Aung San Suu Kyi, the rise and fall of an icon turned pariah on the world stage


Issued on: 02/02/2021 

An image of Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi.

 © AFP/File

Text by: Romain BRUNET

The Myanmar army’s detention of de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday marks the fall of an icon whose story has been marked by the country's highs and lows, both at home and abroad. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate rose to lead Myanmar in 2015 after spending the better part of two decades under house arrest. But Suu Kyi's standing abroad was gravely damaged by her handling of the Rohingya crisis.

Suu Kyi – who has been compared to Nelson Mandela, Gandhi and Martin Luther King – took up her country's struggle for democracy in 1988 during a popular uprising against decades of military rule. She soon earned international renown, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 while under house arrest, where she would remain for a total of 15 years before finally rising to power in Myanmar in 2016.

Her dramatic story earned admiration far and wide. French director Luc Besson's feature biopic "The Lady" brought Suu Kyi's epic tale to the silver screen in 2011, a year before she gained her release and began writing a new chapter in her country's history.

But that foreign adulation wouldn't last. Once in power in Myanmar, Suu Kyi's conspicuous refusal to act in defence of the Rohingya community baffled the international community that had once sung her praises. Although Suu Kyi remained popular inside Myanmar, she became persona non grata on the world stage. And now, at 75, she is once again a political prisoner.


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Sensing a putsch in the offing in recent days, Suu Kyi took on the familiar role of the resistance fighter anew, issuing a pre-emptive call the day of her arrest for the people of Myanmar "not to accept a coup" and saying an army takeover would put the country "back under a dictatorship".

"I urge people not to accept this, to respond wholeheartedly to protest against the coup by the military," the statement attributed to Suu Kyi said, posted to the Facebook page of her National League for Democracy party.

A fateful turn

Suu Kyi's detention is the latest twist in a life that began with a tragedy. In 1947, when Suu Kyi was just two years old, her father – the charismatic independence hero General Aung San – was assassinated. Suu Kyi would long live in exile, notably in India and later in the United Kingdom, Myanmar's former colonial ruler, where she attended Oxford University. It was there that she met her husband, the academic and Tibet specialist Michael Aris, with whom she had two children.

Then, in 1988, Suu Kyi's life took a fateful turn. Having returned to her home country to be at her dying mother's side, Suu Kyi took everyone by surprise when she got involved in the Burmese people's uprising against the military junta.

"I could not, as my father's daughter, remain indifferent to all that was going on," she said in an August 1988 speech that marked her entrance into political life.

Some 3,000 people died in the repression of that uprising. It would also mark the birth of an icon. Suu Kyi became the woman through whom democracy might one day return to Myanmar and in whom a people, under the jackboot of military dictatorship since 1962, could invest their hopes.

Suu Kyi was granted authorisation to form the National League for Democracy (NLD) party. But it was not long before she was placed under house arrest. From there, she would witness her party's victory in 1990 elections, a result the junta refused to accept.

Consigned to her residence, a lakeside villa in Yangon, Suu Kyi was allowed visits from the rare emissary as well as, now and again, her two sons, who had remained in Britain living with their father. Suu Kyi lost her husband to cancer in 1999; she was not able to visit him before he died.

International acclaim

In 1990, Suu Kyi won the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Europe's highest tribute to human rights work, a year before the Nobel Committee bestowed its prestigious Peace Prize. The catalogue of distinctions Suu Kyi received spanned the globe: The US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000, honorary citizenship of the City of Paris in 2004, the Olof Palme Prize for human rights in 2005, honorary Canadian citizenship in 2007, the Catalonia International prize in 2008, the French Legion of Honour in 2012 and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's Elie Wiesel Award that same year.

"Aung San Suu Kyi was put on a pedestal during her 15 years of house arrest and elevated to stardom. She was a woman, she was beautiful, she was fighting against a military junta; you couldn't imagine a better representative for democracy," David Camroux, a historian specialised in Southeast Asia and lecturer at France's Sciences Po, told FRANCE 24.

To fully grasp the adulation Suu Kyi enjoyed, one need only recall November 13, 2010, the day she was finally liberated from detention. The news was celebrated immediately across the West. In Paris, a gathering was hastily organised on the City Hall forecourt by Suu Kyi's French support committee. Then-mayor Bertrand Delanoë attended, alongside actress-musician Jane Birkin, the group's spokesperson, and Oscar-winning film star Marion Cotillard.

In 2012, Suu Kyi contested by-elections that saw her party win 43 of the 44 parliamentary seats in which it fielded candidates. She took her place as a lawmaker in Myanmar's parliament that May. But the real breakthrough came in 2015, when the NLD won the general election by a landslide.

Myanmar's journey back to military rule

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Although the Constitution forbade Suu Kyi from seeking the presidency due to her marriage to a foreigner – a provision the military had inserted to bar her from the office – one of her close associates in the party, Htin Kyaw, was elected to the role in 2016. The position of state counsellor, meanwhile, was created for Suu Kyi, who assumed defacto leadership of the country.

During her years at Myanmar's helm, Suu Kyi was tested by the rigours of power, obliged to cope with the all-powerful military officials who remained atop key government ministries.

Inaction over the Rohingya tragedy

Suu Kyi enjoyed success domestically as the economy grew and Myanmar drew foreign investment, from China and Japan in particular. But her image was forever damaged internationally by the tragedy of the Rohingya Muslims.

In 2017, some 750,000 members of the Rohingya minority were forced to flee violent abuses at the hands of the army and Buddhist militias, taking refuge in makeshift camps over the border in Bangladesh. The tragedy saw Myanmar accused of "genocide" before the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.

