DEMOCRACY NOW

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Over 5,000 fossil fuel lobbyists were given access to U.N. climate summits over the past four years, a period marked by a rise in catastrophic extreme weather, inadequate climate action and record oil and gas expansion. “This is climate obstruction at work,” says Nina Lakhani, senior climate justice reporter for The Guardian US. She notes that lobbyists attend climate conferences to “promote false solutions like carbon markets, carbon capture and storage — these market-based solutions which are not going to save the planet.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: In addition to Yeb Saño, speaking to us from the 30th U.N. climate summit in Belém, Brazil, we’re joined here in New York by the U.N. climate — by Nina Lakhani, a senior climate justice reporter for The Guardian US. Her latest piece, out today, “Climate disasters displaced 250 million people in past 10 years, UN report finds.” She’s also been reporting on the role of fossil fuel lobbyists at the climate summit.

Nina Lakhani, thanks so much for being back with us. We have spoken with you at climate summits in the past. But you have this explosive piece, “How thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists got access to UN climate talks — and then kept drilling.” You say more than 5,000 fossil fuel lobbyists were given access to U.N. climate summits over the past four years, a period marked by a rise in catastrophic extreme weather, inadequate climate action and record oil and gas expansion. Explain exactly what you found.

NINA LAKHANI: So, this is research that’s conducted by the Kick Big Polluters Out coalition, which is a coalition of hundreds of organizations around the world. And what they found is, in the last four years, more than 5,350 lobbyists, representing fossil fuel companies, trade associations and other organizations representing oil, gas and coal, have been given access to the climate talks. This far outnumbers the negotiators and the delegations that are present from most countries, right?

And it also excludes all of the lobbyists sent to represent other big polluting industries or industries that benefit from fossil fuel extraction, like Big Agriculture, like mining, Big Tech, finance, and also excludes the fossil fuel lobbyists or the executives who are on official delegations.

So, why does this matter? So, these companies have long said, and the UNFCCC has agreed, that they need a seat at the table, that they’re part of the solution. They’re there with technology. They want to make a transition. This research shows that is just absolutely not true. Just 90 of the oil, gas and coal companies that sent lobbyists in the last four years are responsible for almost 60% of the oil and gas that was drilled last year, and responsible for almost two-thirds of the short-term oil and gas expansion projects that are about to start extracting and exploration.

And on that second figure, you know, if they all go ahead, they will drill the equivalent of enough oil to coat the landmass of seven European countries entirely, including France, Germany and Denmark. So, you know, these companies are sending lobbyists in order to block climate action. This is climate obstruction at work. They’re there to delay meaningful climate action, which every country in the world is obliged to do under international law. And they’re there to promote false solutions, false solutions like carbon-based — carbon markets, carbon capture and storage — these market-based solutions which are not going to save the planet.

You know, we know from all the science out there, and we now know that under international law, every single country in the world, whether they’re a member of the Paris Agreement or not, are obliged under law to stop fossil fuel extraction, to stop licenses, to stop subsidies, and every country has a legal obligation to regulate these private companies that operate within their borders. And a failure to do so is a breach of international law.

AMY GOODMAN: And you say the true reach of fossil fuel tentacles is undoubtedly deeper, as the lobbyist data excludes executives and other company representatives on official country delegations. You particularly single out United Arab Emirates, Russia and Azerbaijan. Explain.

Democracy Now for more

PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER

The country’s information technology and business process management industry is a major component of the economy. However, the industry’s big economic contribution is not enough reason to put the safety of BPO workers at risk.

MANILA – Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma ordered last week the investigation of 98 business process outsourcing (BPO) companies for allegedly forcing their employees to work on-site despite heavy flooding, travel hazards, and power outages caused by Super Typhoon Uwan.

Laguesma was acting on a request by the BPO Industry Employees Network (BIEN Philippines) to look into these firms’ possible violation of the law on occupational safety and the Department of Labor and Employment’s (Dole) guidelines on work suspension during inclement weather.

