# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Cities need to be redesigned for the climate crisis. Can they make us happy, too?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It’s tempting to draw lines on a map, but we can’t forget that cities should be designed for the people who live there

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Serbia puts troops on high alert as tensions with Kosovo rise

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Serbia puts troops on ‘highest level of alert’ as tensions with Kosovo rise

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rainbow Warrior 25th anniversary July 2010

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
New generation of Cypriots seek to end island

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
ondola trips are a traditional part of visiting Venice for those who can afford the steep tourist prices, but I went a little off-script on a recent visit and chose a different, but equally iconic, vessel. We Are Here Venice, an NGO that promotes the safeguarding of a city deeply affected by climate breakdown and countless human-made activities, invited me on board the Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior, the purpose of whose visit was anything but touristic.

I have taken part in two Arctic tours with Greenpeace: one on the Esperanza (now defunct, not my fault!) and another on the Arctic Sunrise. I had previously sailed with two of the crew who are now on the Rainbow Warrior, and there they still were, fighting for climate justice around the world.

A couple of weeks ago, as Britain beat not only its own all-time temperature record, but Cuba's, Singapore's and Panama's, there were still people shouting that it was all perfectly normal and just an ordinary sunny day. What sort of fantasy world do these people live in, and who built it for them? My trip to Venice helped me answer this question.

I didn't know it when I arrived, but Greenpeace activists were about to stage a protest that involved moving through the canals of the lagoon city on traditional boats, while carrying the logos of major European oil and gas firms that use greenwashing - marketing techniques that try to convince us they are environmentally friendly when the opposite is true : they want to keep us hooked on fossil fuels. This is killing the planet. The activists ironically announced it as the Last Tour of Venice, as the city is at risk of submersion due to climate impacts in the Mediterranean region, like the ones we've been recently witnessing with record-breaking heatwaves and wildfires raging across the region.

Last October, Greenpeace and another 30 organisations launched a European citizens' initiative calling for a new law banning fossil fuel advertising and sponsorship in the EU, similar to what happened with tobacco at the beginning of this century. If the petition collects a million signatures in a year, the European Commission is obliged to respond.

Why is such a law important? Now, with widespread public support for climate action and the scientific community unreservedly pointing at the fossil fuel industry as largely responsible for the climate crisis, the oil and gas firms, which have for decades purposely slowed climate action, are at their most vulnerable. The industry is clinging on to advertising and sponsorship as one of the last ways of staying afloat.

"Delay and deceive" is the new denial. Fossil fuel companies are pumping millions into greenwashing while making meaningless net zero promises and introducing false "solutions", in order to gloss over their decades of destruction. They are falsely painting themselves as allies and extending the deadline of their obsolete business.

Scientists have had enough. For the first time, this year an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report exposed the disinformation strategy by saying: "Who dominates the debate on media, and how open the debate can be, varies significantly across countries based on participants' material and technological power. Fossil fuel industries have unique access to mainstream media via advertisements, shaping narratives of media reports and exerting political influence in countries like Australia and the US."

More than 450 scientists also signed a letter calling on PR and advertising agencies to stop working with fossil fuel firms and stop spreading climate disinformation. This is the first time so many scientists have called out the role of PR and advertising in fuelling the climate crisis.

Oil and gas companies buy prestige by sponsoring museums, influencing the sphere of knowledge by putting money into universities, and gaining popularity when their logos are associated with sport. They invest a lot in buying a social licence to continue with business as usual by creeping into our everyday lives and disguising the damage. We need to urgently kick them out of our brains, hearts and communities.

In the last year, thanks to relentless grassroots work, Harvard University said it would phase out its fossil fuel holdings. In the UK, the National Portrait Gallery and Scottish Ballet confirmed they wouldn't do further sponsorship deals with BP. Tennis Australia has dropped gas firm Santos as a partner.

At the beginning of this century the EU banned tobacco advertising and sponsorship after it was recognised they increased consumption and hid health warnings. Now, with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate breakdown and its indisputable link to fossil fuel companies, it is time to ban fossil fuel propaganda for being deadly and criminal, and driving us inexorably towards climate catastrophe. Activism works. Together we can tell people in power how we want to live, and what must change.