In 2019, Suu Kyi personally led the country's defence at the court in The Hague, rejecting the allegations of genocide as "incomplete and misleading", although she admitted war crimes may have been committed. Her apparent lack of compassion for the Rohingya outraged the international community. But "Mother Suu", as the Burmese call her, retained the confidence of her people at home.
Rohingya refugees fear returning to Myanmar after coup

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"The disappointment was considerable because the expectations were unrealistic," Camroux told FRANCE 24. "Aung San Suu Kyi considers the ethnic majority she hails from, the Bamar, superior and that it is they who are the real Burmese, which is where her lack of consideration for the Rohingya comes from. There was also a political calculation on her part since she had to appear conciliatory with the military officials and put her patriotism on display."

Beyond the Rohingya situation, international observers have reproached Suu Kyi for what they see as her autocratic approach to power.

"She is a pretty authoritarian woman who doesn't delegate," said Camroux. "That's actually a real problem within her party since we are not seeing a new generation emerge. Many of the people who control the party are around 80 years of age. It's difficult to see who might succeed her."

Nevertheless, Suu Kyi remains very well-liked in Myanmar. Considered a model of modesty and austerity, she incarnates for many Burmese what a real Buddhist should be. Indeed, legislative elections in November confirmed her popularity, with Suu Kyi's NLD scoring an overwhelming victory.

This article has been translated from the original in French.

PORTRAIT

Min Aung Hlaing: the heir to Myanmar’s military junta

Issued on: 01/02/2021

Myanmar's General Min Aung Hlaing at the Martyrs' Mausoleum

in Yangon on July 19, 2016.

 © Soe Zeya Tun, REUTERS

Text by: Sébastian SEIBT

Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s armed forces commander-in-chief, has emerged as the country's new strongman following Monday’s coup. He has promised to hold elections after a one-year state of emergency but many remain wary since the country’s military chief has proven reluctant to call it quits.

Myanmar’s military chief, General Min Aung Hlaing, should have been quietly preparing to retire in July when he turns 65, the official retirement age for the commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces.

But instead of preparing to leave office and focusing on preparing a successor, the general consolidated power in a military coup.

Citing electoral fraud in the November 2020 general elections – in which Nobel laureate and de facto ruler Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide 83 percent of the vote – the junta imposed a one-year state of emergency that will be followed by “free and fair multiparty general elections”, according to a statement released by the office of Myanmar’s Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services.

But it is impossible to know if Min Aung Hlaing will keep his word. "The aim of the army has always been to run the country," said Nehginpao Kipgen, executive director at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the Jindal School of International Affairs in India, in an interview with FRANCE 24.



Rising up the ranks

Min Aung Hlaing has long intended to exercise power alone without the burden of a civilian head of government, according to a 2017 New York Times investigation. "His plan is to become president by 2020," U Win Htein, an adviser to Suu Kyi, told the US daily.

The results of the November 8 parliamentary elections, however, dented his ambitions. Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), swept the polls, confirming its position as the country's leading political power. The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) got just a fraction of the vote, in contrast.

It was an electoral setback that Min Aung Hlaing could not accept. Political tensions had been rising since the election results were announced, sparking fears of a military coup that escalated over the weekend. The military "first disputed the results alleging massive fraud, then, after the validation of the vote by the electoral commission, they said they had no choice but to take power by force", said Kipgen.

The coup puts Min Aung Hlaing, the embodiment of Myanmar’s military system, at the helm of a country that has been under military rule for nearly half a century. Born in the southern city of Tavoy, now known as Dawei, Min Aung Hlaing studied in Rangoon, the country’s former capital, now Yangon. At 18, he entered the country’s military academy after a two-year stint in law school.

It’s difficult to get a clear idea of the young recruit’s personality or confirm various stories about his youth. Some childhood friends described him as taciturn and reserved to Reuters, while others described him as a "bully who tended to humiliate his classmates", according to testimonies collected by the New York Times. Hla Oo, a Burmese writer exiled in Australia who knew him as a child, recalled a hard-working, studious young man who "hardened himself in battle in the army ranks".

But he was not an obvious candidate for a future commander-in-chief. "He climbed up the ranks slowly but surely," a former military academy officer told Reuters. Noted Kipgen: "He was not someone who stood out in the Burmese army."

His luck began to turn when he joined the army’s 88th Light Infantry Division, which was commanded at that time by a certain Colonel Than Shwe.

Min Aung Hlaing made Than Shwe his mentor and continued his career in the shadow of the man who, in 1992, rose to become head of the country’s military junta.

Cultivating an image on social media

In 2011, Than Shwe made Min Aung Hlaing his successor and the first armed forces commander-in-chief in Myanmar’s post-military junta era. His selection over other more experienced generals was likely due to "the fact that Than Shwe thought he would be in the best position to perpetuate his vision for the army and the country", explained Kipgen.

As Than Shwe’s heir and faithful to the vision of an all-powerful military, Min Aung Hlaing negotiated with Suu Kyi, charting the course of Myanmar’s democratic transition. But as military chief, he played both sides. On the one hand, he "was very careful in his dealings with the head of government, avoiding open confrontation as much as possible", Kipgen said.

But he also did everything possible to show that the army remains the real master of the political game. He went on several official trips, particularly to China and Japan, and received foreign dignitaries, such as Pope Francis in 2017. The trips and meetings were carefully recorded and shared on social media. "He is very good at cultivating an image of statesmanship, paying attention to the smallest detail," said Min Zin, director of the Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar, a think tank in Yangon, in an interview with the New York Times.

But his public relations efforts failed to work outside Myanmar. For the international community, Min Aung Hlaing is regarded, above all, as the man behind the persecution of the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority starting in 2016.

"Even if he is not directly and personally involved, militarily – as head of the army – he approved this campaign," noted Kipgen.