As Uwan battered Luzon, many BPO firms required their workers to report on-site and were issued a notice to explain if they skipped work, the labor group said. BIEN said it received numerous reports from BPO employees who had to wade through floodwaters and risk their safety after being ordered to physically report for work. Some employees, it added, were forced to use leave credits or threatened with sanctions for staying home during the storm.

The IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP), which counts more than 400 member-companies in the IT and BPO industries, defended its members’ actions, pointing out that essential BPO firms, particularly those catering to the health care and banking industries, had to continue their operations to meet the demands of their international clients.

Not weather-proof

It pointed out that the ability of its member-firms to sustain operations even during emergencies is part of the industry’s responsibility to both its employees and its clients.

The country’s information technology and business process management industry is a major component of the economy, providing jobs and generating foreign exchange given its predominantly foreign clientele. IBPAP expects the industry to generate $42 billion in revenues by 2026, or about 5 percent more than this year’s revenue forecast of $40 billion. It expects to employ 1.97 million Filipinos by 2026 to service its major foreign customers in banking, financial services, health care and digital customer experience.

However, the industry’s big economic contribution is not enough reason to put the safety of BPO workers at risk. They are not weather-proof. They are as vulnerable to the dangers of inclement weather as those in other industries. As BIEN’s national president Mylene Cabalona described it, what transpired in the wake of Uwan only showed that “many companies continue to prioritize business operations over worker safety.”

Imminent danger

In times of calamities, workers’ welfare should always be the primary consideration over anything else. Common sense dictates that employees should not be required to work on-site when a calamity endangers their safety. Under Republic Act No. 11058, or the Philippine Occupational Safety and Health Law, workers have the legal right to refuse work if they reasonably believe it poses an imminent danger to their health and safety.

IBPAP had argued that the BPO firms acted within the bounds of law, citing a memorandum circular from the Office of the President that gave the private sector the discretion to suspend work. However, while private sector work suspension is often left to the employer’s discretion, such discretion must prioritize worker safety.

Asia News Network for more

by DAVID SWANSON

Ah, those were the days. The UN had been blocked by a worldwide popular movement from approving of a war on Iraq. British Prime Minister Tony Blair had dragged the UK along after secretly demanding that George W. Bush first attack Afghanistan, because Blair believed he would be better able to sell a war on Iraq once there was a war on Afghanistan. And once the destruction of Iraq was well underway, the UN crept out of some New York sewer pipe to support the occupation, er, excuse me, the peaceful transition to paradise.

Blair once had a meeting with Bush in which Bush schemed up plans to get a war in Iraq started, such as painting an airplane with “UN” on it, flying it low, and hoping to get it shot at. Then Bush and Blair wandered out to a press conference at which they swore they were doing everything possible to avoid a war. To my knowledge, neither the UN nor any “journalist” in the room that day has, since the exposure of the pre-press-conference conversation, publicly expressed the slightest concern.

Fun fact: no war has ever been launched by people doing everything possible to avoid it.

Bonus fun fact: no modern war has ever been launched by people not claiming they were doing everything possible to avoid it.

The United Nations has now voted — the “Security” Council that is (with Russia and China abstaining, as if they have some other planet to live on) — for an Orwellian “Peace Board” concocted by Donald Trump, to be run by Tony Blair, to oversee a military occupation of what’s left of Gaza.

If there were ever a moment for the nations of the world to save themselves, to step forward and override the Security Council through the General Assembly with a “Uniting for Peace” measure (such as this) this is it!

Sadly, some opponents of genocide raised in a culture unable to imagine solving certain problems without a military have convinced millions of people that any “Uniting for Peace” action must involve a military force. The Security Council has now provided the military force under Viceroy Blair. The General Assembly would now have to not only take bold action it has refused to take for years, but also reverse the action taken by the Security Council in the name of “peace,” and bar the use of a military labeled “peacekeepers” in favor of nonmilitary solutions beyond the imagination of millions of people. This is what one might call a big ask.

