Could Green Party leader Annalena Baerbock become Germany's next Angela Merkel?

Annalena Baerbock is said to be tough, talented and very ambitious. Now, Germany's Green Party has named her as its candidate for chancellor. Is she cut out for the job?


Annalena Baerbock has been sharpening her political profile


Annalena Baerbock has been named the Green party's first-ever chancellor candidate, emphasizing at a press conference on Monday the unanimity with which she and co-leader Robert Habeck had made the decision, and the clarity of their purpose, first formulated at a party conference three years ago: To become a new big tent party for Germany.

"Of course we didn't know then that we'd be standing here today," she said. "But what we knew was that we wanted to open our party up, that we wanted to make policies for a broad society: Inviting, and with clear objectives. And so today begins a new chapter for our party."

"Here, today, I want to make an offer, for the whole of society, as an invitation to lead our diverse, strong, rich country into a good future," she added, warming to the theme.

Baerbock has seen a precipitous rise to power.

Watch video 02:45 Baerbock to be Green Party chancellor candidate

The 40-year-old stepped into the limelight at a party conference early in 2018. Wearing a black leather jacket, the still little-known regional politician — a resident of the eastern state of Brandenburg — stepped to the fore and wowed the delegates who had just made her one of the party's two co-leaders.

That was and is remarkable. After all, the environmentalists already had one shooting star: the relatively young and to many charismatic Robert Habeck was soon whispered about as "chancellor material."

But since her rise to the party's co-chair post, Baerbock has not slowed down. The 40-year-old has sharpened her political profile and projected herself as an expert on how to tackle climate change.

Nor has she shied away from thorny foreign policy issues. She's spoken out on the threats posed by far-right populism and xenophobia. So, when in the winter of 2019 the party again convened, Baerbock got a massive 97% backing from the delegates, beating the "man at her side," who got an impressive 90%.

Watch video 02:25  Baerbock: 'Right-wing radicalism was not taken seriously'

Early on, Baerbock was driven by ambition. Born in 1980 in the small town of Pattensen in Lower Saxony, she was a natural athlete, placing third at Germany's national trampolining championship. She was only 16 when she went to spend a year in the United States. Later, she studied law in Hannover before going on to the London School of Economics, where she studied international law. As a result, Baerbock gives interviews in fluent English — something that even in this day and age still can't be taken for granted among German politicians.

Since she became party co-leader, the Greens have been polling comfortably above the 20% mark. Add to that the party's good showing in European elections, as well in as regional votes in Germany.

But not all is rosy, with the Greens still struggling to gain ground in eastern Germany. But here, too, Baerbock is an asset — and is learning fast, because her family of four has long been based in the eastern city of Potsdam

Watch video 02:55 Germany's Greens see chance for 'new chapter' in transatlantic relations

Faster fossil fuel phaseout and autobahn speed limits

Both Baerbock and Habeck have few inhibitions about talking to members of other parties, including conservatives, to seek possible common ground. And there has been much speculation about a possible conservative-Green coalition in Berlin after the 2021 election.

But Baerbock has worked hard toward a well-defined party platform, which differs clearly from the conservative bloc's policies. For instance, she wants to see Germany phasing out coal-powered energy far earlier than the current target date of 2038. She also backs a speed limit of 130 kilometers per hour (80 miles per hour) on the "autobahn," as German highways are known. She also opposes a hike in German defense spending.

This leaves little room for doubt that any potential coalition between Greens under Baerbock and the conservatives could be a volatile arrangement.

WHO COULD SUCCEED ANGELA MERKEL AS GERMAN CHANCELLOR?

Armin Laschet

CDU chairman Armin Laschet, a staunch supporter of Angela Merkel, heads Germany's most populous state. Conservatives routinely underestimated the jovial 60-year-old, famous for his belief in integration and compromise. But recently, his liberal non-interventionist instincts have led to him eating his words more than once during the coronavirus crisis. PHOTOS 123

'Transatlantic' Green Deal

In a recent interview with DW, Annalena Baerbock welcomed President Joe Biden's decision to bring the US back into the Paris Climate Agreement. But the Green Party co-leader also mapped out some clear and concrete climate goals of her own.

"We Europeans, including the German government, need to take advantage of the current situation to realize the proposals that the US administration has put forward concerning climate-neutral cooperation. We need to get moving and point the way towards a European and transatlantic Green Deal."

