THE body of a teenage asylum seeker is washed up on a French beach.

He was, reported the BBC, a desperate 16-year-old seeking sanctuary in Britain another victim of corruption, violence and, by implication, the heartless Tories.

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In fact, the poor soul was 28-year-old Sudanese Abdulfatah Hamdallah, whose official asylum claim had been ruled unacceptable by the French authorities.

A non-swimmer, he stole a toy dinghy and tried to cross Europes busiest sea lane before puncturing his flimsy craft with a spade used as a paddle a mile offshore.

Whichever way you look at it, this is a tragic story.

Yet for some bizarre reason, Britain is getting the blame.

Why, wail the shroud-wavers, are WE putting lives at risk?

In truth, migrants are the raw material for a cruel criminal industry.

Countless young men pay people-smugglers billions to cross continents and reach British soil.

At least one in four lies about his age, according to social care records. Many are well over 18, as was 28-year-old Abdulfatah.

In this age-limit lottery, winners hit the jackpot with free accommodation, healthcare and spending money up to the age of 25.

All claim to be from war zones, fleeing for their lives.

Some are telling the truth. Many make false claims, both about their age and their origins. Some, reportedly coached by aid workers, concoct fake personal histories and nationalities and destroy evidence of their true identity.

With 50,000 illegals now parked in temporary accommodation around the country, hard-pressed officials struggle to tell one from the other.

In fact, only some are in genuine fear for their lives.

The United Nations warns seven out of ten coming through Libya are economic opportunists using criminal gangs to jump the queue. Some are battle-hardened Islamists.

They will remain on the hook to gangsters who shipped them over.

Most who reach France have been officially ordered, at some point along the way, to leave Europe.

Many complain bitterly about French racism and ill-treatment. With every other country moving them on, Britain just 22 miles away is their last hope.

Once here, thanks to zealous human rights lawyers they are unlikely ever to leave and, under our liberal laws, might one day bring their family over to join them.

This explains why they are desperate.

France could solve this crisis by closing camps and cracking down on criminal gangs.

Instead, as The Sun reported on Saturday, Emmanuel Macron is using it as a Brexit negotiating weapon.

If we want a neighbourly hand, we must cough up another 30million and abandon our rights to sovereign status over fishing and human rights laws.

Macron is happy to see migrants leaving.

He thinks it is Britains fault for being so soft an undeniable fact which Boris Johnson is, I am told, about to address. The whole point of Brexit was taking back control.

Covid has exposed the shocking, perhaps even deadly, lack of such control at the heart of government.

Ministers pull levers and nothing happens on PPE and Covid testing. In June, they demanded a return to school. Nothing happened.

Britain is paying the price for an unaccountable bureaucracy, the Whitehall Blob. And for a legion of grotesquely expensive quangos such as Public Health England, identified here on Sunday by former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith.

We are tied in chains by lawyers posing as human rights champions and troublemakers who challenge decisions with costly and time-consuming judicial reviews.

Well, I am here to tell you, folks, this is all about to end ...I hope.

Whitehall Remainers are seething over a range of yet-to-be revealed measures which will sweep away EU-style meddling and regulation and hand power back where it belongs: In elected political hands.

Comment

DAN WOOTTONThe BBC's leftie elite doesn't report the real news - it shapes it

Comment

JANE MOORE This online clothes size farce proves we need to return to the High Street

Comment

THE SUN SAYSFear of our kids getting Covid is out of all proportion to the actual threat

Comment

ROD LIDDLEWhy should I pay the licence fee when the BBC despises everything I believe in?

Comment

ROD LIDDLEHalfwit Tories are worse than Frank Spencer or Benny from Crossroads

Comment

THE SUN SAYSProductivity and innovation will nosedive unless workers return to the office

Illegal migrants will be sent back. Long legal wrangles will be terminated. Judicial reviews will be effectively abolished.

Human rights laws will be tailored to fit the needs of Britain, not Brussels.

Thanks to Brexit, the Bonfire Of The Quangos is about to begin...at last.

Free world problems

THE US presidential elections are private grief, but every Western democracy has skin in this game.

