Savannah River yields three cannons and a big mystery 

Dredging the Savannah River is like a box of chocolates, say those who head up the task.

© U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Three recovered cannons, one of which is seen here, are believed to be from the 18th century.

By Phil Gast, CNN 3/14/2021

You never know what you're gonna find.

How about three cannons that may date to the American Revolution, an anchor and a likely piece of ship's timber?

The Army Corps of Engineers halted work in the vicinity after the late February discovery east of the Georgia city's famous River Street. Then it sent out feelers to maritime experts, historians and those who have worked on wreck sites in the river, asking for their insight into the finds.

Perhaps the cannons were tossed overboard or they served as ballast. Maybe the old artillery pieces are related to a Civil War ironclad, which was scuttled by its Confederate crew. The Corps doubts that theory.

Archaeologists and Britain's Royal Navy are offering an even more intriguing and exciting possibility.

They told CNN last week that -- based on measurements and appearance -- the cannons may be from the HMS Rose, a famed British warship that mixed it up with colonists during the revolution or, as the UK calls it, the War of Independence. Nearly 250 years ago, the British scuttled the ship in the Savannah River to block the channel and prevent French ships from coming to the aid of colonists trying to retake the city.

Research, diving and sonar scans of the site will be conducted before anyone knows for sure -- if certainty is even possible -- the origin and context of the artifacts. For now, there's a mixture of caution about jumping to conclusions and tantalizing possibilities.

"It could (tell) a part of the story of Savannah that has not been looked at in a very long time," Corps district archaeologist Andrea Farmer said of the discovery.


So why were British troops in Savannah?

A short refresher course might be in order to answer that question.

The 13 colonies, determined to gain their independence, fought the forces of King George III on land and sea. The British, hoping they would gain support from royalists in the South, took Savannah in 1778, only to find themselves defending it less than a year later.

The HMS Rose, with its 20 cannons and 160 sailors, was brought in to help fellow Redcoats.

The warship was already famous, having been a "scourge" on the colonists, as the Royal Navy puts it. It quelled smuggling in Rhode Island, prompting the formation of the forerunner of the US Navy.

The Rose fought in and patrolled New York waterways and parts of the Eastern Seaboard before it sojourned south.

In Savannah, the vessel was sacrificed September 19, 1779, to keep French allies from joining the siege at that point in the river. The British eventually won the battle and controlled the city until almost war's end.

The cannons appear to date to possibly the mid-1700s -- predating the Civil War by about a century -- which aligns closely with the HMS Rose's history. They are about 5 feet long. Further study and the removal of sediment on the cannons may provide information on when and where they were manufactured.

"We are looking at whether they came from a single context, or if the anchor came from a later ship," Farmer told CNN.

Archaeologists and historians believe the HMS Rose may have been partially salvaged at some point after its sinking.

That poses another of myriad mysteries surrounding the recovery of the artifacts: Are the remnants of the HMS Rose on the river bed, in some shape or form? Officials said that will be part of their work in the months ahead.

"I think it's fantastic and interesting when artifacts from maritime history come to light," said Cmdr. Jim Morley, the UK's assistant naval attache in Washington. "It just gives us an opportunity to look back at our common maritime history and history in general."


A busy and 'dynamic' river

During the multiagency harbor expansion project, the Army Corps of Engineers has long contended with challenges presented by the Savannah River, which is swift, has shifting currents and features practically no visibility.

"This stretch of the river can be a dynamic river," Farmer, the archaeologist, said of the heavily traveled channel. "We never quite know. Materials can shift and move."

There's a good bit of material that lies beneath the surface, from Native American pottery that was pushed downstream, to a small amount of debris from the CSS Georgia ironclad that sank in 1864 and other vessels lost over time.

So-called clamshell dredgers designed to pull up muck encountered the artifacts during the week of February 22, the Corps said. The project is in the final stages of deepening the Savannah harbor from 42 feet to 47 feet to make sure supertankers have room to navigate, said Corps spokesperson Billy Birdwell.