In their recently published election manifesto, the Greens have not — as has so often been the case in the past — flagged a preference for a governing coalition with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD). In any case, that alliance would still require the participation of a third party to reach a majority, with the most likely candidate being the socialist Left Party. A coalition between the Greens and the conservatives would likely not need a third partner to govern.

The city of Potsdam, where Baerbock lives with her husband and two children, will see a high-profile duel in the run-up to the September election. The Brandenburg state capital will provide the backdrop for a head-to-head clash between Annalena Baerbock in the Green corner and Social Democrat (SPD) Finance Minister Olaf Scholz in the red: One chancellor candidate against the other.

This article has been translated from German.

SEE

The Green Party candidate to succeed Angela Merkel as Chancellor could control a fiercely left-wing German Government

 LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment (plawiuk.blogspot.com) 

DEEP PURPLE IN EUROPE 1993 REMASTERED

 

BACKGROUNDER

Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik fuels anti-France violence in Pakistan

Issued on: 17/04/2021 - 

Supporters of the Pakistani political party Tehreek-e-Labbaik block a road in Lahore in a protest demanding the expulsion of the French ambassador to Pakistan, April 16, 2021. © Arif Ali, AFP

Text by: Cyrielle CABOT

Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik played a major role in fomenting this week’s anti-French protests in Pakistan, prompting Islamabad to announce the group’s dissolution on Thursday as France’s embassy told French nationals to leave the country over safety fears.

The Pakistani government blocked social media and instant messaging apps for several hours on Friday to try to prevent further violence, a day after Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed announced the dissolution of Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP) under the country's anti-terrorism law.

The party’s leader, Saad Rivzi, was arrested on Monday, hours after he called for a new march demanding the expulsion of the French ambassador. His detention triggered days of unrest.

After emerging from the socially conservative Barelvi school of Islam – which is the dominant strain in Pakistan, officially an "Islamic Republic" – the TLP has established itself as a major player in Pakistani politics by campaigning for the death penalty for anyone found guilty of blasphemy, which remains a criminal offence in the country.

“TLP was originally created as a political movement to demand the release of a bodyguard accused of having assassinated the governor of the Punjab region in 2011,” explained Jean-Luc Racine, a specialist in the Indian subcontinent and an emeritus research director at the CNRS think-tank in Paris. In 2015 it became a political party headed by Khadim Hussein Rizvi, the father of the current leader.

France became one of the TLP’s targets when the Charlie Hebdo trial started in September 2020. The gruesome massacre of 12 people at the satirical weekly’s office in January 2015 was the first major incident in a wave of Islamist violence in which more than 250 people have since been killed in France.

A month after the start of the trial, France was shaken by the October 16 beheading of teacher Samuel Paty by a Chechen Islamist militant outraged by his decision to share Charlie Hebdo’s controversial cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in a class discussing freedom of expression. Paty showed the images to his civics class while emphasising that students could choose not to look at them if they were offended.

In response to Paty’s murder, President Emmanuel Macron vowed that France would never give up its liberal Enlightenment values, including the right to mock religion. He hailed the slain teacher as a “hero” for representing the secular, free-thinking values of the French Republic. France has a long tradition of caricatures taking on political and religious authorities – including Charlie Hebdo’s mockery of Catholicism.

The weeks that followed saw mass protests in Muslim countries – with people taking to the streets and burning French flags and images of the French president. In Pakistan, the TLP played a central role in fomenting the demonstrations. The party demanded that Pakistan sever diplomatic relations with France and send the French ambassador, Marc Baréty, packing.

The Pakistani government signed an agreement with the party to convince it to dial down the protests – agreeing to the boycott of French products and promising a parliamentary vote by April 20 on expelling the French ambassador.

But as that deadline approached, Islamabad distanced itself from the TLP – a position underscored by Rizvi’s arrest on April 12. More than 200 TLP activists were arrested during the subsequent clashes with police. At least two police officers were killed and at least 340 people were wounded.

The TLP’s electoral strength has so far between limited. In the 2018 parliamentary elections it won just 2 million votes in a country with a population exceeding 210 million. But the party wields influence through its formidable capacity to mobilise its activists. “That’s its strength,” Racine said. “The TLP can get a huge quantity of protesters onto the streets and block roads for days.”

Demand for Asia Bibi’s execution

In 2017, the TLP spearheaded protests in the Pakistani capital Islamabad over a minor change to the oath taken by electoral candidates referring to the Prophet Muhammad. The government said it was a “clerical error” and soon U-turned. But the demonstrations continued – with at least six people killed and some 200 people injured – until Pakistan’s federal law minister resigned, acceding to the protesters’ demand.

