Thursday, March 26, 2026
UN votes to describe slave trade as ‘gravest crime against humanity’ | Slavery | The Guardian
UN votes to describe slave trade as ‘gravest crime against humanity’
(This vote against the resolution by the United States, Israel and Argentina confirm what a lot of us have always known. These three countries, along with the countries that abstained are all evil nations.)
"Members call for reparatory justice as landmark resolution aims for ‘political recognition at the highest level’
The United Nations has voted to describe the transatlantic chattel slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity” and called for reparations as “a concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs”.
The landmark resolution passed on Wednesday was backed by the African Union (AU) and the Caribbean Community (Caricom). It had been proposed by Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama, who said: “Let it be recorded that when history beckoned, we did what was right for the memory of millions who suffered the indignity of slavery.”
Voting in favour were 123 states, while Argentina, Israel and the US voted against. There were 52 abstentions, including the UK and members of the EU.
The UK said it recognised the gravity of the issues addressed in the resolution and the untold harm and misery the transatlantic slave trade had inflicted on millions of people over many decades.
But James Kariuki, the UK chargé d’affaires to the UN, said Britain continued to disagree with fundamental propositions of the text and was “firmly of the view that we must not create a hierarchy of historical atrocities”.
“No single set of atrocities should be regarded as more or less significant than another,” he said.
As the resolution went ahead in New York, the British MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy presented a petition to the House of Commons, pushing for a state apology by the UK for its key role in slavery and colonialism of Africans.
“So many of the intersecting global challenges we now face are rooted in the legacies of enslavement and empire: from geopolitical instability to racism, inequality, underdevelopment and climate breakdown,” the petition read. “To truly confront these issues, we must acknowledge where they come from.”
For four centuries, seven European nations including the UK enslaved and trafficked more than 15 million Africans across the Atlantic. The scale of the chattel slavery was such that 18th and 19th-century abolitionists coined the term “crime against humanity” to describe it. Historians have also linked wealth from enslavement to mass industrialisation in the west.
“When it’s framed as a trade, it distorts the reality,” said Jasmine Mickens, a postgraduate student of history and government at Harvard University. “It was not a consensual joint business enterprise.”
Ghana, which has been at the forefront of an effort across Africa and the Caribbean for reparatory justice, pushed for the terminology to be updated to reflect the lingering impact of chattel slavery.
Experts involved in drafting the resolution say it is an attempt to get “political recognition at the highest level” for one of the darkest eras in history.
“The main point is not to introduce a hierarchy of crimes,” said Kyeretwie Osei, the head of programmes of the economic, social and cultural council at the AU. “It is rather an attempt to properly situate that particular chapter in history … how it was so world-breaking in its impact that it essentially created the platform for every atrocity and crime against humanity that then followed.”
“[This] was the chattelisation of human beings which essentially reduces them to property that can be sold or inherited [and] the status of enslavement could be passed on through birth,” he added.
The UN first acknowledged that slavery was a crime in a 2001 conference against racism, xenophobia and related intolerance in Durban, South Africa.
Panashe Chigumadzi, a historian and rapporteur for the AU’s committee of experts on reparations for slavery, colonialism and apartheid, who drafted the framework, said that conference had had many limitations, including its framing of slavery as a “retroactive moral judgment rather than a continuous legal reality”.
“The AU framework … establishes that the inception of the trafficking in enslaved Africans during the so-called ‘age of discovery’ constituted the definitive break in world history, which inaugurated the break from localised feudal regimes to the modern world racial capitalist system,” she said. “This structurally transformed the fates of all peoples across the world through racialised regimes of labour, capital, property, territory and sovereignty that continue to determine relations of life and the land on which it is lived.”
While the resolution is not legally binding, it is now expected to pave the way for more progress in a fight that scholars and some politicians say has been hampered by the rise of rightwing movements in the west.
In recent years, the AU has been working to ensure the codifying of chattel slavery as a crime that requires not just apologies, but reparatory justice.
“Right now, the focus is on this particular moment [and] recognising that it is a culmination of many moments before this day,” Mickens said. “What people don’t seem to remember – due to all the efforts to erase history – is that black people, African people, have resisted the institution of chattel enslavement and the trafficking of Africans since the first hour the crime was committed on the shores of Africa.”
Before Wednesday’s vote, Mahama lamented the continuing erasure of Black history in the US through increasing censorship of teaching the “truth of slavery, segregation and racism” in schools.
“These policies are becoming a template for other governments and some private institutions,” he said at an event at the UN headquarters. “At the very least, they are slowly normalising the erasure.”