"Studies demonstrate the deepening will produce substantial economic benefits for the nation by enabling larger and more heavily loaded vessels to call on the harbor with fewer tidal delays," the Corps office says.


'You have to do the detective work'

Officials with the Naval History and Heritage Command said there's not enough early evidence to suggest which vessel carried the discoveries.

The Corps, using US Navy divers and contractors, removed most of CSS Georgia's remains a few years ago as part of the harbor deepening. Several cannons were pulled up and conserved.

The newly found artillery pieces were recovered outside the area where the Corps would have anticipated more CSS Georgia artifacts, though they were in the general vicinity, it said. Robert Neyland, head of the underwater archaeology branch at the NHHC, said it's possible the Rebel ironclad had these older guns onboard.

"I think it is a significant find," said Neyland, whose office has been in touch with the Corps. "Future investigation will tell us just how significant it is."

Farmer said the district is in the process of bringing on experts who will look at historic and cartographic material. It will use divers, side-scan sonars and magnetometry in the area where the artifacts were found. The Corps also will turn to artillery experts to go over the evidence.

She and others say it is important to look at all options regarding their origin.

"You have to do the detective work to solve the mystery," said Neyland. "We are not going to find a name on it. You have to build a body of evidence."


Discovery will bring research from across the sea

The Army Corps of Engineers has not detailed the precise area where the artifacts were found, wishing to discourage treasure hunters. And, it says, diving in the area is extremely hazardous.

As for the artifacts themselves, the Corps will require the assistance of outside experts, as it did with the CSS Georgia, for conservation.

Statements distributed by the British Embassy and a Royal Navy news article say the artifacts likely date to the siege of Savannah. A postscript on the HMS Rose: A replica built in 1970 was modified to become the HMS Surprise, which is featured in the Russell Crowe film "Master and Commander." The replica is now at the the Maritime Museum of San Diego.

While the American colonies and the crown were bitter enemies 250 years ago, the United States and the United Kingdom have long been strong allies.

Morley, the British Embassy assistant naval attache, said the find in Savannah provides an opportunity "to work together and further our knowledge."

CLICK ON TO ENLARGE

Animals self-isolate and socially distance to protect from infectious disease, scientists find

Jacob Dubé 

PSOTMEDIA

3/12/2021

For the past year, Canadians have been asked to follow unprecedented safety measures to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Health experts asked people with symptoms to self-isolate in their own homes, and the rest of the public began to socially distance themselves from friends, family and strangers on the street.

© Provided by National Post Some species of ants actually practice social-distancing measures when an infection breaks out.

These actions might seem jarring to some accustomed to unrestricted social contact, but according to a new review published in Science , other animals have been self-isolating and social-distancing for years to fight against infectious diseases.

Species such as bats, ants, lobsters, fish, mice and primates have been observed to react to infectious diseases in their communities — some entire populations distance themselves even when they’re not sick to prevent a spread.

“Nonhuman animal systems, particularly those with social structures similar to those of humans, present unique opportunities to inform relevant public health questions such as the effectiveness, variability, and required duration of social distancing measures,” the authors said in the review.

Lead author Sebastian Stockmaier, a PhD candidate at the University of Texas’ Integrative Biology Department, told the National Post that he had been planning on writing a review on this subject for five years, but it was shelved when he began his field research on how vampire bats react to pathogens.

© AP Photo/Gerald Herbert A Vampire Bat drinks bovine blood in New Orleans.

When the coronavirus began to spread around the world in early 2020, Stockmaier revived the review. He brought on a collection of researchers with different specialities — including ants, birds, fish, and humans — and finished a first draft by last May.

“I think that collaboration was really fruitful because we had so many different perspectives about this topic,” Stockmaier said.

Stockmaier and his team identified five common methods that certain wildlife often use to protect themselves against infectious diseases. The first, he says, is avoidance. Simply put, if an individual is identified as being sick, others actively go out of their way to avoid them, a phenomenon that has been identified in birds, mice and lobsters.

“If you were going to the grocery store right now, and someone sneezes right next to you, you’ll probably take a step back,” he said.