The Islamist party then gained international notoriety in 2018, when the Asia Bibi affair hit the world’s headlines. A member of Pakistan’s persecuted Christian minority, she was arrested in 2010 for alleged blasphemy and spent eight years on death row until she was acquitted. In response to her acquittal, the TLP organised mass demonstrations calling for her to be sentenced to death.

“The TLP is relatively popular among young people, especially in the Pakistani working class,” Racine said. “That is because the party’s policy platform is not just about changing how Islam is practiced in the country – but also about tackling Pakistan’s socioeconomic inequality. This obviously speaks to young people in precarious positions, who are losing out under the current system.”

“This week’s events show that Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government is unable to negotiate with radical movements,” Racine continued. “They’re popular among large sections of the population – so the government finds it difficult to take a firm stance against them.”

Pakistani journalist Zahid Hussain expressed a similar view in the country’s English-language daily Dawn: “The government only managed to postpone the crisis. What has been happening now was inevitable. The way the administration has collapsed in the face of mob violence is alarming to say the least, and underscores how we are failing to deal with rising religious extremism.”

So why did the Pakistani government change tack and decide to shut down the TLP entirely?

“They could be thinking that dissolving the TLP might help improve Pakistan’s image abroad, seeing as the country has long been criticised for financing terrorism,” Racine said, although he noted that there is no evidence the TLP has “anything to do with other terrorist groups present in Pakistan, including the Taliban”.

An anonymous Pakistani diplomatic source told French newspaper Le Figaro on Thursday that “Pakistan wants to normalise relations with France” and that “Pakistan’s interior minister publicly expressed his concern on Wednesday that his country’s reputation is suffering because of the TLP’s actions”.

But Racine warned that getting rid of the party would by no means get rid of the movement: “There’s been a repeated phenomenon in Pakistani history in which the government bans radical groups and then they re-emerge in other forms and with other names.”

Although protests have died down since Friday, Racine said “it remains to be seen how TLP activists will act without a leader and without an institutional framework” after Rizvi’s arrest and the group’s official dissolution.

This article was translated from the original in French.

HE DONE IT

Mahamat Idriss Deby, son of slain president, emerges as Chad’s new strongman

Issued on: 21/04/2021 - 

In this April 11 photo, 37-year-old Mahamat Idriss Deby (C), four star general and head of the Republican Guard in Chad, is seen at a polling station in N'djamena. © Marco Longari, AFP

Text by: FRANCE 24

A son of Chad's slain leader Idriss Deby Itno is to take over as president in place of his father, according to a charter released Wednesday by the presidency.

The charter said General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, 37, who on Tuesday was named transitional leader as head of a military council following his father's death, will "occupy the functions of the president of the republic" and also serve as head of the armed forces.

The four-star general was not on any list of heirs to the throne drawn up by experts, who said they believed the veteran warlord and president had not chosen a successor and seemed to worry little about it.

But Mahamat immediately took charge of a transitional military council and appointed 14 of the most trusted generals to a junta to run Chad until "free and democratic" elections in 18-months time.

Commander in chief of the all-powerful red-bereted presidential guard or DGSSIE security service for state institutions, he carries the nickname Mahamat "Kaka" or grandmother in Chadian Arabic, after his father's mother who raised him.


"The man in black glasses", as he is known in military circles, is said to be a discreet, quiet officer who looks after his men.

A career soldier, just like his father, he is from the Zaghawa ethnic group which can boast of numerous top officers in an army seen as one of the finest in the region.

"He has always been at his father's side. He also led the DGSSIE. The army has gone for continuity in the system," Kelma Manatouma, a Chadian political science researcher at Paris-Nanterre university, told AFP.

However over recent months the unity of the Zaghawas has fractured and the president has removed several suspect officers, sources close to the palace said.

Born to a mother from the Sharan Goran ethnic group, he also married a Goran, Dahabaye Oumar Souny, a journalist at the presidential press service. She is the daughter of a senior official who was close to former president Hissene Habre, ousted by Idriss Deby in 1990.

The Zaghawa community thus look with some suspicion on Mahamat, some regional experts say.

'Too young and not especially liked'

"He is far too young and not especially liked by other officers," said Roland Marchal, from the International Research Centre at Sciences Po university in Paris.

"There is bound to be a night of the long knives," Marchal predicted.

>> The death of Idriss Deby: What next for Chad after president killed on frontline?

