CURRENTS
SIGN OF THE TIMES
A protester in London
makes a risqué pun about
the United Kingdom’s
new prime minister, Boris
Johnson.
CHRIS BETHELLINEQUALITY WATCH
THE DIFFERENCE IN
LIFE EXPECTANCY24
years
BETWEEN A WEALTHY AND
POOR NEIGHBOURHOOD IN
SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL
(79.4 vs 55.6 YEARS OLD).Source: Rede Nossa São PauloHONDURAS
CAR AVANS IN MOTION
The huge media interest in
Central American immigrants
who amassed in their
thousands in caravans at the
US border in November last
year gave the impression that
it was a one-off event. But new
caravans keep coming.
That’s because there is a
political force propelling
Hondurans in particular,
which gets altogether less
coverage: the regime of
the US-backed president
Juan Orlando Hernández.
Protesters there say they lack
access to food, medicines,UNITED STATES
FREE THINKING
The academic publishing
industry has long been seen as
unfair. Typically, researchers
who submit papers to journals
are not paid and sometimes
have to pay a fee. Peer
reviewers, who ensure the
quality is up to scratch, do
the work for free, too. After
publication, though, neither
academics nor the public can
access the research without
paying eye-watering fees.
A huge challenge to this
model has just come from
the University of California,
which, as reported in Vox,
has taken the bold step of
cancelling its $11-million
annual subscription to the
science publisher Elsevier –
which has an annual revenue
of $3.2 billion and a profit
margin of 19 per cent.
The university’s principled
decision – which has seen its
27,500 scientists lose direct
access to thousands of articles- is a win for open-access
campaigners. It comes one year
after universities in Sweden
and Hungary cancelled their
Elsevier subscriptions, too.
HUSNA RIZVI
ITALY
DEMOCRACY VS OIL
A UK-based oil company
is suing Italy after a local
campaign led to the refusal of
an oil-drilling concession in
the Ombrina Mare oil field in
the Adriatic Sea.
Using a secretive World
Bank institution called the
International Centre for
Settlement of Investment
Disputes, Rockhopper
Exploration is claiming that
Italy breached the Energy
Charter Treaty after the
country backtracked on plans.
Rockhopper is claiming
$350 million in damages –
seven times the amount the
company spent, according
to campaigners – for ‘lost
profits’. Italy is already in
deep water financially, with
public debt at 131 per cent of
its GDP.‘This seems like bullying,’
says Maria Rita D’Orsogna,
one of the leaders of the
campaign against the oil
platform. ‘It’s a slap to
democracy.’
Residents started
organizing soon after
discovering the plans for an
oil platform in 2008.
Fabrizia Arduini, from
World Wildlife Fund Italy,
explains that the platform
would have pumped out some
200 tonnes daily of steam,
particulates, hydrocarbons
and sulphur airborne
substances just six kilometres
off the Teatini Coast, an area
of natural beauty.
The campaign gave rise to
some of the Abruzzo region’s
biggest environmental
protests. In 2013, 40,
people, according to the
organizers, marched in the
region’s biggest city, Pescara.
In 2015, 60,000 took to the
streets in nearby Lanciano –
which has a population of just
36,000.
In 2016, the Italian
government caved in and
outlawed oil drilling within 12
nautical miles from the coast,
blocking drilling in Ombrina
Mare as well as dozens of
other oil platforms.
Then came the arbitration.
Campaigners worry about
the chilling effect these
disputes will have on govern-
ments, when decommission-
ing fossil-fuel infrastructure
is a pre-condition to keeping
climate change within safe
limits.
Hearings and key docu-
ments are kept confidential
and campaigners have not
been invited to testify.
An outcome is expected by
early 2020.
ALESSIO PERRONE10 NEW INTERNATIONALIST