The next two methods are both passive and active self-isolation. Passive self-isolation, Stockmaier says, is when an animal develops symptoms for an infection and the symptoms cause them to stray away from the pack, similarly to when we stay home when we’re sick. Some animals become more lethargic or less interested in social interactions, which incidentally separates them from the group. Sick vampire bats will avoid grooming others in their group, and infected bees share less food. Notably, this form of self-isolation is more accidental, but still works to prevent future infections.

Active self-isolation, when an animal identifies that it is sick, and willingly separates itself from its group to prevent an outbreak, happens most often in animals with strong social bonds. Certain ants will willingly leave their colonies and die if they become infected, in a form of “altruistic suicide”.

© Courtesy Stockmaier et al Stockmaier and his team identified five methods that animals use to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

The fourth method, proactive social distancing, is what Stockmaier says we’re mainly doing right now. Health experts have advised that, infected or not, we all maintain a social distance from others to prevent a potential spread of the coronavirus. This was typically not seen in animals other than humans, but co-author Nathalie Stroeymeyt discovered that some species of ants begin to keep their distance from one another when a few in a colony become infected with a fungal pathogen. The review noted that social distancing was extremely effective in preventing the spread of these pathogens.

One mystery, Stockmaier said, is how the ants were able to collectively identify an infection and decide to do something about it.

“How do other individuals sense that there’s an exposed individual around?” he said. “We have the media and so on, but how do these ants know that there’s a threat going on?”

The final method to prevent infectious diseases that the review noted is exclusion, which would mean that the infected individual is forcibly prevented or exiled from the rest of the group. It’s been shown in insects, Stockmaier said, and has anecdotally been seen in some primates, who have been caught acting more aggressively to sick group members.

According to Stockmaier, more research is needed to look at how an animal’s behaviours evolve to react to certain infections — and how the pathogens also evolve to adapt to the animals.

“It’s not surprising to see animals doing these things,” he said. “Animals are encountering pathogens every day too, so we’re not the only ones being affected by infectious diseases. It’s just fascinating to see that there are certain behaviours that have evolved in certain animals that serve that purpose.”

But while it’s easier to pinpoint why an animal might take some of these behaviours to fight against infectious diseases, Stockmaier said it’s tougher to figure out why humans act the way they do. Caretaking, for example, goes against most of our natural instincts when it comes to preventing viruses, because it actively increases your chances of being infected.

“For some people it’s hard to pinpoint the benefits, like why do they do it, why does it evolutionarily make sense to do this,” he said. “There might be delayed benefits, and there’s all these things that you can’t get a grasp on that play a role in there that you might not have going on in animal societies.”

We won’t know until more studies are done into our behaviour, but at least in the meantime we have our animal relatives to look to for help.

MAGICK POWER OF TABOO

'Sarong Revolution' grows in Myanmar as women hang skirts to keep superstitious soldiers at bay

Shari Kulha 

3/12/2021

As women take a frontline role in anti-coup protests in Myanmar, some have found an inventive way of defying military rule — hanging traditional sarongs, underwear and even sanitary pads in the streets to spook superstitious policemen and soldiers.

© Provided by National Post Protesters seem able to hold back forces by hanging sarongs over clotheslines across the streets.

The movement, dubbed the Sarong Revolution by feminists, plays on a belief that deems it bad luck for men to walk beneath women’s clothing, and highlights women’s fears that the Feb. 1 coup could roll back hard-won gains on gender equality.

“The htamein (sarong) has become our tool at the protests,” said Naw Esther Chit, 28, an ethnic Karen activist who has been tear-gassed at several protests against the ouster of Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government.

“Women’s items are used because of the belief that men would be seen weaker if they walk beneath the htamein … police have to take them down and it gives us time to run for safety,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

The unusual movement’s nickname echoes the Saffron Revolution — pro-democracy protests led by Buddhist monks in 2007 that helped pave the way toward democratic reforms.

During weeks of unrest since the coup, police have fired tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades to disperse protesters, and women have not been spared.

