Scientists in Greece find 20 million year-old petrified tree

By Elias Marcou

© Reuters/ELIAS MARCOU Rare fossilised tree, part of a petrified forest, unearthed on the island of Lesbos

LESBOS, Greece (Reuters) - Greek scientists on the volcanic island of Lesbos say they have found a rare fossilized tree whose branches and roots are still intact after 20 million years.

The tree was found during roadwork near an ancient forest petrified millions of years ago on the eastern Mediterranean island and transported from the site using a special splint and metal platform.

© Reuters/ELIAS MARCOU Rare fossilised tree, part of a petrified forest, unearthed on the island of Lesbos

It is the first time a tree has been found in such good condition complete with branches and roots since excavations began in 1995, said Professor Nikos Zouros of the Museum of Natural History of the Petrified Forest of Lesbos.

© Reuters/ELIAS MARCOU Rare fossilised tree, part of a petrified forest, unearthed on the island of Lesbos

"It is a unique find," he said. "[It] is preserved in excellent condition and from studying the fossilized wood we will be able to identify the type of plant it comes from."

Lesbos' petrified forest, a 15,000-hectare, UNESCO-protected site, is the result of a volcanic eruption 20 million years ago which smothered the island's then subtropical forest ecosystem in lava.

© Reuters/ELIAS MARCOU Rare fossilised tree, part of a petrified forest, unearthed on the island of Lesbos

The fossilized tree, about 19 metres long, was preserved by a thick layer of volcanic ash after it fell. A large number of fruit tree leaves were found in the same spot, adding to the picture along with animal bones from the general area.

© Reuters/ELIAS MARCOU Rare fossilised tree, part of a petrified forest, unearthed on the island of Lesbos

"During the excavations the various forests that existed between 17 and 20 million years ago on Lesbos are being uncovered and we can reconstruct the ecosystem that existed during that period," said Zouros.

(Writing by Deborah Kyvrikosaios; editing by James Mackenzie and Alexandra Hudson)

CANADA HAS THE LARGEST SIKH DIASPORA 

Calgary Punjabis take to the highway to support Indian farmers

© Dan McGarvey/CBC Cars and trucks with stickers and posters supporting Indian farmers made the trip Tuesday morning to Edmonton in support of the cause.

Dozens of cars and trucks braved the icy highway between Calgary and Edmonton on Tuesday to show support with farmers protesting controversial new agriculture laws in India.

The car convoy left CrossIron Mills headed for the legislature to raise awareness of the situation that's been unfolding in India since last September. Cars were flying flags and displaying stickers and homemade posters.

New legislation came into effect in India last year changing the rules around the sale, pricing and storage of produce from India's agricultural regions.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the changes will allow farmers to set prices and allow them to sell crops to private businesses and corporations, giving them more freedom.

Farmers are worried it will leave them open to being exploited and devastate them financially, and they say they weren't consulted

.

© Dan McGarvey/CBC Cars and trucks covered with signs, decals and flags travelled up the highway in a convoy to Edmonton.

Until now, farmers had relied on selling crops direct to the government at guaranteed prices.

Some families in Calgary still own land in rural India and the change in laws has direct implications for some.

Half of India's vast population is employed in the agriculture sector in some form.

"We want to give our memorandum in support of farmers protesting, that's the purpose," said Vik Sahiwal.

"Opening up the market is the intention, but with such small land holdings, just two acres on average, those farmers are not educated and equipped to deal with the free market," said Sahiwal.

"We want the government to repeal these laws," he said.

© Dan McGarvey/CBC Vik Sahiwal says the car rally is a way for Punjabis in Alberta to express their support and passion for the farmers’ protests happening in India.

Tens of thousands of farmers travelled to the Indian capital, Delhi, late last year from rural regions like Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, with many making the journey in tractors and other farm equipment. They've been there for months,

In the past 24 hours, those peaceful protests turned violent, with farmers breaching police barricades and storming Delhi's historic Red Fort complex.

The protesters were part of a rally being held to mark India's Republic Day and were given routes to stick to by police, but some ignored the guidance leading to chaotic scenes and clashes.

"It's heartbreaking for everyone," said Sahiwal. "Last night, watching those scenes, you're worried about the safety or older people and women and children. We hope things calm down and sense prevails, peace prevails," he said.

He says Calgarians have been glued to TV screens and devices following the news back home minute by minute.

"We're scared for our families back home," said Paramjit Singh.

"This cold, it's nothing compared to what they're facing. We have heaters in our cars, they have nothing," said Singh, who has also been following events.

© Dan McGarvey/CBC Paramjit Singh says Punjabis in Calgary support the farmers protests in Delhi after new laws were passed that farmers say will their kill their livelihoods.

"We were watching and we were all scared," he said.

Leaders of farmers unions issued appeals to protestors and have condemned the recent violence.

The government offered to put the laws on hold last week, but farmers say they want a full repeal.