The leadership of the Free World is being fought between two gaffe-prone third-raters, neither likely to last a full term.

Republican incumbent Donald Trump, 74, makes even his rare triumphs like the Israeli-Arab peace deal look shabby.

Dazzlingly dentured Democrat Joe Biden, 77, if victorious, will be remembered for turning a non-entity opportunist into the Free Worlds first black female leader if he fails to see out his term.

Chosen running-mate Kamala Harris might be a surprising success...or an unmitigated, untested and unelected disaster.

Neither Americas 150million voters nor the rest of the world will have a say.

GOT a story? RING The Sun on 0207 782 4104 or WHATSAPP on 07423720250 or EMAILexclusive@the-sun.co.uk

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Emmanuel Macron is trying to use the migrant crisis as a Brexit negotiating weapon - The Sun

But those whose claims are rejected are stuck in legal limbo

BERLIN AND GTTINGEN

ASKED WHAT he makes of his new home, Safwan Daher, a Syrian refugee, chuckles: Duderstadt, a town near Gttingen that few Germans could find on a map, is boring. No matter. Mr Daher has an enjoyable computer-programming job that pays for a flat with three bedrooms. He keeps one empty, hoping his parents will leave Syria and join him. In his spare time he hangs out with his brother, a student at Gttingen University. The next step is German citizenship, for which he has just applied.

Karam Kabbani, an activist who fled Aleppo after Bashar al-Assads thugs tortured him, has had a rougher time. Nervously chain-smoking, he describes an anguished five years bouncing from one agency to another, forced to take dead-end jobs, with no help offered for his psychological scars. He plans to leave Germany when he can. Germans are very closed people, he says. No one wants to help.

On August 31st 2015, with a growing number of asylum-seekers reaching Germany, Angela Merkel declared: Wir schaffen das (roughly, We can handle this). A few days later the chancellor opened the borders to migrants stranded in Budapest, amplifying the wave: perhaps 1.2m reached Germany before Balkan border closures and a deal with Turkey in 2016 stemmed the flow. Initially Germany handled the migrants well. Yet five years on, its experience of integrating them has been mixed.

Start with jobs. In 2015 an influx of mainly young migrants looked a neat fit for German firms facing an ageing labour force. Daimlers boss foresaw an economic miracle. Rules were eased for asylum-seekers looking for jobs, and the government pushed 1.1m through integration and language courses. By 2018 43% of the working-age asylum-seekers who arrived between 2013 and 2016 were in work or training (compared with over 75% for the same age group in Germany as a whole)better than the wave of refugees from Yugoslavia in the 1990s. (A stronger labour market helped.) Jobs came slowly at first, but accelerated as people emerged from integration courses, which hints at better to come. These numbers are not perfect, but they are hopeful, says Marlene Thiele, who runs a project at the German Chamber of Commerce to help firms hire refugees.

The headline figure conceals some awkward details. Barely half the refugees in Germanys labour force today work in skilled jobs, although over 80% did in their home countries, calculates Herbert Brcker at the Institute for Employment Research, the research arm of the Federal Employment Agency. Many wash dishes in restaurants or make beds in hotels, with few prospects for advancement (and a high chance of covid-related layoffs). Women in particular have struggled, especially those from cultures that think their place is in the home. Many newcomers, especially from countries like Eritrea and Iraq, were functionally illiterate when they arrived and are still years away from entering the job market. Control for age, and average migrant earnings are around two-thirds the native German level.

Migrants were dispersed all over Germany; most live outside cities. That was a test for Germanys decentralised government, which gives lots of power to local officials. (In Berlin integration is just an abstract question, grumbles Rolf-Georg Khler, Gttingens mayor.) A study of 92 municipalities funded by the Robert Bosch Foundation found that many were quite adaptable, for example launching their own language courses while waiting for the bureaucratic wheels to turn in Berlin. Civil society was crucial. Mr Khler credits the local sport association with speeding integration: the language of football is universal. Over half of Germanys population has worked in some way with refugees. We can activate a whole network if we need to, says Bettina Briesemeister, who runs a refugee housing centre in Gttingen.

