Ottawa, province, First Nations sign deal to protect southern mountain caribou

The Canadian PressFeb. 21, 2020

Ottawa, province, First Nations sign deal to protect southern mountain caribou

VANCOUVER — A historic agreement to save endangered southern mountain caribou in northeast British Columbia has been recognized as reconciliation in action, coming on the same day tensions peaked in Canada over Indigenous land rights and resource developments that have resulted in blockades and arrests.

Federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said Friday the agreement represents bold action to support the survival and recovery of an iconic caribou population, which is down to 230 animals, but he also said the deal represents successful co-operation on a challenging issue.

"This is a very good day," he said during a news conference. "This agreement is a model for caribou recovery efforts across this country. By entering into this partnership agreement, we are supporting reconciliation as well as environmental stewardship."

The federal and B.C. governments along with the West Moberly and Saulteau First Nations signed the long-awaited agreement to protect the endangered herd in the Dawson Creek area of B.C.

Wilkinson said the 30-year partnership agreement includes habitat recovery measures, maternal penning to protect young caribou from predators and a commitment to protect 700,000 hectares of critical habitat.

Saulteau Chief Ken Cameron said the agreement sends a message that goes beyond the caribou habitat and should be viewed as a signal that respectful negotiation and co-operation produces results.

"Most Canadians, and myself included, are starting to wonder if there was anything real to the word reconciliation," said Cameron. "Today is an example that we can achieve reconciliation."

In Ottawa on Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the rail barricades — erected in support of Wet'suwet'in hereditary chiefs' opposition to a natural gas pipeline in their territory — had to come down and the onus was on the chiefs to come to the table.

Wet'suwet'in Nation Chief Woos responded, saying they agree to negotiate, as long as the RCMP leaves their territory in northern B.C. and the pipeline builder, Coastal Gas Link, stops its work.

Chief Roland Willson, of the West Moberly First Nations, said his people have deep spiritual and survival links to the caribou and now that the species is struggling to survive, the time has come to help the threatened animals.

"We are interconnected with them," he said. "They are a part of our lives. They were there for us when we needed them. We have to be there for them now."

Local residents have voiced concern about the impact the caribou recovery plan may have on their communities.

A West Moberly issued a statement saying "the partnership agreement will not close hiking, fishing or camping sites in the back country, and will not shut down mills, mines, or pipelines."

B.C. Forests Ministry statistics estimate the province's caribou numbers have dropped from about 40,000 animals over the last century to about 15,000. Southern mountain caribou populations now total fewer than 3,100. The central group of southern mountain caribou has about 230 animals.

The partnership deal focuses on saving the central herd, but the federal and B.C. government reached a bilateral agreement to work towards protecting the remaining herds, said Wilkinson.

The minister acknowledged the negotiation process to reach the deal created issues among communities and industries in the northeast over concerns the protection plan would hurt business and restrict recreational land access.

"We certainly recognize the challenges and some of the legitimate concerns raised on this issue over the past year by local communities and industry and that is why we are working together to directly support affected communities and industries through a range of measures," said Wilkinson.

B.C.'s forest industry said it supports caribou recovery efforts, but the agreement will result in fewer areas to work and could hurt local economies.

"We are deeply disappointed that the separate partnership agreement signed today permanently removes a significant amount of fibre from the timber harvesting land base and creates additional operational uncertainty," said a joint statement from the BC Council of Forest Industries and the Forest Products Association of Canada.

B.C.'s Opposition Liberals said the plan ignores residents of rural B.C. who believe protecting caribou was placed ahead of their livelihoods and recreational interests. The Liberals say the deal was largely negotiated without input from local governments and industry officials.

"Moving ahead without any meaningful input from the general public shows (Premier) John Horgan's disregard for this entire region of B.C.," said the area's Liberal MLA Mike Bernier in a statement.

Horgan appointed former Liberal cabinet minister Blair Lekstrom last year to review those concerns and make recommendations to the government, but Lekstrom recently quit, saying the New Democrats were not prepared to reopen the deal to allow more local participation.

The agreement was praised by environmental groups who say habitat destruction has put caribou on the brink of extinction.

Wilderness Committee caribou campaigner Charlotte Dawe said the plan makes caribou recovery its top priority.

"I look forward to the day when Chief Ken Cameron and Chief Roland Willson can watch as caribou migrate over hilltops in the high hundreds, a sight that hasn't been seen in the Peace region for decades," she said in a statement.

