to the community if it had not been intercepted by law enforcement.

On average, close to 12,000 Australians are hospitalised from methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin use every 12 months.

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World watches as landmark Jimmy Lai trial set to begin in Hong Kong

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Territory’s global reputation on the line as media mogul and democracy activist finally tried over alleged national security crimes

Hong Kong’s global reputation will be tested this week when the long-delayed trial of the pro-democracy activist and former media mogul Jimmy Lai gets under way.

Lai, who turned 76 in jail this month, is charged with colluding with foreign forces under the national security law, as well as sedition. If convicted, which experts say is highly likely, the British national faces spending the rest of his life in prison.

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Just Stop Oil activist jailed for six months for taking part in slow march

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Stephen Gingell, 57, thought to be first to receive prison sentence under new Public Order Act

A climate activist has been jailed for six months after pleading guilty to taking part in a peaceful slow march protest on a London road.

The sentence handed to Stephen Gingell, 57, is thought to be the first jailing under a new law that critics say makes anyone walking in a road liable for prosecution for “interference with key national infrastructure”.

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