The alternative is the normalization of not just genocide but also colonialism. By this precedent, which country will elder statesman Benjamin Netanyahu oversee the Peaceplundering of in some future decade?

If that course is unacceptable, and the United Nations is thoroughly useless, and giving up is not an option, what should we do?

The fact that not everyone immediately knows the obvious answer to that question is the fundamental educational dilemma of our time.

Dissident Voice for more

by B. R. GOWANI

recently, Rakesh Dalal filed a petition in the Indian Supreme Court

the reason?

one of the Hindu deity he wanted to pray to had lost his head, literally

he said the Vishnu idol was beheaded during Mughal invasions

(but knowledgeable people don’t think Muslims were involved)

Dalal didn’t say whether Lord Vishnu was alive or dead

he wasn’t brave enough like Nietzsche’s Madman who declared:

The Madman.—Have you ever heard of the madman who on a bright morning lighted a lantern and ran to the market-place calling out unceasingly: “I seek God! I seek God!”—As there were many people standing about who did not believe in God, he caused a great deal of amusement. Why! is he lost? said one. Has he strayed away like a child? said another. Or does he keep himself hidden? Is he afraid of us? Has he taken a sea-voyage? Has he emigrated?—the people cried out laughingly, all in a hubbub. The insane man jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances. “Where is God gone?” he called out. “I mean to tell you! We have killed him,—you and I! We are all his murderers! … God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! …

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Joyful Wisdom, The Project Gutenberg eBook, section 125.

he was hopeful that Lord Vishnu could be restored

Dalal asked India’s Supreme Court to repair Lord Vishnu’s idol

he complained that the British colonists in India didn’t do anything

nor did the governments in independent India do anything in 77 years

this, he said, violated worshipers’ basic rights to pray

Chief Justice of India (CJI) Bhushan Ramkrishna Gavai told Rakesh Dalal:

“Go and ask the deity itself to do something now. You say you are a staunch devotee of Lord Vishnu. So go and pray now. It’s an archaeological site and ASI [Archaeological Survey of India] needs to give permission etc. Sorry[.]”

CJI Gavai termed it as a “publicity interest litigation.”

He further added:

“In the meantime, if you are not averse to Shaivism, you can go and worship there… there is a very big linga of Shiva, one of the biggest in Khajuraho.”

in South Asia, of all sentiments, religious ones are the most fragile

they are like goods from a dollar store — easily breakable

there was criticism of Gavai for hurting people’s religious feelings

Gavai: had to issue a statement

“Someone told me the other day that the comments I made were mis-portrayed on social media. I respect all religions.”

“God is dead.” Solicitor General Tushar Mehta defended Gavai:

“We used to learn Newton’s law – for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Now with the advent of social media, we have a new rule – for every action, there is wrong and disproportionate social media overreaction.”

Mehta termed the controversy “unfortunate”

On Oct 4, 2025, Maharashtra Governor Acharya Devvrat launched a book

during the ceremony, the governor infused divinity in Modi:

“Where there is the need for a great man to bring change to a society, such people come there from a divine order … When such people come from a divine order, they carry the power to make the impossible possible. The decisions that Modi ji took in his life cannot be made by ordinary people.”

a free nugget of wisdom for Rakesh Dalal:

according to the Ganesha myth …

goddess Parvati created Ganesha out of clay for her protection ..

when Lord Shiva came to his wife Parvati, Ganesha stopped Shiva

Shiva beheaded Ganesha

but then he restored the head with the head of an elephant

Dalal could restore Lord Vishnu’s head with that of Lord Modi

Dalal could then open up temples devoted to Modi Bhagwan

Modi himself thinks he is the son of God

he could also sell the temple franchises to Modi’s followers …

there are hundreds of millions of them,

many of them are millionaires & billionaires

I promise, I won’t sue him for this brilliant idea

franchises make a lot of money in today’s world …

B. R. Gowani can e reached at brgowani@hotmail.com

THE AGA KHAN UNIVERSITY

‘The Valleys Our Ancestors Chose’?, a captivating documentary and part of the docuseries Voices from the Roof of the World?, has been honoured with the esteemed Mrinal Sen Golden Award for Best Direction in Documentary at the sixth South Asian Short Film Festival.