#NOFARMERSNOFOOD

Heavy security, roads closed after Delhi farmer riots

Issued on: 27/01/2021 - 

The farmers want new agricultural reforms scrapped 

Money SHARMA AFP

New Delhi (AFP)

Indian police imposed heavy security and closed several main roads around New Delhi on Wednesday a day after farmers went on the rampage the capital, leaving one person dead and dozens injured.

The violence marked a dramatic escalation in a standoff between the government and thousands of farmers camped out on the outskirts of the city since late November.

The farmers, mostly from northern Indian states including Punjab, want new agricultural reforms scrapped that they fear will leave them at the mercy of big corporations.

On Tuesday -- during annual Republic Day parade -- convoys of farmers on tractors smashed through barricades to converge on the city centre, seeing off police baton charges and volleys of tear gas.

One farmer was killed in what police said was an accident after his tractor overturned after hitting a barricade. At least 86 police were injured, an official statement said.

Around the city, security forces fought running battles with demonstrators. Farmers also laid into police with branches and metal bars and hijacked buses used to block their convoys.

At the historic Red Fort landmark farmers broke through police lines and put up their own emblem on the flagpole to cheers from the large crowd before being dispersed from the ramparts by security forces.

On one main road, people on rooftops threw petals on the tractor convoys. Elsewhere people cheered and applauded as farmers went past waving Indian flags and blowing horns.

As night fell, the farmers retreated to the camps outside the city where they have been braving Delhi's chilly winter nights since late November.

Home Minister Amit Shah ordered 15 companies of paramilitaries to boost security forces in the capital, according to media reports.

On Thursday morning a number of major roads were blocked by police and security forces set up barricades, leading to major traffic congestion. Riot police were stationed near the Red Fort.

- Blow for Modi -

Smaller farmer demonstrations were held in Mumbai and Bangalore and in the rural state of Haryana on Tuesday.

The unrest was a major embarrassment for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government, for whom the farmer protests represent the biggest challenge since coming to power in 2014.

Farming has long been a political minefield, with nearly 70 percent of the population drawing its livelihood from agriculture in the vast nation of 1.3 billion people.

The government has offered to suspend the reforms for 18 months, but farmer unions -- who insist they did not condone Tuesday's violence -- want nothing short of the laws being binned.

The government says that the farmers have been manipulated by opposition parties which have largely backed the protests.

It insists the reforms will allow farmers to sell to private buyers instead of just at state markets.

Ten rounds of talks between farm unions and ministers have failed to break the deadlock.

"We're ready to die. This government has been ignoring us for long but they can no longer do that," Singh told AFP at the 400-year-old fort.

Majid Ali, 55, who lives near the Red Fort said he was appaled by what happened at the landmark but backs the farmers.

"I've never seen this much security in my life... If the farmers don't fight for their rights and lives, how will we eat? I am with the farmers," Ali told AFP.

ja-grk-abh-ash/stu/je

© 2021 AFP

India: Farmers mount fresh protests in New Delhi

Tens of thousands of Indian farmers protesting agricultural reforms have driven a convoy of tractors into New Delhi as the capital celebrates Republic Day. DW's India correspondent Nimisha Jaiswal reports from the scene.

#NOFARMERSNOFOOD

UN survey uses Angry Birds to reveal Canadian, global opinions on climate policies

Canadians are "Angry Birds" when it comes to climate change, shows a survey the United Nations calls the largest ever taken on the issue

The mammoth survey, which drew respondents through the use of popular online games, ranked Canada seventh out of 50 countries in its perception of how important the problem is — and tops in the gap between men and women on the issue.

"Canada was at the top end of the group of countries we surveyed in terms of the recognition of the climate emergency," said Steve Fisher, an Oxford University sociologist who helped run the survey on behalf of the United Nations Development Program.

The novel survey found respondents through games such as Angry Birds and Dragon City. As people played the games, a questionnaire would pop up instead of an ad.

Project director Cassie Flynn, who is with the UN program, said the idea came to her while riding the subway in New York.

"Every single person was on their phone," she said. "I started looking over people's shoulders and the huge majority was playing games. I thought, 'How do we tap into that?'"

Two years, 1.2 million responses (in 17 languages) and a great deal of innovative statistical thinking later came the People's Climate Vote. It is an attempt, said Flynn, to gauge the public's sense of urgency on climate change and how people feel about different policies.

"The decisions (on climate) are going to affect every single person on the planet. What we wanted to do is to bring public opinion into that policy-making."

As the federal Liberal government advances on its ambitious climate program, it seems Canadians are more concerned about the issue than most.

Three-quarters of those surveyed agreed that climate change is an emergency compared with the global average of 64 per cent.

That belief topped out at 83 per cent for respondents under 18. But, at 72 per cent, it wasn't much weaker among those over 60.

The survey also found that Canadians who believed climate change is an emergency believed it strongly. Three-quarters said action should be urgent and on many fronts.

They really liked solutions based in conservation. Support for nature-based climate policies was higher in Canada at 79 per cent than in any other countries with high carbon emissions from land use.

They also wanted polluters to pay. Some 69 per cent favoured policies that regulate company behaviour. Only the United Kingdom, at 72 per cent, registered stronger among high-income countries.