B.C. Forests Minister Doug Donaldson called the deal historic.

"The caribou is a keystone species, an indicator of the health of the land," he said.

— By Dirk Meissner in Victoria.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on February 21, 2020.

The Canadian Press

Trudeau says time for blockades to end, Indigenous leaders to work with government

The Canadian PressFebruary 21, 2020

Trudeau says time for blockades to end, Indigenous leaders to work with government

OTTAWA — Protesters have left a site south of Montreal where they had been blockading railway tracks since Wednesday.

The end of the blockade Friday night followed the arrival of riot police in the afternoon who were dispatched to enforce an injunction ordering protesters off Canadian National Railway tracks in St-Lambert, Que.

The development came hours after a stern-faced Prime Minister Justin Trudeau emerged from high-level meetings in Ottawa saying that barricades on rail lines and other major transportation routes must come down after two weeks of calls for patience and stalled attempts at negotiation.

"We are waiting for Indigenous leadership to show that it understands," he said in a news conference. "The onus is on them."

Injunctions to clear tracks must be obeyed and the law must be upheld, he said, adding that it is pointless to continue making overtures to Indigenous leaders if they aren't accepted.

"Let us be clear: all Canadians are paying the price. Some people can't get to work, others have lost their jobs," Trudeau said. "Essential goods … cannot get where they need to go."

The situation "is unacceptable and untenable," he said.

The blockades, particularly one on a critical east-west rail line in Ontario, are responses by Indigenous people and supporters to a move by the RCMP to clear protesters who had been blocking access to a worksite for a major natural-gas pipeline project in British Columbia. Hereditary chiefs of the Wet'suwet'en Nation oppose the work on their traditional territory, despite support from elected band councils along the pipeline route.

On Thursday, the RCMP in B.C. sent a letter to the traditional Wet'suwet'en leaders, telling them the force intends to move its officers off the access road and station them instead in the nearby town of Houston.

In response, one of the traditional chiefs of the Wet'suwet'en Nation said Friday his people are willing to engage in nation-to-nation talks with the B.C. and federal governments, but not until the RCMP in B.C. have left traditional Wet'suwet'en territory entirely and Coastal GasLink, the pipeline company, ceases work in the area.

Hereditary Chief Woos, also known as Frank Alec, said the B.C. RCMP have not yet left the Wet'suwet'en territory and charged they have also "increased harassment, made illegal arrests, increased surveillance and monitoring of Wet’suwet’en people and their invited guests."

"This is completely unacceptable and far from a show of good faith and contradicts the announcement of the RCMP," Woos said.

Until their demands are met, the barricade in Ontario erected by the Mohawks at Tyendinaga will not come down, said Kanenhariyo, who also goes by Seth LaFort, of the Mohawks of Tyendinaga.

The Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs were visiting their supporters at Tyendinaga to thank them and held a news conference afterward.

Woos took issue with Trudeau's comments that the blockades are causing trouble for Canadians, suggesting the Wet'suwet'en are facing injustice.

"There is a difference between inconvenience and injustice — total difference. Don't confuse one with the other," Woos said.

Meanwhile, the prime minister is contending with pressure from several premiers to take more swift and decisive action to end the blockades.

"We've sent a message clearly with our willingness to say, quite publicly, that we don't believe it's in the best interests of protesters or the general public to stand back in respect of the laws being broken, that it can endanger people's lives and endanger their well-being," Manitoba's Brian Pallister said Friday.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford issued a statement Friday saying "enough is enough."

"The illegal blockades must come down. This is a national emergency and innocent people from coast to coast are being hurt. The federal government must co-ordinate action to take down these illegal blockades across the country.”

Quebec Premier Francois Legault made it clear Thursday that provincial police in his province would dismantle the blockade in a suburb south of Montreal.

Earlier Friday evening, the roughly two dozen protesters began dismantling their encampment, taking down tents and hauling their supplies to the edge of a security perimeter established by police.

A spokesman for the protesters, who had been blocking the rail line in a show of solidarity with Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs in British Columbia, vowed that other blockades would appear.

Alberta's Jason Kenney, a former federal Conservative cabinet minister, pulled no punches in a Friday press conference. He said he made it clear to the prime minister on a conference call with the other premiers Thursday evening that the blockades are having devastating impacts on people across the country.

He said it is scaring away investment and giving the impression that Canada can't operate as a modern democratic country.