Director Tazeen Bari’s film gives an eye-opening and touching perspective into the lives of the Kalasha community, an indigenous group residing in the valleys at the foothills of the Hindu

Kush Mountains in Pakistan. Living on the

frontlines of climate change, the film captures how the remaining people of the Kalasha community come face-to-face with the devastating impacts of severe unusual weather conditions. The catastrophic floods in Pakistan in 2015 wreaked havoc on infrastructure, livestock, fields, homes, and livelihoods of thousands, including the Kalasha community, posing an existential threat to Pakistan’s smallest indigenous group. ‘The Valleys Our Ancestors Chose’ documents the community’s annual harvest festival, providing a profound exploration of their resilience and determination in the aftermath of historic floods that devastated much of Pakistan.

Expressing her gratitude for the award, Tazeen said, “I am deeply honoured and grateful for the recognition. This film is a testament to the strength and resilience of the Kalasha community and their unwavering spirit in the face of climate change. Together, we hope to amplify the voices of marginalized communities and contribute to a more sustainable and inclusive future.”

“The record-breaking floods of 2010 and 2022 in Pakistan were two of the most devastating natural disasters that caused widespread damage and displacement. These floods were a warning to South and Central Asia that climate change is a serious and present threat to the region. We need to work together to prepare for the challenges of global warming, by developing innovative local solutions and capacity to support local governments and civil society for relief efforts.” said AKU President Dr Sulaiman Shahabuddin.

Voices from the Roof of the World is a joint initiative of the Aga Khan Development Network agencies: Aga Khan University, Aga Khan Agency for Habitat, Aga Khan Foundation, and the University of Central Asia. The docuseries aims to highlight the challenges faced by communities due to climate change, and local solutions adapted to tackle adversities.  The series aims to create awareness around global warming and inspire government, business and civil society leaders to work on reversing the region’s ecological destruction and conserve nature and wildlife.

‘Shepherds of Naar’, another documentary of the series Voices from the Roof of the World also gained recognition at the festival with the Satyajit Ray Golden Award for Best Documentary.

The Aga Khan University for more (Thanks to a reader.)

by BRIAN PAUL BASSANIO

(For more information on Kalasha people, see Wikipedia.)

Kalasha hymns are the living archives. To hear them is to witness a culture resisting disappearance

In the valleys of the Hindu Kush Mountains in northern Pakistan, the Kalasha tribe resides. Music is an indispensable pillar of their identity, serving as the primary repository of their unwritten history, religious beliefs, and social norms. Hymns are not decoration around their prayer; they are prayer. Their melodies are not secular art but a form of spiritual knowledge, with its own liturgy, purity laws, and prohibitions. It is theology in practice, a living liturgy encoded in melody and rhythm rather than in scripture.

I discovered their liturgical traditions at a workshop called Sur Sajday Ke Roop Hazaar. Among the participants was Imran Kabir, a Kalasha polymath, teacher, writer, and heritage bearer. I explored their music, festivals, and rituals in “The Kalasha Audio-Visual Archive” by Elizabeth Mela-Athanasopoulou and during my conversations with Imran.

The text-based liturgical music traditions in South Asia thrived within major religious civilisations, backed by states and institutions. Kalasha has no canonised scripture. Their chants are their text. The people exist at the margins of a modern Islamic nation-state, where their musical rituals are sometimes tolerated, sometimes commodified, and often threatened.
A journalistic piece, “The Last of the Kalasha,” highlights the existential threats to their cultural practices. They are the smallest minority group in Pakistan, estimated to be in the low thousands. The community experiences pressures such as converting to Islam, attacks on cultural sites, damage to altars and monuments, land encroachment, and socio-political marginalisation. Each passing year, their sound grows thinner. To understand their music today is to listen closely for both what is sung and what risks falling silent.