Emma Thompson is an actor and activist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Greenwashing is driving our descent into climate catastrophe. But we can stop it | Emma Thompson

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
ondola trips are a traditional part of visiting Venice for those who can afford the steep tourist prices, but I went a little off-script on a recent visit and chose a different, but equally iconic, vessel.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the mid-1980s, oil company Chevron commissioned a series of expensive television and print ads to convince the public of its environmental bonafides. Titled People Do, the campaign showed Chevron employees protecting bears, butterflies, sea turtles and all manner of cute and cuddly animals.

The commercials were very effective - in 1990, they won an Effie advertising award, and subsequently became a case study at Harvard Business school. They also became notorious among environmentalists, who have proclaimed them the gold standard of greenwashing - the corporate practice of making diverting sustainability claims to cover a questionable environmental record.

The term greenwashing was coined by environmentalist Jay Westerveld in 1986, back when most consumers received their news from television, radio and print media - the same outlets that corporations regularly flooded with a wave of high-priced, slickly-produced commercials and print ads. The combination of limited public access to information and seemingly unlimited advertising enabled companies to present themselves as caring environmental stewards, even as they were engaging in environmentally unsustainable practices.

But greenwashing dates back even earlier. American electrical behemoth Westinghouse's nuclear power division was a greenwashing pioneer. Threatened by the 1960's anti-nuclear movement, which raised questions about its safety and environmental impact, it fought back with a series of ads proclaiming the cleanliness and safety of nuclear power plants. One, featuring a photograph of a nuclear plant nestled by a pristine lake, proclaimed that "We're building nuclear power plants to give you more electricity," and went on to say that nuclear plants were "odorless [...] neat, clean, and safe".

Some of these claims were true: in 1969, Westinghouse nuclear plants were producing large amounts of cheap electricity with far less air pollution than competing coal plants. However, given that the ads appeared after nuclear meltdowns had already occurred in Michigan and Idaho, the word "safe" was arguable. Westinghouse's ads also ignored concerns about the environmental impact of nuclear waste, which has continued to be a problem.

The mysterious case of the stolen towels

In 1983, when Jay Westerveld first got the idea for the term greenwashing, he wasn't thinking about nuclear power - he was thinking about towels. An undergraduate student on a research trip to Samoa, he stopped off in Fiji to surf. At the sprawling Beachcomber Resort, he saw a note asking customers to pick up their towels. "It basically said that the oceans and reefs are an important resource, and that reusing the towels would reduce ecological damage," Westerveld recalls. "They finished by saying something like, 'Help us to help our environment'."

Westerveld wasn't actually staying at the resort - he was lodging at a "grubby" guesthouse nearby, and had just snuck in to steal some clean towels. Even so, he was struck by the note's irony: while it claimed to be protecting the island's ecosystem, he says, the Beachcomber - which, today, describes itself as "the most sought-after destination in the South Pacific " - was expanding. "I don't think they really cared all that much about the coral reefs," he says. "They were in the middle of expanding at the time, and were building more bungalows."

Three years later, in 1986, when he was writing a term paper on multiculturalism, Westerveld remembered the note. "I finally wrote something like, 'It all comes out in the greenwash.' A guy in the class with me worked for a literary magazine and had me write an essay about it." And, as the magazine had a large readership in nearby New York City, it wasn't long before the term caught on in the wider media.

Westerveld's essay came out a year after the launch of Chevron's People Do campaign. As critics later pointed out, many of the environmental programs that Chevron promoted in its campaign were mandated by law. They were also relatively inexpensive when compared with the cost of Chevron's ad budget: environmental activist Joshua Karliner estimated that Chevron's butterfly preserve cost it $5,000 per year to run, while the ads promoting it cost millions of dollars to produce and broadcast.

The People Do campaign also ignored Chevron's spotty environmental record: while it was running the ads, it was also violating the clean air act, the clean water act and spilling oil into wildlife refuges. But Chevron was far from the only company digging deep into the greenwashing cesspool. In 1989, chemical company DuPont announced its new double-hulled oil tankers with ads featuring marine animals clapping their flippers and wings in chorus to Beethoven's Ode to Joy. However, as environmental nonprofit Friends of the Earth pointed out in its report Hold the Applause, the company was the single largest corporate polluter in the US.

Other corporate claims were equally outrageous: forestry giant Weyerhaeuser ran ads claiming that it was "serious" about caring for fish - even as it was cutting down trees in some of its forests and destabilizing salmon habitats.