This is just the latest in an increasing pile-on of federal, provincial and business leaders pressing Trudeau and the federal government to end the blockades.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said Friday he doesn't believe Trudeau's ultimatum will work and warned that making concessions to the Wet'suwet'en will embolden future activists who oppose resource development projects. 

"For days, he's been basically telling these illegal protesters that he's taking the use of police forces off the table. He's basically been giving them a signal that they can act with impunity. He's also talked about offering concessions to people who are breaking the law," Scheer said.

"This is a very dangerous precedent to set. And as we face developments in the future, as it relates to other energy projects, these protesters will continue to be emboldened as they pursue their anti-free market, anti-energy development agenda."

Despite his firmer tone Friday, Trudeau stressed that his government remains committed to dialogue and reconciliation with the Wet'suwet'en hereditary leadership, but the ball is now in their court to make that happen.

"Our government has kept engaged at all levels, we repeated our calls for collaboration, we showed respect," Trudeau said.

"But Canadians who are feeling the very real impacts of these blockades are running out of patience."

He also made a point to draw a line between the Wet'suwet'en protesters and their allies — those upset at the long history of abuse perpetrated against Indigenous peoples in Canada — and others who "use or engage with Indigenous protests to call out a particular project with which they disagree."

While these "other" protesters may be advancing a view that is deeply felt, their concerns are "not anchored in the deep wrongs that have been done in ignoring and marginalizing Indigenous leadership and Indigenous voices in this country," Trudeau said. 

B.C.'s John Horgan struck a more understanding note than some of the other premiers Friday. He said his government continues to be ready to engage in talks with Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs.

But Horgan said more people from the community, other than the hereditary chiefs, have begun to speak out, including the matriarchs who have historically been the keepers of the traditional practices of the Wet'suwet'en people.

Horgan said he expects Na'moks, a hereditary chief who also goes by John Ridsdale, will be hearing from people in the community about his refusal to meet with the province, because that's "not how you have respectful dialogue with your neighbours."

He said he believes the vast majority of northern B.C. residents and Wet'suwet'en people want to find a way forward and his government remains "at the ready" to help reach that outcome.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 21, 2020.

—With files from Steve Lambert in Winnipeg, Liam Casey in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, Bill Graveland in Calgary and Laura Kane in Vancouver

Teresa Wright, The Canadian Press

Protesters abandon Quebec rail blockade after show of force by police

The Canadian PressFebruary 21, 2020

Protesters abandon Quebec rail blockade after show of force by police

ST-LAMBERT, Que. — A blockade south of Montreal that halted rail traffic and frayed nerves since Wednesday was abandoned late Friday after riot police arrived to enforce a court injunction.

The roughly two dozen protesters, acting in solidarity with Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs contesting a British Columbia natural gas pipeline, had begun dismantling the encampment earlier in the evening following discussions with police.

They took downs tents and carried items such as sleeping bags, pots, propane tanks and a wood stove to the edge of a security perimeter established earlier in the day by Longueuil municipal police.

Then at around 10 p.m., a spokesman wearing a ski mask and sunglasses announced the rail blockade in St-Lambert, Que., was ending but said the fight was not over.

"Even though the colonial police is removing this barricade with violence and contempt, others will emerge," he said. 

He added that until the federal government listens to the hereditary chiefs, the RCMP leaves Wet'suwet'en territory and Coastal GasLink scraps the contentious pipeline, "the colonial Canadian state will be totally paralyzed."

Emotions flared earlier in the day as the protesters dug in next to Canadian National Railway tracks despite being served with an injunction Thursday that ordered that the site be cleared. Quebec Premier Francois Legault called for the injunction to be enforced "rapidly."

Police arrived in large numbers Friday afternoon near the encampment. There were several rounds of talks between police and the masked protesters, and as the impasse continued, some people chose to leave.

The blockade interrupted freight traffic as well as passenger service for suburban commuters and Via Rail travellers.

Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs oppose the Coastal GasLink project that would carry natural gas to the B.C. coast, though others in the community support the pipeline.

Countrywide protests and blockades followed a move by RCMP to enforce a court injunction this month against the hereditary chiefs and their supporters, who had been obstructing an access road to a Coastal GasLink work site.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday called the blockades around the country unacceptable and said they have to come down.

"Let us be clear: all Canadians are paying the price. Some people can't get to work, others have lost their jobs," Trudeau said. "Essential goods ... cannot get where they need to go."

Jean-Yves Lessard, who joined the St-Lambert protesters on Friday morning, said Trudeau's government was to blame.