Gayatri Spivak’s theory of subalternity throws light on their musical marginality. Songs are voices without amplification, audible in valleys but mediated, distorted, or silenced in national discourse. Spivak’s concept of epistemic violence explains how theology in hymns is erased when it is classified as “folklore” or a “tourist attraction.” Representation by outsiders becomes silencing.

They live in three remote valleys: Bumboret, Rumbur, and Birir, in Chitral, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Their language, Kalashamun, and religious traditions set them apart from the neighbouring populations. It comprises about ten major tribes, each with approximately 90 families. Worshippers sing in the morning and evening to welcome and bid farewell to the Lord.

The tribal priest leads a ritual chant “Achambi” on the seventh day when a child is born. This welcomes the child into the community and invokes blessings. Mourners gather to sing lamentation hymns that express both grief and reverence. One of the famous hymns sung during funerals is “Kanaa Bhum,” which tells the story of how a human called “Kanaa” caused the first human death. At weddings, people sing joyful songs. Some share tales of love, while others celebrate tribal traditions. Songs of victory commemorate triumphs over natural disasters or historic conflicts.

The Express Tribune for more

WORLD SOCIALIST WEB SITE

This webinar examines the historical relationship between Nazism, big business, and the working class—a discussion with urgent contemporary relevance.

Moderated by David North, chairperson of the International Editorial Board of the WSWS, the discussion involves three distinguished historians: David Abraham, Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Miami and author of The Collapse of the Weimar Republic: Political Economy and Crisis; Jacques Pauwels, Canadian historian and author of Big Business and Hitler; and Mario Kessler, Senior Fellow at the Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam, Germany, whose scholarship focuses on the German Communist Party and European labor movements. Also participating is Christoph Vandreier, chairman of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei in Germany.

On October 16, 2025, the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) hosted a webinar examining the historical relationship between Nazism, big business and the working class—a discussion with urgent contemporary relevance. 

The discussion was chaired by David North, chairperson of the International Editorial Board of the WSWS and of the Socialist Equality Party in the United States. He was joined by three distinguished historians: David Abraham, professor emeritus of law at the University of Miami and author of The Collapse of the Weimar Republic: Political Economy and Crisis; Jacques Pauwels, Canadian historian and author of Big Business and Hitler; and Mario Kessler, senior fellow at the Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam, Germany, whose scholarship focuses on the German Communist Party and European labor movements.

The webinar opened with North recounting the vicious academic campaign that destroyed Abraham’s career as a historian in the 1980s. After publishing his Marxist analysis of how conflicts within German capitalism facilitated Hitler’s rise, Abraham faced attacks from conservative historians Gerald Feldman and Henry Ashby Turner, who accused him of fraud. Abraham explained that the attack stemmed from “ideological animus, personal pique, and intellectual know-nothingism.”

In the discussion, Jacques Pauwels attacked the claim that Hitler’s rise was accidental or unconnected to capitalist interests. “Hitler’s so-called capture of power was merely a transfer or surrender of power,” he stated. “Without the financial and other support of industry and finance, in other words, big business, the rest of the German power elite, Hitler could never have risen to supremacy.” Pauwels described fascism as “the stick of capitalism, not to be used at all times, but certainly always ready behind the door.”

Mario Kessler addressed Hitler’s mobilization of the middle classes while preventing their left-wing radicalization toward socialism. He noted that the Nazi Party “never succeeded in making consistent inroads into the working class” and “never achieved an absolute majority of the votes” in any Weimar election. Hitler’s function was to “collect the votes of the unemployed people, the resentment of all who considered themselves losers of what was called the system.” Kessler stressed that “before Hitler and the German fascists could annihilate the Jews, they had to destroy the German and European labor movement.”

Pauwels demolished the myth that Hitler improved workers’ living conditions, documenting how “the German workers’ real wages fell dramatically under Nazi rule while corporate profits soared.” He revealed that work accidents and illnesses increased from 930,000 cases in 1933 to 2.2 million in 1939, calling Nazi policy “a high profit, low wage kind of policy.” The first concentration camp at Dachau was established not primarily for Jews but because “regular prisons were full of political prisoners, mostly social democrats and communists.”

