Myanmar: American journalist Danny Fenster detained while trying to fly out of country

By Jonny Hallam and Sharif Paget, CNN Business 1 hour ago

An American journalist working in Myanmar was detained by local authorities Monday, his family and his news organization told CNN.

© courtesy Bryan Fenster 

Danny Fenster, a 37-year-old from Detroit, Michigan, was working for the news organization Frontier Myanmar.

Danny Fenster, 37, was stopped at the Yangon airport as he tried to board a flight out of the country, his brother Bryan Fenster said.


Fenster, a US citizen originally from Detroit, Michigan, works for the news site Frontier Myanmar in Myanmar's largest city, Yangon.

"Frontier's managing editor, Danny Fenster, was detained at Yangon International Airport this morning shortly before he was due to board a flight to Kuala Lumpur," the news organization said in a statement.

"We do not know why Danny was detained and have not been able to contact him since this morning. We are concerned for his wellbeing and call for his immediate release. Our priorities right now are to make sure he is safe and to provide him with whatever assistance he needs," the statement said.

The news organization also said it understands Fenster has been transferred to Insein Prison near Yangon. Insein is one of the country's most notorious prisons, known for its deplorable conditions.

Speaking to CNN Monday evening, Bryan Fenster said the family doesn't have much information on his brother's situation.

"I can only assume being a journalist in a country that's run by the military who wants to control the narrative, he was flagged being a journalist when he was at the airport. Can't begin to imagine why it happened," he said. "He was on valid work papers, valid visas, passports, everything. He was voluntarily leaving the country to come visit family, so we can't see what the issue is."

Bryan Fenster said the family are working with elected officials in Michigan and said the US state department is aware of his brother's case.

"We're very hopeful with all the support, we'll be getting him out as soon as possible," he said.

Bryan Fenster said earlier that his brother was flying to the United States to surprise his parents, whom he had not seen for over two years. The family had been concerned about the safety of being a journalist in Myanmar following February's military coup, and felt shocked and worried at the news of his detention, Bryan said, calling it a "nightmare."

A US Department of State official, who used another name for Myanmar, said the agency was monitoring the situation. "We are aware of reports of a US citizen detained in Burma. We take seriously our responsibility to assist US citizens abroad, and are monitoring the situation. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment."

The detention comes almost four months after Myanmar's military seized power in a coup on February 1, overthrowing the democratically-elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and detaining government officials. Junta security forces have brutally suppressed almost daily protests across the country, killing more than 820 people and arresting more than 5,400, according to advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

The junta has also attempted to silence the country's media by revoking independent publishing and broadcast licenses, raiding newspaper offices and targeting journalists for arrest. Among the thousands of people detained since the coup are 85 journalists, including 48 still in detention, according to Reporting Asean.

Fenster is among a number of foreign journalists to be detained in Myanmar since the coup.

Japanese journalist Yuki Kitazumi was arrested in April and charged with spreading false information. He was held in Insein Prison until the junta released him two weeks ago and returned him to Tokyo.

Many detained reporters are charged with crimes under section 505a — a law amended by the military that makes it a crime punishable by up to three years in prison for publishing or circulating comments that "cause fear" or spread "false news."

In a statement, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT) said it was not clear whether Fenster had been charged with any offense.

"The arrests of journalists and the violence used by the security forces on anyone caught trying to report or record their actions, constitute an extraordinary attack on freedom of expression in Myanmar, and should be widely condemned," the FCCT statement said.

The detention comes as ousted civilian leader Suu Kyi attended a court hearing Monday and met with her lawyers — her first appearance in person since the coup.

In its nightly news bulletin, Myanmar state TV aired the first images of Suu Kyi since the coup. She was detained in the early hours before the military seized power and had not been seen in public since.

The images showed Suu Kyi in the dock with her hands in her lap and wearing a surgical mask. Beside her sat ousted President Win Myint and the former mayor of the capital Naypyidaw, Myo Aung.

Suu Kyi faces a range of charges, from illegally possessing walkie-talkie radios to violating the official secrets act -- the most serious charge which carries a potential prison sentence of up to 14 years.

Last week, Myanmar's junta-appointed election commission said it would dissolve the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) party because of what it claims was election fraud. The military overthrew the NLD government alleging mass voter discrepancies, though the electoral commission at the time rejected the army's complaints.