"If they had done what they needed to at the beginning, people wouldn't be here," he said.

"Sadly, it's bad for the economy and business, but it's not them you should be angry with. Tell Trudeau to go and sit down with the hereditary chiefs."

Legault said he would leave it to police to enforce the injunction.

"We need these tracks for transporting cargo, to avoid job losses, to avoid losses for companies," he said. "The law has to be respected, and obviously I hope it is done in an orderly fashion."

The premier estimated losses to the provincial economy due to the rail blockades at up to $100 million a day.

Denis Bisson, who owns a company north of Montreal that sells slate flooring and countertops, stopped by the blockade Friday. He said he depends on the rail line to supply his business with raw materials from a quarry in Nova Scotia. Switching to flatbed trucks would quadruple the cost per load, he said.

"I'm afraid it's going to last two or three weeks, and I'm beginning to be out of stock in my yard," he said, holding a sign that read in French "hostage for one day or every day?!"

A protester told him they were standing up for Indigenous rights and the environment.

"But they are hitting people that have nothing to do with that," Bisson said. "They're making people pay for something that we're not involved in."

The injunction granted to CN Thursday by Superior Court Justice France Dulude authorized "any police services or peace officers" to assist the company in executing the order in St-Lambert.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 21, 2020.

Assange's fate hangs in balance as UK court considers U.S. extradition bid

LONDON (Reuters) - Almost a decade after his WikiLeaks website enraged Washington by leaking secret U.S. documents, a London court will begin hearings on Monday to decide whether Julian Assange should be extradited to the United States.


A hero to admirers who say he has exposed abuses of power, Assange is cast by critics as a dangerous enemy of the state who has undermined Western security. He says the extradition is politically motivated by those embarrassed by his revelations.

The 48-year-old is wanted by the United States on 18 criminal counts of conspiring to hack government computers and violating an espionage law and could spend decades in prison if convicted.

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Now, some 10 months after he was dragged from London’s Ecuadorean embassy where he had been holed up for seven years, Judge Vanessa Baraitser will hear arguments as to why he should or should not be sent to the United States.

Jennifer Robinson, Assange’s lawyer, says his case could lead to criminalising activities crucial to investigative journalists and his work has shed an unprecedented light on how the United States conducted its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We are talking about collateral murder, evidence of war crimes,” she said. “They are a remarkable resource for those of us seeking to hold governments to account for abuses.”


WikiLeaks angered Washington by publishing hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables that laid bare critical U.S. appraisals of world leaders, from Russian President Vladimir Putin to members of the Saudi royal family.

Assange made international headlines in 2010 when WikiLeaks published a classified U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.
PARDON DEAL?

The hearing at London’s Woolwich Crown Court will not decide if Assange is guilty of any wrongdoing, but whether the extradition request meets the requirements set out under a 2003 UK-U.S. treaty, which critics say is stacked in favor of the United States.


Baraitser has agreed that the case will get under way next week before being postponed until May 18 when it will resume again for a further three weeks to allow both sides more time to gather evidence.

Assange’s lawyers have said in preliminary hearings that they would argue he was being sought for political offences and that the treaty banned extradition on these grounds.

Trump offered to pardon Assange if he said that Russia had nothing to do with WikiLeaks’ publication of Democratic Party emails in 2016, his lawyer told a London court this week. The White House dismissed the accusation.

Other arguments would feature medical evidence, public denunciations by leading U.S. political figures and details from the case of Chelsea Manning, an ex-intelligence analyst who was convicted by a U.S. Army court-martial in 2013 of espionage and other offences for leaking secret cables to WikiLeaks.



FILE PHOTO: WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange leaves Westminster Magistrates Court in London, Britain January 13, 2020. REUTERS/Simon Dawson

Assange’s legal team are planning to call up to 21 witnesses as part of his defense.

In 2012, Assange took refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden where he was accused of sex crimes which he denied and which were later dropped, saying he feared he would ultimately be sent on to the United Sates.

After seven years, he was dragged from the embassy in 2019 and then jailed for 50 weeks for skipping bail. He has remained in prison ever since, after the United States launched its extradition request.

If the judge decides Assange should be extradited, the decision needs to be rubber-stamped by Home Secretary (interior minister) Priti Patel although he will have the right to appeal to London’s High Court and then possibly to the Supreme Court, Britain’s top judicial body.