Travelers flock to Clear security app to bypass TSA lines amid US airport chaos
Travelers flock to Clear security app to bypass TSA lines amid US airport chaos
“Clear Secure, a biometric security firm, has seen a surge in new sign-ups amid the US airport chaos caused by the partial government shutdown. The company’s app downloads increased by 625% on a recent Sunday, and its stock is up 57% for the year. While Clear helps travelers bypass TSA lines, it has acknowledged that airport conditions have temporarily affected service at some locations.
Clear Secure has seen jump in new sign-ups amid the partial government shutdown as TSA workers go unpaid
As travelers continue to face sprawling security lines across the US, one company is thriving amid the ongoing chaos.
Clear Secure, a biometric firm that allows travelers to bypass Transportation Security Administration (TSA) lines at more than 60 airports in the US, has reportedly seen a jump in new sign-ups this month amid the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown.
Clear’s app saw 625% more downloads this Sunday compared with its daily average across January and February, according to the analytics firm Appfigures Intelligence. The company’s stock is also up 57% for the year, its highest value since it went public in 2021.
This is on top of gains seen even before the most recent shutdown: in the fourth quarter of 2025, the company saw its revenue up more than 16% and its total bookings up more than 25%.
Clear uses biometric technology, often a fingerprint or eye scan, to verify passengers’ identity and help them speed through the initial security process. Though it doesn’t allow passengers to bypass the actual TSA baggage security screening, it brings them to the front of the TSA line.
Airports across the country have been plunged into chaos since the partial government shutdown started earlier this year, leaving TSA employees to work without pay.
There are a handful of airports where even the $209 membership with Clear hasn’t been able to help with the sprawling security lines caused by the partial government shutdown.
The company said it has deployed extra staff to airports, a company spokesperson said, adding that its 3,500 ambassadors “remain fully staffed” and are helping the TSA with line management. Clear has donated about $200,000 in gas cards and grocery cards to security officers, the spokesperson said.
“On behalf of American travelers and TSA officers who are showing up to work without pay, we hope a resolution comes soon,” said Kyle McLaughlin, executive vice-president of aviation at Clear. “We are working hard to support all our stakeholders including airlines, airports, the TSA and most importantly, American travelers who deserve better.”’
Clear’s security lanes are installed through partnerships with individual airports, but the company has recently partnered with TSA to debut new electronic security gates that screen travelers using biometric technology without needing a human operator.
The company acknowledged that airport conditions beyond its control “temporarily affected service” for Clear members at some airports, including at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans international airport and the George Bush intercontinental airport in Houston.
“We recommend travelers check with their local airport for the latest update,” the company said.“
How the Iran war is expected to affect US prices, from gas to flights
How the Iran war is expected to affect US prices, from gas to flights
“The ongoing US-Israel war on Iran is causing global oil shortages, impacting prices across various sectors. The conflict has led to a significant increase in gas and diesel prices, affecting transportation costs and potentially leading to higher prices for goods like groceries. Additionally, the war has disrupted the global helium supply and could result in higher airfare and shipping costs due to surging jet fuel prices.
Oil is used to power the supply chain, from machines that manufacture a cell phone to diesel that powers a truck
Fertilizer. Phones and laptops. Flights. These are just some of the products made from or powered by crucial materials that ship through the strait of Hormuz, which still remains effectively closed due to the US-Israel war on Iran.
As the war approaches its fifth week, global oil shortages are forcing countries to take severe measures to save their reserves as Iran continues to block oil shipments.
Even if a deal to end the conflict is reached soon, unwinding the damage will take months.
US gas prices have reached their highest level in years, but the change in oil prices aren’t just impacting drivers: Oil is used to power the supply chain, from the machines that manufacture a cell phone to the diesel that powers a truck carrying it to a store.
The price increases come as many Americans are already strained by rising housing costs, grocery bills, and electricity statements. A Gallup poll released last week found that a third of Americans skipped meals and forewent other needs to afford their healthcare.
Here’s how the conflict with Iran is expected to affect prices.
Oil and gas
The average cost of gas in the US has jumped about 30% over the last month, with the national average hitting $3.97, the highest since 2023.
But diesel, which fuels many of the trucks that transport goods across the nation, has increased even further – by about 50%, or about $1.69 more than it did a year ago, according to data from AAA.
Higher diesel costs could soon affect transportation costs and, in turn, the cost of groceries as roughly 85% of agricultural goods are transported by trucks.
Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive policy group, said that the impact of oil and gas shortages on the supply chain can be categorized as first-order effects or second-order effects.
First-order effects are the direct impacts of the conflict, and for most consumers, this means higher prices at the gas pump.