While several countries have adopted the term “genocide” to describe the military’s violations against the Rohingyas, Min Aung Hlaing openly defended the army’s actions on Facebook and Twitter. The military chief only uses the term "Bengali" to refer to the Rohingya, suggesting that they are foreigners who have no business being on Burmese soil. He also justified the army's actions by repeatedly stating that "our regions must be controlled by the national races".

He was banned from travel to the United States and also banned from Twitter and Facebook in 2019.

With Min Aung Hlaing’s rise to power, the hardline faction within the military has put an end – for now – to Myanmar’s fragile democratic process. And for those who may have been looking forward to the military chief's retirement, they will have to wait a little longer.

This article has been translated from the original in French.

Union says workers at JD Norman Industries 'blindsided' by news facility is closing

© Jacob Barker/CBC Unifor Local 195 President Emile Nabbout says JD Norman

 needs to come to the table with the union.

The union representing workers at JD Norman Industries in Windsor says staff showed up for their shift Friday morning and were met by security guards who told them they had been let go.

Employees at the manufacturing facility are represented by Unifor Local 195.

President Emile Nabbout told CBC they were caught totally off guard.

"We were blindsided," he said. "We have no news from the employer whatsoever."

Roughly 65 people work at the facility which manufactures parts for General Motors, he said.

"The workers were devastated. Their families didn't know what to do," Nabbout explained.

© Jacob Barker/CBC Union flags wave outside the JD Norman

 facility on Hawthorne Drive. About 65 people work at the plant.

JD Norman did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment on the situation.

Online profiles for the company show it's based in Illinois.

Nabbout said it's his understanding management at the location in Windsor weren't notified about the closure either.

"We need this employer to come to the table, meet with the union and try to figure [it] out," said the union president. "If the company is not able to operate the business we have to negotiate a decent closure agreement."

Tweets from Unifor Local 444 showed workers demonstrating outside the facility on Hawthorne Drive.

"JD Norman Industries has suddenly locked out workers represented by Unifor Local 195 without warning!" read one post on social media. "Nothing in nothing out!

India's farmers, government in uneasy standoff after tumultuous Delhi protest

© Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images Farmers protest against the Indian central government's recent agricultural reforms at the Red Fort in New Delhi on Jan. 26. Clashes with police that day left at least one person dead and hundreds injured.

CBC

In the wake of clashes between demonstrators and police in Delhi on Jan. 26, India's Republic Day, the government has been pushing back against the tens of thousands of farmers protesting the nation's new agricultural laws.

The government shut down the internet in parts of Delhi and surrounding areas this week in a move to hamper the protests and their organizers.

"People are not able to communicate with each other, they can't call home, they don't know what is happening on a political level with regards to the movement," said Nidhi Suresh, a Delhi-based journalist who has been covering the protests for the past two-and-a-half months.

India's Ministry of Home Affairs said the crackdown was "in the interest of maintaining public safety and averting public emergency." Internet service was reportedly back in some areas Friday afternoon, but whether it will be cut again is unclear.

Security forces have also put up barricades to keep people from easily accessing the protest camps, some of which now span several kilometres.

India's Republic Day unrest marked a change in the tone of the ongoing protest, as huge crowds converged on the nation's capital. A group stormed the barricades at the historic Red Fort, resulting in violent clashes with police. At least one person died, and hundreds of police and protestors were reported injured.

Several journalists have also been charged with sedition over their coverage of the events.

The confrontation has compromised the movement's commitment to peaceful protest. Since then the farmers, many of whom are Sikhs from nearby Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, have condemned the violence and have returned to camps located on major roadways bordering the nation's capital — Singhu, Tikri, and Ghazipur.

"[We] were disappointed by the violence on Republic Day. But we are still united. It's a bigger movement than just the farmers' leaders and the politicians," said a law student and farmer from Haryana, Bhupender Chaudhary.

"It's now a protest for all of the people."

Along with the three large border protests, sympathy demonstrations have also sprung up in recent months. The largest, on Nov. 26, saw some 250 million people participate in a general strike all over the country.

"I have marvelled at how brilliantly people from such humble backgrounds have been negotiating with the government," said Gurpreet Wasi, a volunteer with Khalsa Aid based in Delhi. "Despite having thousands of differences on the ground, they have really projected a unified front."

© Money Sharma/AFP/Getty Images Farmers take part in a tractor rally 

in New Delhi on Jan. 26.

Agricultural reforms

The farmers are protesting new laws brought in by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government in September. They say the bill will wipe out small farmers and give corporations far too much control of India's agricultural industry.

"For marginal, small farmers in places like Haryana, it's hard to sustain a living," said Chaudhary. "Their kids will starve if they get pushed out of the market."

Many farmers fear the government will eliminate the Minimum Support Price (MSP), which regulates the price of their crops. Modi has responded to this, saying the MSP will remain in place:

On Wednesday, Modi reiterated that his government has taken several steps to make India's farmers more "self-reliant" in the past six years.

So far, the Indian government has held several rounds of talks with leaders of the 40 farmers' unions fronting the movement. The leaders are demanding a complete repeal of the laws, but Delhi has only agreed to delay any reforms for 18 months.

Chaudhary, whose village grows chickpeas, wheat and mustard, has seen the challenges his community faces first hand. He was among the first to travel to nearby villages to explain the reforms and mobilize support. It started small.

"Sometimes we had only 10 people with us," he said.

© Narinder Nanu/AFP via Getty Images 

Farmers work in a field on the outskirts of Amritsar on Feb. 1. 

The agricultural sector employs 70 per cent of India's working population.

India's massive agricultural sector, which employs 70 per cent of the working population, has been in crisis for years due to a number of factors including punishing droughts that have left already-indebted farmers with poor crop yields. Many have taken their own lives — the National Crime Records Bureau says that more than 10,000 farmers and farm labourers died by suicide in 2019 alone.

"For the last 10 to 12 years, there's been such a spate of farmer suicides," said Suresh.

