Ethiopia's PM says military fighting 'difficult and tiresome' guerilla war

ETHIOPIA SHOULD BE A CONFEDERATION OF REGIONS  

NOT A NATION STATE

Jason Burke

THE GUARDIAN

4/4/2021

Ethiopian military forces are now fighting a “difficult and tiresome” guerrilla war in the northern Tigray region, prime minister Abiy Ahmed has admitted.

© Photograph: Tiksa Negeri/Reuters Abiy Ahmed addressing lawmakers in Addis Ababa in November, when the military operations against the TPLF were launched.

His comments mark a sharp break with previous insistence that military operations launched in November had been a rapid and decisive success.

“The junta which we had eliminated within three weeks has now turned itself into a guerrilla force, mingled with farmers and started moving from place to place,” Abiy, referring to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), said on Saturday.

“Now, we are not able to eliminate it within three months,” he added.

“Eliminating an enemy which is visible and eliminating an enemy which is in hiding and operates by assimilating itself with others is not one and the same. It is very difficult and tiresome.”

Federal troops moved into Tigray in November with the aim to “restore the rule of law” by ousting the TPLF, the political party then in power in the province, following surprise attacks on federal army bases.

The offensive was declared successful after the TPLF leadership evacuated its stronghold of Mekelle, the provincial capital, and an interim administration loyal to Addis Ababa was installed.

However it has become clear that, after initial setbacks and heavy losses, the TPLF had rallied by late January and was waging an intensifying insurgency against federal forces.

A series of fierce clashes took place in mid-February around Samre, a small town 40km south-west of Mekelle, as thousands of Ethiopian troops supported by artillery, tanks and airstrikes battled forces loyal to the TPLF who were dug in there. In recent days, there has been renewed fighting in the area, sources in Tigray told the Guardian.

There has also been fighting in the north-east of the region, on the road leading to Eritrea, and along the main road joining Mekelle with towns further west. Much of the rural areas remain beyond the authority of central government, and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said last week there were “clashes and ambushes reported in most parts of the region.”

A wave of atrocities including massacres of hundreds committed by Ethiopian troops and their Eritrean allies have fuelled recruitment to the TPLF’s forces.

Last week the Guardian reported that almost 2,000 people killed in more than 150 massacres by soldiers, paramilitaries and insurgents in Tigray have been identified by name by researchers studying the conflict. The oldest victims were in their 90s and the youngest were infants

Access restrictions for humanitarian workers, researchers and journalists have made it difficult to determine the conflict’s death toll so far but the total number of victims is likely to run into the tens of thousands, and will probably never be known.

The International Crisis Group (ICG) warned last week that the war risks dragging on for months and even years.

Despite the deployment of Eritrean troops and militia from Ethiopia’s Amhara region, which borders Tigray to the south, most TPLF leaders remain on the run and ICG noted that none were reported captured or killed in February or March.

Pro-TPLF fighters have regrouped under the Tigray Defence Forces, an armed movement “led by the removed Tigrayan leaders and commanded by former high-ranking” military officers, ICG said.

Ethiopia’s military is also fighting a rebel group in the country’s Oromia region which the government has blamed for multiple massacres of civilians, including one last week that left dozens dead.

“Currently, the national defence forces and the federal forces are in a major fight on eight fronts in the north and the west against enemies which are anti-farmers, anti-civilians and causing strife among Ethiopians,” Abiy said.

In Tigray, Abiy’s government has previously downplayed the TPLF’s ability to wage an effective insurgency.

The 44-year-old prime minister, who won the Nobel Peace prize in 2019 for ending a conflict with Eritrea, told parliamentarians last month that pro-TPLF fighters were like “flour dispersed by the wind”.

On Saturday Abiy said federal forces had “conducted wide operations in the last three days” causing “heavy damage to the enemies of the people”, vowing such efforts “will be strengthened and continued”.

Abiy is facing mounting pressure to ensure the withdrawal of Eritrean soldiers from Tigray, and Ethiopia’s foreign ministry said on Saturday night these troops had “started to evacuate”.

There are widespread fears among observers that protracted conflict in Tigray could seriously destabilise Ethiopia, previously a linchpin of stability and western security strategy in one of Africa’s most volatile regions.

FASCISM IS ANTI-COMMUNISM
How a Chicago teacher sparked a 'memory war,' forcing Lithuania to confront its Nazi past

Gil Skorwid and Patrick Smith 

4/4/2021


VILNIUS, Lithuania — As her mother lay dying, Silvia Foti made a promise. She vowed to continue her plans to write a book about her mother's father, Foti's grandfather, a Lithuanian hero known as "General Storm."

© Provided by NBC News

He was among the young soldiers who fought the Soviet Union in its brief but brutal first occupation of Lithuania in 1940, and he was later shot in a KGB prison. He, like many of his comrades, is considered a national hero.

But Foti, a high school English teacher from Chicago, said that after years of researching the man, whose name was Jonas Noreika, she discovered that her grandfather collaborated with the Nazis by facilitating the extermination of thousands of Lithuanian Jews.

"He agreed with the Nazis on the elimination of the Jews," she said.

© Jose M. Osorio Image: Silvia Foti holds a photograph of her Lithuanian grandfather, Jonas Noreik (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune via Getty Images)

Foti's revelations ignited a firestorm in Lithuania when they emerged two years ago. Laid out in painstaking detail in a book published last month, they have contributed to an increasingly toxic public debate over Noreika's legacy and what role Lithuanians played alongside Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.

An estimated 95 percent of Lithuania's Jews, more than 200,000 people, were massacred as the Third Reich took hold — one of the highest proportions of any country affected by the Holocaust.

Yet the dominant narrative in Lithuania has long been one of resistance to both the Soviets and the Nazis, a hallmark of national identity that state officials have worked to reinforce. In January, a lawmaker and longstanding defender of Noreika's legacy sparked outrage by suggesting that local Jewish leaders may even have borne some responsibility for the Holocaust.

And on Thursday, the Lithuanian Parliament voted to dismiss the head of the country's genocide research center amid growing controversy surrounding the center's work.

It's a bitter dispute that, more than 75 years after the end of World War II, highlights the degree to which Lithuania is still struggling to come to terms with its own history.

Foti maintained that the official story has been a "cover-up."

Contested history

Numerous streets in Lithuania are named after Noreika. So is a school in his hometown. A memorial plaque commemorating his life and work is on display in Vilnius, the capital, on the building where he worked.

Many Lithuanians are familiar with what Foti called the "fairy-tale" story: Noreika fought fleeing Soviet forces during the so-called June uprising in 1941 and was an organizer in the Lithuanian Activist Front, an underground militia group. He later fought against the Nazis before he was sent to a concentration camp. After he was released at the end of the war, he worked as a legal expert at the Academy of Science and tried to unite scattered groups of fighters to resist the Soviets before he was shot dead in a KGB prison in 1947, age 36.