Second-order effects are indirect and much broader, with potential impacts to the price of crops, semiconductor chips and medical devices that could eventually stream down to consumers.
“It’s just a matter of when they work their way through the supply chains,” Jacquez said. “Maybe it’s on next month’s orders, or maybe next week’s orders, or whatever it may be. But eventually some of these increases we’ve seen are going to get passed through, if they get large enough.”
Fertilizer
Farmers in particular have said they are struggling as the spring growing season approaches, facing higher fertilizer costs and falling commodity prices.
A third of global urea trade, which is a solid nitrogen fertilizer, passes through the Middle East region, with about 20% of imported fertilizer to the US coming specifically from Qatar.
Nitrogen fertilizer is critical to grow corn, which is cultivated by about 500,000 farmers in the US, according to the National Corn Growers Association.
The war’s impact on farmers has caught the attention of the White House, which has promised the US economy wouldn’t be disrupted “very much at all” by supply issues.
Donald Trump has “a plan for every corner of the disruption, from fertilizer to getting fuel to the west coast”, Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, said in an interview with CNBC last week.
Hassett said the White House has been seeking alternative sources of fertilizer from around the world, and they have successfully found “a lot of it”.
“We’ve been all over the fertilizer problem,” he said. “I’m not saying that we can eliminate what disruption there is so far, but we can minimize it.”
Helium
The conflict has disrupted the global helium supply after Iranian attacks in Qatar, the second-largest producer of helium after the United States. The country was forced to halt production at its Ras Laffan industrial complex, which supplies about 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas.
Helium is a key import that is used in aerospace, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and in making semiconductor chips that are used to power AI.
Jet fuel
Increases in oil prices could also result in higher airfare and shipping costs, Jacquez said.
The price of jet fuel has doubled since the start of the war, according to the International Air Transport Association,
United Airlines announced last Friday it would have to cut flights due to the surging cost of fuel.
“The reality is, jet fuel prices have more than doubled in the last three weeks. If prices stayed at this level, it would mean an extra $11bn in annual expense just for jet fuel,” Scott Kirby, the CEO of United, said in a statement. “For perspective, in United’s best year ever, we made less than $5B.”
The average airfare for most airlines – spanning both domestic and international trips, as well as tickets bought last-minute and in advance – were up compared to the same period last year, according to an analysis at Deutsche Bank.
Mortgage rates
Just as US mortgage were starting to fall in February, giving American home buyers and sellers some relief in the housing market, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate ticked up to its highest level in months last week, reaching 6.22%.
Mortgage rates are closely tied to the overall state of the economy because they are based on interest rates, which are determined by the US Federal Reserve. Last week, the Fed opted to leave rates unchanged at a range of 3.5% to 3.75% citing uncertainty in the economy, particularly with conflict in the Middle East.
“Rising mortgage rates are a major barrier to what should otherwise be a very favorable spring homebuying season,” said Joel Berner, a senior economist at Realtor.com. “Ultimately, the current upward pressure on mortgage rates, stemming from the war and inflation fears, serves as the primary barrier preventing the spring housing market from capitalizing on otherwise favorable inventory and price conditions.”
How a Healthy Mind-Set Influences Longevity
How a Healthy Mind-Set Influences Longevity
“Research suggests that a positive mindset, including optimism and a sense of purpose, can benefit health and longevity, especially as people age. Feeling valued and having something to contribute, known as “mattering,” can drive positive health behaviors and improve physical and cognitive abilities. Maintaining a positive outlook on life and aging can also influence behaviors, leading to better health outcomes.
A few qualities, including a sense of purpose, seem to have real benefits — especially as you age.
Nan Niland, 72, worked as a dentist for 40 years. “It really was my self-definition,” she said. “Probably too much.”
When she retired in 2020, she settled into a routine of exercising, reading, sewing and spending time in nature. But after awhile, she began to crave a little more structure and purpose.
Then she read about the Newton, Mass., charity Welcome Home in a local newsletter. The organization serves as a home goods pantry, collecting and redistributing household items to families in need.
Today, Ms. Niland volunteers there about 15 hours a week. “I needed to feel like I was doing something other than pleasing myself,” she said.
Much has been written about how physical behaviors, like exercise, diet and sleep, contribute to a long and healthy life. But research suggests that, as you age, a positive mind-set — including optimism and a sense of purpose — can benefit your health and longevity, too.
Mattering matters.
Feeling that you are valued and have something to contribute to others, often called mattering, can help drive you toward positive health behaviors that influence longevity. “If you feel like you matter, you’re more likely to stay socially connected, to take care of yourself, to show up for others, to keep investing in life,” said Jennifer B. Wallace, the author of a new book, “Mattering.”
