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KUALA LUMPUR — The United Nations (UN), Turkiye, United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union have condemned Israel’s approval of plans to construct thousands of settler units in the occupied West Bank, warning that the move violates international law and further undermines the two-state solution.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (picture), through a statement by his spokesman’s office, stressed that Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are “in violation of international law” and that construction in the E1 area would “sever the northern and southern West Bank, severely undermining the prospects for a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.”

He called on Israeli authorities to immediately halt the process, reiterating his call for Israel to cease all settlement activities “pursuant to its obligations under international law and as reaffirmed by the International Court of Justice in its Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024.”

The Turkish Foreign Ministry also condemned the move, describing it as a step that disregards international law and UN resolutions, while targeting the territorial integrity of Palestine.

The ministry reaffirmed Ankara’s support for the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

In London, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the Israeli government’s actions were “further jeopardising the two-state solution” and urged an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all hostages, an increase in humanitarian aid and a plan for lasting peace.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas echoed the condemnation, urging Israel to halt settlement construction.

She warned that the decision breaches international law and, if implemented, would “permanently cut the geographical and territorial contiguity between occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.”

She stressed that unilateral actions, combined with settler violence and military operations, were fuelling tensions and eroding the possibility for peace, adding that the EU was considering action to protect the viability of the two-state solution.

Israeli media reported on Thursday that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich had approved the construction of 3,401 settler units in Ma’ale Adumim, east of Jerusalem, and an additional 3,515 units in surrounding areas.

The project, in the E1 corridor, would effectively split the West Bank into northern and southern parts, isolating East Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry denounced the plan as part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vision for “Greater Israel,” saying it would entrench the occupation and destroy the viability of a Palestinian state. — BERNAMA-ANADOLU

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ISTANBUL — Air Canada will begin cancelling flights on Thursday ahead of a possible strike by flight attendants, aiming to ensure an orderly shutdown of operations, the airline announced.

According to Anadolu Ajansi (AA), the first flight cancellation will take place on Thursday, with the number of cancellations to increase from Friday, leading to a full suspension of Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge services by the weekend.

The union representing about 10,000 flight attendants issued a 72-hour strike notice on Wednesday, with the industrial action set to begin on Saturday unless an agreement is reached or the government intervenes. In response, the airline issued a lockout notice.

Air Canada said passengers affected by cancellations would be informed and offered a full refund.

The carrier has also coordinated with other Canadian and international airlines to provide alternative travel options where possible.

“We regret the impact a disruption will have on our customers, our stakeholders and the communities we serve,” said Air Canada chief executive officer Michael Rousseau.

Negotiations between the airline and the union stalled on Tuesday, with both sides far apart on contract terms.

The union has cited “poverty wages” for flight attendants and the absence of pay for time spent working while planes are on the ground as key issues.

Air Canada said it had proposed a 38 per cent increase in total compensation over four years, along with additional benefits.

“Despite our best efforts, Air Canada refused to address our core issues,” the union said on social media. — BERNAMA-ANADOLU

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More than 1.2m people have been displaced from the overall Indus delta region in the last 2 decades 

by ZAIN ZAMAN JANJUA 

SALT crusts crackle underfoot as Habibullah Khatti walks to his mother’s grave to say a final goodbye before he abandons his parched island village on Pakistan’s Indus delta. 

Seawater intrusion into the delta, where the Indus River meets the Arabian Sea in the south of the country, has triggered the collapse of farming and fishing communities. 

“The saline water has surrounded us from all four sides,” Khatti told AFP from Abdullah Mirbahar village in the town of Kharo Chan, around 15km from where the river empties into the sea. 

As fish stocks fell, the 54-year-old turned to tailoring until that too became impossible with only four of the 150 households remaining. 

“In the evening, an eerie silence takes over the area,” he said, as stray dogs wandered through the deserted wooden and bamboo houses. 

Kharo Chan once comprised around 40 villages, but most have disappeared under rising seawater. 