The journalist points out that fighting the new laws is only part of their struggle.

"It's now a protest of dignity, it's a protest of who gets heard and who should be getting heard and what the due process is," she said. "Shouldn't affected parties and communities be consulted at all before such a bill is brought in?"

"It's the responsibility of the state to try and come up and hear their own people, and have a conversation that they can trust," added Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asian Director of Human Rights Watch. "But there is a huge trust deficit … which is why the conversations are not not coming to a satisfactory conclusion."

Security barricades

© Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters A security officer walks past metal spikes installed in the ground by the Delhi police as a security measure at Tikri Border, one of the areas near Delhi where farmers are protesting, in this Feb. 4 photo.

Chaudhary and his family have been at the Tikri border since November, where a large police presence surrounds the area. Police have now embedded nails in the ground to puncture the tires of vehicles that try to pass through.

"At first, there was fear and anxiety when we heard the news that the government was bringing in security forces," he said. "But they can't do anything now, there are too many of us."

At Singhu, heavy barricades and road closures make it impossible for anyone to access the camps. The police have dug up crater-like trenches along the route to make travel difficult.

"You have to walk almost two kilometres to get close, and once you're there they won't let you in and ask you to take a detour," Suresh said, adding that many journalists are afraid of getting arrested and detained when they get to the sites.

"It's a strategy to keep people out."

However, the security forces have also been reluctant to resort to violence.

"The one thing that the government appears to have tried very hard to do is ensure that security forces act with restraint," Ganguly said. "But the fact that it needs this sort of barricading of borders seems a little unfortunate, in terms of what the government was trying to achieve."

© Arun Kumar/AFP via Getty Images 

Protesting farmers take a bath along a blocked highway on Jan. 29

 at the Delhi-Haryana state border in Singhu.

Inside the barricades, farmers and their families have set up shelters, community kitchens (a Sikh practice called langar), and even services like laundry, but the nights are cold, and running water and electricity are not always available.

With the road closures, local volunteers are unable to keep bringing in supplies like warm clothes and blankets from Delhi.

Besides the risk associated with COVID-19, people on the ground say sanitary conditions at the crowded camps are getting worse.

"Disease is something they are getting concerned about now," Suresh said, "because there's no proper sanitation and there's stagnation of water."

At least 70 farmers have died at the sites, according to the farmers unions, but there are no official government numbers and Suresh says some believe the toll is likely higher.

"Many of the farmers are old, some of them are struggling in the cold, some of them have had heart attacks," Chaudhary said.

The deaths have weighed on him.

"You naturally start to feel defeated, but we are carrying on."

Some villages, including Chaudhary's, have set up a system — if 10 people need to return home, then 10 people replace them at the border, allowing farmers to take care of their homes and tend to their crops.

Protestors are estimated to have brought in six months worth of rations, and they are mobilizing more support through grand village council meetings (panchayats) happening all around Delhi.

"As an eyewitness being there for the last two and a half months, I can say with full clarity that I don't see any dwindling of crowds," said Suresh.

© Adnan Abidi/Reuters Farmers listen to a speaker at Singhu 

border near New Delhi on Jan. 30.

Online maneuvering

Protest activities and government responses are also playing out online.

Internet blackouts like the one this week have become a pattern in India as a way for the government to address dissent. Statista reported that in 2018, India was by far the country that implemented the most internet shutdowns.

"It has become the go-to strategy when they want to contain any kind of public protest, because they believe a lot of communication and organizing occurs over the internet," Human Rights Watch's Ganguly said.

Meanwhile, a statement from India's Ministry of External Affairs also suggests the government is concerned that interest groups have "tried to mobilise international support against India." The government maintains that the farmer protests are an internal matter, after recent tweets of support for the protests from celebrities including Rihanna and Greta Thunberg.

© Money Sharma/AFP via Getty Images Activists with the United Hindu Front (UHF) hold placards and pictures of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and Barbadian singer Rihanna during a demonstration in New Delhi on Feb. 4, after the celebrities made comments on social media about ongoing mass farmers' protests in India.

And public support for the farmers' position isn't unanimous.

This week, along with attempts to block hundreds of protest-related accounts on social media that have become the driving force of the movement, there was a concerted pro-government hashtag campaign.

When NDP leader Jagmeet Singh thanked Rihanna for "empowering the voices of the oppressed" on Instagram, for example, a number of Indian officials and celebrities fired back using the hashtags #IndiaTogether and #IndiaAgainstPropaganda.

Cricket star Sachin Tendulkar wrote, "India's sovereignty cannot be compromised. External forces can be spectators but not participants."

Ultimately, online discourse isn't what Ganguly is concerned about.

"That's still in the peaceful conversation space," Ganguly said. "Our concern is almost always what happens if there is violence. And what happens in terms of state response, whether they are punishing dissent in any way."

There are more demonstrations expected in the coming days. The farmers say they refuse to stop protesting until they are properly consulted on agricultural reforms that they fear will have a huge impact on their lives.

"Our elders told us to stand our ground and said, look, we're not turning around and we're not going to be afraid," said Chaudhary. "So we don't plan on moving now. Our tractors and our trolleys are going to stay put."

#WAGETHEFT

Why decisions to keep shareholders on a pedestal might backfire for the Big 3 Telcos this time

It turns out BCE Inc. belonged near the top of the Financial Post’s table of big companies that claimed the federal wage subsidy while continuing to pay dividends. 

© Provided by Financial Post There isn't necessarily anything wrong with a company claiming benefits for which it qualifies, even if it didn't need the money.

Calgary-based Imperial Oil Ltd., which received $120 million from the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) through the third quarter, ended up at the top of Financial Post’s list when we finished sifting through financial information that publicly traded companies are required to file with securities regulators.