Brought up by his paternal grandmother in N'Djamena, Mahamat was sent to a military lycee in Aix-en-Provence, southern France, but stayed only a few months.

Back home in Chad, he returned to training at the military group school in the capital and joined the presidential guard.

He rose quickly through the command structure from an armoured group to head of security at the presidential palace before taking over the whole DGSSIE structure.

Mahamat was acclaimed for his efforts at the final victory in 2009 at Am-Dam against the forces of nephew Timan Erdimi's forces. Those forces had launched a rebellion in the east and had reached the gates of the presidential palace a year earlier, before being pushed back after French intervention.

He finally moved out of the shadow of his brother Abdelkerim Idriss Deby, deputy director of the presidential office, when he was appointed deputy chief of the Chadian armed force deployed to Mali in 2013.

That brought Mahamat to work closely with French troops in operation Serval against the jihadists in 2013-14.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

WAR IS RAPE

ON THE OBSERVERS

Video shows the horror of rape as weapon of war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region



Issued on: 19/04/2021 - 

This screengrab from the video shows the operating room. 

Capture d'écran de la partie supérieure de la vidéo, filmée à la verticale, qui montre une partie de la salle d'opération, et le drap vert recouvrant le haut du corps de la patiente. Derrière, un personnel de l'hôpital contourner la table d'opération. © DR

Text by: Corentin Bainier

A horrifying video showing a doctor operating on a woman who was brutally raped in Ethiopia’s conflict-torn Tigray region has been circulating widely on WhatsApp since early March. The surgery took place in a hospital in Adigrat, in the north of the Tigray. Our team spoke to several sources who told us about what happened to this woman, who is now living in a safe house. Her story highlights the massive and widespread rape of woman in the conflict in the Tigray that began in late 2020.

WARNING: This story contains details of violence that may shock some readers

This video was filmed on February 17 in a hospital in Adigrat, the second largest city in the region. Watching the entire video, which lasts 2’33”, is nearly unbearable. The footage shows a woman with her legs spread apart, lying on an operating table. You can see the doctor’s hands as he operates on her vagina. He uses forceps to extract two long nails, a plastic bag, tissues and a rock.

A woman speaks in English during the video, explaining that she wants this video to show the world the horror of what is happening in the Tigray. At the start of the video, you can hear men speaking in Tigrinya, the language spoken in the Tigray, which allows us to identify the region where the video was filmed.

Raped repeatedly over a period of eleven days

Our team spoke to several sources who had been in direct contact with the woman. They told us that she is 28 years old and has two children. On February 6, she was taking the bus to Tigray’s capital, Mekele, to withdraw money. In the middle of the journey, Eritrean soldiers stopped the bus and separated all the women. They took the woman to their nearby camp. There she was kept for eleven days, during which time she was raped repeatedly by 23 men. She says she doesn’t know when the objects were put inside her.

On February 17, she was finally taken from the camp by Tigrayan prisoners under the escort of Eritrean soldiers, who ordered them to abandon her by the side of the road. She spent an entire night there, partially unconscious. The next morning, some civilians found her and brought her to the hospital in Adigrat, where she underwent surgery. The soldiers had taken a photo of her identity card and threatened to come find her at her home and kill her if she told anyone what had happened.

“There is no lasting physical damage, but psychologically is another matter”

A member of the medical team who was present during the surgery told us more:


When she arrived at the hospital, she was incredibly weak. The gynecologist who carried out the operation successfully removed two nails, several pieces of tissue, a balled up plastic bag and a rock from her vaginal cavity. She was bleeding but, thankfully, there were no perforations [Editor’s note: holes in the wall of her vaginal cavity.] There will be no permanent damage. Her reproductive organs still work. So there is no serious permanent physical damage. But in terms of psychological trauma, that is something else.

All of the personnel at the hospital were horrified by this case. I haven’t seen or heard of this practice in any other case of rape during this conflict. And I haven’t heard of this taking place anywhere else. We see rape cases but not this… how can you reach that degree of inhumanity?

Our team cannot be entirely sure when exactly the video, which was filmed without the woman’s consent, started circulating online. A group of Eritrean soldiers came to the hospital with the intention of killing the victim and she was later moved to a safe location with her two children.

L'hôpital général d'Adigrat en 2019. © Facebook / Adigrat General Hospital

254 women raped, 175 of whom are pregnant

The member of the medical personnel at the Adigrat hospital told our team that they have treated many survivors of rape:

Since late December, we’ve treated 254 women who are survivors of rape. Of those women, 175 had fallen pregnant from their rapes. We were able to terminate all of those pregnancies. One of the women, who was already pregnant when she was raped, was left incontinent from her injuries. The youngest rape victim was four years old, the oldest was 89.