Pope moves slain Salvadoran priest, icon for poor, closer to sainthood

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A Jesuit priest who was murdered at the threshold of the Salvadoran civil war and who in death became a icon for human rights in rural Latin America was moved a step closer to sainthood by Pope Francis on Saturday.


FILE PHOTO: People participate in the commemoration of the 1977 murder of Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande in El Paisnal, El Salvador, March 12, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas/File Photo

The Vatican said the pope had approved a decree recognizing that Rutilio Grande and two lay Salvadorans were killed “in hatred of the faith”.

This means they will be beatified without the customary need for a miracle to be attributed to them. Beatification is the last step before sainthood.

Grande, who was outspoken in his defense of the poor, was shot more than dozen times along with an elderly man and a teenager on March 12, 1977 by a right-wing death squad in rural El Salvador while they were riding in a jeep.

The assassination of Grande, who had organized peasants to fight for their rights, was so horrific that it convinced the then archbishop of the capital San Salvador, Oscar Romero, to take up Grande’s mantle as defender of the poor.


Romero, who had been less outspoken until then, was himself killed by a death squad while he was saying Mass in the chapel of a hospital in San Salvador in 1980. Pope Francis made Romero a saint in 2018.

The murders were among the most shocking in the long conflict between a series of U.S.-backed governments and leftist rebels in El Salvador which thousands were killed by right-wing and military death squads.

Some 75,000 people were killed and 8,000 went missing in the 1980-1992 war.

Both Romero and Grande became icons for Latin America’s poor, appearing on T-shirts similar to those bearing the image of Che Guevara.

But before Francis became pope in 2013, their sainthood causes ran into stiff opposition in the Vatican and among powerful conservatives in the Latin American Church who thought both figures were too political.


No date was given for the beatification ceremony but it will likely take place in El Salvador.

The Catholic Church teaches that only God performs miracles but that saints who are believed to be with God in heaven intercede on behalf of people who pray to them. A miracle is usually the medically inexplicable healing of a person.

For the three to be declared saints, miracles would have to be attributed to them.


Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Frances Kerry

U.N. says it fears 'bloodbath' in northwest Syria fighting

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT WAR BEHIND THE CURTAIN


Stephanie Nebehay, Maria Kiselyova

GENEVA/MOSCOW (Reuters) - The United Nations warned on Friday that fighting in northwest Syria could “end in a bloodbath” and called again for a ceasefire, while Moscow denied reports of a mass flight of civilians from a Russian-led Syrian government offensive.


An internally displaced child looks out from a tent, erected at an empty school and university compound used as shelter in Azaz, Syria February 21, 2020. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

Syrian troops backed by Russian air power have been battling since December to eliminate the last rebel strongholds in the region in a war that has killed an estimated 400,000 Syrians, displaced millions more and left much of the country in ruins.

The latest offensive in the regions of Aleppo and Idlib has uprooted nearly 1 million people - most of them women and children - who have fled clashes to seek sanctuary further north, near the Turkish border.

The U.N.’s humanitarian agency OCHA said 60% of the 900,000 people trapped in a shrinking space after fleeing are children.

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“We call for an immediate ceasefire to prevent further suffering and what we fear may end in a bloodbath,” OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke told a news briefing in Geneva.

“The front lines and relentless violence continue to move closer to these areas which are packed with displaced people, with bombardments increasingly affecting displacement sites and their vicinity.”

At a university building in the town of Azaz in northwest Syria, people fleeing Idlib have poured in every day to shelter from the violence and bitter cold.

Souad Saleh, 58, is staying in a room with her family and dozens of other people. “We want to go back home but we can’t. We left things behind because the warplanes were above us and houses were collapsing,” she said.


The escape was exhausting. “Everyone was crying,” the grandmother recalled, bursting into tears.

Hayat al-Fayad, 50, said her village in Idlib had emptied out since her family ran from the bombing some two weeks ago. “The entire village fled,” she said.

Other families are sleeping outside by roads and in olive groves, burning garbage to stay warm. Some children have died from the cold, while some families have at least reached tent camps for displaced people.

Turkey, which currently hosts 3.7 million Syrian refugees, has said it cannot handle a new influx and has warned that it will use military power to repel Syrian advances in Idlib and ease a humanitarian crisis.

RUSSIA DENIES HUMANITARIAN EMERGENCY

Russia’s Defense Ministry said reports of hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing from Idlib towards the Turkish border - in an area where Turkish forces maintain forward observation posts - were false, urging Ankara to enable Idlib residents to enter other parts of Syria.