One of the most striking images from the protests was a young woman wearing a T-shirt that read “Everything will be OK” before she was shot dead, one of about 70 people who have been reported killed since the demonstrations began.

Myanmar protesters defy military coup leaders

The junta has said it is acting with utmost restraint in handling what it describes as demonstrations by “riotous protesters” whom it accuses of attacking police and harming national security and stability.

© STR / AFP via Getty Images Protesters make a barricade across a road with longyi, a traditional clothing widely worn in Myanmar.

It is not the first time women have played a prominent role in pro-democracy protests in Myanmar, which started a decade of democratic reforms in 2011 after nearly half a century of rule by successive military juntas.

“Women have been a backbone in Myanmar’s fight for democracy, not just in 1988 but they have been fighting since the British colonial rule,” said Tanyalak Thongyoojaroen, an associate with Fortify Rights, a Bangkok-based regional human rights group.

Women including university students turned out in force in a 1988 uprising against the military — the protests that brought Nobel laureate Suu Kyi to prominence.

Suu Kyi’s party won a 2015 election and established the country’s first civilian government in five decades. She was re-elected in November before the military seized power last month, saying the poll was marred by fraud — an assertion rejected by the electoral commission.

‘River of blood’: Nun pleads with police to spare protesters before deadly gunfire erupts in Myanmar

‘The army broke our wings’: Myanmar military seizes power in coup, detains leader Aung San Su Kyi

In the latest turmoil, women including nurses and teachers have taken to the streets and social media to protest, with some worried that women’s rights could be rolled back by the male-dominated junta, based on its previous record.

“What’s different this time is that women are not only fighting for democracy and condemning the coup but at the same time they’re also calling for an end to the patriarchal military and fighting for gender equality,” Thongyoojaroen said.

Despite their visible presence in anti-coup demonstrations, women in Myanmar — except for Suu Kyi — are largely absent from leadership roles in the country, where gender inequalities are widespread and domestic violence is not outlawed.

It is ranked 114 out of 153 countries on the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Gender Gap Index, after scoring poorly on women’s political empowerment and economic participation.

MURDERING MERMAIDS

Florida on pace for record number of manatee deaths in 2021

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A combination of cold weather, a decline in seagrass due to development and contaminated waterways have put Florida on pace for its highest number of manatee deaths in a decade.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The number of deaths, 432 so far this year, is nearly three times the five-year average of 146 deaths between Jan. 1 and March 5, the South Florida SunSentinel reported, citing figures from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Last year, the state recorded 637 manatee deaths, and in 2019, 607.


“It’s this combination we have of cold weather, we have a reduction of where manatees can go, and in the places where manatees can go, as a consequence of human development and other activities, we have poor water quality which has resulted in these grass die-offs,” said Jaclyn Lopez, Florida director of the Center for Biological Diversity.

The largest number of deaths is in Brevard County, with 179, the newspaper reported. Many of those deaths occurred along the Indian River, which is a common warm water gathering place, officials said. The manatees swim away to eat sea grass, which is their main source of food. But they aren't finding as much, so they return hungry to the warmer water.

“A manatee will choose starvation over freezing to death,” Lopez said.

Officials said cold stress has accounted for 41 deaths so far. There were 52 cold-stress deaths among manatees in 2020, officials said.

Patrick Rose, an aquatic biologist and executive director of the Save the Manatee Club, told the SunSentinel that typically manatees would stay in the Banana River or Mosquito Lagoon, in the northern end of the Indian River Lagoon. But the loss of sea grass there is forcing them into other areas.

The southern end of the Indian River Lagoon has suffered from a series of algal blooms and phytoplankton blooms, and the infusion of fresh water and nutrients from Lake Okeechobee has stressed that system and wiped out much of its sea grass, the newspaper reported.

Rose said there are probably more manatee deaths than the state has documented and the causes might not be accurately attributed.

While the state wildlife commission rescues sick and injured manatees, coronavirus pandemic-related personnel shortages and restrictions have meant that nearly 70% of the dead manatees have not had necropsies to determine their causes, Rose said.

“You’re always better off when you have a real scientific understanding of what’s actually happening,” he said.