When Dr. Linda Fried worked as a geriatrician at Johns Hopkins Medicine early in her career, she realized that many of her patients were “legitimately feeling sick,” but the cause of their sickness stemmed from “not having a reason to get up in the morning.”
Dr. Fried, now a professor of epidemiology and medicine at Columbia University, started recommending that her patients volunteer at an organization that they care about. Not long after, she started her own volunteer program to study the potential benefits on older adults.
Dr. Fried found that people who volunteered increased their activity levels and felt physically stronger after several months of service. They also modestly improved their scores on tests of cognition and scored higher on a questionnaireassessing their feelings on legacy and making a difference in their community.
Volunteering isn’t the only path to mattering. Becoming a regular at a coffee shop, dog park or other third place can also help you feel more connected. “Finding environments where you feel like you matter, it’s protective against the loneliness and the lack of mattering that can creep in in retirement,” Ms. Wallace said.
Optimism is powerful, too.
Maintaining a positive outlook on life, and about aging in particular, also appears to benefit people in their later years.
A 2022 study found that women over 50 who scored highest on a measure of optimism lived, on average, 5 percent longer and had a greater chance of making it to age 90 than those who scored lowest. And a study published this month reported that adults 50 and up who had a positive attitude about getting older — saying they felt as useful or as happy as they did when they were younger — were more likely to maintain, or even slightly improve, on tests of physical and cognitive ability when tracked over 12 years.
Like with mattering, feeling positive about one’s future seems to affect a person’s health by influencing their behaviors, said Becca Levy, a professor of public health and psychology at Yale University who led the recent study. When someone feels they have something to look forward to, they’re more likely to follow medical advice, get more physical activity and maintain social connections. Dr. Levy’s research has shown that having a positive outlook on aging can even protect against stress, resulting in lower levels of cortisol and markers of inflammation.
Of course, getting older isn’t easy. Losing a loved one, having to navigate an illness or becoming a caretaker can all affect one’s sense of identity and perspective. Remaining optimistic in these types of situations isn’t about being in denial about the hard parts of life, said Deepika Chopra, a health psychologist and author of “The Power of Real Optimism.”
“It’s much more related, I think, to resiliency than it is to positivity,” Dr. Chopra said. People who are optimistic “see these setbacks as something that are temporary and that they have the ability to overcome.”
To help engender a sense of optimism, Dr. Chopra recommends being intentional about looking forward to something every day. That could be a walk outside, a conversation with a friend, even what you’re going to have for dinner.
“When people repeatedly imagine the future as limited or declining, which a lot of people aging do, the brain begins to kind of reinforce those expectations,” Dr. Chopra said. “But if we can consciously direct attention toward even something small, a small positive future moment every day,” she said, it trains the brain to anticipate that good things are still on the horizon.
Dr. Chopra’s grandfather, Madan Syal, embodies this attitude. He said he feels positive about getting older and enjoys playing cards with his wife every day. But what he’s really looking forward to is turning 100 this July.
Dana G. Smith is a Times reporter covering personal health, particularly aging and brain health.“
Trump’s Threats to Europe Put Its Leaders in a Double Bind Over Iran
Trump’s Threats to Europe Put Its Leaders in a Double Bind Over Iran
“President Trump’s threats against Europe over the Strait of Hormuz have put European leaders in a difficult position. While they face pressure to reopen the waterway and ease an energy crisis, public opinion in Europe is largely against military intervention. Additionally, Trump’s lack of consultation and disparaging remarks towards European leaders have made it politically challenging for them to support his military campaign.
European politicians risk angering their voters if they join America’s war. Yet they could also face domestic upheaval if they take no action to reopen shipping routes that Iran has blocked and ease an energy crisis.
President Trump, in his latest broadside at Europe, castigated its leaders for refusing to help keep open the Strait of Hormuz. “They complain about the high oil prices they are forced to pay,” he said on social media last week, but they reject “a simple military maneuver that is the single reason for the high oil prices.”
However impulsive his outburst, it pointed up a deeper truth: Mr. Trump has put Europe’s leaders into a kind of double bind.
Iran’s de facto closure of the strategic waterway has set off a full-blown energy crisis across the Continent. With skyrocketing oil and gas prices angering voters throughout Europe, the pressure is mounting on its leaders to take more forceful actions to reopen the shipping lanes.
Yet at the same time, Europe’s political winds are blowing ever more fiercely against the war, raising the stakes for leaders to take part. The military campaign is faulted by many Europeans, especially on the left, who say it is gratuitous, illegal and now is threatening Europe’s fragile growth. The leaders also remain haunted by the Iraq War, which Britain supported, to its lasting regret.