The flip side is confusion and inefficiency. Officials are sometimes unclear which layer of government is responsible for a policy, and states and municipalities swap ideas surprisingly rarely. More than 600 under-resourced foreigners offices are responsible for matters like work permits and deportations. The bureaucratic maze is disconcerting. Ask any refugee what they fear most, and its the letterbox, says Mr Kabbani: it invariably contains demands, appointments or warnings from official bodies they have never heard of.

Like many European countries Germany has struggled to deport failed asylum-seekers. More than 200,000 people have been granted Duldung (tolerated) status, meaning they have no right to be in the country but do not face immediate deportation. Perhaps a further 50,000 have no legal status. To stop them from slipping into idleness or worse, under new rules some may work or take on apprenticeships. But insecurity persists. One such rejected asylum-seeker, Mohammad Walizada, an Afghan who had worked with an American de-mining firm in Kabul, now has a legal job in a phone shop on Sylt, a North Sea island. But he has given up on his goal of getting a doctorate in Germany. I have no hopes, its just survival, he says.

There is a huge difference in integration outcomes between people that receive protection and those that are in Duldung or rejected, says Victoria Rietig of the German Council on Foreign Relations. Just 3% of those with Duldung status can move freely throughout Germany, which is no help when looking for a job. And because Germany has no birthright citizenship rule, their children are usually given the same status, and risk being deported to a country they have never known. Its this population we should be worried about, says Ms Rietig. Germany seems afraid both of enforcing its rules and of making it too easy for failed asylum-seekers to find alternative ways into German society. As the numbers grow, the dilemma worsens.

Yet the country remains paralysed by the political battles of five years ago. The migrant crisis jolted the radical-right Alternative for Germany into third place at the 2017 election. A poll last year found a majority of Germans thought the country should accept no more refugees. These days the borders are quieter and the issue has gone off the boil, but fresh waves of migrants from Europes troubled neighbourhood can hardly be ruled out. Mama Merkel, as she is known to many refugees, long ago abandoned her Wir schaffen das mantra for a more paradoxical claim: that her decision to leave the borders open was correct, and must never be repeated.

Ahmad Denno, a well-integrated Syrian who is completing a degree in Berlin, identifies three types of German: those who treat him normally; racists who want him to leave; and those for whom he is permanently on probation. Asked if he could ever feel at home here, he shrugs. For some, I could never be German. For others, I already am. I dont feel like an outsider here. Im just looking for a normal, safe life.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline "Did they handle it?"

See more here:

Five years after arrival, Germanys refugees are integrating - The Economist

A major search and rescue operation in the eastern Aegean Sea continued into Wednesday after authorities received an emergency call from a vessel carrying an unknown number of migrants, Greeces coast guard said.

A total of 96 people were rescued from the sea 21 nautical miles (31km, 24 miles) west of the small island of Halki, near Rhodes, the coast guard said on Wednesday morning.

The migrants had been travelling in a yacht that was found partially sunk. It was not immediately clear what had caused the sinking, where the yacht had set sail for or what its intended destination was. A passenger used a cellphone to call a European emergency number late Tuesday.

The majority of those rescued were transported to the nearby island of Rhodes, the coast guard said, while some were taken to the smaller island of Karpathos.

The search and rescue operation was continuing, as it was unclear how many people had been on board the yacht, authorities said. Overnight, five coast guard vessels, military helicopters, a navy ship and five nearby vessels had participated. By Wednesday morning, the effort was scaled back to one coast guard patrol boat, one navy ship and two vessels sailing nearby.

Thousands of people continue to make their way clandestinely to the Greek islands from the nearby Turkish coast, paying smugglers to ferry them in often unseaworthy, overcrowded inflatable dinghies or other vessels.

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Migrant crisis: 96 people rescued by Greek coast guard from partially sunk yacht - The Independent

Majoritarianism is often only associated with discrimination of religious minorities. It undoubtedly is the most potent dimension of it, but there is more to majoritarianism. Majoritarianism, in essence, is about a perceived superiority and reclaiming arbitrary space and importance. It is therefore, in a fundamental sense, in conflict with ideas of republic and democracy.