Turkey and Russia back opposing sides in Syria’s conflict, but have collaborated towards a political solution. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s onslaught in the northwest has upset this fragile cooperation, causing Ankara and Moscow to accuse each other of flouting de-escalation agreements in the region.

Turkish and Russian officials have failed to find a solution to the clashes in several rounds of talks, and a flare-up on the ground on Thursday which killed two Turkish soldiers brought the total Turkish fatalities in Idlib this month to 15 troops.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan emphasized the necessity to control Syrian government forces and to ease a humanitarian crisis in Syria’s Idlib region during a phone call with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Speaking to reporters earlier, Erdogan said the French and German leaders had proposed a four-way summit with Russia in Istanbul on March 5, but that Putin had not yet responded. He repeated that Turkey was not withdrawing its forces from Idlib.


Slideshow (13 Images)

Erdogan further said Turkey was continuing work to set up housing for Syrian migrants in a 30-35 km (19-22 mile) “safe zone” inside Syria along the border with Turkey.

Earlier on Friday, the Kremlin said it was discussing the possibility of holding the summit with Turkey, France and Germany mentioned by Erdogan.

The German and French leaders called Putin on Thursday to voice alarm about the humanitarian situation.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel also held a phone call with Erdogan, who asked Paris and Berlin for concrete support in the crisis.


Additional reporting by Khalil Ashawi in Azaz, Syria, Maria Kiselyova and Andrew Osborn in Moscow and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, and Ellen Francis in Beirut; Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Ece Toksabay in Ankara; Editing by Daren Butler, Mark Heinrich and Frances Kerry

Support for women's strike in Mexico gains ground


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A women’s event in Mexico planned for next month, fueled by growing disgust with a spate of high-profile femicides, gained ground on Friday as Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said public servants could participate.

During his regular morning news conference, Lopez Obrador said government workers could join the event but suggested some activists were simply seeking to use the protest to undermine his government.

The strike is scheduled for March 9. Promotions began circulating this week on social networks under the slogan “A Day Without Women.” It comes amid public outrage sparked by the murder of a seven-year-old girl and a woman skinned by her partner.

Lopez Obrador said he will respect the strike and there will be no punishment for civil servants who join. But he did not openly support the event and asked women to take care “not to be manipulated.”

“(We must) be careful because conservatism, the right, is very hypocritical,” he said. “They promote these movements against progressive governments.”

If the event takes place, it would be the first national strike featuring only women in the history of Mexico.

“Not a woman in the streets, at work, in schools, in universities or shopping,” reads the call to strike being distributed on social media.

Interior Minister Olga Sanchez declared her support. “Solidarity as a woman, and in my personal capacity, I join the #NationalStrike on March 9,” she wrote in a post on Twitter.

Opposing political parties have voiced their support for the strike.

Thai students to protest banning of popular opposition party

Chayut Setboonsarng



BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai students are expected to stage a protest on Saturday against a court’s decision that dissolved the country’s second largest opposition party, less than a year after an election to end direct military rule.

Thai students and supporters hold candles during a protest against a court's decision that dissolved the country's second largest opposition Future Forward party, less than a year after an election to end direct military rule, at Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand February 22, 2020. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun

The Constitutional Court on Friday disbanded the upstart Future Forward Party, which won more than 6 million votes last year and came in third, for accepting loans from its founder.

The court also banned 16 party executives from politics for 10 years, including its charismatic billionaire leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit.

The ban strengthens the position in parliament of a coalition led by Prime Minister Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the former junta leader who first took power in a 2014 coup.


The court’s ruling brought swift criticism from human rights groups and democracy advocates.

The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok also said on Saturday that the decision “raises questions about their representation within Thailand’s electoral system.”

The Student Union of Thailand said it will hold a “No Justice in the Country” rally at Thammasat University, to protest against unjust laws and the dissolution of Future Forward.

“We are holding the rally against the injustice in the country,” student union president Jutatip Sirikhan, 21, told Reuters.


The health ministry warned against public gatherings during the outbreak of the coronavirus.

“A political gathering is not appropriate at this time and could increase risk of an outbreak,” health official Tanarak Pipat said but added if there is a gathering, organizers should filter participants with flu-like symptoms and provide masks and hand gel.

Thailand has recorded 35 cases of the coronavirus.

Having been barred from office, Future Forward’s leaders vowed to continue advocacy and political work across the country, including military reform and welfare policies from the former party’s manifesto.