“We are divided as usual,” said Gérard Araud, a former French ambassador to Israel and the United States. “Europeans are showing their weakness on several levels. We are in a state of total shock about what is happening.”
Already, the war is tilting politics. In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni lost a referendum to overhaul the judicial system that leaves her politically damaged. The perception that she is close to Mr. Trump, who is deeply unpopular in Italy, did not help, especially when he did not bother to call her before the war.
In France, a far-left party opposed to Mideast intervention, France Unbowed, scored gains in mayoral elections last week. That came despite the party getting caught up in controversies, including the arrest of two party aides after the killing of a right-wing activist. Analysts said the party benefited from the votes of Muslims who are angry about the war.
Still, for all the political hazards, there are compelling reasons for Europe to ensure the Strait of Hormuz is not blocked for a prolonged period. In Germany, gasoline has topped 2 euros per liter, the equivalent of $9.48 per gallon. That has forced Germany and other countries into costly tax cuts and price caps to cushion the shock.
“The Europeans have every interest in opening the strait to tanker and other trade, and in showing the smaller Gulf states that they are reliable allies,” said Peter Westmacott, a former British ambassador to France and the United States. “So, once satisfied that they are acting defensively rather offensively, those who can are looking for ways to help.”
For all Mr. Trump’s pressure on Europe, he has not made it easy for its leaders to support him. The United States did not consult allies on the joint U.S.-Israeli operation or, in most cases, even give them a heads-up. The lack of collaboration came after a fraught period in which Mr. Trump escalated his threats of a takeover of Greenland and zigzagged in his support for Ukraine.
Mr. Trump has since been insulting to European leaders, particularly Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain, who worked assiduously to cultivate him. Mr. Starmer is “no Winston Churchill,” he said, before circulating a mocking British TV sketch of the prime minister quaking before a phone call with the president.
R. Nicholas Burns, who served as American ambassador to NATO during the Iraq War, said “the scurrilous comments that Trump made about the British prime minister” were the latest in a series of hostile gestures that would make it politically untenable for European leaders to take part in offensive military operations.
“All of that has contributed to the political problems that European countries have, and they’re all democracies,” Mr. Burns said.
Even when he appealed to the Europeans to step up, Mr. Trump managed to disparage them. The United States, he said, did not actually need their military assets. Diplomats and military officials say that laid bare his real motive: to force Europe to assume the political risk of joining the military campaign.
While analysts note that Europe could contribute to a military operation in the strait — deploying minesweepers, for example, or other warships to escort tankers — they say that Europe’s military assets are secondary to the value of having its political buy-in for the broader campaign.
“There are realities where it would be convenient to have more ships,” said Michel Yakovleff, a retired French general and former NATO planner. “But that’s not the Trump line. If Trump were open to saying, ‘Quite frankly, given the magnitude of the problem, we’d like to have more,’ then the calculation could be different.”
But since Mr. Trump dismissed the value of Europe’s military contribution, General Yakovleff said, “that means it’s political.”
He said European leaders were right not to give Mr. Trump political cover because he has yet to clarify his strategic objectives or lay out an exit ramp for the war. On Monday, the president said “very good” talks were underway to end hostilities, a contention quickly disputed by Iranian officials.
To put together a coalition for the strait, General Yakovleff said, Mr. Trump would need to hammer out an agreement with members on the scope of the operation, what each would contribute, the chain of command and rules of engagement. Such a process would take at least two months, he said.
Last week, leaders from Europe, joined by several from Asia and the Persian Gulf, dropped their resistance to taking part in such an operation. But their statement was hardly full-throated: “We express our readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the strait,” it said.
President Emmanuel Macron of France is working behind the scenes to obtain the imprimatur of the United Nations for a post-conflict operation to keep the strait open. European Union officials have raised the idea of expanding the mandate of other naval protection missions in the region.
Given Europe’s history of negotiating with Iran on its nuclear program, said Mr. Araud, the former ambassador, it could play a more meaningful role diplomatically in helping wind down the conflict.
But he said Europe was hamstrung by three interlocking factors: Mr. Trump’s distrust of Europe, especially after its refusal to support the war; Europe’s fears that antagonizing the president could lead him to punish Ukraine; and Iran’s suspicion of Europe, given its reluctance to confront him more openly.
“We could play the role of go-between, but Trump would rather have the Pakistanis,” Mr. Araud said, adding that “the Iranians don’t trust us either; they think we are in the pocket of the Americans.”
Mark Landler is the Paris bureau chief of The Times, covering France, as well as American foreign policy in Europe and the Middle East. He has been a journalist for more than three decades.“
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