WSWS for more

Human Rights Council

Fifty-ninth session

16 June–11 July 2025

Agenda item 7: Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories

FROM ECONOMY OF OCCUPATION TO ECONOMY OF GENOCIDE

Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967*, **

Summary

This report investigates the corporate machinery sustaining Israel’s settler-colonial project of displacement and replacement of the Palestinians in the occupied territory. While political leaders and governments shirk their obligations, far too many corporate entities have profited from Israel’s economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now, genocide. The complicity exposed by this report is just the tip of the iceberg; ending it will not happen without holding the private sector accountable, including its executives. International law recognizes varying degrees of responsibility – each requiring scrutiny and accountability, particularly in this case, where a people’s self-determination and very existence are at stake. This is a necessary step to end the genocide and dismantle the global system that has allowed it.

I. Introduction

1. Colonial endeavours and their associated genocides have historically been driven and enabled by the corporate sector.^[1] Commercial interests have contributed to the dispossession of Indigenous people and lands^[2] – a mode of domination known as “colonial racial capitalism”.^[3] The same is true of Israeli colonization of Palestinian lands,^[4] its expansion into the occupied Palestinian territory and its institutionalization of a regime of settler-colonial apartheid.^[5] After denying Palestinian self-determination for decades, Israel is now imperilling the very existence of the Palestinian people in Palestine.
2. The role of corporate entities in sustaining Israel’s illegal occupation and ongoing genocidal campaign in Gaza is the subject of this investigation, which focuses on how corporate interests underpin Israeli settler-colonial the twofold logic of displacement and replacement aimed at dispossessing and erasing Palestinians from their lands. It discusses corporate entities in various sectors: arms manufacturers, tech firms, building and construction companies, extractive and service industries, banks, pension funds, insurers, universities and charities. These entities enable the denial of self-determination and other structural violations in the occupied Palestinian territory, including occupation, annexation and crimes of apartheid and genocide, as well as a long list of ancillary crimes and human rights violations, from discrimination, wanton destruction, forced displacement and pillage, to extrajudicial killing and starvation.
3. Had proper human rights due diligence been undertaken, corporate entities would have long ago disengaged from Israeli occupation. Instead, post-October 2023, corporate actors have contributed to the acceleration of the displacement-replacement process throughout the military campaign that has pulverized Gaza and displaced the largest number of Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967.^[6]
4. While it is impossible to fully capture the scale and extent of decades of corporate connivance in the exploitation of the occupied Palestinian territory, this report exposes the integration of the economies of settler-colonial occupation and genocide. It calls for accountability for corporate entities and their executives at both domestic and international levels: commercial endeavours enabling and profiting from the obliteration of innocent people’s lives must cease. Corporate entities must refuse to be complicit in human rights violations and international crimes or be held to account.

II. Methodology

1. “Corporate entities” in this report refers to business enterprises, multinational corporations, for-profit and not-for-profit entities, whether private, public or State-owned.^[7] Corporate responsibility applies regardless of the size, sector, operational context, ownership and structure of the entity.^[8]
2. The report builds on extensive literature, especially by civil society^[9] and by the Working Group on Business and Human Rights, on how Israel has created and maintained its own economy through the occupation, and a captive economy for the Palestinians.
3. It also builds upon and situates within the broader matrix of Israel’s unlawful occupation, the database established by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 31/36 and 53/25. The “UN Database” lists only business enterprises that have “directly and indirectly enabled, facilitated and profited from the construction and growth of the settlements”.^[10]
4. The Special Rapporteur developed a database of 1000 corporate entities from the unprecedented 200+ submissions received, following her call for input when preparing this investigation.^[11] This helped map how corporate entities worldwide have been implicated in human rights violations and international crimes in the occupied Palestinian territory. Over 45 entities named in the report have been duly informed of the facts that led the Special Rapporteur to formulate a series of allegations: 15 replied. The complex web of corporate structures – and the often obscured links between parents and subsidiaries, franchises, joint ventures, licencees, etc. – implicates many more. The investigation behind this report demonstrates the lengths to which corporations will go to conceal their complicity.^[12]
5. The report is complemented by an annex presenting the relevant legal framework.