On Sunday, the former Future Forward Party’s spokeswoman, Pannika Wanich will hold a “no-confidence motion” event in Bangkok ahead of a censure debate in parliament on Monday.

Amnesty International’s Regional Director Nicholas Bequelin said the court decision “illustrates how the authorities use judicial processes to intimidate, harass and target political opposition. Thai authorities must reverse the dissolution decision and restore genuine rights to freedom of expression and association in the country.”

The party’s dissolution was “a knockout blow for Thailand’s teetering efforts to restore democratic rule after a military dictatorship,” Human Rights Watch Asia director Brad Adams said.

“This decision seriously weakens the political opposition for the benefit of the military-backed ruling party and unjustly cancels the votes of over six million Future Forward Party supporters,” Adams said.

“We hope that the will of Thai people will be adequately reflected by the Thai parliament,” the Japanese Embassy in Bangkok told Reuters.

Arctic fox found wandering loose in Michigan

Feb. 21 (UPI) -- Police in Michigan said they responded to a report of an "injured dog" and found a far more unusual animal: an Arctic fox.

The South Lyon Police Department said officers responded Thursday afternoon to a report of an injured dog wandering near South Lyon High School.

South Lyon Police Department on Thursday

Have you ever seen an Arctic Fox? Neither had we until this afternoon when we responded to an “injured dog” complaint by the high school. The fox was taken to the Howell Nature Center for a checkup and care. Thank you to Kiki and Heather at the nature center.

Officers were able to capture the animal and soon discovered it was actually an Arctic fox.

"Have you ever seen an Arctic Fox? Neither had we until this afternoon when we responded to an 'injured dog' complaint by the high school," the department said. "The fox was taken to the Howell Nature Center for a checkup and care."

The fox was found to be an escaped exotic pet named Khandi. The fox remained at the nature center Thursday but was expected to be returned to her owner Friday.

NO ONE SHOULD OWN WILD ANIMALS LET ALONE ENDANGERED ONES LET ALONE
ONES THAT GOT LOOSE 

The Scientist and the Spy: Chinese industrial espionage and the atmosphere of fear in the West

Pulitzer Prize-shortlisted author Mara Hvistendahl gives her story of the theft of industrial and scientific secrets a vital human dimension

Her book follows the case of one Chinese scientist through its many twists and turns and looks at a troubling history of suspicion
Kit Gillet 8 Feb, 2020




An American farmer tests seeds for Monsanto, an agricultural giant that guards its intellectual property with great secrecy, determination and, when necessary, aggressive lawsuits. Photo: Getty Images

The Scientist and the Spy: A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage
by Mara Hvistendahl
Riverhead Books
4/5 stars


A smartly dressed Chinese man was spotted in a field in rural Iowa, in the United States, in autumn 2011. This was enough to raise suspicion in a community that was 97 per cent white and the local police went to check it out.

Thus began perhaps one of the stranger cases of industrial espionage in recent years, one that highlights the threat of industrial theft and the overblown atmosphere of fear and mistrust that exists between the United States and China over intellectual property and trade.

The field in question was planted with genetically modified seed lines developed by agricultural giant Monsanto, a company that guards its intellectual property – like hybrid seeds and fertiliser – with great secrecy, determination and, when necessary, aggressive lawsuits.

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The Chinese man and his two companions – who circled back around in their car to pick him up – were questioned by police but let go with a warning. However, their details were taken down and later one of the names, Robert Mo, began cropping up in other incidents in rural communities across the Midwest.

This is the starting point of The Scientist and the Spy: A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage, by journalist and Pulitzer Prize-shortlisted author Mara Hvistendahl. The book follows this one case through its many twists and turns, but also looks at the atmosphere of fear – sometimes justified, sometimes not – in the West over Chinese theft of industrial and scientific secrets.

The book delves into the history of the FBI monitoring ethnically Chinese scientists in the US going back to the 1960s. It also documents the impact on the lives of some of those accidentally caught up in this geopolitical tug of war.

Industrial espionage is as old as industry itself. However, with the rise of China as a superpower, increasing attention is again being paid to the issue on a nation-to-nation level. In many ways it echoes tensions between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
US President Donald Trump has accused China of orchestrating “the greatest theft in the history of the world”, while the value of intellectual property stolen each year by China is often put at US$300 billion, though, as the book makes clear, this is largely based on rough estimates and anecdotal evidence. Intellectual property is one of the core issues at the heart of the ongoing trade war between China and the US.