The town’s population fell from 26,000 in 1981 to 11,000 in 2023, according to census data. 

Khatti is preparing to move his family to nearby Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, and one swelling with economic migrants, including from the Indus delta. 

The Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, which advocates for fishing communities, estimates that tens of thousands of people have been displaced from the delta’s coastal districts. 

However, more than 1.2 million people have been displaced from the overall Indus delta region in the last two decades, according to a study published in March by the Jinnah Institute, a think tank led by a former climate change minister. 

The downstream flow of water into the delta has decreased by 80% since the 1950s as a result of irrigation canals, hydropower dams and the impacts of climate change on glacial and snow melt, according to a 2018 study by the US-Pakistan Centre for Advanced Studies in Water. 

That has led to devastating seawater intrusion. 

The salinity of the water has risen by around 70% since 1990, making it impossible to grow crops and severely affecting the shrimp and crab populations. 

“The delta is both sinking and shrinking,” said Muhammad Ali Anjum, a local WWF conservationist. 

‘No Other Choice’ 

Beginning in Tibet, the Indus River flows through disputed Kashmir before traversing the entire length of Pakistan. 

The river and its tributaries irrigate about 80% of the country’s farmland, supporting millions of livelihoods. 

The delta, formed by rich sediment deposited by the river as it meets the sea, was once ideal for farming, fishing, mangroves and wildlife. 

But more than 16% of fertile land has become unproductive due to encroaching seawater, a government water agency study in 2019 found. 

In the town of Keti Bandar, which spreads inland from the water’s edge, a white layer of salt crystals covers the ground.

Boats carry in drinkable water from miles away and villagers cart it home via donkeys.

“Who leaves their homeland willingly?” said Haji Karam Jat, whose house was swallowed by the rising water level. 

He rebuilt farther inland, anticipating more families would join him. 

“A person only leaves their motherland when they have no other choice,” he told AFP. 

Way of Life 

British colonial rulers were the first to alter the course of the Indus River with canals and dams, followed more recently by dozens of hydropower projects. 

Earlier this year, several military-led canal projects on the Indus River were halted when farmers in the low-lying riverine areas of Sindh Province protested. 

To combat the degradation of the Indus River Basin, the government and the United Nations (UN) launched the “Living Indus Initiative” in 2021. 

One intervention focuses on restoring the delta by addressing soil salinity and protecting local agriculture and ecosystems. 

The Sindh government is currently running its own mangrove restoration project, aiming to revive forests that serve as a natural barrier against saltwater intrusion. 

Even as mangroves are restored in some parts of the coastline, land grabbing and residential development projects drive clearing in other areas. 

Neighbouring India meanwhile poses a looming threat to the river and its delta, after revoking a 1960 water treaty with Pakistan which divides control over the Indus basin rivers. 

It has threatened to never reinstate the treaty and build dams upstream, squeezing the flow of water to Pakistan, which has called it “an act of war”. 

Alongside their homes, the communities have lost a way of life tightly bound up in the delta, said climate activist Fatima Majeed, who works with the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum. 

Women, in particular, who for generations have stitched nets and packed the day’s catches, struggle to find work when they migrate to cities, said Majeed, whose grandfather relocated the family from Kharo Chan to the outskirts of Karachi. 

“We haven’t just lost our land, we’ve lost our culture.” — AFP

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• This article first appeared in The Malaysian Reserve weekly print edition

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IT was the end of 2018, and Google’s leaders were tired of being Number One.

For the second year in a row, federal records showed the search giant had spent more than any other individual company on lobbying in Washington. Executives in Mountain View were sick of seeing that mentioned in the press.

Then Google apparently found a workaround.

A new analysis of federal lobbying data by the nonprofit Tech Transparency Project shows that Google and its parent company, Alphabet Inc. used an internal reorganization to exclude the value of lobbying by its senior executives from disclosures. The move helped keep Google off the top of the lobbying charts even as it maintained a robust network of advocates pushing its interests in the capital, during federal challenges to its dominance in search and advertising and the beginnings of artificial intelligence regulation.