And, at 81 and 80 per cent respectively, respondents in the U.K. and Canada were virtually tied at the top in support of ocean and waterway protection.

Canada also had the largest gap between men and women in their assessment of the importance of climate change. Canadian women and girls surveyed were 12 per cent more likely to rate it an emergency than men and boys. Globally, there wasn't much difference.

Fisher, who researches political attitudes and behaviour, said climate change is a more partisan issue in Canada, the United States and Australia than elsewhere on the globe.

"It is related to partisanship in those countries," he said. "Women are much more likely to vote for the more climate-conscious left parties."

Fisher said the use of cellphone games gave researchers access to groups that are hard for pollsters to reach, such as young people.

"It was kind of new to do the fieldwork in this way," he said. "It reached an awful lot of people."

Each respondent was asked to complete the survey only once. The team used 4,000 different games, some popular with children, some with older people.

Still, the sample skewed young. The statisticians had to adjust the sample to ensure all groups were given appropriate weight.

The survey is considered accurate to within two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2021.

— Follow @row1960 on Twitter

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

'Angry Birds Toons' Acquired by Canada's Teletoon | Hollywood Reporter

From Italy to Japan: The life and crimes of mafia groups around the world



Issued on: 26/01/2021 - 

PERSPECTIVE © FRANCE 24
By:Eve IRVINE

https://vod-france24.akamaized.net/en/vod/2021/01/26/ANGL210126-0840-Live_CS0840.mp4

Earlier this month, a mega-trial got underway in Italy with more than 300 defendants and 900 witnesses, the biggest mafia trial of its kind in decades. The main crime family in question has allegiances with gangs in South America and Albania. We speak to Federico Varese, a professor of criminology and the author of a number of works on the Russian mafia, Soviet criminal history and the globalisation of mafia groups. He shares his perspective on the trial in his homeland and on mafia groups around the world.

>> Italy targets 'Ndrangheta crime group in biggest mafia trial in decades

Mitch McConnell Is Reportedly ‘Scared To Death’ Of Corporate America’s Response To Riots

SAMUEL CORUM / GETTY IMAGES

Tyler MacDonald
THE INQUISITER
January 23, 2021

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was allegedly rattled by corporate America’s response to the Capitol riots that sparked former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment, The New Yorker reported.

GOP strategist Stuart Stevens spoke to the publication and suggested that this fear played a role in McConnell’s decision to break with Trump after the storming of the historic U.S. building.

“He’s scared to death, too, at how corporate America is responding. Supporting the overthrow of the U.S. government isn’t good for business,” the Lincoln Project founder said.

As noted by The New Yorker, dozens of some of the largest corporate GOP donors cut ties to the coalition’s lawmakers who opposed the certification of President Joe Biden’s election after the riots.

“McConnell, who once infamously declared that the three most important ingredients for political success in America are ‘money,’ ‘money,’ and ‘money,’ was reportedly alarmed,” the publication wrote.

Per CTV News, many Wall Street businesses and banks have severed ties with not just Trump’s campaign but the “broader Republican Party.” Notably, American Express’ CEO Steve Squeri emailed employees about the attacks on the Capitol and said that it was not aligned with the company’s values.

Following the riots, several technology companies also severed ties with Trump, including Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store. Elsewhere, Shopify removed the Trump campaign’s merchandise website, and the financial tech company Stripe allegedly halted payments for the former president’s campaign.

THE GRIM REAPER
 

Alex Wong / Getty Images

The blowback comes in the lead-up to the forthcoming impeachment trial in the Senate and a CNN report suggesting that former top Trump administration officials and influential Republicans near Washington are lobbying the politician to convict the former head of state.

Despite the financial damage, Stevens claimed that McConnell doesn’t want to impeach and convict Trump.

“It would split his base and cause members of his caucus to face primary challengers.”

According to Stevens, McConnell expressed openness to convicting Trump — he has not yet publicly revealed whether he would — to avoid a breakdown in the Republican Party.

Elsewhere, CNN claimed that McConnell has privately said he wants the former president convicted.

“Mitch said to me he wants Trump gone,” one Republican member of Congress told the publication.

“It is in his political interest to have him gone. It is in the GOP interest to have him gone. The question is, do we get there?”

As The Inquisitr reported, McConnell was reportedly happy when the Democratic Party began to work on a plan to impeach Trump, which eventually came to fruition on January 13, 2021.

#MeTooGay: French male gay victims break taboo on sexual abuse

Issued on: 25/01/2021 - 

The #MeTooGay hashtag has allowed many French gay male victims of sexual abuse to come forward and share their stories. © Jeff Pachoud, AFP

Text by: Louise NORDSTROM

Video by:FRANCE 24


A week after French incest victims took to Twitter to break the country’s taboo on inter-family sexual abuse, male gay victims of sexual violence have followed suit by using the #MeTooGay hashtag to speak out about abuse they have never before dared to share for fear it would trigger a homophobic backlash against France’s already vulnerable LGBT+ community.