The reason we have seen so many pregnant women is that many of them don’t come to the hospital until they realize they are pregnant. We know there are more cases. Many women don’t dare to come for treatment because they want to hide the fact that they’ve been raped for cultural reasons and because they are ashamed. Some of them can’t come to get treatment because they live in rural areas and they don’t have transport to reach Adigrat.”


The media has reported many stories of women from the Tigray being raped by soldiers— either Eritrean or Ethiopian— or by members of militias, with reports increasing since March. This video documenting the violence carried out on this woman provides a unique and horrifying visual illustration to these reports.

On March 23, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, finally admitted that the Eritrean Army was participating in the conflict in the Tigray alongside the Ethiopian Army. He also said that rapes had been committed, without specifying by which party. He promised that the perpetrators of these rapes would be brought to justice, without providing any more details. He also said that the Eritrean troops would leave the country. However, several weeks later, in mid-April, there are still Eritrean troops on the ground. Accusations of rape as well as massacres and looting continue to flood in.

Thousands of people have died in the conflict that began November 4, 2020 between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian government. Eritrea, which has been historically hostile to the TPLF, sent troops to fight alongside Ethiopian soldiers. According to the United Nations, 4.5 million Tigrayans, out of a population of six million, need humanitarian aid.

'I choose to go there': reggaeton's women redefine feminism on their terms



Issued on: 21/04/2021 - 03:48

Reggaeton singers Natti Natasha, Becky G and Daddy Yankee (L to R) are seen performing at an August 2018 concert in Chicago; a new song by the two women combines sexuality and feminism, they say Timothy Hiatt GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File

Miami (AFP)

With a new single out Tuesday, two of reggaeton's most famous women are subverting the wildly popular dance genre's misogynist image, owning the style with an in-your-face ode to their sexuality.

The release of "Ram Pam Pam" sees Natti Natasha and Becky G get physical with tantalizing dance moves set to explicit lyrics, leaving little to the imagination.

For the 24-year-old Mexican-American Becky G, whose hits include "Mayores," the track is a redefinition of feminism that allows women to celebrate their desires.

Feminism, she told AFP, is "different for all of us. We all need in our own way."

"It's my way of saying, I want to be empowered as a woman... me deciding when I go there, it's because I choose to go there. And when I don't want to go there, I don't go there," the artist told AFP.

"There" is the boundary-pushing sweet spot where female artists can explore their sexuality without inhibitions or shame, in the vein of reigning hip hop royalty Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B.

To Natti Natasha, who found international fame with her hit song "Criminal," it's a natural process.

"We express ourselves with complete freedom. We are super comfortable. If Becky or I did not feel comfortable with even a single letter in the song, we would not sing it," said the 34-year-old Dominican, whose career took off after she moved to New York and signed with Don Omar, a singer and producer who's also worked with the superstar Bad Bunny.

Now she and Becky G are releasing "Ram Pam Pam," a tune as catchy as their first collaboration three years ago, "Sin Pijama" (No Pajamas), whose seductive video notched 1.8 billion views on YouTube.

Their new song tells a story set in a school gymnasium, directed at a man who abandoned the singer: "I have a new boyfriend who makes me ram pam pam / Don't look for me; there's nothing of me left here."

"Now I have another who fits me perfectly / Now you be bitter while he be delicious, and smoother," they sing, taunting the former lover.

Then they deliver the final blow: "Now I come when I want to."

Like hip hop before it, reggaeton's brash style has long been criticized as hypersexualized and misogynistic.

But for Natti Natasha, such critiques "come more from the perspective of people who aren't used to this."

In the genre's nascent days in 1990s Puerto Rico, it was simply known as "underground," becoming the target of censorship campaigns and drawing police raids for its "pornographic" character.

But today reggaeton is booming -- especially in the Americas, but internationally as well.

And to Natti Natasha and Becky G, that once-maligned hypersexuality is ripe for reinterpretation with women at the mic.

"It might not align with everyone's idea of what feminism is, but it's always with the intention of paving the way for the ones to come," said Becky G, who gained fame on YouTube as a teen.

- 'Own their sexuality' -

To Petra Rivera-Rideau, an American studies professor at Wellesley University in Massachusetts, what Becky G, Natti Natasha and other female reggaeton stars do -- from the Colombian Karol G to American Mariah Angeliq -- "definitely can be seen as a form of feminism."