According to her lawyer Khin Maung Zaw, Suu Kyi struck a defiant note, saying of the NLD: "Our party grew out of the people so it will exist as long as people support it."

UK supermarkets will seek soy alternatives if Amazon protections weakened

Jonathan Watts 

THE GUARDIAN 

British supermarkets will look at alternatives to Brazilian soy if president Jair Bolsonaro and congress passes new legislation this week to weaken protections for the Amazon rainforest.

Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty Images

Retailers and industry groups told the Guardian they will seek different suppliers and accelerate efforts to find soy substitutes if Brazilian politicians pass bills to legitimise land-grabbing and loosen controls on new projects.

The proposed new laws – dubbed the “destruction package” by environmental groups – are seen as the greatest threat to the rainforest and other globally essential ecosystems since the ultra-rightwing leader took power.

The bills are being rushed through the upper and lower house following Bolsonaro’s public promise to halt illegal deforestation at last month’s climate summit hosted by US president Joe Biden.

Related: Joe Biden’s billions won’t stop Bolsonaro destroying the Amazon rainforest | Marina Silva and Rubens Ricupero

Amid signs the Amazon is nearing a emergency, where the rainforest will worsen rather than ease climate instability, a growing number of international companies are threatening Brazil with financial consequences.

Last month more than 40 European businesses, including many British retailers signed an open letter urging Brazilian senators and deputies not to push ahead with the legislation.

The primary focus of their concern is a bill that would legalise invasion and deforestation of extensive tracts of public land.

Bolsonaro’s government initially submitted this plan as a provisional measure but it was defeated last year. Since then, the unpopular proposal has been revived and renamed PL2633, and could be tabled for a vote as early as this week.

Related: So what has the rest of the world promised to do about climate change?

Brazilian civil society groups have warned this measure would encourage land-grabbing and forest clearance in the future. The independent deforestation watchdog Imazon estimates this could cause deforestation of up to 1.6m hectares (3.9m acres) by 2027, equivalent to five times the carbon emissions of France.

Two other bills are also being debated. One – named PL3729 – aims to accelerate new road, hydropower and railway construction in the Amazon by dismantling rules on environmental impact assessments for infrastructure projects. It was approved by the lower house last week.

 European diplomats have said that Brazilian companies are paying an increasingly high premium for the country’s environmental pariah status under Jair Bolsonaro.

The other – PL191 – would loosen restrictions on commercial activities inside indigenous territory, which is currently the best protected land in the Amazon and home to about one-third of the forest’s carbon stock. This is to be considered by a special parliamentary commission.

Even before the passage of this legislation, environmental concerns are also hitting a new pitch. Last year, the Amazon suffered its worst fire season in a decade as farmers and land-grabbers cleared forest and burned felled trees. Last month, satellite data from Brazil’s national space research institute showed deforestation increased 43% in April compared with the same period last year.

UK retailers’ most effective response is likely to be a cut in purchases of Brazilian soy, which is a major driver of deforestation. “If this bill comes to pass, companies will be looking at supply chains and seeing if there are other ways to responsibly source commodities. This could be alternative sources of soy and alternatives to soy. Both are on the table if retailers can no longer trust soy from Brazil to be responsibly sourced,” said Peter Andrews, head of sustainability at the British Retail Consortium.

Related: Food giants accused of links to illegal Amazon deforestation

Waitrose said it would do its utmost to help stop deforestation and clearance in the Amazon and in other vital ecosystems. “We are working tirelessly with our suppliers, the wider industry, government, and NGOs to ensure we source soya sustainably,” said a spokesperson. “Alongside this, we’ve been working on innovative animal nutrition for many years, and will continue with our longstanding research on sustainable soya alternatives.” The company said it has already reduced the use of soya in many supply chains and substituted it completely in its dairy farms with domestically produced fodder.

The Co-op’s head of food policy, Cathryn Higgs, described the new legislation as a fresh threat to the Amazon and the credibility of environmental protections in Brazil. “Its rainforest is essential to planetary health so we’re disappointed to see that the Brazilian government has decided to continue pushing this measure through despite the widespread opposition within Brazilian society, agribusiness, and the international community,” she said. “If these new laws are brought in we will have no choice but to reconsider our support and use of the Brazilian agricultural commodity supply chain.”

Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Lidl and Aldi also signed up to the earlier open letter.

Environmental groups say supermarkets need to back these warnings with action if the bills are passed.

© Provided by The Guardian Greenpeace activists stage a protest against deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Vienna. Photograph: Leonhard Föger/Reuters

“If the worst happens, the question customers must ask supermarkets is – what now?” said Anna Jones, head of forests at Greenpeace UK. “The only answer is for Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi and others to withdraw from the Brazilian soya market … if not, they remain complicit as Brazil hands meat producers a licence to continue slashing and burning forests, with devastating consequences for indigenous peoples, wildlife and the planet.”

Conservationists believe the government is captive to the ruralista agribusiness lobby, which is trying to push through laws despite widespread opposition among the Brazilian public, many business groups and overseas consumers.

The ruralista lobby is concerned the political winds may be changing as the result of Bolsonaro’s mishandling of the Covid crisis, and the defeat of Donald Trump in the US, who was an ally of the Brazilian president.

Last month Bolsonaro promised “zero illegal deforestation by 2030” – a longstanding target of successive Brazilian governments. But instead of halting land clearance, critics say he is simply making more of it legal.

European diplomats and executives have told the Guardian that Brazilian companies are paying an increasingly high premium for the country’s environmental pariah status.

“Bolsonaro has been very damaging to Brazil’s image. No doubt about it,” said a senior businessman, who asked to remain anonymous. “It’s been a slippery slope. Not long ago, Brazil was on the right path, AAA rated with a strong currency and considered a powerful economy. After years of hard work, that’s now gone.”

Some European manufacturers have become hesitant about putting money into Brazil because they are reluctant to be associated with a nation that is wrecking the Amazon. “The feelings towards Brazil are so negative that when there are head-office discussions about where to invest, nobody wants to put their hand up and champion Brazil,” said a senior diplomat who also asked to remain anonymous.

Canadian company Algoma Steel to go public again in takeover worth more than $1B US

Pete Evans 

© Yvon Theriault/ Radio-Canada CBC Although the company has changed names and ownership over the years, Algoma has been making steel in Sault Ste. Marie for more than a century.

Algoma Steel is to become a public company again as the century-old Canadian steelmaker has agreed to be taken over by New York-based acquisition firm Legato Merger Corp.

Officials from both companies will have more information about the proposed deal at a news conference on Tuesday morning, but the deal will give Algoma's current owners just over $1.1 billion US worth of new shares in the combined company.

Legato itself only went public in an initial public offering earlier this year, raising $236 million to fund acquisitions.

The company is what's known as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, which are essentially publicly traded pools of money created solely to purchase other companies.

Legato shares trade on the Nasdaq, but once the deal goes through Algoma will file to list its shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange, too.

Legato seeks to buy companies in the renewable energy, infrastructure and industrial sectors, and Algoma fits the bill.

While Legato is new, Algoma has been around in one form or another for more than a century. After being founded in 1902, the company was acquired in 2007 by Indian conglomerate Essar Group for more than $1.6 billion, before entering insolvency proceedings in 2015 after the price of steel cratered.

Algoma emerged from those proceedings as an independent entity and has since set its focus to sustainability. Among other initiatives, the company is proposing to convert one of its coal-fired blast furnaces to an electric-arc system that would reduce its carbon emissions by more than three million tonnes a year.

The company currently has a production capacity of about 2.8 million tonnes of steel a year, which makes it the second largest steel company in Canada. It also employs roughly 2,700 people. That head count is not expected to change as a result of the all-stock deal, and Algoma's current management team will stay with the new company.

Steel prices have soared to their highest level in decades this year. Similar to other commodities, production and prices slowed to a crawl throughout 2020 as the world economy slowed down to deal with COVID-19. But now steelmakers can't keep up with demand.

Price of steel is booming

In February, rating agency Moody's raised the company's credit rating based on "an improvement in operating performance and credit metrics due to higher steel prices and the expectation that the company will generate positive free cash flow," Moody's said in a release.