The Associated Press

EU Parliament votes to declare entire EU an LGBT 'freedom zone' FOR HUMAN RIGHTS


BRUSSELS — The European Parliament has overwhelming adopted a resolution declaring the entire 27-member European Union a “freedom zone” for LGBT people, an effort to push back on rising homophobia in Poland and elsewhere.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The parliament announced Thursday that there were 492 ballots in favour of the resolution and 141 against in a vote that came after a debate in a session of parliament in Brussels on Wednesday.

The resolution came largely in reaction to developments over the past two years in Poland, where many local communities have adopted largely symbolic resolutions declaring themselves free of what conservative authorities have been calling “LGBT ideology.”

These towns say they are seeking to protect traditional families based on unions of men and women, but LGBT rights activists say the designations are discriminatory and make gays and lesbians feel unwelcome. The areas have come to be colloquially known as “LGBT-free zones.”

Polish President Andrzej Duda won re-election last summer after a campaign in which he spoke out often against the LGBT rights movement, depicting it as a threat to families. In once instance, he described it as an “ideology” more dangerous than communism.

The resolution is the work of a cross-party group in the European Parliament, the LGBTI Intergroup. The text refers to “growing hate speech by public authorities, elected officials — including by the current President" of Poland.

But it also mentions that discrimination remains a problem across the EU.

The Polish government has denounced the resolution. It argues that Poland, as a sovereign nation and a society more conservative than many Western European countries, has the right to defend its traditional family values based on a long attachment to Roman Catholicism. It accuses the EU lawmakers of overstepping their jurisdiction.

The government also has argued that the rates of hate crimes are lower in Poland than in many countries in Western Europe.

However, LGBT rights activists say this is impossible to measure. Kuba Gawron, who has been documenting local anti-LGBT resolutions with the group Atlas of Hate, said that there is no mention in the Polish penal code specifically about homophobic crimes, so police do not keep statistics of such crimes.

“We don’t know the full number of such cases,” he said.

The European Parliament's resolution said the fundamental rights of LGBT people have also been “severely hindered” recently in Hungary, due to a de facto ban on legal gender recognition for transgender and intersex people. It also notes that only two member states — Malta and Germany — have banned “conversion therapy,” a controversial and potentially harmful attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation.

__

Corrects spelling of last name of activist to Gawron.

The Associated Press

#ACCELERATIONISM

Web inventor Berners-Lee says 'fad' of internet giants will pass

"The only sane thing to think is that ... things are going to accelerate (and) continue to accelerate," 

 "We're going through another step-change in the speed at which the world is changing

LONDON (Reuters) - Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, has said the dominance of internet giants is a "fad" that does not have to endure, adding that urgent change was needed to improve a digital divide in young people's online access

.

© Reuters/SIMON DAWSON FILE PHOTO: 

World Wide Web founder Tim Berners-Lee poses for

a photograph following a speech at the Mozilla Festival 2018 in London

Berners-Lee, who invented the internet navigation system known as the World Wide Web in 1989, said he sensed "a feeling out there of restlessness, a feeling that we need to tip things over to change them".

High-profile incidents such as a dispute between Facebook and Australia that led to the social network blocking news feeds in the country has led many citizens and governments to re-examine their relationships with giant internet and social media companies.

"I'm optimistic, because we've seen some dominant fads on the internet before ... and then things change," he said in an interview with Reuters, adding that people were pushing back against the use and abuse of personal data.

"(There's) great awareness that things need to change."

He said that a combination of government policy and tech could work together and help people regain control over their data and online lives.

Berners-Lee, 65, is working on a project called Solid, where people's personal data is controlled by the user, rather than platforms like Facebook.

But in a letter to coincide with the 32nd birthday of the World Wide Web, he warned of a growing digital divide which he said could threaten the chances of many young people, with one in three people aged between 15-24 globally having no access to the internet at all.

He said recognising the internet as a basic right, akin to how electricity was seen last century, was vital, especially in a world that is increasingly shaped by those with web access.