Cultivating and manufacturing prejudice and hatred against religious minorities purportedly offers it the rhetorical legitimacy it needs, but majoritarianism does not stop with discriminating against the minorities, it cultivates and institutionalises a political culture of discrimination, arbitrariness and violence. In this other side of majoritarianism, it is equally terrifying for those it chooses as its enemies, and here it can pretty much be anyone who doesnt serve its interests, perceived to be a threat to its arbitrariness and of course those who choose to actively resist it.

Majoritarianism necessarily requires a continuous demonstration of arbitrary power and submission of ideas, demands and identities that stand outside of it. Majoritarianism is akin to a war machine that does not end by bringing religious minorities into submission. In fact, history tells us that the targeted minorities are suppressed but what follows that is a longer history of suppression of other communities, identities, institutions, laws and procedures, individuals and their credibility, so on. It is a process of flattening out everything in order to sustain, often, a false sense and claim of superiority of culture, religion and individuals. It is necessary to understand majoritarianism in its manifold forms.

In India today, the Narendra Modi juggernaut began by bulldozing Muslims and explicitly targeting them. It is a process of threatening their physical security, their economic opportunities, social mobility and citizenship status. This gets reflected in electoral consent to whatever extent possible. However, majoritarianism does not stop here; it necessarily then moves to create a wheels-within-wheels kind of politics and narrative.

Also read: A Hindu India Is Not Necessarily a Homogenous India

From Muslims, it moved on to create enemies within through anti-national, tukde tukde, urban Naxal, Maoists, Kashmiris, the violence at Bhima Koregaon, and so on. Majoritarianism does not, again, stop with the perceived threat of internal enemies, it necessarily moves on given its institutionalised practice of arbitrariness and compulsion to demonstrate power, muscularity and masculinity.

From internal enemies, majoritarianism moves on to undermining institutional autonomy and the credibility of individuals associated with them. The current crisis of freedom of speech related to Prashant Bhushan and the credibility of judiciary and those associated with it is a necessary corollary of majoritarian psyche. The kind of unprecedented loss of credibility of the Supreme Court will only deepen. As has the credibility of Delhi police and its alleged biased ways in relation to Delhi riots.

There is very little need to talk about the media, academic institutions of higher learning, and other social organisations. They all become mirror images of each other. They are all run through a single logic of majoritarianism which no longer necessarily remains religious or cultural. They are often invoked but the process gathers its own determinism.

From evening out institutions, majoritarianism again necessarily encourages individual mediocrity. Mediocrity is a structural necessity of majoritarian culture. Talent and innovation rarely survive under cultural majoritarian regimes. Since the initial hypothesis of cultural majoritarianism is itself false and superficial, whether it is about superior ancient culture or about clash of civilisations, in order to maintain the veracity or in the process of maintaining the authenticity of such claims, the majoritarian system chooses/includes mediocrity and excludes independent talent.

It is clear today in almost all realms that the talent used and appointed to top posts is way below the pool of talent available. In fact, only those who are mediocre survive the system as they prove to be the most efficient agents, and all others are pushed into deafening silence, including those who remain ardent supporters. One has to only recall the struggle today to remember the names of ministers and their portfolios to understand what majoritarianism does, not just to those outside but also to those who remain at the core. One has to also recollect the number officials who resigned under the current regime, from economic advisor to officials of the RBI and more.

It is only by compromising ones credibility and sacrificing ones image and talent that one becomes acceptable to the systemic movement of majoritarianism. The very process of building a monolithic order requires that individual talents and identities are completely subsumed under the tirade, it is not a happenstance. Not just individuals who stand to oppose but individuals who stand with the majoritarian structure and politics, too, experience extreme modes of insecurity and repression. This internalised repression too is as much a necessity as suppressing those who stand to oppose.