Muddying the waters

By the early 1990s, consumers were wising up to sustainability concerns: polls showed that companies' environmental records influenced the majority of consumer purchases. This interest in the environment brought an increased awareness of the greenwashing; by the end of the decade, the word had officially entered the English language with its inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary. Since then, the trend has only increased: a 2015 Nielsen poll showed that 66% of global consumers are willing to pay more for environmentally sustainable products. Among millennials, that number jumps to 72%.

"People are getting more aware of the rarity of the Earth and the ways that our actions impact it," says Jason Ballard, CEO of sustainable home improvement retailer TreeHouse. At the same time, he notes, greenwashing has become more complex. "It's the dark side of a very positive development," he says.

One shift has been outreach. Many companies are now working to engage customers in their sustainability efforts, even as their core business model remains environmentally unsustainable. The Home Depot and Lowes, for example, both encourage customers to do their part by offering onsite recycling for several products, including compact fluorescent lights and plastic bags. Meanwhile, they continue to sell billions of dollars per year worth of environmentally damaging products, such as paints that are loaded with toxic ingredients and which release noxious fumes.

"It's misdirection, and it's intended to shift the customer's focus from a company's appalling behaviors to something that's peripheral," Ballard says.

The bottled water conundrum

Another trend, says Jonah Sachs, CEO of branding agency Free Range Studios, is linking sustainability claims to other issues, such as personal health. "There's this perception that personal health and environmental sustainability are two sides of the same coin," he says. "Sometimes this is true, but many times it isn't. Bottled water is a great example: in terms of health, it's much better than soda or other drinks, but in terms of the environment and sustainability, it's ridiculous."

The water industry trades heavily on images of rugged mountains and pristine lakes to sell its products. And many companies - Nestle, in particular - spend millions of dollars trying to convince the public that their bottled water isn't only good to drink, but is also good for the planet. Over the past few years, the bottled water giant has claimed that its Eco-Shape bottle is more efficient, that its Resource recycled plastic bottle is more environmentally responsible and that its use of plant-based plastics is less damaging to the planet.

In 2008, Nestle Waters Canada even ran an ad claiming: "Bottled water is the most environmentally responsible consumer product in the world." Several Canadian groups quickly filed a complaint against the company. Five years later, during Earth Day 2013, the International Bottled Water Association doubled down on the sustainability claims, announcing that bottled water was "the face of positive change" because the industry was using less plastic in its bottles and relying more on recycled plastic.

Sustainability promises aside, only about 31% of plastic bottles end up getting recycled, which means that "the face of positive change" creates millions of tons of garbage every year, much of which ends up in landfills or the ocean.

And the water that goes in the bottles is often equally unsustainable. Nestle's Arrowhead water claims that "Mother Nature is our muse" and boasts that it "has a team of experts dedicated to watching over each one of our 13 spring sources" to ensure responsible water stewardship. This sounds promising until one considers that those springs are in California, which has been in a state of drought for five years. The company also bottles water in Arizona and Oregon, both of which are also experiencing droughts.

A golden oldie

Some of the classic greenwashers are also taking cues from the new greenwashing playbook. In 2013, amid worries about unemployment and continued concerns about energy sustainability, Westinghouse put a fresh face on its old claims with a brand new commercial. "Did you know that nuclear energy is the largest source of clean air energy in the world?" the ad asked viewers right before claiming that its nuclear power plants "provide cleaner air, create jobs, and help sustain the communities where they operate".

What the commercial failed to mention was that, two years earlier, Westinghouse was cited by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for concealing flaws in its reactor designs and submitting false information to regulators. And, in February 2016, another plant that uses Westinghouse reactors, New York's Indian Point, leaked radioactive material into the surrounding area's groundwater.

Greenwashing may have taken on a new shape in the last decade, but it's still as murky as ever.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The troubling evolution of corporate greenwashing

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The term "greenwashing" was coined in the 1980s to describe outrageous corporate environmental claims. Three decades later, the practice has grown vastly more sophisticated

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Emma Thompson's recent article on greenwashing ( Greenwashing is driving our descent into climate catastrophe. But we can stop it, 2 August) rightly points out how fossil fuel companies have delayed and deceived us for decades with their false promises. The bluster of greenwash reaches far beyond the oil and gas industry, however, and pervades a vast number of sectors, collectively blinding us to the scale of change needed and obscuring where the true solutions lie.

Last year, outside London Fashion Week (without permission) we launched our website, www.greenwash.com, which highlights the vast array of greenwashing tactics used by the fashion industry, and we have since added examples from plastics and packaging. By seeing examples "in the wild" we hope to help citizens, company employees and policymakers learn to become super-detectors for greenwashing.