“I was 11, and had the body of a child. He was 16-and-a-half and had the body of an adult. It started with blackmail. Then by forced penetrations, humiliations, and disgust as my body entered puberty. It lasted for 6 years.”

Since Thursday, Twitter has seen an outpouring of heartbreaking testimonies like these from French gay men who have finally chosen to break the silence on the abuse they suffered as children, young men, or even as adults.

The public declarations come on the heels of the publication this month of a book accusing prominent French intellectual Olivier Duhamel of sexually abusing his step-son.

The revelations, which led to a preliminary investigation into the case and to Duhamel's resignation from several prestigious posts, helped break the French taboo on incest, with the creation of a #MeTooInceste hashtag, and has since also lifted the lid on other hushed subjects, such as sexual abuse targeting male gays.

Flora Bolter, co-director of the Paris-based rights group l'Observatoire LGBT+ de la Fondation Jean Jaurès, told FRANCE 24 that many gay victims of sexual abuse have felt forced to stay silent about their experiences for fear it would cause a backlash against the LBGT+ community itself.

“We’re [already] experiencing strong discrimination because people have this shortcut of stereotyping, and linking LGBT persons to sexual predators,” she said.

“So it’s always been very difficult to broach and address the question of sexual violence within the LGBT+ community because there has been this fear of speaking out and [thereby] fuelling homophobia.”

‘No one believed me’

Matthieu Foucher, a French journalist who already in September published an article calling for the creation of a #MeTooGay hashtag under which male gay victims of sexual abuse would feel safe to finally come forward, was one of the first to share his story on Twitter.

“I was 10 or 11. No one believed me when I told them. It partially messed up my teens and my family, [and] delayed my coming out for I don’t know how many years. It’s taken me years to be able to talk about it.”

Others also testified about the difficulty of speaking out about such abuse as a gay male man. “It’s so hard to talk about. It’s so hard when you’re raised amid homophobia, when you have to fight to be who you are, when you try to create a safe space for yourself, and then find yourself a victim all over again,” Twitter-user Matthias Parveau wrote.

Alexandre Rupnik, a local politician in Marseille, shared how he had been abused in a dark staircase in France’s second largest city in 2018 but had chosen to never report it to police “because it felt useless, I was convinced I would never be listened to because I don’t fit the image of a victim of sexual violence.”

Harsh climate in France

In her interview with FRANCE 24, Bolter said that the climate for French male gays is harder than in many western English-speaking countries, not the least because not enough effort is made to collect reliable data on the subject. “There’s also much more done in terms of procedures and practices – in the UK there are helplines for male survivors of sexual violence – that we do not have in France.”

Bolter welcomed the use of the hashtag saying “we’re just now breaking the surface of this silence and this taboo.”

French rights group SOS Homophobie has hailed the flood of testimonies that have come to light since the creation of the #MeTooGay hashtag, saying it “marks a necessary liberation of speech for victims of sexual violence. These people need to be listened to, and protected.”

French parliament debates ban on wild animals in circuses


Issued on: 26/01/2021 -

An elephant on show at the Cirque d'Hiver in Paris. © Bertrand Guay, AFP

Text by: NEWS WIRES

French lawmakers on Tuesday debated an animal welfare bill that would ban using wild animals in travelling circuses and keeping dolphins and whales in captivity in marine parks, amid other restrictions.

Circus workers held a protest against the bill outside the National Assembly, saying the measure would cause circuses and jobs to vanish, if it becomes law.

“That’s death for circuses,” Royal Circus director William Kerwich told The Associated Press.

The bill, which also bans the use of wild animals in television shows, nightclubs and private parties, calls for a transition period of five to seven years depending on the location.

The wild animal ban would not apply to permanent shows or to zoos.

Another provision of the legislation is aimed at shutting down mink farms within the next five years. The bill would also require new pet owners to obtain certificates guaranteeing they have the specific knowledge needed to care for their animals.

It would stiffen for penalty for committing abuse that leads to the death of pet animals to up to three years in prison and a maximum fine of 45,000 euros ($54,750.)

Protesting circus workers said French law is already strict enough to ensure the welfare of the animals appearing in their shows.

Kerwich, the Royal Circus director, said he is worried about what would happen to the 800 or so animals owned by French circuses.

“They are alive, we won't be able to reintroduce them in nature and we won't be able to keep them. Who will pay?” he asked. “We don't want to abandon them.”

Kerwich said that about 14 million spectators attend traditional circuses featuring animals in France while 1 million go to circuses with only human acts.

Frederic Edelstein, a lion trainer for the Pinder Circus, advocated for “an art that is part of our country's culture.”

“A trainer doesn't hurt an animal, he seeks complicity, respect between humans and animals," Edelstein said. “I have 12 magnificent white lions. They love me....It is out of question for me to let my animals go away.”

France to ban wild animals from travelling circuses 'gradually'

01:46

Animal rights activists also organized a gathering near the National Assembly on Tuesday, saying they think the proposed law does not go far enough.

“There's nothing about hunting. There’s nothing about intensive farming....So we are here to demand that these gaps be filled,” Muriel Fusi, a representative of the Animalist Party in Paris, said.