Foti's family read aloud his last letter from prison, a treasured heirloom, every Christmas Eve.

The first Soviet occupation lasted little more than a year, but it looms large in Lithuania's history — thousands of people were killed or sent to gulags. The same power would rule the Baltics with an iron fist from 1945 until 1991, killing thousands more and cementing the reputation of already idolized freedom fighters who opposed the Soviets in 1941.

© Jose M. Osorio Image: Silvia Foti holds a photograph of her grandfather Jonas Noreika (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune via Getty Images)

The period of Nazi rule over Lithuania, from 1941 until the end of the war in 1945, also casts a long shadow. Jews had lived in what is now Lithuania since the 14th century, helping to make it a thriving, diverse commercial and religious center, alive with Jewish culture.

But during the war, Lithuania's Jewish population was all but wiped out. Records indicate that Lithuanian leaders were at least somewhat involved in the massacre.

For example, a report dated Oct. 15, 1941, from the local division of the Einsatzgruppen, the Nazi paramilitary death squads, says that on June 25 and 26, local Lithuanian fighters "eliminated more than 1,500 Jews, set fire to several synagogues or destroyed them by other means, and burned down an area consisting of about 60 houses inhabited by Jews."

The next night, "2,300 Jews were eliminated in the same way," the report states.

But the degree to which Lithuanians were complicit in atrocities has been fiercely contested. Noreika's defenders say it was in the Nazis' interests to exaggerate Lithuanian involvement. Many also argue that Noreika's reputation was tarnished later on by KGB propaganda.

The state-run Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania, which is viewed as the official guardian of the country's collective memory, has been one of Noreika's primary defenders. In 2015, it issued a report that found that Noreika had no involvement in the mass murder of Jews. And in 2019, citing newly available documents, the center said Noreika was responsible for saving Jews through a rescue network.

Professor Adas Jakubauskas, who spoke in an interview before Parliament dismissed him as leader of the center on Thursday, said the center has "reliable data" showing that "Noreika actively organized anti-Nazi resistance and the rescue of Jews."

He said the anti-Nazi activity was why Noreika was sent to the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland, where he spent two years until it was liberated.

"At the time, neither the Lithuanian administration nor Noreika could take any decisions pertaining to German or Jewish questions," he said.

© Michael Nicholson Image: Vilnius, Lithuania (Michael Nicholson / Corbis via Getty Images)

Jakubauskas became embroiled in controversy after 17 historians who work with the center wrote to the speaker of the Parliament, known as the Seimas, complaining that the institution's leadership was making irresponsible statements and instigating the so-called memory wars, and that its political control was "destroying the quality of research."

One of the historians, Mingailė Jurkutė, who separately criticized the center's "ideologized narrative" in an online article, was fired by the center.

Questions about Noreika's legacy, in particular, have multiplied in recent years. In 2018, Grant Gochin, an American Jew of Lithuanian descent, sued the Genocide and Resistance Research Center, claiming that his ancestors were among the Jews who were killed during Noreika's governorship of Šiauliai County. The court in Vilnius ruled that there was no evidence to suggest that Noreika was involved in the killing of Jews.

Tensions have continued to run high, however. In 2019, the plaque in Vilnius commemorating Noreika was smashed with a hammer. The plaque was reinstated, but it was then taken down again weeks later by the mayor of Vilnius, who was sympathetic to claims that the state had whitewashed the darker side of Noreika's story.

In response, a nationalist group installed yet another, bigger plaque in its place, with supporters singing patriotic songs.

Now, Foti's book has added a new wrinkle to the debate.

'Nobody talked about it'

It is safe to say that Foti's book is not what her mother, or many other Lithuanians, would have expected.

"The Nazi's Granddaughter" details how Foti traveled to Lithuania and searched through piles of documents to discover evidence that she said proves Noreika ordered the killing of thousands of Jews while he was governor of Šiauliai County during the German occupation.

Nationalists like Noreika greeted the Germans as liberators in 1941 and hoped they would assist in forming a free Lithuanian state, as Germany had done in 1918.

But Foti said Noreika was not simply a bystander to the Holocaust; he was a Nazi collaborator who was sympathetic to their cause. She pointed to a nationalist pamphlet Noreika wrote in 1933, when he was 22, "Hold Your Head High, Lithuanian!!!" which called for an economic boycott of Jews in the coastal city of Klaipėda.

"In the land of Klaipėda, the Lithuanians are being overthrown by the Germans, and in Greater Lithuania, the Jews are buying up all the farms on auction," he wrote. "Once and for all: We won't buy any products from Jews!"

Foti said her grandfather "must have approved the killing of 2,000 Jews in Plungė in July 1941 as the leader of the uprising in the Northwestern portion of the country."

The episode is contested not just by Noreika defenders, but also by leading Lithuanian historians, who say Foti's account of what happened in Plungė is based on unreliable sources.

Foti has assembled additional evidence, however. In her book, she quotes a huge report by Karl Jäger, a Nazi commander who led many of the mass killings during the Holocaust in Lithuania, which meticulously lists more than 130,000 Jewish deaths and where they occurred.

© Universal History Archive Image: Lithuanian Jews and a German Wehrmacht Soldier during the Holocaust (Universal History Archive / via Getty Images)

The report says Jäger's unit, SD Einsatzkommando 3, took over control of the area on Aug. 9, 1941 — by which point 4,000 people had already been killed. They were "Jews liquidated by pogroms and executions (including partisans)," the report said. "Partisans" refers to local nationalist fighters.

Foti argues that, as a leader of Lithuania's partisans at the time, her grandfather undoubtedly played a key role in carrying out the atrocities.

Her research also shows that later, as governor of Šiauliai County, Noreika signed about 100 documents related to the Holocaust — among them orders that led to the establishment of a Jewish ghetto and the expropriation of Jewish property.

Noreika's defenders argue that he may have sent Jews to ghettos but did not know what the result would be. But Foti said it is time for Lithuania to fully recognize its contribution to genocide. She is among those calling for Noreika's posthumous military honors to be revoked and for any schools bearing his name to be renamed.

"I didn't even know about the Holocaust in Lithuania growing up here in Chicago. Nobody talked about it," she said.

"It's going to take a lot of education. Lithuania will have to follow in the footsteps of Germany," she said, referring to Germany's own historical reckoning.

'A bloody, bloody past'

Today, Lithuania's Jewish community is small, numbering just over 3,000 people, according to the 2011 census. Given the limited visibility, it's not surprising that Lithuanians would be shocked to learn about their country's involvement in the Holocaust, said Faina Kukliansky, head of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, which is affiliated with the World Jewish Congress.