Greenwashing misleads us; it's unfair to businesses making the right changes, and it acts as a giant placebo - making us think that change is happening when it's not.

Activism is an important route to change, but it doesn't always need to mean taking to the streets. Cases of greenwashing can be submitted to both the Competition and Markets Authority and the Advertising Standards Authority, with the EU and US soon to update their mechanisms for tackling it. Action here will help to set a precedent that false marketing will not be tolerated, and drive companies to provide full evidence for what they deem to be green.
George Harding-Rolls
Campaign manager, Changing Markets Foundation

We need many more like Emma Thompson to speak out often and loudly. Most of us feel absolutely helpless. In the 1970s there was a successful boycott of all South African goods, because of apartheid, and we went out of our way to make sure we did not buy anything from South Africa. What we need now is a web platform with the reach of Facebook or Google to capture appropriate worldwide boycotts of companies that do nothing, or greenwash their activities.
Julian Crane
Wellington, New Zealand

Is advertising the real issue? I don't think so. Reflecting on the impact of the anti-smoking campaign, challenging advertising might change some people's minds by prompting them to question the fossil fuel companies' propaganda, but would this lead to the urgent change that is essential? And as we know, these companies move rapidly to exploit different channels and sidestep the restrictions. It will tackle the symptoms rather than the cause. The exploitation and use of fossil fuels is powering an existential threat to the global population in which it effectively has no choice or say.

Fossil fuel companies are able to achieve this because they are not required to absorb their externalities, the costs of which they impose on the community.

These are almost incalculable - including pollution, plastics, environmental destruction and corruption. If this industry were required to account for these costs, fossil fuels would stay in the ground and the industry would collapse. That is the issue which demands an urgent global political response. Banning advertising is worthy, but in the last analysis simply a gesture. The time for gestures has passed.
Neil Blackshaw
Whittingham, Northumberland

Emma Thompson is clearly an eco-warrior rightly seeking to ban fossil fuel advertising and sponsorship, but she cannot undo the negative contribution she and other high-profile celebrities have done to the cause over many years being among the 1% of fliers responsible for up to one half of total carbon emissions from commercial and private aircraft. Who can forget her 5,400-mile trip to and from California to be in the Extinction Rebellion protest boat in 2019, a journey that emitted 1.6 tonnes of carbon?
Bill Jackson
Nottingham

Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Don't let firms get away with greenwashing bluster | Letters

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Emma Thompson's recent article on greenwashing ( Greenwashing is driving our descent into climate catastrophe. But we can stop it, 2 August) rightly points out how fossil fuel companies have delayed and deceived us for decades with their false promises.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
n Singapore at the start of the month, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition - a non-profit alliance that makes up over half the global apparel and footwear industry - convened for their annual meeting. There was one big question on attendees' minds: how would the coalition respond to claims of greenwashing?

In June, the use of a tool the coalition had spent a decade building in order to measure the industry's environmental impacts was paused after the Norwegian Consumer Authority issued a warning that it could not be used to support sustainability claims. By then some major players - including Adidas and Kering - had already opted out of using the tool, called the Higg MSI, with Kering citing concerns about the accuracy of the data.

The coalition's cause was further hindered by the release of a Stand.earth report that revealed that despite pledging to reduce emissions, the fashion industry's carbon footprint has increased and continued to grow. Out of the ten companies assessed, nine were Sustainable Apparel Coalition members. The fashion industry is responsible for between 2-8% of global greenhouse gas emissions and despite a recent rise in products being described as sustainable and pledges to curb emissions, according to the World Resources Institute the sector's environmental footprint is expected to grow by 60% by 2030.

There is a broad greenwashing crackdown across the fashion industry, as regulators around the world try to figure out how to address misleading environmental product claims. For example, describing polyester products as "recycled" when the material cannot be reused again at end of life.

At the end of November, the European Union will announce rules on how brands should back up green claims, and regulations are expected to follow. In Australia, the ACCC is conducting sweeps to uncover deceptive environmental and sustainability marketing claims.

The Norwegian Consumer Authority's guidelines highlight a key issue for fashion brands. While there is significant business potential in marketing yourself as environmentally friendly, proving those claims is far more difficult. More and more consumers want to know how sustainable their consumption choices are. A recent UK survey by Deloitte found that 34% of shoppers had stopped purchasing products from certain brands due to environmental or ethical concerns.