One Voice, an animal defense organization, called the bill “a big step in the right direction” but said it wants the wild animal ban to be extended to non-travelling circuses and shows.

“Maybe we won’t see elephants, lions and hippopotamuses on the roads any more, but a new category of sedentary circuses will be allowed to multiply,” it said in a statement.

A vote on the bill is set to take place by Friday. Lawmakers in French President Emmanuel Macron’s party, which has the majority at the National Assembly, support the measure. After the lower chamber votes, the bill will go to the Senate.

Most European countries have partially or totally banned the use of wild animals in circuses. In recent years, some major circuses in France announced they were voluntarily ending such acts.

An amusement park north of Paris announced Monday it was shutting down its dolphin show. The Asterix park said its eight dolphins would be transferred within two months to other aquariums in Europe because they could not be reintroduced into their natural environment.

(AP)

With flags on India’s Red Fort, farmers challenge Modi and protest movement unity

Issued on: 26/01/2021 -

Protesters on the ramparts of the Red Fort in New Delhi as farmers demonstrated against new agricultural laws on Jan. 26, 2021  Photo by Sajjad HUSSAIN / AFP

Text by: Leela JACINTO

Farmers protesting against new market-friendly agrarian laws on Tuesday stormed India’s historic Red Fort, posing a major challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and potentially threatening the unity of one of India's longest protest movements.

The main act in India on Tuesday was supposed to be the Republic Day parade marking the anniversary of the adoption of the country’s constitution on January 26, 1950.

The pandemic had forced a shortening of the traditional programme this year but even the truncated ceremonies had enough pomp and splendour to dominate the news.

The 72nd Republic Day parade featured the usual colourful displays of India’s diversity capped by a military parade that included, for the first time, a showcasing of India’s Rafale jets, newly bought from France, making a daring debut of “Vertical Charlie” formations over the majestic Rajpath ceremonial boulevard in New Delhi.

But a buildup of slow-tech farm tractors rained on the military parade on Tuesday, stealing the thunder of sophisticated fighter jets and dominating news coverage.

Tens of thousands of farmers protesting against new market-friendly farm laws broke through police barricades to reach the historic, Mughal-era Red Fort in the heart of the Indian capital in the afternoon, after the official parade had ended.

On the ramparts of the 17th century red sand stone fort, where the Mughals, colonial British and independent Indian administrations have raised their flags, some of the protesters hoisted a myriad mix of farm union and religious community banners.

After more than two months of demonstrations, farmers on Tuesday answered the call for a Republic Day protest, gathering around 8am local time at border points on the National Highway No. 1 linking the Indian capital to the neighbouring state of Haryana. Chanting slogans, dancing to protest songs, and showered with traditional flower petals, the scenes at capital’s border points looked more like harvest festivals than angry protests.

Protesting Indian farmers at a tractor rally in New Delhi on January 26, 2021. 

(Photo by Money SHARMA / AFP) 

By noon, the live coverage headlines had switched to police firing tear gas as farmers broke through barricades preventing their entry into New Delhi. As the hashtags #KisanTractorRally (Farmers’ Tractor Rally) and #KisanTractorRallyLive trended on Twitter, news footage showed farmers surging past overwhelmed police lines, tearing down roadblocks in some places, as police fired tear gas and conducted baton charges in some places.

Police said one protester died after his tractor overturned but farmers said he was shot. Protesters laid the victim’s body, draped in the Indian tricolour flag, on the road for a while and sat around the corpse. Television channels showed several bloodied protesters and at least 86 police officers were injured, according to an official statement..

One of India’s longest-running farmer protest movements reached an alarming peak on Republic Day, exposing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's failure to comprehend the level of opposition to the controversial new agricultural laws and to address the issues that have united powerful, and often competing, voting blocs against his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“Modi has harvested decades of agrarian anger with the farm laws. Today’s events show that the state underestimated the might of the people. The state should have known better,” said Amandeep Sandhu, a writer who documented agricultural practices in India’s Punjab farming heartland in his book, “Panjab: Journeys Through Fault Lines”.

Songs, vendors add a fairground flair

The farmers crisis was sparked in September 2020, when the government crammed complex legislative changes into three new laws and pushed them through parliament during an opposition walkout. They were passed as Covid-19 rages through India, with the country reporting the world’s second-highest number of cases.

The new laws make farmers sell their produce on the open market – including agribusiness corporations and supermarket chains – instead of through state-run institutions that guarantee a minimum price.

Modi maintains the “reforms are needed for development", and has warned that, “we cannot build the next century with the laws of the previous century."

>> For more: Why Indian farmers are not convinced by Modi’s promised market miracle

Since he came to power in 2014, Modi has opted for shock policy announcements with little preparedness that have left the populace scrambling to cope with the fallout – humanitarian and economic – of his populist moves.

Early last year, the prime minister sparked a mass exodus on foot of migrant workers from cities to villages across the country when he suddenly announced a lockdown without coordinating emergency services, giving people just four hours to prepare for one of the world’s strictest nationwide confinements.