"How should local people learn about what happened in Lithuania during World War II?" she asked. "The memory of the Holocaust is kept by this small surviving Jewish community, as there is still a lack of large-scale government initiatives to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust — we have neither a national memorial to the victims of the Holocaust nor a monument to the rescuers."

She noted that there is no museum dedicated to the history of Jews in Lithuania and that the artifacts that do pertain to Jewish history are scattered among various museums and other institutions.

Kukliansky serves on a working group at the Justice Ministry that is evaluating a law banning the denial of mass crimes. Section 170 of Lithuania's penal code says anyone who "publicly condones the crimes of genocide or other crimes against humanity," including the actions of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, could face a substantial fine or a two-year jail sentence if convicted.

The law exists, but it doesn't work well, Kukliansky said, because people still don't fully understand what happened. In some countries, denial of what really happened is becoming the "dominant position," she said.

And while the law makes it illegal to condone "the aggression perpetrated by the USSR or Nazi Germany against the Republic of Lithuania," it makes no mention of crimes alleged to have been carried out by Lithuanians against Jews and other minorities.

That ambivalent position was reinforced on Jan. 27, Holocaust Memorial Day, when a right-wing lawmaker, Valdas Rakutis, declared in a statement published on the public broadcaster's website that there was "no shortage of Holocaust perpetrators among the Jews themselves."

The remarks were condemned at home and abroad. The U.S. ambassador to Lithuania, Robert Gilchrist, said it was shocking that a lawmaker "should espouse distortions regarding Holocaust collaborators in Lithuania and shamefully seek to accuse Jews of being the perpetrators."

Rakutis, a history professor and former adviser to the country's armed forces who was elected to Parliament last year, resigned as chairman of the parliamentary commission on the state's historical memory and apologized to "all the people who felt offended."

But Rakutis is also affiliated with the Genocide and Resistance Research Center, and his views are closer to the mainstream than many in Lithuania might like to admit.

In the wake of his comments, however, the calls for Lithuania to take a fresh look at its history have continued to grow.

"It's a bloody, bloody past. I know Lithuanians suffered. I get it. I totally do," Foti said. "I wasn't investigating this, and if it wasn't my grandfather, I wouldn't have looked into it."

Gil Skorwid reported from Vilnius; Patrick Smith reported from London.

The death of the American mall was a warning sign that our dystopian future was closer than we all thought

ktaylor@businessinsider.com (Kate Taylor,Avery Hartmans,Allana Akhtar) 

4/4/2021

© Provided by Business Insider A Sears has been turned into a COVID-19 vaccination center, aiming to vaccinate around 700 people a day. Photo by Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Americans getting vaccinated in bankrupt, empty malls paint a grim picture for life after COVID-19.

Retail vacancy rates are at a 7-year high after decades of closures due to the rise of e-commerce.

Brands are bailing out failing US policies, from healthcare to infrastructure - and it's only going to get worse.

As vaccines roll out across American, thousands of people aren't getting vaccinated at CVS pharmacies or local health clinics. Instead, they're heading to abandoned Kmarts, Sears, and Toys R Us stores to get their shots.

For American companies that have seen store counts collapse in recent years, the symbolism of having abandoned stores turned into mass vaccination clinics highlights how quickly the world was changing before the pandemic, and how COVID-19 accelerated a shift to an unfamiliar and sometimes dystopian future.

The end of the COVID-19 pandemic might be in sight as vaccine shots ramp up, but crumbling malls, the country's haphazard approach to healthcare, and brands looking to capitalize on the "new normal" suggest our new dystopian reality is here to stay.

© Kena Betancur / AFP The Townsquare Mall in Rockaway, New Jersey turned a former Sears into a vaccine "mega" site. Kena Betancur / AFP

American malls are dying a slow and painful death

The last decade has seen American cultural touchstones disintegrate as part of the retail apocalypse.

Companies like Sears and JCPenney spent over 100 years building their brands into household names - but it took only 10 years for an apocalypse to sweep through the retail industry, leaving vacant stores and dead malls in its wake.

The demise, like so much in the last decade, can be linked to the financial crisis: After the housing bubble burst in the late aughts, many retailers were never quite able to get back on their feet. Hundreds of thousands of employees were out of work, and private equity stepped in, burdening mall brands with massive amounts of debt.

Read more: Taco Bell is adding 1,000 drive-thru 'bellhops' as chain tweaks traditional and Cantina stores for a post pandemic world

The American mall began to face "a death spiral," John M. Clapp, a professor at the University of Connecticut's Center for Real Estate, told Insider in 2017.

"Once a department store goes vacant that tends to be contagious because all those middle-mall stores - the nail salons and the jewelry stores - they are all depending on the traffic coming from the bigger retail stores," he said.

A report from Coresight Research cited by CNBC last August estimated that out of roughly 1,000 American malls, a quarter will close down in the next three to five years.

And, of course, it's impossible to ignore the Amazon effect: The Seattle bookseller sparked an e-commerce boom, leading to a race to the top for Amazon and its main competition, Walmart, and opening the direct-to-consumer floodgates. Companies like Glossier, Allbirds, and Casper led the way, eschewing a traditional retail experience in favor of online-only shopping. (Of course, all of those brands eventually opened retail experiences of their own.)

In what is perhaps the cruelest twist of irony, Amazon reportedly held talks with Simon Property Group, the biggest mall-owner in the US, to discuss converting empty retail space into fulfillment centers that pack and ship Amazon orders.

The pandemic has only made matters worse. Retail vacancy rates are nearing a seven-year high, after major chains announced closures of more than 12,000 stores in 2020. Moody's Analytics projects that roughly 135 million square feet of vacant space may become available in regional malls nationwide within the next five years. These vacancies have left malls abandoned, and they readily turned into vaccination sites.

Many laid off retail workers have either pivoted to discount chains that pay employees significantly less, or Amazon itself. And though Amazon pays workers $15 an hour, warehouse jobs are more physically demanding and delivery drivers said they've dehydrated themselves to get through a shift without bathroom breaks.

In lieu of an adequate government safety net to ensure Americans get fair pay and health care even as businesses shutter, brands are - unfortunately - left to pick up the pieces

.

© Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images People wait in line in a Disneyland parking lot to receive COVID-19 vaccines. Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images

Things are only going to get weirder

The complete disruption of the pandemic puts Americans in a position where the "new normal" is a flexible term. As seen by the transformation of malls into vaccination sites, something that would seem straight out of "28 Days Later" in 2019 can be completely acceptable in 2021.

The factors that allowed for this cobbled together solution - a broken retail system saving a healthcare system stretched to the breaking point - are not going away.

The inclination to turn to companies to fix broken infrastructure can run the gambit from creative at best to disturbing at worst. For example:
Domino's announced a campaign to fill potholes in 2018, allowing customers to nominate their towns for repairs.

Light-beer legend Natural Light has spent millions of dollars paying off fans' student loans.