Some of those disclosures were transparent, others were translucent. A smattering of companies disclosed that they had received the subsidy, but declined to provide an amount. Some said the benefit was “immaterial,” therefore relieving them of any obligation to share a number with their investors.

Among those companies were the three members of Canada’s telecommunications oligopoly: BCE, Rogers Communications Inc. and Telus Corp., the last of which, after some prodding, provided a ballpark figure, saying it had received “less than” two per cent of the roughly $1.5 billion it paid in dividends through the early part of December.

But The downUp , a digital newsletter about the Canadian communications industry, on Jan. 21 reported that BCE had claimed $122.8 million, putting it up there with Imperial. It found the information in the Alberta government’s lobbyist registry.

Rogers received about $71.3 million and Telus claimed $30.2 million, as of Nov. 30, the downUp reported , citing provincial lobbyist registries. That means the Big Three, whose rates for mobile data are among the highest in the world , received almost $225 million from the federal government during the pandemic, offsetting operational costs, thus relieving any pressure management might have felt to temporarily curb dividend payments.

There is, of course, nothing illegal about any of this. BCE, Rogers, Telus and all the other companies that received CEWS were able to show that they had lost enough revenue to qualify for help. Nor is there necessarily anything wrong with a company claiming benefits for which it qualifies, even if it didn’t need the money, although that will depend on your point of view.

The most common response to our reporting on this issue has been dismay: from some at the suggestion that dividends might be something other than sacrosanct; and from others at the sight of cash-rich corporations exploiting an emergency program instead of drawing on their own resources.

We might be on the verge of a real-time test of whether shareholders’ interests are always best served by being given the biggest possible stake of a company’s revenue.

The telcos have for decades used their market power to mostly get their way, even though they operate in a highly regulated industry. They will soon be counting on a number of decisions to once again tilt in their favour, including rates the resellers must pay to use their networks, conditions related to an upcoming spectrum auction, and the divvying up of the federal government’s $1.75-billion rural broadband fund .

But Parliament might not be so quick to bend the knee this time. Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, a Liberal MP from Toronto, pushed back against a BCE executive’s suggestion that resellers were a burden, saying, “without the resellers, you would gouge Canadians even worse.” Robert Malcolmson, the company’s top lawyer, testily replied that he “wasn’t sure that was even a question.” Erskine-Smith countered that it wasn’t: “It’s a fact,” he said.

The telecom companies’ actions show that they put their shareholders on a pedestal. But they know it’s a bad look to do so during a national crisis. If they weren’t worried about it, they wouldn’t refuse to disclose the same numbers to reporters that they are obligated to disclose in order to lobby various provincial governments.

BCE fired at least a couple of hundred people in its media division this week. At the same time, the company announced it would spend an additional $1 billion on its networks over the next two years, an investment that chief executive Mirko Bibic said would create more than 5,000 “direct and indirect” jobs. Amidst all that, he told analysts on a Feb. 4 conference call that he was “equally pleased” to say that the company’s board had decided to increase the dividend by 5.1 per cent.

The telecom oligopoly is spinning two stories that don’t quite jibe.

It wants the public to see it as central to the recovery, and forget that decades of underinvestment left us vulnerable when hundreds of thousands of people suddenly had to work and learn from home. But its leaders lack the courage to invest to the fullest degree they can.

BCE’s spending plans look impressive, but it’s money the company intended to spend anyway; Bibic advanced his plans in part to take advantage of a federal tax break on capital investment. The company doesn’t plan to continue investing at this pace beyond its two-year horizon. But it remains committed to pumping out dividends. If it stops, its leaders say investors would abandon them.

“The only way you get investment capital is from shareholders that are willing to invest their money with your company in order to fund your network expansion,” Malcolmson, BCE’s chief legal and regulatory officer, told the House industry committee on Jan. 26, when pushed to explain why the company claimed the wage subsidy instead of drawing from its own cash pile. “If we don’t have investment capital and we’re not delivering shareholders returns, Canada will not have the level of investment that it needs.”

It was a statement that only a near-monopolist could make. The thing is, the post-COVID-19 political climate has become hostile to monopolists and oligopolists. BCE and others could come to regret operating like dividend machines instead of ambitious companies committed to growth.

German prosecutors charge Nazi camp secretary

The 95-year-old woman is accused of complicity in the murders of 10,000 people at the former Nazi concentration camp Stutthof. The case is the first in several years to be brought against a female staff member.


A general view of a gas chamber at the former Nazi concentration camp Stutthof


Prosecutors in Itzehoe announced charges against a former Nazi concentration camp secretary on Friday.

The case is a rare one for German prosecutors, who in recent years have taken a number of former concentration camp guards and accountants to court. Secretaries and female staff members have not faced charges in years.

What did prosecutors say?

The woman is accused of "having assisted those responsible at the camp in the systematic killing of Jewish prisoners, Polish partisans and Soviet Russian prisoners of war," prosecutors said in a statement.

She served as secretary to the commander of the Stutthof camp from June 1943 to April 1945, according to the statement. The camp was located near what was then known as Danzig, now Gdansk.


An estimated 65,000 people were murdered at the Stutthof concentration camp

She is charged with "aiding and abetting murder in more than 10,000 cases" as well as being complicit in attempted murder at the camp.

German prosecutors have been investigating her case since 2016, carrying out interviews with Holocaust survivors in Israel and the United States.

What do we know about the secretary?

Although prosecutors did not identify the woman, she is reportedly 95-years-old and lives north of the city of Hamburg, according to local newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt.

In her function as a secretary to concentration camp commander Paul Werner Hoppe, prosecutors argue that she served a key role in the functioning of the Stuffhof camp.

She was previously called upon as a witness in other cases, according to an investigative report published last year by local public broadcaster NDR.