By the end of November, with the lockdown lifted, a reverse human flow saw farmers from the North Indian agricultural heartland streaming toward New Delhi, answering a call to protest the discredited farm reform laws.

Over the past two months, the farmers have held a sit-in on the outskirts of New Delhi, setting up outdoor kitchens to feed tens of thousands of protesters making up one of India’s largest sustained protests.

The protest camp – complete with vendors plying snacks, thermal underwear, soap, hair oil bottles and other essentials – have had a fairground atmosphere, sparking a rich counter culture of literature and protest songs released by leading Punjabi singers.

But the protest has also had a human cost. Camping outdoors in the North Indian winter, through chilly rain has claimed more than 160 lives, according to an independent researcher. Indian media have attributed the deaths to the weather, illness or suicide.

Unfazed by these challenges, the farmers of the Punjab and neighbouring states have stuck to their demands, with their protest, garnering support from farmers across the nation and capturing the imagination of Indians opposed to Modi’s Hindu supremacist policies but lacking the mobilisation to confront his government.

For months, the protest movement managed to unite farmers and landless agricultural labourers regardless of their caste, class, gender and bridging ideological divides between leftist unions and traditional community organisations.

Enter the Supreme Court

Caught unprepared by the sheer scale and determination of the protesters, the government has held 10 rounds of talks with farm union representatives, with the issue moving up to the country’s highest court.

The farmers are demanding a complete repeal of the new laws, which they fear will remove the scant protection they have enjoyed, leaving them at the mercy of corporate giants without the means to ensure they get fair treatment.

Earlier this year, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that the laws should be temporarily halted until a committee of experts, appointed by the court, could consult with government officials and protesting farmers to try to find a solution to the dispute.

It failed to break the impasse. Farm union representatives questioned the makeup of the experts committee, noting that all four members were in favour of the agricultural laws and sparking a Supreme Court statement expressing disappointment over the “unnecessary aspersions” cast on the court-appointed panel.

The government’s offer to temporarily halt the laws for 18 months was viewed by the farmers as an attempt to “buy time", according to Sandhu. “By pushing the issue by 18 months, the government was trying to buy time to break the protests, and probably buy the protest leaders. It also meant pushing the issue to 2022, closer to the 2024 general elections, which suits the BJP since they can then make election promises, as they did in 2014, and win the election,” he explained.

A tale of competing protest trails

In the lead-up to Tuesday’s planned rally, the Supreme Court last week asked the government to withdraw its plea against the tractor rally on Republic Day and reiterated that it will not pass orders against the protest march.

In the absence of a court ruling, the government attempted to block the January 26 rally into the heart of the Indian capital, opting instead for a march to a site in Haryana, well outside the city.

As protest leaders and the authorities haggled over march routes, an umbrella group of 32 farmers unions – the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) – agreed to the government’s plan on Monday.

Another umbrella group – the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KMSC) – however stuck with the original plan to march peacefully into the heart of the Indian capital.

In a statement issued late Tuesday, the SKM condemned the violence on Republic Day, blaming “antisocial elements” as well as the KMSC for the breaking the “rules and routes”.

There were no statements about a planned farmers’ march on foot to Parliament on February 1, when the country’s new budget will be presented.

'Power creeps up' protester ranks

Following the Republic Day events, Sandhu worried that “the farmers’ factions are falling into a trap” of breaking the extraordinary unity between diverse groups within the protest movement.

“Nobody understood why the decision was made to route the protest by keeping farmers on the outskirts of Delhi. The SKM didn’t spend enough effort to make the people understand. I think the SKM also underestimated the farmers by deciding everyone should follow the route. This is how power creeps up,” he noted.

By the end of the day, Twitter posts on the farmers protest had lost some of the morning's sparkle. “Violence in a protest either by protestors against the state, or the state against protestors must be condemned. This is not a neutral position, this is a facet of democracy. Arson is illegal, it’s not a right. Disrespecting national symbols is not symbolic it’s illegal,” tweeted lawyer Sherbir Panag.

The #KisanTractorRally hashtag also drew posts from Modi’s supporters calling on the government to react to “terrorists” and “anti-nationalists” who used “tractors as weapons”.

Sandhu declined to predict how Tuesday’s events could affect the farmers movement in the immediate future. “It’s clearly too early to say,” he insisted. But he was convinced the chatter on Twitter, including calls for a government crackdown, would not end the crisis. “Twitter talk does not change the reality on the ground for the farmers. They will continue to push for their demands. The support the SKM instituted could get questioned, I think. But the farmers aren’t going anywhere, the government can’t simply wish them away.”

Pandemic disarmament: Why France was ready for Covid-19 a decade too soon

Issued on: 08/05/2020 - 

France's stock of face masks declined from a high of 2.2 billion a decade ago to just over 100 million on the eve of the Covid-19 crisis. © Benoît Tessier, REUTERS

Text by: Benjamin DODMAN

An investigation by French daily Le Monde has uncovered the extraordinary chain of events that led successive French governments to build an ambitious pandemic response strategy and then dismantle it almost entirely, leaving the country dangerously exposed to the Covid-19 disease.