Companies like Gap, Target, and Warby Parker helped staff the nation's polls on Election Day by corralling hundreds of thousands of employees to serve as poll workers
A Chick-fil-A manager in South Carolina had to step in to direct his town's drive-thru COVID-19 vaccine site after it was hamstrung by computer issues.

And as state governments work to vaccinate their citizens as quickly and efficiently as possible, they've turned to other capitalist symbols of the before-times to help carry out their plans.

Beginning in January, lines snaked around the parking lot at Disneyland, but not to visit Thunder Mountain or the Haunted Mansion - the theme park, shuttered since March 2020, became a "super" vaccination site where hundreds of thousands of doses have been administered.

Read more: We just got the best look yet at the consumer genetics market ahead of 23andMe's public debut. Here are the 5 biggest obstacles the $3.6 billion company will have to overcome.

Major league sports stadiums, many of which sat empty and dark for most of last year, have also become mass vaccination sites. Where fans would have once lined up to get let into a football or baseball game, they're now lining up to get a COVID shot.

Brands have been bailing out the US health system throughout the pandemic. Coors beer breweries transformed into hand sanitizer manufacturers. Volkswagen made hospital equipment after the country's gown and mask shortage got so bad nurses resorted to wearing trash bags.

This kind of corporate contingency plan shows no sign of stopping after the pandemic subsides - in fact, it may even be coming for schools next. A mall in Vermont became a safe-haven for a high school after the school, just before it was set to reopen for in-person learning, was found to have elevated levels of toxic chemicals known to cause cancer.

© Downtown Burlington High School.

There may, however, be a more nefarious side to some companies lending a hand, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. CVS and Walgreens - which have collectively given nearly 20 million shots so far - are reportedly looking to cash in on data collected from people they administer vaccines to. And drug companies that made the COVID-19 vaccines won't give up their patents to help vaccinate the rest of the world.

These self-serving tactics should be taken as a warning sign as the US increasingly relies on brands to build a post-pandemic future. In some cases, companies have unique insight into problems - such as a Chick-fil-A manager helping with a vaccine drive-thru. But, relying too fully on corporations whose ultimate focus is their bottom line is not just dystopian, it's dangerous.

The pandemic has shown just how quickly things can change. As the country rebuilds, it needs to be on solid ground, instead of relying on the magnanimity of brands.
Read the original article on Business Insider

#FEMICIDE
'We want justice!' Salvadoran woman killed in Mexican police custody is buried

By Nelson Renteria 

4/4/2021

© Reuters/JOSE CABEZAS Funeral of Victoria Salazar, who died after Mexican police officer was seen kneeling on her back, in Sonsonate

SONSONATE, El Salvador (Reuters) - Victoria Salazar, the Salvadoran woman killed in Mexican police custody in the Caribbean beach resort of Tulum and whose death prompted calls for justice from the presidents of El Salvador and Mexico, was laid to rest in a somber ceremony on Sunday.

© Reuters/JOSE CABEZAS The body of Victoria Salazar arrives to El Salvador

Some 50 of Salazar's friends and relatives, many wearing floral arrangements, walked through the La Generosa cemetery in colonial Sonsonate, 40 miles (65 km) west of the capital, San Salvador, to her final resting place.

"We want justice! We hope this is resolved because everyone saw how my sister was murdered. The police did not act right," Carlos Salazar, the victim's brother, told reporters during the funeral.

The attorney general's office of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo on Saturday charged the one female and three male police officers who had detained Salazar with femicide, or the killing of a woman because of her gender.

© Reuters/JOSE CABEZAS 

Funeral of Victoria Salazar, who died after Mexican police officer was seen kneeling on her back, in Sonsonate

"The events occurred last Saturday, March 27 ... when the victim was detained by the police officers and, after being subjected to excessive and disproportionate force, likely prompting the death of the foreign woman," the attorney general's office said.

© Reuters/Press Secretariat of El Salvador The coffin that contains the body of Victoria Salazar arrives at the Salvador International Airport in San Salvador

Quintana Roo Attorney General Oscar Montes de Oca told Mexican radio last week that police were responding to an emergency call for help at a convenience store when Salazar was detained after offering resistance.

An autopsy revealed her neck had been broken. A video published by news site Noticaribe showed Salazar writhing and crying out as she lay face down on a road with a policewoman kneeling on her back while three male officers stood by.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Salazar had been subject to "brutal treatment and murdered" after her detention. Her death sparked outrage on social media and calls by El Salvador's president for the officers to be punished.

Salazar's death had echoes of the case of George Floyd, an African-American man who died in May as a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck, sparking global protests against police brutality.

All four officers in the Salazar case have been arrested and will remain behind bars for the duration of the trial, according to the attorney general's office.

Salazar had lived in Mexico since at least 2018, when she was granted refugee status for humanitarian reasons, and worked in Tulum cleaning hotels. She had two daughters, aged 15 and 16, who lived with her in Mexico.

"She was a good girl. Nobody deserves to die that way," said Nelly Castro, a family friend, as hymns played and Salazar's coffin was lowered into the ground.

(Reporting by Nelson Renteria; Additional reporting by Anthony Esposito and Miguel Angel Gutierrez in Mexico City; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Peter Cooney)

The political calculus on the gun issue has changed

Bill Schneider, opinion contributor 

4/4/2021`

President Biden will find it difficult - if not impossible - to get bipartisan support in Congress for new gun control measures, like a new assault weapons ban, which passed with bipartisan support in 1994 and expired ten years later.

© Mario Tama/Getty Images coronavirus COVID-19 guns violence firearm pruchases threat perceived university of california davis research new owners acquired 110,000 californians

Most gun control measures get broad public support, including requiring background checks for private and gun show sales (83 percent in a 2019 poll), a ban on the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines (61 percent) and a ban on the sale of semi-automatic weapons (57 percent). But what matters politically is intensity of support. Getting gun laws through Congress has always been difficult because of single-issue voting by gun rights supporters.


The gun issue drives their votes; for most other voters, it doesn't.

Let's say you take a poll and show a politician that his constituents divide 75 to 25 percent in favor of gun control. The politician knows what will happen if he votes for a gun control law. Maybe 10 percent of the 75 percent majority care enough about the issue to vote for him for that reason alone - but he may lose 20 out of the 25 percent on the other side. Gun owners may be a minority, but many see gun control as a threat to their Second Amendment rights. It drives their votes. They make sure politicians know it.

Single-issue voting helps explain why intensely committed minorities can hold sway over casually committed majorities. "Why are gun owners so politically powerful?" an abortion rights activist once told me in an interview: "There are more uterus owners than gun owners. And when uterus owners begin to vote their issue, we will win."

Single-issue politics is a sort of blackmail: "We don't care what your position is on anything else. If you are with us on our issue, we'll support you. If you are against us, we'll come after you."