In 1954, the former secretary testified that the commander dictated letters to her daily. She also said all of the correspondence with the SS department in charge of running the concentration camps came across her desk.

NUREMBERG TRIALS: NAZIS FACING JUDGMENT

War criminals on trial

Twenty-one defendants were tried in 1945 and 1946 before the International Military Tribunal, a court that had been created specifically for the task of prosecuting war crimes. Among them were Nazi party functionaries, senior military officers, civil servants, diplomats and industrialists — and all had served the Nazi regime. PHOTOS 12345678910

In an interview with an NDR reporter, she claimed to have only found out about the mass killings at Stuffhof after World War II ended. She told the reporter that her office window faced away from the camp.

What happens next?

As the woman was younger than 21-years-old during her time as secretary of the camp, a juvenile court will hear the case.

The court in Itzehoe will decide whether to admit the charges and open a trial against the women.

It is not clear how long the process will take.

Germany has been racing to prosecute surviving former staff of Nazi concentration camps, as the number of witnesses and alleged perpetrators dwindles.

A 2011 case against a a former concentration camp guard set a legal precedent allowing courts to convict camp staff rather than just the officers in charge.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Danzig was in Nazi-occupied Poland. It was in fact, part of the Free City of D

SOLIDARITE, MUTUAL AID, COOPERATION

Why helping others is good for you

People who volunteer report higher levels of well-being, greater life satisfaction and less depression. But your motivation can impact how happy helping makes you feel.

Andriana (right) volunteers with Indonesian charity Komunitas Taufan every week


Andriana, who goes by one name, volunteers three days a week with the Indonesian charity Komunitas Taufan, a community of volunteers that supports families of children with cancer and other high-risk illnesses.

The charity tries to brighten the days of hospitalized children with laughter, games and music and supports their parents as they watch their kids battle for their lives.

"Sometimes the mother is actually the one who needs the strength and motivation because it's easy to cheer up the kids, but the parents … need someone to talk to," Andriana told DW.

After spending time with the patients and their parents, she leaves with a bigger heart and her own life problems are put into perspective.

"The same feeling happens over and over again, even though you're meant to get used to it. But different kids, different stories, different people — it just leaves you overwhelmed with a lot of feelings," said Andriana. "We thought we were making a difference [in their lives], but actually, they are making a difference to us."

Research has found there is a strong link between volunteering and greater life satisfaction, positive emotions, and reduced depression, according to the 2019 World Happiness Report.

In a review of 37 studies with samples ranging from 15 people to more than 2,000, adult volunteers scored significantly higher on quality of life measures compared to non-volunteers.

People are more likely to get joy from helping others if they are free to choose if and when they want to help, they feel connected to the people they're helping, and they can see how they are making a difference, the report stated.

Watch video26:06 Mental Health Keep up the good work

Researchers at Flinders University in Australia found that people who volunteered reported higher levels of well-being, but the positive effects are short-lived if people do not continue to volunteer.

The study showed that people experienced an immediate increase in subjective well-being after the volunteering activity, but one year after the event their subjective well-being returned to pre-volunteering levels if they had not kept at it.

In Mazabuka, a town in southern Zambia, Diana Limande has been volunteering in her community for 14 years. She helps with Catholic Relief Services' FASTER project, which focuses on viral suppression in children and adolescents living with HIV.

Limande is self-disclosed HIV-positive and works with HIV-positive adolescents to raise awareness and destigmatize HIV.

"Some even hide it from their own parents, they don't even tell their husbands," Limande told DW.

If you or people close to you have been affected by an issue, that personal connection can be a strong motivating factor for volunteering.

"I've lived a positive life for 14 years now, and I know the way it feels to be a positive parent or mother," said Limande, who is also a cervical cancer survivor. Part of her volunteer work involves encouraging HIV-positive women to be screened.

Cervical cancer is the most common cancer among women living with HIV, according to the UN, and the likelihood that a woman living with HIV will develop invasive cervical cancer is up to five times higher than for a woman who does not have HIV.

"I really want to help my fellow positive-living people on how to go about it," Limande said. "Maybe they will come out, stop discriminating [against] themselves."

Motive matters

Our motives can affect how happy we feel after we do something to benefit others, whether that’s helping, sharing, donating, cooperating or volunteering.

A 2017 study found that people who were asked to recall an act of kindness that benefited others reported higher well-being afterward than people who were asked to recall an act of kindness motivated by self-benefit.

In early 2018, Piyush Sardana founded Rise Foundation, a volunteer-run organization that supports homeless people in Berlin by providing them with food, hygiene products, clothing and practical information like how to get medical help or where they can shower.

Twice a month Sardana and about 20 volunteers put together packages and distribute them to people in need.


Piyush Sardana (right) finds face-to-face volunteer work the most satisfying

Sardana, who works as a software developer, said he volunteered for more than 10 years in India before moving to Berlin.

Although he runs Rise Foundation, the satisfaction Sardana gets from volunteering comes from helping people face-to-face.

"Spending five minutes with someone who is probably ignored hundreds of times during the day — how that changes the person's day and how the smallest thing would make their day is definitely satisfying," said Sardana.

Even without doing the act of kindness yourself, a study in 2013 suggested that knowing the direct impact your donation has on people affects the emotional benefit you feel afterward.

People who donated money to UNICEF, a major aid organization, did not experience any emotional benefits. Still, people who donated to Spread the Net, a UNICEF-affiliated charity that buys bed nets to stop the spread of malaria, reported being happier.

It suggests that seeing the impact of your act of kindness, whether volunteering or donating to a cause, leads to higher levels of well-being and happiness.

COTE DU IVORIE
Hive thinking: Beekeeping makes a buzz in Ivory Coast 

Issued on: 06/02/2021 -

Honey is harvested only at night as the local bees are very aggressive 

Issouf SANOGO AFP


ASSOUNVOUE (Ivory Coast) (AFP)

Night has just fallen in central Ivory Coast and the hour has come for two men, venturing forth in protective suits, veils and gloves, to steal honey from their bees.