"The only sane thing to think is that ... things are going to accelerate (and) continue to accelerate," he told Reuters. "We're going through another step-change in the speed at which the world is changing."

(Reporting by Alistair Smout; Editing by Catherine Evans)

RIP

Tape that: Dutch inventor of audio cassette dies at age 94

DE PATRIS OMNIPOTENTIS DIY

3/12/2021

Provided by The Canadian Press

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Lou Ottens, the Dutch inventor of the cassette tape, the medium of choice for millions of bedroom mix tapes, has died, said Philips, the company where he also helped develop the compact disc.

Ottens died Saturday at age 94, Philips confirmed.

A structural engineer who trained at the prestigious Technical University in Delft, he joined Philips in 1952 and was head of the Dutch company's product development department when he began work on an alternative for existing tape recorders with their cumbersome large spools of tape.

His goal was simple. Make tapes and their players far more portable and easier to use.

“During the development of the cassette tape, in the early 1960s, he had a wooden block made that fit exactly in his coat pocket,” said Olga Coolen, director of the Philips Museum in the southern city of Eindhoven. “This was how big the first Compact Cassette was to be, making it a lot handier than the bulky tape recorders in use at the time.”

The final product created in 1962 later turned into a worldwide hit, with more than 100 billion cassettes sold, many to music fans who would record their own compilations direct from the radio. Its popularity waned with the development of the compact disc, an invention Ottens also helped create as supervisor of a development team, Philips said.

The cassette tape's success stemmed from its simplicity, Ottens said in an interview published by the Philips Museum.

“It was a breakthrough because it was foolproof,” he said, adding that players and recorders also could run on batteries, making them very user-friendly and, ultimately, portable.

“Everybody could put music in their pocket,” Ottens said.

The prototype wooden block never made it to the company's museum. Ottens used it to prop up his jack when replacing a wheel with a flat tire and left it by the side of a road, Coolen said.

“Lou loved technology, when he talked about that his eyes began to twinkle,” museum director Coolen said.

Mike Corder, The Associated Press

NDP leader's brother-in-law in altercation under police probe as south-Asian Canadian factions clash over India unrest
Tom Blackwell 

NATONAL POST

3/12/2021

The unrest sparked by massive farmer protests in India appears to be spilling over into Canada and its south-Asian community, with a close relative of NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh at the centre of one recent confrontation.

© Provided by National Post In an incident captured on video, a man resembling Jodhveer Singh Dhaliwal shoves a man in the chest, sending him toppling backward onto the pavement.

A widely viewed video appears to show Singh’s brother-in-law pushing a pro-India demonstrator to the ground at an Ontario rally, an incident now under police investigation. The man is also related to Liberal MP Ruby Sahota.

A separate encounter at the same event has already led to an assault charge against another man.

The drama occurred amid competing demonstrations, angry online rhetoric and accusations of intimidation, much of it related to the protests that have roiled India for months.

 While many Sikh-Canadian activists have come out in support of the farmers and decried the controversial strong-arm tactics New Delhi has used against them, other Indian Canadians, many of them Hindu, have made a point of voicing support recently for the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Indian high commission in Ottawa lodged a protest about the most recent altercation, warning such incidents could harm the “warm and friendly relations” between the two countries.

“I have been here for 35 years and I’ve never seen anything like this in Canada,” said rally participant Azad Kaushik, president of the National Alliance of Indo-Canadians. “This has shocked me, to tell you the truth.”

Canadian Sikhs worry for families in India as farm protests turn violent

'People are frightened': Sikh activists chilled by arrest of men brandishing loaded gun at anti-India protest

But a spokesman for a major Sikh group blamed tensions on the pro-Modi media and demonstrations themselves. He called the rallies an attempt to divert attention from an oppressive government, while creating the false narrative of religious strife in Canada.

“It’s not a Hindu-vs-Sikh issue, it really isn’t,” said Jaskaran Sandhu of the World Sikh Organization. “This is an attempt to kind of provoke the (Sikh) community. It’s a very nefarious attempt to change the issue and make it a communal issue.”