If you want to make sustainability claims, you have to get control over your supply chains

Tonje Drevland, Norwegian Consumer Authority

Greenwashing has been rife in the fashion industry "for a long time" says Maxine Bédat, the director of the New Standard Institute. It's only with a shift in methodologies and "better data that we're going to be able to see if, as an industry, we are making any progress or not".

"Wrong data is worse than no data," says Tonje Drevland, the head of the Norwegian Consumer Authority's supervisory department. "You have to know that what you're saying is correct. You have to have facts supporting what you're saying."

At the SAC's annual meeting, Norway's guidelines were portrayed as an opportunity to work collaboratively to improve the Higg tools, and to look for ways to make systemic change, including embracing circularity and renewable energy. "I don't think that these are bad conversations to be having," Amina Razvi, the CEO of SAC, told Guardian Australia. "I think they're good because it will push both the industry and policymakers and regulators to figure out what is that aligned position ... that allows the industry to actually move forward."

However Jeremy Lardeau, the VP of the Higg Index raised concerns. "Is it practical and feasible to implement the NCA guidance on every product in this industry to calculate a product footprint? Not really. Right? It goes back to the complexity of the supply chain, and the availability of data."

I would rather know which factory a shirt was made in ... tell me if the T-shirt is made in a facility with solar power

Alden Wicker, EcoCult

Drevland is blunt about criticism of their feasibility. "It's not a human right to say something is sustainable," she says. "Maybe if you want to do sustainable fashion, you have to change your business models. If you want to make sustainability claims, you have to get control over your supply chains."

Bédat believes data would be improved if there was an onus on companies to report on what was happening in their own supply chains. "Companies are not required to do this work ... and that dynamic needs to shift in order to improve the tools."

Alden Wicker, editor in chief of EcoCult, agrees that more specific data is of better use for consumers. She says there are other Higg tools (there are five in total) that offer better insights into a product's environmental impact. She points to the Higg Facility Environmental Module, which measures the impact of the factories where products are made. "I would rather know which factory a shirt was made in ... tell me if the T-shirt is made in a facility with solar power, or if the cotton comes from a co-op that uses fewer pesticides and petroleum-based fertiliser."

While the coalition waits for regulators to clarify how the industry's impacts should be measured and communicated to consumers, they have enlisted the accounting firm KPMG to carry out a third-party assessment of the Higg Index. The SAC is also working with standards and certification non-profit Textile Exchange to do more research to create more datasets.

The time-consuming nature of collecting data and waiting for regulators to make decisions leaves consumers looking to make more sustainable purchases somewhat adrift. "Honestly, I wish we lived in a world where consumers didn't have to go so deep on clothing production in order to make 'good' or 'ethical' purchase," says Wicker. "It should just be a given that you're not contributing to deforestation or water pollution, should you want to grab a T-shirt from the store."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fashion brands grapple with greenwashing: 'It's not a human right to say something is sustainable'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
n Singapore at the start of the month, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition - a non-profit alliance that makes up over half the global apparel and footwear industry - convened for their annual meeting. There was one big question on attendees' minds: how would the coalition respond to claims of greenwashing?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
KU professor wears bullet proof vest as students now allowed to carry guns on campus

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sentence Starters! Here you will find a useful list of common sentence starters that you can use in a discussion as well as in essay writing. Learn these sentence starters to improve your English speaking and writing skills.

Sentence Starters

Sentence Starters | Common Phrases

Transition Words Used as Sentence Starters
Words to add an idea Words that show cause Words that show contrast Words that add emphasis
Sentence Starters | Infographic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sentence Starters: Useful Words and Phrases You Can Use As Sentence Starters - ESL Forums

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sentence Starters! Here you will find a useful list of common sentence starters that you can use in a discussion as well as in essay writing. Learn these sentence starters to improve your English speaking and writing skills.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE FUND / PATH — PATTY ORLANDO creative director

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When it comes to education, American Indians are the most under-served group in the United States. The American Indian College Fund is devoted to changing that and the lives of the students and communities it serves by making education accessible to all native students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE FUND / THIS IS INDIAN COUNTRY — PATTY ORLANDO creative director

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Launched during Native American Heritage Month in November 2021, “This Is Indian Country” is a new visibility campaign by the American Indian College Fund designed to increase awareness of and conversation about Indigenous people and issues especially at a time when Native people are still not seen…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE FUND "ONE PERCENT"