Also read: Demolition Men Do Not Build Nations, They Destroy Them

The logic of majoritarianism that moves from external enemies to internal enemies, to the logic of institutional arbitrariness to individual mediocrity and suppression, then has the necessary impact on economy. Here again, the economic crisis that India is currently witnessing, apart from global slowdown and the COVID-19 crisis is essentially due to the current majoritarian ethos in the economy. It has led to excessive Centralisation, an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty that industrialist Rahul Bajaj alluded to, and finally the inability of the current regime to envisage policies that are inclusive.

For instance, the economy today requires liquidity and purchasing power with the common people, but policy makers have steadfastly rejected this option, why? It is often interpreted as a necessity born out of neoliberal proclivities. While that may not be false, it is essentially because the majoritarian ethos disempowers the majority as a necessary part of disciplining society.

The migrant crisis and irreverent neglect was a part of the perceived process of disempowering and disciplining, which therefore also necessarily negates the option of basic income, increasing purchasing power, providing subsidies and so on. It will provide help only within the limits of disempowerment, discipline and patronage. Therefore, offering loans, as part of the atmannirbhar package is acceptable, but not basic income and new investments. Entitlements and rights are necessarily seen as antidotes to majoritarian ethos, they simply cannot coexist together. Rights and dissent make the majoritarian system and leaders associated with it vulnerable and less masculine.

The current economic crisis, and the general civic and social crisis, in fact grip the majority. This inclusion of the majority into a permanent crisis-ridden situation is, then, the necessary other side of majoritarianism.

Ajay Gudavarthyis associate professor, Centre for Political Studies, JNU.

Read more here:

The Many Dimensions of Majoritarianism Beyond Religious Discrimination - The Wire

Whether its sea level rise, extreme weather events, water scarcity, food shortages, mass extinction of species, humanitys future is under attack.

By Rajesh Mehta, Swati Srivastava and Mark Bartosik

There is no time to find a new economic model to fight climate change; instead we must use the levers of Capitalism itself to fix this issue.

Albert Einstein famously said, I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. We know now that a key weapon in World War III is disinformation and the enemy is Climate Chaos. While our mindset is still locked in old forms of warfare, a new form of war is right at our doorstep, and we are grievously unprepared.

Due to its sheer magnitude, the havoc that climate chaos will wreck on the planet is going to be far worse than any war the world has seen. What does a war do? Kills people, destroys cities, creates refugees, crashes economies, and causes widespread damage & suffering. Climate chaos is going to do all this and more. It is going to threaten humanitys very existence.

Whether its sea level rise, extreme weather events, water scarcity, food shortages, mass extinction of species, humanitys future is under attack. Its immaterial whether buildings get knocked down by bombs or flooded by rising seas; they still become uninhabitable and make people homeless. Several coastal cities and some entire nations are destined to disappear from the map giving rise to an avalanche of suffering and creating an unprecedented wave of climate refugees.

A quarter of humanity faces looming water crisis. From India to Iran to Botswana, countries around the world are under extreme water stress, meaning they are using almost all the water they have. Groundwater is going fast and rainfall is becoming erratic. What happens when major cities such as Cape Town, Delhi, Sao Paolo, Chennai etc. run out of water? The scope of impact on regular folks everyday lives strains the imagination. It would also lead to an unprecedented migrant crisis and social unrest.

Nineteen of the twenty warmest years have occurred since 2001. Every year previous records are shattered and new ones made. The hottest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic Circle as well as the hottest temperature reliably recorded on the planet occurred in the last few weeks. The planet doesnt heat up evenly across the board, so some places are going to become punishingly hot on a constant basis and the rest would experience extreme spikes. At the current trajectory, temperatures in parts of the Middle East, Northern Africa, and South Asia could eventually exceed 130 Fahrenheit (54C) making it life-threatening to be/work outdoors, straining power grids, and bringing whole economies to stand-still. Add to this heat extreme humidity and just 95 Fahrenheit (35 C) would be lethal even for the fittest of humans, even under shaded and well-ventilated conditions. The only refuge will be in air conditioning but no grid would be reliable in such extreme conditions, and power cuts would mean death. Besides, how many people in the global south have air conditioning?