Motives aside, the opposing factions clashed just over a week ago on the streets of Brampton, Ont., west of Toronto, when Sikh counter-protesters met a pro-India car rally.

In an incident captured on video, a man resembling Jodvhir Singh Dhaliwal, who’s married to the sister of the New Democrat leader’s wife, strides toward an India supporter, shoving the man in the chest and sending him toppling backwards onto the pavement.

The victim got up almost immediately and did not appear injured.

The shoving is under investigation by Peel Region Police, a spokeswoman said Tuesday, though no charges had been laid.

Lawyer Harval Bassi, a criminal-law specialist representing Dhaliwal, said his client had no comment on the affair.

The NDP leader’s office would not address the episode directly, but said Jagmeet Singh and the party have been clear that “everyone, everywhere should have the right to protest peacefully.”

“No one should be confronted by violence for expressing their point of view,” said a party statement.

The statement also pointed to the accusations of human-rights abuses by India in handling the protests there.

Tens of thousands of farmers — many of them Sikhs from the agriculture-rich Punjab — have demonstrated in and around New Delhi since November over three laws that dismantle a system providing guaranteed minimum prices and stability to farmers. The government says the reforms will let them sell their products more freely, but many farmers fear they’ll wind up at the mercy of large corporations.

New Delhi claims the demonstrations have been hijacked by Sikh separatists — supporters of an independent state called Khalistan. On India’s Republic Day, Jan. 26, farmers broke through barricades, clashed with police and briefly occupied the historic Red Fort.

Human-rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch , however, charge that the government has responded with repressive tactics, including jailing several journalists and activists on sedition charges, undue police force and censoring of social media.

The government must “stop threatening, demonizing and arresting peaceful protesters,” said an Amnesty official last month.

There have been multiple demonstrations by Canadian Sikhs in recent weeks to show solidarity with the farmers in India. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also chimed in, calling New Delhi’s response “concerning” and urging dialogue.

Meanwhile, demonstrators rallied in support of Modi’s administration in Vancouver last month, and later protested outside Jagmeet Singh’s constituency office in Burnaby, B.C., complaining that Canadian Hindus were being harassed and threatened by Sikh Khalistani activists.

Sandhu said many Hindu Canadians support the India farmers, but suggested the events in Vancouver and Brampton were the product of Modi’s Hindu-nationalist loyalists here. The term used to describe them — “Tiranga” rallies — refers to India’s tricolour flag, but was coined by the prime minister himself for nationalistic marches held in his country to bolster the government, he said.

Kaushik, a university immunology professor, said the Feb. 28 Brampton rally was meant to celebrate India’s agreement to supply two million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Canada. Scores of cars streamed through the city waving Indian and Canadian flags.

They were confronted by Sikh activists, who Kaushik said yelled abuse at the pro-India crowd and seized some of the Indian flags. He said a counter-protester took the flag from his own car, as a Peel police officer watched but took no action.

Last week, though, the force charged an unidentified 27-year-old man with assaulting a 40-year-old female participant in the car rally.

Police said another demonstration is planned and warned that “there will be no tolerance for violence or criminality.”

In a letter to Global Affairs Canada last week, the Indian high commission raised concern about “disturbing videos of persons of Indian origin and Indian nationals being assaulted by extremist elements.”

The mission urged the government to instruct authorities to investigate the incidents.

• Email: tblackwell@postmedia.com | Twitter: tomblackwellNP

Egyptian gov't: Fire at garment factory kills at least 20

CAIRO — A fire at a garment factory near Cairo on Thursday killed at least 20 people and injured 24, officials said, the latest such incident in Egypt where safety standards and fire regulations are poorly enforced.© Provided by The Canadian Press

The cause of the blaze, which ripped through the four-story plant in Obour, an outlying district of the greater area around the Egyptian capital, was not immediately known, according to a statement released by the government.

Fifteen firefighting vehicles were dispatched to the scene to put down the blaze while ambulances were ferrying the casualties to nearby hospitals, the statement said. It added that a team of experts was looking into the damage and trying to assess the impact the fire might have had on any of the adjacent buildings in the area.