In late 2004, the cardiologist-turned-politician Philippe Douste-Blazy, then France’s health minister, unveiled a pandemic response plan at a cabinet meeting before an audience of puzzled, distracted and somewhat amused ministerial colleagues.

The plan detailed a host of drastic measures to be implemented in the event of an epidemic threatening France. They included the closure of national borders, limits on people’s movement, a ban on gatherings, sports and cultural events, the implementation of social distancing rules, and the nationwide distribution of masks – surgical, for the public, and the more protective FFP2 type, for health workers.

“In a nutshell, the plan contained everything the current French government scrambled to put in place, in a hurry and without the equipment, in mid-March 2020,” write journalists Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme in a lengthy, five-part reconstruction of France’s pandemic “disarmament”, published by Le Monde this week.

The extraordinary rise and fall of pandemic planning in France was rooted in the troubled dawn of the new century, when Western nations obsessed with the threat of terrorism, and the hunt for elusive weapons of mass destruction, suddenly woke up to the risk of deadly epidemics.

First came the fearsome SARS, emerging in China in 2002 and escalating the next year, followed by an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in southeast Asia in 2004. Later that year, the deadly chikungunya disease spread rapidly in France’s overseas territories, eventually threatening the mainland.

“Asian countries were deeply shaken by SARS,” says Pierre-Yves Geoffard, a professor of health economics at the Paris School of Economics (PSE), in an interview with FRANCE 24. “They were lucky in the end as the virus eventually disappeared. But they didn’t lower their guard, making sure instead that they would be ready for the next one.”

Amid the many unknowns of pandemic planning, Geoffard says health strategists in Asian countries based their preparations on two certitudes: that further pandemics were bound to occur and that no-one could anticipate their shape or form.

“This implies being capable of reacting quickly to outbreaks of which very little is known in the beginning,” he says. “In this respect, the model to follow is Taiwan’s response to the present crisis: detecting, isolating and tracing cases – but it only works if you do it right away.”

Geoffard says the French government tried to follow the same model in its initial strategy against the coronavirus. But by then it was already too late, the virus having spread far and wide.

“Countries react to crises and learn that speed is of the essence, but then their memory fades,” he says. It would not be the only lesson unlearnt by France’s decision makers.

French independence

Back in 2005, Douste-Blazy had given a prescient warning about “our modern Western societies’ tendency to forget” during an audition before French senators.

The SARS epidemic, the health minister said, “has proven to what extent the sudden occurence of an unknown infection – I insist on the word unknown – capable of spreading across the planet thanks to modern communication networks, can disseminate fear, and destabilise the most developed societies and health systems.”

Weeks later, the senators who auditioned Douste-Blazy released a report detailing their recommendations to prepare the country for future outbreaks. In particular, they stressed the need to constitute stocks of masks for both health workers and the general public, noting that surgical masks would offer only limited protection and should therefore be replaced by more protective gear.

This “would certainly entail a high cost, but would help limit the country’s paralysis,” they wrote, adding: “In this light, the cost must be put into perspective.”

Alarmed by another classified report, exhumed by Le Monde’s investigators, which warned that France was woefully unprepared for a pandemic, Douste-Blazy’s successor at the health ministry, Xavier Bertrand, set off on a tour of East Asian countries in late 2005 to learn from their strategies. Calling in Beijing, he asked his Chinese counterpart whether France could order masks from China in the event of a crisis. Though affirmative, the answer cautioned that “Chinese demands would naturally come first” should the country need masks too.

Convinced of the need to strengthen France’s strategic independence, Bertrand and his successors would embark on a vast effort to make the country pandemic-proof and self-reliant – a strategy that spanned the final years of Jacques Chirac’s presidency and the start of Nicolas Sarkozy's tenure.

A cornerstone of the new strategy was the establishment of a national mask-production capacity, overseen and generously funded by a new entity, known as the Eprus, modelled on the US Centers for Disease Control and prevention (CDC).

At the end of 2006, France could boast of a stock of 600 million FFP2 masks, making it one of the world’s best prepared countries, according to the World Health Organization. By May 2009, a Senate report said the Eprus stock had reached more than 720 million units, supplemented by more than a billion surgical masks.

It was just as well, because a new deadly epidemic, this one coming from Mexico, was about to test the arsenal’s worth.

Crying wolf

The French government’s zealous response to the H1N1 influenza marked the climax of the precautionary approach championed by Douste-Blazy and his successors. But in hindsight, it also sounded its death knell.

As the influenza spread beyond Mexico in the summer of 2009, the new health minister, Roseline Bachelot, decided to further ramp up the production of masks, leading to a peak of 2.2 billion units (surgical and FFP2) by the end of the year. Under government guidelines, businesses were advised to constitute stocks of protective gear, including the high-protection FFP2 masks for workers “in close contact with members of the public”. Kits containing surgical masks and antiviral treatments were distributed freely in pharmacies across France.

Controversially, the government ordered 94 million vaccine doses and requisitioned gymnasiums for its nationwide vaccination campaign, bypassing doctors.