Extreme weather events are the new normal; super-hurricanes such as Maria that devastated Puerto Rico and other Caribbean countries, droughts followed by floods that have impacted several countries in the Horn of Africa, massive wildfires that spawn firenados (fire tornadoes) as in California or in the case of Australia where successive droughts, fires and floods have caused disasters of biblical proportions. Add to it the plague of locusts stretching from Australia to East Africa devouring scarce food sources, and large scale famines start to become the new reality.

Just like us, our crops are adapted to the Holocene, the 11,000-year period of climatic stability were now leaving. As their land fails them, hundreds of millions of people from Central America to Sudan to the Mekong Delta will be forced to flee their homes resulting in the greatest wave of global migration the world has seen. In just another decade, two billion people will live in slums with little water or electricity, where they are more vulnerable to flooding or other disasters. The slums fuel extremism and chaos. Governments of nations that suffer from a relentless confluence of drought, flood, bankruptcy and starvation, could topple as whole regions devolve into war, in what the US Defense Department refers to as a threat multiplier.

The planet is undergoing a mass extinction event, defined as a loss of about three-quarters of all species in existence across the Earth over a short geological period of time. While such events have occurred before, this crisis is a direct result of the planets exploitation by humans, leading scientists to coin a new term for this Geological era; Anthropocene. Biologists warn half of Earths species could go extinct by 2050 and scientists predict collapse of all seafood fisheries by 2050. By underestimating our inter-connectedness with other species, we are paving the path for our own eventual extinction.

Humans are typically bad at understanding exponential growth, we tend to think linearly. However living under the shadow of COVID-19, most of us now have some experience of living with exponential growth; not only in terms of a virus infection rate but also how such events impact the economy. Much of climate chaos will also be felt on an exponential basis.

Every war has its allies, adversaries, and collaborators, so does the war against climate chaos. The allies are the global scientific community, the renewable energy industry, NGOs and activists tirelessly fighting on the frontline challenging the status quo, regular folks making conscious choices and sacrifices in their lives for the collective good.

Most of the Fossil Fuel industry is an adversary; its interests invariably linked to the collapse of our ecosystem. Another adversary is Russia; one of the few countries that will benefit from climate chaos, for it will provide Russia access to new trade routes, fresh oil deposits in the Arctic, a more hospitable Siberia etc. Russia harbors ambitions to be a super-power again, the demise of Europe and United States is considered a gain by Putin. No wonder the Russian state has become the purveyor of global disinformation; a disunited world presents more opportunities for its resurgence. The worlds loss is Russias perceived again at least in the short term, until one or more ancient virus comes to life in Siberia due to thawing Permafrost.

No conversation about the adversaries in the war against climate chaos is complete without mentioning the direction the USA has taken under President Trump. By withdrawing the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement, opening up vast swaths of public lands such as Alaskas fragile Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, supporting coal, undermining/ reversing hundreds of Obama-era environmental regulations, and going so far as brazenly deleting the words climate change from websites across the federal government as part of its widespread effort to delete or bury information on climate change programs, Trumps administration has an absolutely abysmal environmental record and has cemented its legacy as one of the worst perpetrators and enemies in this war.

Besides the USA and Russia, China and India are the other two top emitters of greenhouse gases in the world. Decades of rapid economic growth have dramatically expanded the energy needs of both countries. Both also have a muddled report card when it comes to efforts to combat Climate Chaos. While China is the worlds leading country in electricity production from renewable energy sources, it is still increasing fossil fuel use as well, its grid becoming only about 1% cleaner per year, similar to the US. India has self-proclaimed ambitious targets for clean energy yet the reality is that like China, it is still increasing fossil fuel use, the clean energy mix of its grid also improving by only about 1% per year. Improving by a meager 1% per year is simply not enough; at this pace it will take 70 or 80 years to be where we need to be. The war would certainly be lost by then.

The collaborators in this war are the climate deniers refusing to acknowledge the facts. Certain media such as Rupert Murdochs Empire, that have done unconscionable damage by sowing doubt and disinformation about this settled science. Akin to Nazi propaganda films that fueled doubt about the nature of concentration camps, Murdochs media empire continues to fuel doubt about the causes and repercussions of climate change, and has turned a scientific issue into a divisive political one, making it a deliberate collaborator.