Only 1% of college students are American Indian. And of that 1%, more than 95% of those students need scholarships and financial aid to attend college. We rooted our American Indian College Fund campaign in these staggering statistics coupled with traditional, Native American beadwork. We had the privilege of working with photo-realist, Choctaw bead artist, Marcus Amerman. He created portraits of current AICF students and alumni to demonstrate how real the numbers and need are. Each portrait is made with over 18,000 seed beads.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE FUND / ONE PERCENT - PATTY ORLANDO creative director

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Only 1% of college students are American Indian. And of that 1%, more than 95% of those students need scholarships and financial aid to attend college. We rooted our American Indian College Fund campaign in these staggering statistics coupled with traditional, Native American beadwork.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE FUND "HELP A STUDENT HELP A TRIBE"

To raise support for the American Indian College Fund, we embraced a powerful truth: tribal college students are not just going to school for their own benefit but also to improve the reservation they call home. The idea is simple: help a student help a tribe-and it's achieved our greatest goal, generating loads of free exposure for the Fund and scholarships for tribal college students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE FUND / HELP A STUDENT - PATTY ORLANDO creative director

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
To raise support for the American Indian College Fund, we embraced a powerful truth: tribal college students are not just going to school for their own benefit but also to improve the reservation they call home.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Origin of Everything | The 2nd Amendment Explained | Season 1 | Episode 29 | PBS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We dive into the Supreme Court cases that shaped our understanding of the 2nd amendment.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
why do presidents use so many pens to sign documents - and what happens to them? - cnn

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why do presidents use so many pens to sign documents - and what happens to them?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When President Joe Biden sat down after his inauguration to sign a slew of executive orders, alongside the stack of navy folders was a wooden box, situated within easy reach.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
american firefighters are heading to australia to help battle the flames - cnn

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Paul Vercammen and Christina Maxouris, CNN

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
These American firefighters are heading to Australia to help battle the flames

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As massive blazes continue to ravage parts of Australia, 20 seasoned firefighters from California are on their way to help battle the flames.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
English pronunciation sounds - Introduction

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
UK prepares to welcome thousands of Hong Kongers fleeing national security law

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
There are few places more frozen in time than Nicosia's UN-patrolled buffer zone. And in that space of barbed wire, sandbags and guard posts, there is no place that conjures division more than the Ledra Palace hotel.

What was once a magnet for Hollywood stars, the go-to establishment for Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, famed as much for its ballroom as its invention of the brandy sour, has come to symbolise the failure of countless peace envoys, diplomats and politicians to reunite Europe's last divided capital.

Its bullet and rocket-scarred facade, like its splintered chandeliers, are tokens of conflict, one so intractable that the island has remained split between Greeks and Turks since 1974.

Time has had its effect. The hotel that hosted Cyprus's colonial-era rich - boasting luxurious en-suite bedrooms and a swimming pool whose opening became a high-society event - is now so structurally unsound that the UN peacekeepers garrisoned in the building for the past 45 years are having to call it a day.

This month the 4th Regiment Royal Artillery, the UK contingent currently supervising the ceasefire lines that bisect Nicosia, will move out, completing the year-long transfer to a new camp of container homes behind the hotel. It will be the end of an era for soldiers who have had to put up with broken pipes and blocked toilets in living facilities long deemed unsafe.

"On our WhatsApp group last night I was telling the guys all about the rat running underneath my floorboards," said a regiment officer giving a tour of the dilapidated premises. "It's a pity the palace has come to this."

For many, the troops' departure will be another sad marker of the inability to resolve a dispute that has festered since inter-ethnic fighting erupted in 1963, laying the ground for Turkish troops to invade and seize the island's northern third following a coup by far-right sympathisers favouring union with Greece. But while the wild, weed-infested buffer zone evokes partition - sowing the seeds for mistrust along the 120-mile divide - the old enmity has begun to be replaced by something else. Where governments have failed, and politicians feared to go, citizens bent on reconciliation have moved in.

Cypriot forces at the Ledra, which then became home to UN troops. British peacekeepers arrived in 1993. Photograph: Geoffrey White/ANL/Rex/Shutterstock

For those too young to have memories of coexistence, the demilitarised area, or "dead zone", offers the neutrality needed to overcome segregation. "It has increasingly become a third space that supersedes the boundaries of nationalist discourse," says Maria Hadjiplavou, a professor in conflict resolution who has been involved in peace-building work since the 1980s.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Home for Cooperation, the two-storey, bullet-pocked building opposite the hotel. Since opening in 2011 - eight years after Turkish Cypriot authorities eased inter-ethnic contact by opening the Ledra Palace checkpoint, until then the main crossing between south and north - the home has provided a sanctuary for those wanting to slay the mutual suspicion that has kept the communities apart. It is here that NGOs and citizens' groups, academics, artists and musicians meet to discuss and develop reconciliation.