None of that has changed. But the political calculus has.

Why? Because of political segregation.

Red America and blue America have been moving apart. Democrats and Republicans increasingly live in separate constituencies, if not separate political worlds. In the Republican world, gun rights are still sacrosanct, and many voters remain watchful for any threats. In the Democratic world - far more urban and suburban - single-issue voting to protect gun rights is a much less serious threat.

In a Democratic debate during the last presidential campaign, Beto O'Rourke thrilled liberals and horrified conservatives when he was asked, after a mass shooting in his home town of El Paso Texas, if he would mandate that people give up their assault weapons. "Hell yes!" the former Democratic Congressman responded, drawing cheers from the Democratic audience. "We're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. We're not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans any more."

When the assault weapons ban was voted on by the House of Representatives in 1994, 46 Republicans voted for it, and 64 Democrats opposed it. It would not have passed without Republican support. Nothing like that could happen now.

Donald Trump has radicalized the Republican Party. Even though Trump lost his bid for re-election last year, the anticipated "blue wave" for Democrats never materialized. Any Republican in Congress who supports new gun laws is likely to face a conservative primary challenger funded by Trump.

Many conservative Democrats who represented southern and rural constituencies were wiped out in the 1994 midterm election when, after 40 years, Democrats lost their majority in the House of Representatives. That was widely interpreted as the gun rights activists' revenge for passage of the assault weapons ban and the Brady Bill mandating criminal background checks for gun purchasers. Congressional Democrats have been skittish about new gun laws ever since.

That, too, may be changing.

Democratic voters are more uniformly liberal just as Republican voters are more uniformly conservative. Moderates and centrists are diminishing in importance in both parties. Bipartisanship looks more and more like an old-fashioned idea.

Today, new gun laws are likely to be passed only by a straight partisan vote - just like President Biden's $1.9 trillion economic rescue plan, Obamacare in 2010, and President Trump's tax cuts in 2017.

The problem is: Straight partisan victories will be nearly impossible in the Senate as long as the filibuster is in force for non-taxing-and-spending legislation - like new gun laws.

The filibuster is supposed to encourage bipartisanship - but given the new hyper-partisan reality, what it really encourages is gridlock.

Bill Schneider is a professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University and author of 'Standoff: How America Became Ungovernable' (Simon & Schuster).

COMMENTARY: Cancel culture isn’t about denying freedom of speech, it’s about consequences
globalnewsdigital 4/4/2021

© ITV/Screengrab Piers Morgan storms off of the 'Good Morning Britain' set.

Piers Morgan refutes a woman’s suicidal ideation and racism claims. Sharon Osbourne is accused of numerous racial slurs. Andrew Cuomo is called out for alleged sexual misconduct and even assault.

All these individuals are in the public eye. They all are white, wealthy and wield varying degrees of power and privilege, but putting these unsurprising similarities aside, they have also all been labelled by many right-wing politicos as the latest victims of cancel culture.

Read more: Fact or Fiction — Does ‘cancel culture’ work in holding people accountable?

It seems weekly, even daily we hear about individuals or institutions being called out for racism, sexism, even sexual assault. But when such claims are made, instead of focusing on the behaviour that caused the initial indignation, instead the outrage is redirected toward "cancel culture."

But cancel culture, or as I refer to it, consequence culture, serves as a means by which minorities and marginalized groups are demanding that public discourse shift from those historically in power, to include all members of society. It is about holding individuals and institutions accountable for their actions. It is about consequences for wrongful behaviour.

Yet critics of cancel culture argue it is an infringement on their free speech.

The likes of Piers Morgan want us to believe that cancel culture is a new phenomenon that is threatening our very democracy.

“If our rights to free speech are denied, then democracy as we know it will die. It's time to cancel the cancel culture before it kills our culture,” Morgan recently penned in his first piece for The Daily Mail since abruptly leaving Good Morning Britain last month.

Video: Piers Morgan storms off the set of ‘Good Morning Britain’

Cancel culture has existed for centuries. The difference is, up until recently, only those (predominantly white) people in positions of power were doing the cancelling and not just metaphorically. Entire communities have been silenced throughout our history — particularly Black, brown, Asian, Indigenous and LGBTQ2 voices have been degraded, abused and erased for centuries.

In 1983, two years after I immigrated to Canada from England, my own experiences with racism began. I was five years old at the time. I was cancelled time and time again for not being white enough or wealthy enough.

I'd hear things like, “Dirty P-KI!” or “You smell like curry” or “Go back home!”

Sometimes they were overt racial slurs. Sometimes it was more covert, like the exclusion of invitations to join certain clubs or events as I got older into adolescence. Then, I would hear things like, “you probably can’t afford to come” or “there won’t be anyone like you there.”

It continued into adulthood. For example, at an annual film conference, one of my white clients once asked me, “Do you feel out of place because you’re not white like everyone else here?” I hadn’t felt out of place until that moment when I was subtly told I didn’t quite fit.

Read more: Dr. Seuss sales surge after six books cancelled for racist content

Until recently, the reasons for cancellation have been different, whether it be a failure to meet levels of whiteness, straightness or class. But make no mistake, this has been the real cancel culture at play for years. And sadly, for many, this still feels much more palatable than speaking out against any injustice or humanitarian reason.

The problem with cancel culture is that the dialogue very easily shifts away from the actual issue deserving attention, be it an act of racism or sexism, to a conversation on political correctness. Yet cancelling isn’t about pushing political correctness, nor is it a means of policing morality, for that matter. It is about consequences for behaviour.

In sports, you are given a red card, put on the sidelines, even ejected altogether for bad behaviour — it is not refuted as cancel culture, it is simply seen as a consequence. It is accountability for actions. Yet we struggle to hold ourselves to these same standards in everyday life.

Video: ‘Cancel Culture’ may not be a new phenomenon, Trent University experts say

Inevitably, even when individuals or institutions are so-called cancelled, they still take up space in the public consciousness. This is how accusations of racism, xenophobia and homophobia are gaslit, and instead of focusing on victims, the narrative becomes centred on those who are being tasked with accountability.

It is easy for many to sympathize with the accused as the victim — the victim of cancel culture, political correctness, wokeness — and vindicate them of their actual behaviour.

The truth is, if being cancelled had you fall from a position of power, you’re pretty certain to eventually fail back up.

Memories are short. Jessica Mulroney is back on Instagram with more followers than before she took time away to "listen and learn." Chris Harrison will soon return to The Bachelor. Jay Leno’s garage will remain stacked. Louis C.K. will continue the stand-up circuit. Lori Loughlin will be making Hallmark movies again and J.K. Rowling will continue to rake in millions, as will the estate of Dr. Suess.