A negligent collaborator is Capitalism itself. By externalizing social, environmental and human costs from its narrow definition of profits, the framework of Capitalism has aided and abetted climate chaos and continues to work against humanitys interest. Its flawed definition of profits has exacerbated income inequality around the world, now the worst effects of climate change are going to be felt disproportionately harder by poor and marginalized around the globe.

So how do we win? During WWII, the USA emerged as the strongest economy in the world through working hard on mitigators to prevent the worst of the war from reaching its shores. It created the necessary tools to win that war and engaged every American in the war effort. The necessary tools to win the war of climate chaos require building a carbon-free green economy with everything it entails wind turbines, solar panels, carbon accounting and perhaps even rationing, sea walls, sustainable agriculture and building & maintaining international coalitions such as the Paris Climate Agreement. There is no time to find a new economic model; instead we must use the levers of Capitalism itself to fix this issue, starting with a carbon tax that truly values the environmental costs of carbon pollution.

There comes a time in a war when we must all pick a side. Staying on the fence is not being neutral; it is acting on the side of the adversary because it supports the status quo. History doesnt look kindly on bystanders, we must choose to be on the right side of history, or there may not be a history at all. We must take all the steps we can collectively and individually as quickly and aggressively as possible, in order to prevent the worst predictions becoming facts. We must find all the ways we can to stand up against entrenched interests. As Mr. Dagfinnur Sveinbjrnsson, CEO of The Arctic Circle says In the fight against Climate Chaos, it will not be enough to sustain scientific research and the creation of knowledge, if we do not nurture the virtues of open public discourse and defend the right to speak truth to power.

The massive mobilization for World War II prompted an unprecedentedgovernment campaign urging the public to conserve resources necessary for the war effort. Allied citizens were asked to make sacrifices in many ways. Rationing was one of the ways they contributed to the war effort. In UK, US and elsewhere, supplies such as gasoline, butter, sugar and milk were rationed so they could be diverted to the war effort.The most important items to ration in todays war are meat and milk as going vegan creates the single biggest impact an individual can have on climate change. Indeed, eating further up the food chain makes us an adversary.

A famous WWII American poster read, When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler. In the global war we confront today, we must also understand the need to act collectively. When we consume mindlessly we are that lone rider. When our choices are driven by greed, status and ego-fulfillment rather than a sense of sacrifice and collective good, we are that lone rider. We can have the fun of being lone riders for a few more years and lose the war or we can inform ourselves, gather our courage and rise to the challenge by acting decisively to win this war. The decision is up to us.

Rajesh Mehta is a Leading International Consultant & Policy Professional. His twitter address is @entryIndia and he can be reached at rajesh@entry-india.com . Swati Srivastava is a film-maker and an environmentalist. She can be reached at Linkedin and swati@TiredAndBeatup.com. Mark Bartosik is an engineer and an environmentalist. He can be reached at Mark@NetZeroEnergy.org

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World War III is here, and we are asleep at the... - The American Bazaar

UK Border Force officials travel in a RIB with migrants picked up at sea whilst Crossing the English Channel, as they arrive at the Marina in Dover, southeast England on August 15, 2020. BEN STANSALL

London A man who had just landed on a British beach after crossing the English Channel in a dinghy from France was reportedly attacked earlier this month by a witness who saw him arrive, as the coronavirus pandemic contributes to a surge in attempts by migrants and refugees to enter the United Kingdom by boat.

Police opened an investigation into the attack and said the victim, in his 20s, was not seriously injured.

"While urgent action is needed by the French and the (British) Home Office, there is no excuse for violence or vigilante behavior," local member of Parliament, Natalie Elphicke, said.

August saw more people attempt to make the more-than-20-mile trip across the channel and enter the U.K. in this way than has ever been recorded in a single month, according to media reports.

Britain's Home Office does not maintain a running total of migrant channel crossings, but journalists calculate the numbers based on ad hoc information released by the government. BBC News calculates that more than 5,000 people have tried to make the trip from France so far this year the highest number on record and, according to Sky News, more than five-times last year's total.