In the early 2000s, she said, women in reggaeton "who were dancing were often perceived as being problematic, as being not 'good girls,' being too sexual, being in these kinds of spaces that women, good girls, or respectable women shouldn't be in."

At that time, the Puerto Rican Ivy Queen was the best-known of a handful of women in the genre, which gained a wider following in 2004 with international hit "Gasolina" by Daddy Yankee.

"A lot of the policing of women in reggaeton has been about reinforcing a lot of assumptions -- that women need to be modest in order to be respectable and worthy -- and there's a lot of danger in those narratives," said Rivera-Rideau, author of the 2015 book "Remixing Reggaeton," a history of the genre.

She said there are many people who dislike the stereotype portraying Latinas as overtly sexy, and thus skewer reggaeton as "shameful and terrible."

"But we also need spaces where people can express themselves freely, Rivera-Rideau continued.

"And women deserve to own their sexuality and their own bodies."

Becky G thinks the conversation's tone is evolving -- and she's ready for it.

"Instead of saying, 'Ah? What did she say?'" she says, imitating the expression of a scandalized person, "now they tell you, 'You go, girl! I see you. I maybe wouldn't have done that, but I respect it.'"

And that, she adds, is "very different."

© 2021 AFP

Internet, the thorn in the side of Cuba's 

one party state

Issued on: 21/04/2021 -

Since 2018, young Cubans have been able to connect to the internet through 3G on their phones YAMIL LAGE AFP

Havana (AFP)

Cuba's communist leadership has always viewed the internet with suspicion while trying desperately to control it.

Raul Castro, the former president and leader of the Communist Party, who officially retired on Monday, has blasted the medium for "lies," "manipulation" and "subversion."

But for Cuba's 11.2 million people who have long been amongst the least connected people on the planet, the internet has become a favorite tool of the outlawed opposition.

The arrival of 3G in 2018 was a boon. There are now 4.2 million Cubans using 3G.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel was originally a fan and encouraged the "informatization of society," but he's quickly become disillusioned with the internet, faced with its enthusiastic use to criticize authorities.

On Monday, while 300 delegates met for the Communist Party congress in Havana, an amateur video went viral on social media.

It showed dissident artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara being arrested in a poor neighborhood of the capital.

Dozens of activists, independent journalists and artists have complained on Twitter that police are preventing them from leaving their homes -- a favorite ploy by authorities to prevent mass gatherings that could lead to anti-government protests.

Others complained of their internet and telephone lines being shut down.

- Washington blamed -

"There is a struggle going on in Cuba over the control, direction and impact of digital technologies, and it's not clear how that is going to end," said Ted Henken, American sociologist and author of the upcoming book "Cuba's Digital Revolution."

"After they made digital technology available via 3G cellphones, movements or mobilizations that were both offline and online increased and they happened more frequently," he said.

"And then we saw after November that they had more and more of a real impact and provoked a very strong response from the government."

In November 2020, the San Isidro Movement -- artistic dissident voices led by Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara -- hunkered down in a house together, calling for the release of a rapper while streaming their demands on Facebook, even attracting an international audience.

After the group was removed, some 300 artists protested opposite the Culture Ministry following calls spread on social media to demand freedom of expression -- something unprecedented in Cuba.

For Raul Castro, Washington is to blame.

"Don't forget that the US government has created a working group on the internet in Cuba which aims to convert social media into subversion channels," said Castro.

The US Department of State set up the Cuba Internet Task Force in 2018 to examine the challenges and possibilities of expanding internet use in Cuba.

"However, the truth is something else, the internal counter-revolution, which has no social base, leadership or ability to mobilize, has ever-fewer members and social impact actions, concentrating its activism on social media and the internet," said Castro.

- 'Injudicious' -

Not all artists are in favor of the proliferation of internet activism.

"The enemy should make no mistake ... here the revolution is not on social media, it's in the streets," said veteran poet Miguel Barnet, who was at the party congress.

Even so, the Communist Party adopted a resolution to strengthen "revolutionary activism on social media."

Last week the Council of State approved a new decree to regulate telecommunications aimed at "defending the socialist State's successes," although it didn't give further details.

Still, the Communist Party cannot control outside influences.

Several times over the last month, Twitter has suspended media accounts of official Cuban bodies for infringing on "manipulation" rules.

For ex-diplomat Carlos Alzugaray, the government using the internet as a "propaganda instrument" is unwise.