Cancel culture has become a game of semantics, diversion, and distraction. But if you pay close enough attention, it's easy to see the real cancel culture is still fiercely at play — one that promotes deep divides in equality between the haves and the have-nots, and one that ensures historic power structures remain intact.

Meera Estrada is a cultural commentator and co-host of kultur’D! on Global News Radio 640 Toronto.

HE FORGOT ABOUT THE FAMILY PLANTATION IN BARBADOS
Wealthy MP with slave trade links failed to publish accounts for four of his firms

Paul Lashmar and Jonathan Smith 

THE GUARDIAN

4/4/2021


A multimillionaire MP who enjoys a Downton Abbey lifestyle funded by historical family links to the slave trade has failed to publish accounts for four of his five companies since 2009, in potential breach of company law.

© Photograph: See Li/Alamy 

Richard Drax, MP for South Dorset, is having to produce accounts revealing hundreds of thousands of pounds of transactions.

The Observer and Sunday Mirror revealed in December that Richard Drax was worth an estimated £150m, but had not declared ownership of a Barbados sugar plantation in his register of members’ interests declaration.

Now Drax, the Conservative MP for South Dorset, is having to produce more than a decade’s worth of missing accounts, which reveal hundreds of thousands of pounds of business transactions.

Four months ago we revealed that Drax’s interests declaration was littered with omissions and errors. He had not declared inheriting his family’s 621-acre sugar plantation in Barbados, where from 1640 to 1838 his family used slaves to make huge profits in terrible conditions. Drax told us he had not declared the plantation as it was still in probate after his father died in 2017.

He had also not declared an estate in Swaledale, North Yorkshire and that he owned a £4.4m holiday let on Sandbanks – one of the most expensive areas for property in the UK.

In the new year, an amended register was published that included missing holdings. Campaigners have demanded that Drax pay reparations to Barbados for the damage inflicted by his ancestors on enslaved people forced to work on their plantations.

The Director of the Good Law Project, Jolyon Maugham, said, “Having been found out for failing properly to declare his vast wealth, including a sugar plantation in Barbados, to his constituents Richard Drax has now all but admitted he has also breached company law. What else is there? Perhaps, to him, it doesn’t matter. Perhaps, like so many titans of this government, he thinks laws are for the little people.”

Yesterday Drax admitted the accounts were missing and blamed his accountants for failing to file them to Companies House.

A hardline Brexiter, the Harrow-educated Drax, 63 – full name Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax – is a rising star in the right wing of the Conservative party, and has repeatedly opposed extending lockdown restrictions.

The former Coldstream Guards officer and BBC journalist owns a 14,000-acre estate, the largest in Dorset, which is noted for its three-mile-long brick wall running alongside one of county’s major roads. Drax also owns some 125 Dorset properties personally or through family trusts. The estate’s finances have mostly been hidden from public scrutiny and involve at least six family trusts and as many financial entities.

When Drax amended his register entry in January and correctly named the companies he owns, which relate to his farming interests – he grows poppies to make morphine for the NHS and barley for craft brewers – there were still problems. Four of the companies had not provided any accounts in the last decade. As both of his unlimited companies were subsidiaries of a limited company, under section 448 of the Companies Act 2006 they all should have submitted accounts annually.

Concerns about a section 448 breach were raised with Companies House in late January. Over the last two weeks, some 50 documents from the four companies have appeared on the Companies House website, including a decade’s worth of missing accounts. Two limited companies, said to have been dormant from 2009, are now shown to have been active. The unlimited companies have now filed accounts, showing in some years hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of financial activity. All had been approved by Drax annually as late as November 2020.

Alex Cobham, the chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, pointed out that under the Companies Act it was an offence for a person “knowingly or recklessly to make a statement that is misleading, false or deceptive in a material particular”, with potential penalties including imprisonment.

He said: “Mis-registering companies with sometimes very substantial assets or transactions as ‘dormant’ would certainly appear to be material. For an outside observer, it is difficult to see how this error could have been made for multiple companies and over the course of so many years, in a way that was neither knowing nor reckless – so an explanation from Mr Drax is badly needed.”

Carralyn Parkes, who stood against Drax for Labour in the 2019 election, said: “South Dorset has high levels of child poverty, a housing crisis caused by a lack of affordable homes for rent, and many of our hardworking families are struggling to make ends meet in this harsh economic climate – I am sure that they would be able to tell you how much money they have, and where every penny came from.”

A spokesman for Drax said: “Richard was made aware on 5 February of omissions in the Companies House filings in relation to the unlimited companies Abbot’s Court Farm (Charborough) and Anderson Manor Farm. He had quite reasonably relied upon his accountants to whom he had delegated full responsibility to file the necessary accounts and, when he was made aware of the unintended omission, he instructed his accountants to immediately rectify the position. All of the required information was sent to Companies House on 12 February, that is within a week of the issue having been identified.”

COYOTE'S ARE URBAN DWELLERS

Coyote sightings rise in Canada this spring amid COVID-19

Nathan Howes 

4/4/2021


Play Video
Family of coyotes take over a rock wall in Calgary community are cute, but stay away

Many Canadians have reported seeing and hearing more wildlife in their neighbourhoods during COVID-19, and according to the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC)'s senior conservation biologist, Dan Kraus, it's because we are spending more time near home and in local parks.

As such, coyotes in residential areas have received heightened awareness in recent weeks.

SEE ALSO: Canadians explore nature more to relieve COVID-19 pandemic stress

"During busier times when we are constantly on the move, many of us tend to be hurrying to get somewhere and fail to notice that wildlife is all around us," said Kraus, in a news release.

He said it is a "good sign" that people are becoming more aware of wildlife and their annual life cycles. While coyotes are generally more active during their mating season in the winter, spring is when they are searching for dens to house their pups, so seeing them at this time of year is not uncommon.

© Provided by The Weather NetworkSeeing coyotes in the spring is not uncommon, but they should never be approached. Photo: Paul Turbitt.

STAY AWAY FROM COYOTES

However, coyotes, as with all wildlife, should only be viewed from a distance and never approached. Although they are generally shy and would prefer to avoid confrontations with humans, coyotes can become habituated to people and become aggressive, Kraus added.

“Early spring is when coyotes are very actively looking for food. They play an important role in the urban ecosystem by controlling rodent populations and eating carrion. It’s an amazing experience to watch a coyote sitting patiently in a meadow or park, and then pouncing to capture mice and voles. Unfortunately, coyotes that are injured, starving, young or have been fed by people can come into conflict with people,” said Kraus.

Despite past population control measures, coyotes have actually expanded their range, even adapting to live in the "downtown cores of our cities," the senior conservation biologist said.

"They offer a unique opportunity to experience nature where we live. But we need to remember that real nature is not a Disney film. These are wild animals and need to be treated with respect so we can peacefully co-exist,“ said Kraus.