III. Legal context

1. The law governing corporate responsibility has deep roots in the historic relationship between violent dispossession and private power, and the legacy of corporate collusion with settler-colonialism and racial segregation.^[13]
2. Early charter companies, granted broad State-like powers, gradually evolved into private “limited liability” corporations as intercolonial trade grew vital to European economies.^[14] Colonial powers continued to rely on these relationships to outsource, obscure and avoid accountability for the dispossession and enslavement of Indigenous peoples and the expropriation of their resources.^[15] Corporations have not only inherited the benefits of this legal veil of separation, but have also emerged as shapers of international law.^[16]
3. Today, some corporate conglomerates exceed the GDP of sovereign States.^[17] Sometimes wielding more power – political, economic and discursive – than States themselves, corporations enjoy increasing recognition as rights-holders, with still insufficient corresponding obligations. The asymmetry of immense power without sufficiently justiciable accountability exposes a fundamental global governance gap.
4. Corporations and their home States – primarily Global Minority States – continue to exploit structural inequalities rooted in colonial dispossession.^[18] Meanwhile, weaker regulatory systems in formerly colonized States, and development and investment imperatives mean corporations often evade accountability.^[19]
5. Nevertheless, important precedents exist. The post-Holocaust Industrialists’ Trials laid the groundwork for recognizing the international criminal responsibility of corporate executives for participation in international crimes.^[20] By addressing corporate complicity in apartheid, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission helped shape corporate responsibility for human rights violations.^[21] Increasing domestic and international litigation signal a growing trend toward corporate accountability.^[22]
6. The case of Palestine further tests international standards.

United Nations for more

by HAFIZ RASHID

Stephen Miller’s wife went on Piers Morgan’s show, and tried to call the other guests racist for attacking her.

“SICK Terrorist Sympathizer!” Randy Fine Wants Mamdani DEPORTED | With Katie Miller & Cenk Uygur

Katie Miller, the wife of Trump adviser Stephen Miller, appeared on Piers Morgan’s YouTube show and melted down after other panelists challenged her lies. 

Miller, a former administration staffer herself, was part of a panel that included left-wing commentator Cenk Uygur, fitness influencer Jillian Michaels, and Palestinian American analyst Omar Baddar to discuss New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s comments on Islamophobia in the U.S. But upon having her lies called out, Miller attacked the other panelists, particularly Uygur, and accused them of antisemitism. 

“Why is it that every time someone wants to criticize Mamdani, it immediately comes back to the Jews and the anti-Israel movement instead of actually talking about his viewpoints?” Miller asked, her voice raised. 

“Nobody said Jews. You just said it. You always do that. We say Israel, you say Jews. We say Israel as a government. Please don’t make it about Jewish Americans,” Uygur responded, explaining that he believes that Israel should be a safe haven for Jewish people within its 1967 borders, without seizing the West Bank from the Palestinians. 

“You’re totally lying—it’s very normal for a Miller to be completely and utterly lying,” Uygur added, saying to Miller, “You and your husband are supposed to be working for America. Not for Israel. I think you’re betraying this country.” 

This set Miller off. 

“Quite frankly, I’m really sick and tired of this racist bigoted rhetoric that can comes from people like you against my husband, against my family, and my children. I am raising Jewish children in this country—” Miller shot back, before Uygur said incredulously, “Who brought your children into this? What a weirdo.” 

Stephen Miller’s wife, Katie Miller — now desperate for media attention — absolutely implodes on Piers Morgan’s show.

Humiliating. pic.twitter.com/EsTcwRNEYl— Kaivan Shroff (@KaivanShroff) October 29, 2025

Miller even stooped to threatening Uygur’s immigration status, telling him to “check his citizenship application.”  

New Republic for more