The findings, which were confirmed by a Bloomberg analysis of lobbying records, show that the effect of the accounting change was to lower the amount that Google reported spending to influence the federal government, likely by millions of dollars. 

The reorganization “has allowed the company to shield a significant portion of its lobbying expenditures from public view,” the Tech Transparency Project said in its report.

A Google spokesperson, José Castañeda, disputed the report and said the company has followed all relevant disclosure laws.

“These are inaccurate claims about a technical change that simply brought us in line with how many other companies report their lobbying activities,” he said. “Our lobbying expenditures began decreasing in 2018, after we restructured our government affairs team and cut spending on consultants.”

Internal Reshuffle 

Starting in 2019, Google began cutting ties with some of its external lobbying firms, a move it acknowledged publicly as part of an overhaul of its Washington operations.

But the shuffling of external lobbying firms doesn’t explain the whole of the decline in Google’s reported lobbying expenses, which fell from more than $22 million in 2018 to $8.9 million in the Covid-disrupted year of 2020, and have subsequently remained well below pre-pandemic levels.

There’s been another, quieter change: in early 2020, Google moved its in-house lobbyists into a new subsidiary, called Google Client Services LLC. It’s that unit which now files spending disclosures for Google’s lobbying activities.

The reorganization meant that the parent companies Google and Alphabet no longer directly employed any lobbyists – defined under federal disclosure law as people spending at least 20% of their time on influencing Congress or the executive branch.

Companies that file lobbying disclosure reports are supposed to also account for the time that other senior executives — those who don’t meet the 20% threshold – devote to lobbying, according to legal experts and the compliance guide for the Lobbying Disclosure Act published by Congressional leaders. That generally involves prorating their annual compensation to account for the days they spend influencing the government. 

But since Google moved lobbyists into the Google Client Services subsidiary, the parent company no longer meets the threshold for filing disclosures under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, according to the TTP analysis. That means Google no longer reports the lobbying expenses of high-ranking managers who aren’t part of the Client Services unit — like Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai and chief legal officer Kent Walker — to the public, as it once did. 

As a result, in 2020 Google dropped out of the top 20 in corporate lobbying expenses for the first time in nearly a decade, the TTP analysis found.

While Google’s reported annual spending has since edged back up again, it hasn’t come close to the No.1 slot in the company lobbying rankings that it used to occupy. For the past five years, that position has alternated between two other tech giants: Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.

Antitrust Challenge

There’s been plenty going in in Washington over the period that was crucial for Google’s business. For one thing, the company — like many peers — is betting heavily on AI, a field where decisions in the US capital will shape the commercial landscape.

Google has also been under assault from antitrust authorities over its dominance in search and digital advertising. The company has maintained in those lawsuits that its success is down to consumer choice and superior innovation, rather than a result of its power to shape laws and regulations. Publicity around its lobbying spending has the potential to undercut such arguments and alienate regulators.

When executives are as highly paid as many in Silicon Valley, the prorated amounts can add up to millions — even for just a few days’ worth of lobbying. Google reported total compensation for Pichai of more than $225 million in 2022, thanks to grants of stock. His total compensation was $10.7 million in 2024. Walker’s total compensation was more than $30 million last year, the company reported.

Some say the new structure Google is employing flouts the spirit of the federal disclosure law – if not the letter itself.

“This is just too cute by half,” said William Luneburg, a professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and the co-editor of the manual for lobbying compliance published by the American Bar Association.

“On the face of it, it’s wrong,” he said. “They have to report all of their expenses, which would include the time of officers and directors and other employees that spend their time engaging in lobbying activity.”

“We always comply with disclosure laws and any suggestion of improper reporting is false,” said Castañeda, the Google spokesperson.

TTP said it examined lobbying disclosures of several other companies that filed reports via a similar subsidiary model, but didn’t find any that had used the structure to remove executive lobbying from their disclosures. –BLOOMBERG

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