But refugee advocacy groups, including the United Nation Refugee agency, UNHCR, say the U.K. is not facing a migrant crisis.

"What is happening is that the movement of people has changed, and it has become a lot more visible because of the COVID situation," UNHCR External Relations Officer Laura Padoan told CBS News.

"We're seeing far fewer lories (trucks) being able to cross through the channel, so people are resorting to using smugglers' dinghies," she said, explaining that it's too soon to tell if the overall number of asylum seekers has increased, or if it's just the number of people attempting to cross by boat versus other methods.

"What we're calling for governments to do is expand the safe, legal routes that make that immigration route for families to be together again fairer and less restrictive," she said.

As more people attempt to cross the English Channel one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world there are also more unaccompanied minors among them. Many land on beaches in the English county of Kent.

"They tell us that they were very cold and wet and scared, some that there were too many people in the boat and they didn't want to get in but they were sort of forced to get in by the people smugglers," Brigid Chapman, spokesperson for the Kent Refugee Action Network, told CBS News. "They're just extremely grateful to be here."Last Monday, the local government in Kent said it did not have the capacity to take care of any more children arriving on its shores.

"I am deeply disappointed and concerned that, despite our many efforts to avoid this unthinkable situation, it has been necessary to make this announcement today," Kent County Council Leader Roger Gough said in a statement. He appealed to the central government and other counties across the U.K. to help care for the unaccompanied children.

"We are grateful for the support some other local authorities have given recently but unfortunately, due to the continued high level of arrivals, it has not been enough to make a real difference to the numbers," said Sue Chandler, Cabinet member for Integrated Children's Services in Kent.

Chapman said the county council has been flagging the issue for months to the central government, and part of the reason it's overwhelmed is reluctance by other local councils to take on unaccompanied minors because of a lack of funding. She said the U.K. as a whole could handle the number of migrants and refugees arriving by boat, and that Britain still receives many fewer asylum claims than other countries.

"With a lot of the children that we work with, they didn't actually have any choice about where they went. They were put into the hands of people smugglers. And they really, you know, they traveled at night, they were often beaten and deprived of food because the people smugglers need to keep them sort of compliant," Chapman told CBS News.

"Normally parents have asked for them to come to the U.K. because they may have a cousin or something, or somebody they think can kind of help that young person to make a start in life," she said.

Earlier this month, British Home Secretary Priti Patel created a new position a Clandestine Channel Threat Commander to address the rising number of migrants and refugees trying to cross the channel in small boats.

"The number of illegal small boat crossings is appalling," Patel said in a statement. "We are working to make this route unviable and arresting the criminals facilitating these crossings and making sure they are brought to justice."

The government also announced it was considering plans to deploy large navy vessels to the channel, which refugee groups said would be dangerous and could even prove deadly.

Britain's Royal Navy told CBS News it currently has no plans to deploy any ships, but that it was dedicating 10 staff members to help with planning and logistics.

"It's really important that the political rhetoric is in proportion to the scale of what's happening on the channel, which is manageable and the numbers are low," said Padoan, of UNHCR.

"I feel like a lot of the mainstream media is dancing to a very xenophobic tune at the moment, and there are certain politicians that are really trying to stir things up," said Chapman, of the Kent Refugee Action Network. "I don't understand what they're trying to achieve with it, but the situation is becoming really, really toxic."

Late last Thursday, a video message featuring a refugee was projected onto the cliffs of Dover overlooking the English Channel by the activist group, "Led By Donkeys."

"Britain is not facing a refugee crisis. There are around 30 million refugees around the world, and Britain is home to only 1 percent of them," Hassan, a man who introduced himself as an asylum seeker who made the boat journey across the channel five years ago, said.

"Britain is, however, facing other crises, but we are being used again as a distraction from the actual crises facing this country, caused by the people who are running it," he continued, "They are using us to distract you from how badly they have managed during this pandemic."

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Why coronavirus is driving more migrants and refugees to try to reach Britain by boat - CBS News