© Provided by The Weather NetworkPhoto: Allison Haskell.

Kraus offers the following tips to people to keep themselves and their pets safe:

Feed your pets inside and keep them indoors. Do not leave pets unattended or unprotected outdoors

Keep dogs on a leash when going for walks

Make sure garbage, pet food or compost is not left outside

Keep garbage containers sealed and locked

Close off spaces under porches, decks and sheds to prevent wildlife from seeking shelter or dens

IF YOU ENCOUNTER A COYOTE OR OTHER WILDLIFE

He also has helpful information for people who encounter a coyote or any wildlife while in public or on their property.

Do not approach, do not try to feed, touch or to photograph the animal from close distances

If you encounter a coyote and it does not flee, remain calm and slowly back away, and leave the area in the direction where you came from

Never run from a coyote, or any wildlife, as it may trigger a predatory response and give chase

Use personal alarm devices — such as a whistle, bell or phone to frighten or threaten the animal

VIDEO
Listen to the cutest coyote family hanging out in Toronto


If the animal exhibits aggressive behaviour, then make yourself larger and noisier by raising your arms and voice

If, in the rare case, the animal continues to approach, throw rocks or sticks in its direction

Landowners unable to deal with coyotes that repeatedly show signs of aggression or habituation should contact the police or their local natural resources department

Thumbnail courtesy of Paul Turbitt.

Running on Empty: There's a Lot to Like About Hydrogen, If You Can Find It

Steven Cole Smith
From the May 2021 issue of Car and Driver
.
© Illustration by Jorge Cuadal Calle - Car and Driver Hydrogen's Bombshell

In April 2004, the city of San Francisco acquired two Honda FCX cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Mayor Gavin Newsom held a press conference, and to show off just how clean the vehicles' emissions would be, he collected condensate from a tailpipe in a paper cup and took a sip."You are looking, literally, at the future," he said.


Last fall, Newsom, now California's governor, signed an executive order requiring all new cars and light-duty trucks sold in the state to be zero-emission vehicles starting in 2035, his ambitions buoyed by a growing list of EVs and rising demand. If you want to go electric, the Golden State is a fine place to be. There are, according to the California Energy Commission (CEC), more than 70,000 public and shared private vehicle-charging plugs throughout the state. The Tesla Model 3 was the best­selling car in the state in the first quarter of 2020, a sign that Californians have an appetite for more environmentally friendly vehicles. That makes it a great test market for hydrogen cars, which are supposed to solve the range and charging headaches of today's EVs by carrying more energy and refueling more quickly.Running on Empty: There's a Lot to Like About Hydrogen, If You Can Find It

© Sean Rice Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, but in California it can be maddeningly hard to find when you need it to fuel vehicles like the Toyota Mirai.

Still, even in California, hydrogen's future is murky. In 2015, when Toyota debuted the Mirai hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered sedan in the United States, the automaker took to calling customers trailblazers. The trouble with blazing a trail, however, is that you don't always know what you're getting into. Deals and incentives abound, but if you're driving any of the 9000-plus fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) that call California home, you better be good with logistics. In a state that covers more than 163,000 square miles, there are currently only 45 hydrogen stations, and they don't always have enough fuel for everyone who needs it.

Nearly 17 years after Newsom took a sip of tomorrow, FCEV customers are finding it difficult to fill up and almost impossible to offload their cars when reality sets in."The excitement of being a trailblazer rubbed off long ago," says Patrick Perez, a Mirai driver in the Los Angeles area. On Facebook, a Mirai group that Perez is part of whiplashes between ecstatic and despondent. Some members extol the almost holy virtues of driving an emissions-free vehicle and saving the earth; others count the minutes until their Mirai leases end."The car does what it's supposed to," Perez says."It's just the hydrogen infrastructure that is causing the issues."

By far the most pressing problem is fuel availability, as FCEV owners can't count on stations to actually have hydrogen. To mitigate the issue, Mirai owner Doug Dumitru started H2-CA.com, a website where people can easily"tell whether a station is likely to have hydrogen when they get there," he says. The site, which pulls info from the California Fuel Cell Partnership every 60 seconds, gets around 2000 visits per day when hydrogen is scarce.

This problem began in June 2019, when a hydrogen production facility in Santa Clara caught fire, disrupting supply in the Bay Area and Southern California. More recently, the big freeze in Texas, where much hydrogen comes from, left many California stations bereft. FirstElement has 23 of them on the West Coast. With road closures keeping trucks in Texas, on the morning of February 23, only six of its stations showed more than 25 percent capacity, which likely dwindled as hydrogen-starved vehicles descended on them.

The fuel is pricey too: A report from the California Air Resources Board and the CEC showed that in 2019, the average price per kilogram of hydrogen was $16.51. According to the few stations we called, the rate hasn't changed much. To put that in perspective, consider the base-model Hyundai Nexo. It can hold 6.3 kilograms of hydrogen and, by the EPA's methodology, sees 60 miles per kilogram. That means a Nexo owner can go about 380 miles before needing to refill the tank, which costs about $100.

Given that a Hyundai Tucson (which starts at $24,885) will go even farther for less than half as much, you may wonder why anyone would opt for an FCEV. But the majority of fuel-cell owners don't pay for gas, with Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai all handing out a $15,000 fuel card good for 36 months with each purchase or lease.

Hydrogen Cost

That's just one of the things manufacturers are doing to attract buyers. With its $60,120 Nexo, Hyundai is also throwing in maintenance for three years or 36,000 miles, a 10-year/100,000-mile warranty on the battery, and a free rental car one week per year, in case you actually need to go somewhere outside a hydrogen-filling-station area or you just feel like polluting a little. On top of that, FCEV buyers can drive solo in HOV lanes, receive $4500 (or $7000 if they're in a low-income bracket) from the California Clean Vehicle Rebate Project, and take advantage of a federal tax credit of up to $8000. But given the scarcity of fuel, prudent shoppers will base their decision to purchase an FCEV on whether they live in the vicinity of multiple reliable filling stations, which pretty much limits them to L.A. or the Bay Area. However, not everyone thinks about that before signing the paperwork.

That's where Kirk Nason made his mistake. In 2018, the retired Microsoft engineer took delivery of a Mirai for his daughter, whose commute took her up and down Interstate 605. There aren't any hydrogen stations off that regularly congested freeway, but several were due to open; until they did, Nason figured she could refill the Mirai somewhere nearby. At least once she had to have it towed after running out of fuel while looking for more. There are no battery jumps, no five-gallon gas cans delivered by AAA. When you're out, you're out.

It became too much, Nason says, and his daughter bought a gasoline-powered SUV. Her Mirai took up residence in his garage, awaiting the end of its $543-per-month lease in June so he can return it to Toyota."I can't wait to get out of this nightmare," Nason says. He has tried to give it back early, and neither Toyota nor his dealership is interested.