"Often on the Twitter accounts of ministers, it's just a repetition of what is said on the president's account."

Michael Bustamante, a professor at Florida International University, says the government needs to be wary of ignoring what is said online.

"We do need to think critically about what social media reveals to us, and what it hides," he said.

"Talk to anyone on the ground in Cuba today, and they will tell you frustration and pessimism are widespread."

© 2021 AFP

'Joints for jabs': free marijuana for vaccinated New Yorkers



Issued on: 21/04/2021 

A man smokes a joint and shows his vaccination card as marijuana activists hand out free joints to vaccinated New Yorkers on April 20, 2021 in New York City Angela Weiss AFP



New York (AFP)

New Yorkers who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 were able to get an unlikely freebie Tuesday: a marijuana joint.

Activists celebrating the recent legalization of recreational pot in New York state handed out free doobies in Manhattan to anyone with proof they had received at least one vaccine shot.

"This is the first time we can sit around and legally hand people joints," said Michael O'Malley, one of the organizers of the "Joints for Jabs" giveaway in Union Square.

ADVERTISING


"We're supporting the federal effort to roll out vaccinations. And we're also trying to get them to federally legalize weed," he told AFP.

Organizers chose April 20 as the date as a way to mark 4/20, an annual day of celebration amongst cannabis fans.

Marijuana activists also handed out free weed in Washington DC.

Several dozen, relaxed looking people formed an orderly queue as the distribution of joints in New York began at 11:00 am (1600 GMT).

One woman held a sign that read "pro-vaxx, pro-weed." The giveaway was due to last until 4:20 pm.

They only had to wait ten minutes at most in the spring sunshine. They showed their vaccination card, in paper or via phone, gave their email address and a joint was theirs.

There seemed to be little verification required to prevent someone from queuing twice.

"We are not really being very careful," admitted O'Malley.

Sarah Overholt, 38, left with two joints in her pocket after showing vaccination cards belonging to herself and her 70-year-old mother.

For Overholt, marijuana and the vaccine are essential.

"I smoke every day and I am a better person if I smoke, trust me," she said with a smile.

"Everybody should get vaccinated. It should not be weed that is getting them there. But if it works, then it works," added Overholt, who received her first vaccine shot on March 25 and gets her second on Thursday.

Alex Zerbe, a 24-year-old a trader who came from his nearby office, agreed. He has already had both doses and said he smokes a joint once or twice a day.

"I can get a joint anyway, but (the giveaway) is just cool you know," Zerbe told AFP.

By 11:30 am, between 150 and 200 joints had already been distributed, out of some 1,500 rolled in advance by a handful of volunteers.

On March 31, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation allowing adults 21 and over to purchase cannabis and grow plants for personal consumption at home.

Several US brands, particularly in food and drink, have launched various incentives for vaccinated patrons in recent weeks, from donuts to hot dogs and beer, in an attempt to counter vaccine hesitancy.

© 2021 AFP

A whale chorus reveals how climate change may be shifting migration



Issued on: 21/04/2021 - 

Loss of sea ice could be a factor in the unusual bowhead whale behaviour observed by scientists MARIO TAMA GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File

Tokyo (AFP)

Eerie wails, explosive trumpets and ghostly moans. The sounds from the underwater recorders had a story to tell, even without a single intelligible word: the whales had stayed put.

The recordings gathered during the 2018-2019 winter in the freezing cold Arctic waters off Canada proved that a population of bowhead whales had skipped their usual migration south.

Scientists believe this behaviour -- never previously detected -- could be driven by the effects of climate change, and be a potential harbinger of shifting dynamics across the region's ecosystem.

Ordinarily, the approximately 20,000 bowheads that make up the Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort (BCB) population around Canada have a fairly predictable migration pattern spanning 6,000 kilometres (3,700 miles).

They spend the winter in part of the Bering Sea, which lies between Russia and Alaska, and head north then east to the Beaufort Sea and Canada's Amundsen Gulf in the summer, before returning in the autumn.

But in winter 2018-2019, something different happened. Residents in the Canadian region reported seeing bowheads long after they would normally have disappeared south.

A team of scientists decided to comb through hours of audio recorded by underwater devices that are dotted around the region for regular data collection, listening for unusual sounds.

They found them: the distinctive calls of bowhead whales that should have been in their southern winter grounds but had stayed put.

Assisted by a trained computer programme, they even found recordings of bowheads singing, a behaviour believed to be associated with mating, which has never been recorded in the summer grounds before.