The art of beekeeping has spread swiftly in Assounvoue, in the heart of the world's top cocoa producer.

Farmers started taking up honey-making to supplement their income -- and then also realised their primary crops did better when pollinated by the bees. Word of the twin benefits spread fast.

"In West Africa, you have to harvest the honey at night," says French beekeeper Sebastien Gavini, co-director of a firm called Le Bon Miel de Cote d'Ivoire (The fine honey of Ivory Coast).

"These bees are savage and aggressive -- they don’t let you go. By working at night, you don't get pursued by the bees, which means we don't put people at risk."

West African bees are "wilder and barely used to contact with human beings," Gavini explains.

He contrasts these characteristics with milder-natured European bees which have been kept for centuries -- and sadly are now threatened in many areas by insecticides.

- Double win -

Modern beekeeping is only getting started in Africa, says Francois Silue, a member of the Ivorian Cooperative Company (SCI) at Katiola in the north, the source of the country's most highly-regarded honey.

"Our duty is to stop farmers from killing the bees, to change their culture," explains Silue, who was trained by Japanese and German specialist aid workers.

The SCI brings together about 50 beekeeping farmers.

Obtaining statistics on the beekeeping business is complicated at national level.

"There are only partial figures," says Marcel Iritie, president of the Agricultural Platform of Ivory Coast.

The platform estimates that 30 tonnes of honey are produced each year by about 100 members and several cooperatives.

"But that doesn't take into account hundreds of small producers," Iritie notes.

All or nearly all these people have kept their traditional roles as farmers, treating the production of honey as a secondary activity.

"The farmer who goes into beekeeping wins twice over," argues Mathieu Offi, who works alongside Gavini.

"Money is earned from the honey and harvests are better because of better pollination."

— Minimum investment —

While he gives training classes as one of the most experienced beekeepers in the country, Offi also carries on with his work as a farmer near Kossou in the middle of the country.

"Thanks to the bees, (cocoa) production can be multiplied by 1.6," he adds.

"It's the bees who do all the work!"

Offi and Gavini have installed their beehives across a strictly organic market garden in Assounvoue in a successful marriage of cultures.

"Bees are like humans, they thrive when the environment is right," Offi says. "With pesticides, they suffer."

"I need five more hives," says Ahmed Yao, a farmhand who benefits both from the sale of market produce and income from honey.

Gavini and Offi have signed partnerships with agro-business ventures producing bananas and other fruits.

"It's a win-win situation," Gavini says, stressing the advantages of pollination and providing training for small farmers.

Gavini says a relatively tiny investment is needed for bee keeping.

"All in all, a hive costs 35,000 CFA francs (53 euros/$64). Add the clothing and some basic equipment, and it's 65,000 CFA (99 euros) at the most. You get the money back in the first year."

- 'Incredible varieties' -

The price of a kilogramme (2.2 pounds) of honey ranges from 3,000 to 10,000 francs (15 euros), while spinoff products (bees' wax, propolis varnish, essential oils and even bee venom) also sell well.

"The taste of the honey depends on what the bee has been foraging. Honey from here is renowned because there are acacias and cashew nuts. It's sweet," says Edvige Brou Adoua, a saleswoman at the Katiola cooperative.

But, she insists, you should always buy directly from the outlet, not from a product hawked on the roadside. In the economic capital Abidjan, it is not uncommon for street vendors to sell honey mixed with water and sugar.

"Quality is the most important thing," agrees Sebastien Gavini.

"We have the good luck to have incredible varieties of honey," he says, reeling off some of the botanical treasures of the Ivory Coast, from coffee flowers, kapok and orange trees, to acacias and cashews.

"Each honey has a specific taste. Ivory Coast could become the world’s leading honey producer. We have all it takes!"

© 2021 AFP

Yankees stadium becomes vaccination site for New York's poor

Issued on: 06/02/2021 - 

People line up in the rain outside the Yankee Stadium on February 5, 2021 in New York as the Stadium is turned into a mass Covid-19 vaccination site, which is strictly reserved for residents of The Bronx. 

TIMOTHY A. CLARY AFP

New York (AFP)

Defying the cold and rain, hundreds of people bundled up in thick coats came to get vaccinated Friday in the famous Yankees baseball stadium in the Bronx, a New York borough that has been particularly badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

"It's like a choice between life and death," said Ines Figueroa, 64, a Puerto Rican resident of the Bronx, after receiving the shot. Her husband died in January of complications linked to the virus which she too contracted, although without developing any symptoms.

The positivity rate in the Bronx is the highest in all of New York's five boroughs: it was at 6.67 percent Friday, double the rate in the wealthier area of Manhattan, New York governor Andrew Cuomo said.

That is why the authorities in this traditionally Democratic bastion of the city decided to reserve the vaccinations on offer at the stadium exclusively for residents of the Bronx.

- 'Equity and fairness' -

Since the start of the pandemic last March, the death rate in New York's Black and Latino communities has been double that of their white counterparts.

That same racial disparity has played out across the United States, where more than 453,000 people have died of the disease.

Yet these same minorities have until now received fewer vaccinations than other communities.

In New York, figures released on Sunday show that among the 500,000 doses of vaccine already administered, only 15 percent went to Hispanic people, even though they represent 30 percent of the population of eight million. And 11 percent went to African Americans, who make up 25 percent of the population.

"This is about equity. This is about fairness," said left-leaning Mayor Bill de Blasio at the entrance to the stadium. "This is about protecting people who need the most protection because the Bronx is one of the places that bore the brunt of this crisis of the coronavirus."