That's not surprising. A used Mirai is abominably cheap—a car that was close to $60,000 new in 2018 (the 2021 starts at $50,495) now sells for maybe $15,000, with plenty available for less. We found a decent 2017 Mirai for $8500. Certified Pre-Owned cars at Toyota dealerships cost a little more, but there's a reason: Buy one and you'll get that $15,000 fuel card. If you have a Mirai and try to sell it on your own, that's what you are up against. Even if you have money and time left on your fuel card, too bad."It is not transferable, so any unused portion would not go to a new owner," says Paul Hogard, a Toyota senior analyst.

Hogard acknowledges the hydrogen shortage in California, saying that Toyota is monitoring the situation but doesn't make or distribute the fuel. He says the company is working on"a case-by-case basis" to keep customers"mobile" while also trying to improve infrastructure.

Jack Brouwer, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and associate director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center at the University of California, Irvine, says it's"very unfortunate that the infrastructure has not been sufficient for quite a few people" who drive hydrogen-powered vehicles. Certainly, he says, it hasn't grown as quickly as EV-charging infrastructure, with"many more millions spent" on those stations. In December, California pledged $115 million to add up to 111 more hydrogen-fueling stations by 2027."I'd suggest it's too slow, but it is coming along," Brouwer says.

At present, Brouwer gives the nod to plug-in electric vehicles, citing the scope of the recharging infrastructure and improvements in battery technology. But he submits that any hydrocarbon-free future must include hydrogen. One reason: It works much better than battery power for heavy-duty vehicles because hydrogen's energy density is much higher than a battery's, plus refueling is significantly quicker than charging a battery. Brouwer is also looking ahead to the day when California is saturated with zero-pollution vehicles. Imagine, he says, a high-rise where almost every resident has an EV; charging would have to be extended to each parking space, and the electrical grid would have to be retooled to handle the drain.

"But if there were a hydrogen station on the corner," he says, it could substantially reduce area electrical consumption and the need to dramatically update electrical infrastructure. Brouwer predicts that one way or another, the future of the auto industry will include far more FCEVs than are currently on California roads (or sitting in California garages). But for now, he drives a Tesla.

Arctic mining takes centre stage in Greenland election

AFP 1 

4/3/2021

Greenland votes Tuesday in legislative elections largely seen as a referendum on a controversial mining project that would help diversify the Arctic island's economy as it plans for a future altered by global warming.

© Christian KLINDT SOLBECK 

Independent fisherman Lars Heilmann's main hope from the elections is larger fishing quotas

The autonomous Danish territory obtained ownership of its vast mineral reserves in 2009 when its self-rule powers were widened.

Those resources, its geopolitical relevance and easier access due to melting sea ice have made Greenland increasingly attractive to the world's superpowers in recent years. Donald Trump, when he was US president, even offered to buy the island in 2019.

© Emil Helms Mineral-rich Nuuk is keen to attract foreign investment

While Denmark and Greenland made it abundantly clear the territory was not for sale, Nuuk is nonetheless keen to attract foreign investments to help it cut its financial umbilical cord to Copenhagen someday.

A rare earth and uranium mining project proposed by an Australian company and backed by Chinese investors in the south of the island in Kuannersuit could provide a massive windfall that would supplement Greenland's main industry, fishing.

© Emil Helms Polls suggest the ruling Siumut party is trailing in the polls

But in February, a political crisis erupted when a junior party quit the coalition government over the project, leading to Tuesday's early elections for parliament's 31 seats.

- 'Unspoiled nature' -

Social democratic Siumut, Greenland's largest party, has dominated island politics since autonomy in 1979. Currently trailing in the polls, it backs the mine project.

The opposition left-green party Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA), leading in the polls, opposes any uranium mining, fearing the radioactive waste could harm the pristine environment.

© Emil Helms Activists with the left-green party Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) say the mining project would destroy the region's pristine environment

"We have to say no to the mine and allow ourselves to develop our country our own way," Mariane Paviasen, an IA member of parliament and leader of the anti-mine charge, told AFP.


"In Greenland we have clean air and unspoiled nature. We live in harmony with nature and we aren't going to pollute it."

A resident of Narsaq, the village of 1,500 inhabitants where the mine would operate for 37 years if approved, she has been fighting for eight years to block the mine's permit.

In 2010, Australian company Greenland Minerals obtained an exploration license for the Kuannersuit deposit, considered one of the world's richest in uranium and rare earth minerals -- a group of 17 metals used as components in high-tech devices such as smartphones, flat screen displays, electric cars and weapons.

The company's environmental protection plan was recently approved but authorities still need to greenlight the project before an operating licence can be issued.

- 'Reminiscent of colonial times' -

Siumut party leader Erik Jensen said the project would be "hugely important for Greenland's economy".

But opponents say the mine, located in the island's only agricultural region, would deprive locals of their farmland and hunting grounds. They argue it reeks of colonialism in a region already coping with the devastating effects of climate change.

"People in Narsaq... feel they will have to leave," Greenlandic political scientist Nauja Bianco told AFP.

"The question then is how to legitimise the shutdown of the settlement. It's reminiscent of colonial times."

For Birger Poppel, a University of Greenland expert on Arctic development, the mine is in any case "not a quick fix" for Greenland's financial independence.

Nuuk relies on annual Danish subsidies of around 526 million euros ($620 million), representing a third of its national budget.

The mine could boost the island's budget by 1.5 billion Danish kroner ($235 million, 200 million euros) according to Greenland Minerals. But that would reduce Denmark's annual subsidies by half that amount due to a revenue-sharing deal with Copenhagen, which is not opposed to Greenland's dream of independence.

Other sectors that could be developed to help finance that dream are tourism, agriculture, and the export of sand and natural fertilizers, according to Mikaa Mered, professor of geopolitics at the Paris Institute of Political Studies.

- Eyeing independence -

For now, fishing makes up most of the local economy and 90 percent of exports.

That industry is prospering, benefitting from climate change as fish stocks diversify in the warmer waters.

"I love being an independent fisherman," 27-year-old Lars Heilmann, who mostly catches halibut for export, tells AFP.

He's not hoping for any major changes from the election -- "just bigger quotas in the Nuuk fjord" -- and says climate change hasn't affected his life much.

But the same cannot be said for the many hunters in Greenland's small coastal villages, as retreating sea ice shortens the season when they can head out on the ice with dogsleds to hunt.

The Arctic has been warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world since the 1990s. And yet, Greenland has not signed the Paris climate agreement. IA has vowed to do so if it comes to power.

While opinion polls credit IA with 36 percent of voter support compared to 23 percent for Siumut, pollsters warn that the outcome remains uncertain.

Voting stations open at 1100 GMT and close at 2200 GMT, with the results expected early Wednesday.

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