As heavy gray smoke rose from the building, firefighters and police cars sealed off the site, making it inaccessible to television crews.

No further information was immediately available.

Factory fires, as well as blazes elsewhere, are common in Egypt, due to the lax enforcement of industrial and other safety measures.

Last month, a thirteen-story apartment building in Cairo caught fire after a blaze erupted at an unlicensed leather factory that occupied its first three floors. Fire fighters struggled for almost a day to extinguish the flames amid fear that the building might collapse over the Ring Road, the major freeway of the Greater Cairo metropolitan area.

The fire ended up damaging the building's foundations, which eventually forced municipal authorities to demolish it.

And last December, an intensive care unit at a private hospital, also in Obour, killed seven coronavirus patients. At the time, the state-run al-Ahram daily reported that an initial investigation blamed an electric short-circuit for the fire.

A similar blaze erupted at the coronavirus ward of a private hospital in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria last June, also leaving seven patients dead. There was another fire in May in a coronavirus isolation centre in Cairo that didn’t cause any casualties.

Noha Elhennawy, The Associated Press

Rochester mayor and top officials 'suppressed' information about Daniel Prude's death, independent report says

By Evan Simko-Bednarski, CNN

 3/12/2021

An independent investigation commissioned by the Rochester, New York, City Council found that four key city officials -- including Mayor Lovely Warren -- suppressed information surrounding the death of Daniel Prude, the 41-year-old Black man who died last year in police custody.

© Adrian Kraus/AP/FILE Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren addresses the media during a news conference in September 2020.

The report, conducted by the law firm of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP, was released by the Rochester City Council Friday.

According to the report, Warren, former Police Chief La'Ron Singletary, corporation counsel Timothy Curtin, and Rochester communications director Justin Roj were all aware by "mid-April 2020" that a medical examiner had determined that Prude died from "asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint" by Rochester police officers who were under criminal investigation for their conduct.

Nonetheless, the report states, that information was not made public until the Prude family held a press conference on September 2.

"In the final analysis, the decision not to publicly disclose these facts rested with Mayor Warren, as the elected Mayor of the City of Rochester," the report states. "But Mayor Warren alone is not responsible for the suppression of the circumstances of the Prude Arrest and Mr. Prude's death."

Investigators wrote that Warren was made aware of the Prude arrest the next day, and was given updates by Singletary after he viewed the body-worn camera footage. Singletary also informed Warren of Prude's death days later. According to the report, Warren did not view the footage herself until early August.

Singletary was fired in September for his handling of the case, and Curtin and Roj were temporarily suspended from their roles.

The report said Singletary "consistently deemphasized" the medical examiner's finding that police restraint was a cause of Prude's death, and for discouraging the release of body-worn camera footage.

Investigators also criticized Curtin, who "actively discouraged" Warren from releasing the body camera footage, "citing reasons that were factually incorrect, legally without basis, or both."

The report further alleges that Curtin incorrectly asserted that New York Attorney General Letitia James had told city officials to "stand down" and refrain from commenting on Prude's death.

Roj, "the very official responsible for communicating with the public through the media," was also aware of the facts of Prude's death for months before that information being made public, investigators said.

When the information surrounding Prude's death did become public, the report says, Warren characterized it as an "overdose," despite having had knowledge of the medical examiner's findings -- which listed "complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint" alongside PCP intoxication as a cause of death.

In a statement shared with CNN, Warren said she welcomed the report.

"Throughout City government, we have acknowledged our responsibility, recognized that changes are necessary and taken action," she said. "By creating our Person In Crisis teams, calling for the right to fire officers for cause, and reforming our FOIL and Body-Worn Camera processes, we are doing the work this moment demands."

"Now, we must go even further and honor Daniel Prude by fully addressing our challenges regarding policing, mental health treatment and systemic inequality," she added. "I remain committed to doing this work along with City Council."

Roj declined to comment on the report. Neither Curtin nor attorneys for Singletary responded immediately to a request for comment.

© Roth and Roth LLP Daniel Prude.