But the health crisis failed to materialise, and when state auditors, politicians and the media started to delve into the cost of the operation, Bachelot was lambasted for splashing out a whopping one billion euros in taxpayers’ money – part of it to reimburse pharmaceutical labs – on a virus that killed “only” 342 people in France.

“When dealing with epidemics, one is easely accused after the facts of having botched the response,” says Geoffard of the Paris School of Economics. “Either one does too much prevention and little happens, or one does too little and everything goes wrong.”

According to Geoffard, the H1N1 backlash was “one of the key reasons it later became impossible to justify maintaining a highly costly prevention policy.”

Reflecting on her public castigation, Bachelot told Le Monde that the debacle had “led to a general disarmament and decrediblised politicians.” She added: “The public decided we had overreacted. And for us politicians, the risk of doing too much came to dwarf that of doing too little.”

Former Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot talks to the press after being vaccinated for the H1N1 influenza on November 12, 2009. © Bertrand Guay, AFP

Writing in the same paper in late March of this year, the renowned health economist Claude Le Pen, who would die of cancer only weeks later, said Bachelot’s actions had instilled among high-ranking civil servants “a sense that the government had overestimated the crisis and, ultimately, squandered public funds for the benefit of pharmaceutical laboratories”.

Hoping to deflect responsibility for the “disarmament” that left France so dangerously exposed a decade later, the health minister’s successors have blamed those civil servants – the “deep state” – and each other for gradually stripping France of its defences.

After Bachelot’s demotion to a junior cabinet role in late 2010, Bertrand was put back in the saddle. But the context had changed dramatically since his first stint as health minister. These were the scandal-plagued twilight years of Sarkozy’s presidency. On top of pandemic fatigue, Bertrand had to grapple with stringent belt-tightening measures amid a global economic downturn and a European "debt crisis".

In late 2011, a government directive signalled a change of doctrine, splitting the state’s reserves of protective gear into two: a “strategic” stock of surgical masks for the general public, held by the state, and a “tactical” stock of FFP2 masks for health workers, to be held and replenished by regional health authorities and individual hospitals.

The change of direction was cemented by subsequent reforms implemented under the Socialist administration that came to power in 2012. They effectively devolved the management of “tactical” reserves to institutions focused on short-term-imperatives and struggling with budget cuts – with the effect that France’s precious FFP2 reserves expired and were never replaced.

“In the space of just two years, the state had passed on the baton, in the name of decentralisation and, above all, budgetary constraint,” write Le Monde’s Davet and Lhomme. As for the Eprus, it was incorporated and diluted in a much larger structure, known as Santé publique France, reversing a decade-long policy modelled on the American CDC.

A bonfire of masks

France is not the only country to have rolled back or “forgotten” its pandemic response plans along the way.

An investigation by British daily The Times found that preparations for a pandemic had been a top priority of the UK government for a decade after the September 11 attacks, before falling victim to austerity cuts.

“We were the envy of the world,” an unnamed source in the prime minister’s office told the newspaper. “But pandemic planning became a casualty of the austerity years when there were more pressing needs.” The source added that preparations for a no-deal Brexit “sucked all the blood out of pandemic planning”.

Likewise, years of neglect sucked the blood out of France’s once ambitious pandemic strategy, leaving the state largely powerless to protect its citizens from the coronavirus.

On March 17 of this year, the day France began a two-month nationwide lockdown, former health minister Agnès Buzyn spoke candidly about the extraordinary twist that had seen her plucked out of the ministry a month earlier, despite the worsening coronavirus outbreak, to lead President Emmanuel Macron’s party in Paris mayoral elections.

“I knew the tsunami wave was coming for us,” she said, referring to the looming pandemic. “We should have stopped the elections, it was a travesty.”

Addressing senators two days later, Buzyn’s successor as health minister, Olivier Véran, summed up the bewildering haemorrhage of equipment that had left France so desperately exposed.

“In 2010, the state had a stock of one billion surgical masks,” he said. “When I took over at the ministry, there were 150 million.”

As he spoke, and in the months preceding the crisis, millions of masks were simply being torched, based on the assumption that they had expired or were ineffective.

According to French daily Libération, a Belgian company tasked with testing a sample of the masks had concluded that they no longer met certain standards. However, subsequent tests carried out on masks that were saved from the bonfire at the last minute showed that they were perfectly usable.

Officials interviewed by Le Monde suggested that contradictory messages on the utility of masks – with the government at one point arguing that they were of no use to the general public – had helped seal the fate of the discarded stock.

The result of this stunning fiasco has been amply documented: a desperate shortage of protection for even frontline workers, a frantic – and costly – race to fly in masks from China, and a belated effort to revive a national production capacity that was abandoned in recent years.

“It’s baffling that nothing at all was anticipated, when we had it all ready as early as 2004,” a dejected Douste-Blazy told Le Monde, reflecting on France’s Covid-19 disaster.

He added: “This must be one of the most mind-blowing examples of how the French administration can produce such a plan and then fail to use it!”