As Hvistendahl points out, China’s central government has placed a high priority on strategic industrial break­throughs “no matter how they are achieved”. The US Chamber of Commerce labelled one Chinese state document on indigenous innovation “a blueprint for technology theft on a scale the world has never seen before”.


Agriculture is one of many areas in which China is seek­ing rapid advancement, given both the lucrative nature of the sector and the importance of food security. The need for China to increase yields to feed its massive population means that the pressure on those tasked with developing cutting-edge hybrid seeds for crops such as corn is consider­able, as is the temptation to cut corners.

In the early 2000s there were, by one count, 8,700 Chinese seed companies and “none of them had success­fully managed to create seed lines that rivalled those of the inter­national seed outfits”, Hvistendahl writes. As such, getting their hands on advanced genetically modified seeds to reverse engineer was a big advantage, albeit an illegal one. “Real research takes time. Theft is expedient – especially if there is little chance of getting caught,” she adds.

Enter Mo, one of the men questioned that autumn day in 2011 and the principal character in the story. Born in Sichuan province, he moved to the US in the late 1990s after training in thermodynamics, but later joined his brothers-in-law’s agricultural business after failing to secure well-paying research work. His role was initially to source animal feed in the US, but soon he was tasked with helping the company’s seed-breeding programme.

This mostly involved trying to get his hands on hybrid seeds produced by American companies, sometimes legally but often not. Mo and his colleagues would drive around rural areas collecting loose seeds from the ground soon after harvest time in fields they knew had been planted with genetically modified crops. At other times they would buy from seed suppliers, who were supposed to ensure that the seeds were used only for that year’s harvest. They would then be sent back to China for analysis.

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The Scientist and the Spy makes it clear early on that Mo would be caught by the FBI, so we know how the story ends. However, the journey, filled with colourful characters and episodes that could be straight out of a spy novel, paints an illuminating and often disturbing picture of how the fight over industrial secrets plays out, a fight that increasingly involves both companies and governments.

In 1996, the US government signed into law the Economic Espionage Act, which made trade secret theft a federal crime. As such, attacks on American business are considered a national security threat and those caught can receive sentences of up to 10 years behind bars and a fine of US$250,000, even if there is no clear government connec­tion with their actions. If a government link can be made, sentences can be up to 15 years and the fine twice as much.

Companies like Monsanto often hire former federal agents as part of their security operations.

The Scientist and the Spy follows Mo’s case all the way through to its conclusion, documenting the massive operation that would eventually involve years of work and dozens of agents across five states. Agents placed listening devices in rental cars, intercepted phone calls and flew surveillance planes overhead to monitor the movement of the suspects, among many other operations.

However, the book doesn’t just focus on this one case. It also looks into the troubling history of Chinese scientists, students and researchers suspected of trying to steal US trade secrets.

Some were indeed found guilty – including Kexue Huang, who was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2011 for stealing Dow pesticide secrets – but many simply came under the FBI’s watchful eye due to their ethnicity. In 2006, Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese-born scientist working in Los Alamos in New Mexico, was awarded a US$1.6 million settlement, partly paid by The New York Times, after he was falsely accused of stealing secrets connected to the US nuclear arsenal and had his name leaked to the press.

Author Mara Hvistendahl.

One scholar found that about a fifth of cases brought up under the Economic Espionage Act between 1996 and 2015 that involved Chinese names were never proven, roughly twice the rate of defendants from other ethnic groups. Hvistendahl contends that the level of suspicion has meant that countless ethnically Chinese students have opted to pursue educational or career opportunities elsewhere in the world, rather than in the US.

The Scientist and the Spy is painstakingly researched, and relies heavily on extensive interviews with many of the principal characters on both sides of the law. It also looks into the effective monopoly that a handful of agricultural companies have on worldwide seed development, and the damage this is having on farmland and crop diversity, not to mention ecosystems.

Hvistendahl, who spent eight years reporting from China for Science magazine and was a 2012 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction for her book Unnatural Selection, brings her considerable experience to the subject.

When we think of industrial espionage we often think of state actors and large-scale operations. However, as The Scientist and the Spy makes clear, in many cases it is indivi­duals with their own personal dramas and motiva­tions attempting to access secrets. The book puts a human face to the issue of industrial espionage, and ultimately Mo comes across as a highly sympathetic character.

At a time when tensions between the US and China are high, The Scientist and the Spy offers an intriguing glimpse into how industrial espionage plays out, involving low-level players seemingly far removed from the centres of power.