Few know this better than Marilena Spyrou and Hayriye Ruzgar. Each morning they make the same journey to the ceasefire lines that have divided Cyprus for longer than either has lived. Bonded by a yearning to see their country reunited, differences, they say, are forgotten in the dead zone. Spyrou may cross from a checkpoint in the south, Ruzgar may arrive from a checkpoint in the north, but when they meet in the buffer zone on the home's first floor, facing each other from opposite sides of a desk, they are Cypriots first and foremost. "We are Cypriots who happen to speak Greek or Turkish," says Spyrou, who was born 10 years after the invasion to Greek Cypriot refugees forced to flee the north. "A lot of my friends have never met a Turkish Cypriot. They'll ask me things like, 'Do they all wear headscarves?' When they come here, they realise that almost everything they ever believed is untrue."

This is the Cyprus I dream of, where people don't care about religion, ethnicity or language, the things that divide us

Esra Aygin, activist

At 27, Ruzgar, whose father was an army officer, acknowledges that not all her friends see things the same way, but insists: "Our generation aren't bound by the problems of the past, we think of the future. Our island is too small to be divided."

With talks to create a united federal Cyprus stalled since peace negotiations collapsed in Switzerland in 2017, those who want a solution say bi-communal contact is more important than ever. Although technology and social media have helped transcend barriers, lack of communication and interaction create the perfect breeding ground for the prejudice and fears projected by nationalist education systems on both sides.

"Being here, where there is no 'us' and 'them,' keeps my hopes alive, my faith in people alive. It is a common space that we are not allowed to have in the north or south," says Esra Aygin, a prominent bi-communal peace activist sitting at a table on the terrace outside the home. "This is the Cyprus I dream of, where people don't care about religion, ethnicity or language, the things that divide us, but look for the things that unite us."

Reconciliation experts are in no doubt that increased contact has had a transformative effect, fostering tolerance and support for a settlement, even if unwavering pro-solutionists in the south are still in a minority.

"Empirical data demonstrates how positive contact is," says Professor Nicos Trimikliniotis, who teaches sociology at the University of Nicosia. "Every year I make sure to come with students to the home so they can talk and engage with people from both sides. It's worth more than a million lectures." In November two more crossings opened, bringing the total number to nine alone the buffer zone.

Before 2003 most bi-communal exchange was conducted in the mixed village of Pyla, also under UN supervision, in the eastern part of the island. "Cyprus is not Palestine or Kashmir," says Sener Elgil, who heads the Turkish Cypriot teachers' trade union. "We are European people who can live together. It is a nonsense to have [mainland] Turkish troops here."

Elgil, a leading light in the Bi-communal Peace Initiative, which represents 70 trade unions across the divide, fears that if a solution doesn't come soon there'll be no more Turkish Cypriots left. "So many are leaving, we're going to become extinct," he says, lamenting the influx of settlers from Turkey since the breakaway state, recognised only by Ankara, declared independence in 1983.

Like so many others who daily drop by the home, Christina Valanidou, a retired Greek Cypriot schoolteacher, fears that, without a formal peace, conflict could loom. Post-Trump, there has been growing speculation that the UN will not renew the mandate governing peacekeepers on the island. "As they say, Cyprus's drama is that there is no drama," she quips. "But if the UN does pull out, everything will change in the buffer zone. That may well focus minds in the search for the urgent solution that we all need."

This article was amended on 18 April 2019. An earlier version incorrectly stated that "the breakaway state declared independence in 1981". That should have said 1983.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
New generation of Cypriots seek to end island's division in Nicosia's 'dead zone'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There are few places more frozen in time than Nicosia's UN-patrolled buffer zone. And in that space of barbed wire, sandbags and guard posts, there is no place that conjures division more than the Ledra Palace hotel.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It is Kofi Annan’s fourth revision. It runs to 220 pages of text and 9,000 pages of annexes. Yet even this weighty peace plan cannot stop the pendulum of perceived advantage swinging back and forth over the divided island of Cyprus.