The whale noises appeared in between 0.5 to 3.0 percent of recording files collected between October to April at four summer spots.

The finding was highly unusual: recordings from some of the same and separate sites in the summer grounds in previous years picked up no whale sounds after October or December, depending on the location.

"The evidence is clear that BCB bowheads overwintered in their summer foraging region in the eastern Beaufort Sea and Amundsen Gulf during the 2018-2019 winter and as far as we know, this is the first time it has been reported," says the study published Wednesday in the Royal Society Open Science journal.

- 'Ecosystem shift under way' -

Less clear however is why this happened, with the authors positing various theories mostly linked to climate change.

One possible factor could be shifting ice cover, with less ice than usual seen in the summer grounds during the 2018-2019 winter season.

But the record minimum ice concentration actually came in 2015-2016.

That suggests "ice, and particularly timing and locations, is important but not the only factor," said Stephen Insley of the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada, who helped lead the study.

Another possible explanation is "predator avoidance," with the bowheads steering clear of orca whales that are more frequently seen in some areas as warming seas lead to decreased ice cover.

Other phenomena linked to climate change could also be at play, like the increasingly erratic and early summer plankton bloom -- whales could be spending winter in their summer grounds to ensure they catch the key food source, the scientists suggest.

Insley suspects water temperature is playing a key role in the unusual behaviour, with bowheads known to avoid water outside a narrow range of around -0.5 to 2 degrees centigrade.

If the bowheads are responding to the effects of climate change, they would be far from alone, Insley told AFP.

"The whole region is undergoing dramatic change and we're just seeing the beginning of it. Many sub-Arctic species are moving north," he said.

"It's a complete ecosystem shift under way and there will be winners and losers."

The team is continuing to record in the region and hopes to correlate its data with information about ocean temperatures to determine any link.

"If the avoidance of warm ocean temperatures were the primary driver of this anomalous behaviour, it may be a significant warning sign for bowhead whales," the study cautions.

© 2021 AFP

China’s Xi to attend US-hosted climate summit, in first meeting with Biden



Issued on: 21/04/2021 - 04:59

Journalists watch a screen showing China's President Xi Jinping delivering a speech during the opening of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) Annual Conference 2021 in Boao, south China's Hainan province on April 20, 2021. © AFP

Text by :NEWS WIRES


China’s President Xi Jinping will attend US President Joe Biden’s virtual climate summit this week, Beijing said Wednesday, as the world’s top polluting nations seek rare common ground despite wider political tensions.

Biden has invited 40 world leaders including Xi and Russia’s Vladimir Putin to the meet starting on Earth Day, meant to mark Washington’s return to the front lines of the fight against climate change after former president Donald Trump disengaged from the process.

The virtual summit will be the first meeting between the two leaders since Biden became president.

Xi will give an “important speech” at the meeting, said the Chinese foreign ministry, days after a trip to Shanghai by US climate envoy John Kerry—the first official from Biden’s administration to visit China.

Kerry and Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua had said they were “committed to cooperating” on tackling the climate crisis, even as sky-high tensions remain on multiple other fronts.

>> Exclusive: 'All countries need to do better,' US climate envoy John Kerry tells FRANCE 24

Washington and Beijing’s pledge to cooperate comes amid acrimony over accusations about China’s policies in Hong Kong and its treatment of Uyghurs in its northwestern Xinjiang region—criticisms Beijing rejects as interference in its domestic affairs.

No global solution on climate change is likely without both the US and China on board, since the world’s top two economies together account for nearly half of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

‘Truant’ returns to class

Biden has made climate a top priority, turning the page from his predecessor Donald Trump, who was closely aligned with the fossil fuel industry.

The US president has rejoined the 2015 Paris accord, which Kerry negotiated as secretary of state and which committed nations to take action to keep temperature rises at no more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

China—the world’s top carbon emitter—has vowed to reach peak emissions by 2030 and become carbon neutral thirty years later.

Meanwhile Biden is expected this week to announce new US targets on reducing carbon emissions as part of the summit amid mounting global alarm over record-breaking temperatures and increasingly frequent natural disasters.

Beijing has said the US needs to take more responsibility on climate change, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying calling Washington’s return to the Paris accord “a truant getting back to class”.

Xi joined another virtual climate summit with France and Germany last week, where he said developed countries should “set an example” in reducing emissions and support developing nations’ responses to climate change, state news agency Xinhua reported.

(AFP)