Of the 15,000 appointments on offer in the coming days, some 13,000 have been allocated on Friday.

- 'Troubling' -

Although in principle the Yankees stadium only offers vaccinations by appointment, many people in line on Friday did not have one. For many, the registration process is not up to scratch, requiring a strong internet connection, a good knowledge of English, and sometimes hours of patience.

After trying in vain for 15 days to get an appointment, Manuel Rosario, 76, managed to get a shot at the stadium on Friday, after standing in line for four hours.

"There should be three more centers like this in the Bronx," said Rosario, who contracted Covid without symptoms in April. At this rate, "they will have finished vaccinating everyone in two years," he said.

That relative slowness in rollout due to a shortage of vaccines has been echoed across the country. That is why, to date, only 8.4 percent of Americans have been immunized, according to official data.

"It is deeply troubling that we could be right now doing 400,000, 500,000 vaccinations a week, and we can't get supply," said de Blasio.

Distrust of the authorities, a glut of fake news that the vaccine is dangerous, or fear of arrest for undocumented migrants had also contributed to the slow vaccination of minorities, according to experts.

"It has to work out because we are all human beings and we all need the vaccine to survive," says Manuel Rosario.

Like him, Mercedes Ferreras, a 73-year-old Dominican, came on Friday without an appointment. "I have a computer, but I don't know how to use it," she explained.

The same went for Fausto Lopez, 72, who came even though a friend tried to dissuade him, telling him that the vaccine would be a pretext for implanting a chip that would turn him into "a robot".

"There is too much false information," said the retired cleaner, who suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, and has already undergone seven operations.

"The vaccine will change my life," he said.

Harvard astronomer argues that alien vessel paid us a visit

Issued on: 06/02/2021 - 

This undated portrait courtesy of Lotem Loeb, shows her father 

Harvard University Professor Abraham Loeb in Lexington, Massachusetts 

 Lotem Loeb/AFP


Washington (AFP)

Discovering there's intelligent life beyond our planet could be the most transformative event in human history -- but what if scientists decided to collectively ignore evidence suggesting it already happened?

That's the premise of a new book by a top astronomer, who argues that the simplest and best explanation for the highly unusual characteristics of an interstellar object that sped through our solar system in 2017 is that it was alien technology.

Sound kooky? Avi Loeb says the evidence holds otherwise, and is convinced his peers in the scientific community are so consumed by groupthink they're unwilling to wield Occam's razor.

Loeb's stellar credentials -- he was the longest-serving chair of astronomy at Harvard, has published hundreds of pioneering papers, and has collaborated with greats like the late Stephen Hawking -- make him difficult to dismiss outright.

"Thinking that we are unique and special and privileged is arrogant," he told AFP in a video call.

"The correct approach is to be modest and say: 'We're nothing special, there are lots of other cultures out there, and we just need to find them.'"

- Mysterious visitor -

Loeb, 58, lays out the argument for the alien origins of the object named 'Oumuamua -- "scout" in Hawaiian -- in "Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth."

The facts are as follows.

In October 2017, astronomers observed an object moving so quickly, it could only have come from another star -- the first recorded interstellar interloper.

It didn't seem to be an ordinary rock, because after slingshotting around the Sun, it sped up and deviated from the expected trajectory, propelled by a mysterious force.

This could be easily explained if it was a comet expelling gas and debris -- but there was no visible evidence of this "outgassing."

The traveler also tumbled in a strange way -- as inferred by how it got brighter and dimmer in scientists' telescopes, and it was unusually luminous, possibly suggesting it was made from a bright metal.

In order to explain what happened, astronomers had to come up with novel theories, such as that it was made of hydrogen ice and would therefore not have visible trails, or that it disintegrated into a dust cloud.

"These ideas that came to explain specific properties of 'Oumuamua always involve something that we have never seen before," said Loeb.

"If that's the direction we are taking, then why not contemplate an artificial origin?"

- Sailing on light -

'Oumuamua was never photographed close-up during its brief sojourn -- we only learned of its existence once it was already on its way out of our solar system.

There are two shapes that fit the peculiarities observed -- long and thin like a cigar, or flat and round like a pancake, almost razor thin.

Loeb says simulations favor the latter, and believes the object was deliberately crafted as a light sail propelled by stellar radiation.

Another oddity was the way the object moved -- compounding the strangeness of its passage.

Before encountering our Sun, 'Oumuamua was "at rest" relative to nearby stars -- statistically very rare. Rather than think of it as a vessel hurtling through space, from the object's perspective, our solar system slammed into it.

"Perhaps 'Oumuamua was like a buoy resting in the expanse of the universe," writes Loeb.

Like a trip wire left by an intelligent lifeform, waiting to be triggered by a star system.

- Uniting humanity -

Loeb's ideas have placed him at odds with fellow astronomers.

Writing in Forbes, astrophysicist Ethan Siegel called Loeb a "once-respected scientist" who, having failed to convince his peers of his arguments, had taken to pandering to the public.

Loeb, for his part, protests a "culture of bullying" in the academy that punishes those who question orthodoxy -- just as Galileo was punished when he proposed the Earth was not the center of the universe.

Compared to speculative yet respected branches of theoretical physics -- such as looking for dark matter or multiverses -- the search for alien life is a far more commonsense avenue to pursue, he said.

That's why Loeb's pushing for a new branch of astronomy, "space archaeology," to hunt for the biological and technological signatures of alien life.

"If we find evidence for technologies that took a million years to develop, then we can get a shortcut into these technologies, we can employ them on Earth," said Loeb, who spent his childhood on an Israeli farm reading philosophy and pondering life's big questions.

Such a discovery could also "give us a sense that we are part of the same time" as humanity confronts threats ranging from climate change to nuclear conflict.

"Rather than fight each other like nations do very often, we would perhaps collaborate."