"No [steel] market was spared in 2020, as demand and shipments were hurt by knock-on effects from the pandemic," Bloomberg Intelligence metals and mining analyst Andrew Cosgrove said in a report on the steel market last week. "A sharp snapback is expected to take hold in 2021 as shipments climb nearly 30 per cent, with the construction sector likely to drive about two-thirds of the increase, in our view."

Five more arrested in B.C. old-growth logging protest

PORT RENFREW, B.C. — Mounties say five more people have been arrested on southern Vancouver Island during protests against old-growth logging.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

RCMP say the arrests happened at an area called the Waterfall Camp, near Port Renfrew, B.C.

Three of those arrested Monday face civil contempt of court charges, while the other two face obstruction charges.

Police say 53 people have been arrested in total since an injunction started to be enforced last week.

Those arrested Monday were taken to Lake Cowichan RCMP for processing.

Activists say very little of the best old-growth forest remains in B.C. and Fairy Creek is the last unprotected, intact old-growth valley on southern Vancouver Island.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 24, 2021.

The Canadian Press

RED SCARE 2.0

Alberta asks universities to report on links with Beijing and Communist Party

ASK CNRL ABOUT THEIR LINKS

EDMONTON — Alberta's advanced education minister has sent a letter to four of the province's universities asking them to pause their pursuit of new or renewed partnerships with organizations linked with China or the Chinese Communist Party.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

A ministry spokesman says in an email that Demetrios Nicolaides has also asked the four comprehensive academic and research institutions to thoroughly review their relationships with entities that are potentially linked with the People's Republic of China and its governing party.

The letter asks that the review ensures "these ongoing partnerships follow stringent risk assessments and due diligence."

"I am deeply concerned about the potential theft of Canadian intellectual property and further concerned that research partnerships with the People’s Republic of China may be used by Chinese military and intelligence agencies," Nicolaides said in a statement.

"More needs to be done to curb foreign state infiltration into our research and innovation centres, including our post-secondary institutions."

The universities have 90 days to submit a report with the requested information to Alberta's Advanced Education Ministry.

The University of Calgary said in an email that it has received the letter and is reviewing it, but isn't able to comment at this time.

The University of Alberta acknowledged it, too, received the minister's letter and will be responding. It also referred to a statement made earlier this month by Walter Dixon, interim vice-president of research and innovation, which said the school has asked the federal government for guidance on the issue.

Dixon said the university looks forward to guidelines expected late next month from a working group of the federal government and universities that's dealing with national security as it relates to funding and research partnerships.

"A consistent national response on security matters and international engagement is necessary and we are fully committed to working with all levels of government to ensure that Canada’s core security interests are protected and advanced," Dixon said in the statement on May 4.

A policy statement from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada in March warned members of the research community, particularly those involved in COVID-19 research, to take extra precautions to protect the security of their work.

"Canada’s world-class research, and its open and collaborative research environment, are increasingly targeted by espionage and foreign interference activities," the policy statement said, although it did not name a particular country.

Nicolaides said his priority is to work with post-secondary institutions to protect Canadian intellectual property, and to make sure they don't enter agreements that would undermine Canada's "core national interests."

He also said the province would welcome a "comprehensive national framework from Ottawa on these serious pressing issues," noting that national security and intelligence are primarily the federal government's domain.

Dixon's statement from earlier this month noted that international partnerships are important, and the University of Alberta has agreements with partners from over 80 different countries.

"International partnerships, which include research projects, teaching and mobility agreements, and international learning opportunities are what allow the academy to provide students, post-docs, and faculty with the experiences needed to ensure that knowledge flows around the globe," he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 24, 2021.

Rob Drinkwater, The Canadian Press

KENNEY/UCP GET AN 'F'

Ninety-five percent of school divisions will not pilot Alberta's draft curriculum this fall


(ANNews) - Ninety-five percent - or fifty-eight of the sixty-one school divisions across Alberta — have announced that they will not pilot the UCP’s draft of the K-6 curriculum this September.

Criticism of the curriculum has come from the Alberta Teachers Association (ATA), educational experts, deans of education, teachers, and over 40,000 Albertans who are a part of Albertans Against the Curriculum Facebook group.

A survey was conducted by the Alberta Teachers Association and it was revealed that less than one-in-five Albertans support the UCP’s draft of the K-6 curriculum.

Sixty percent of Albertans disapprove of the draft, including 38 percent who strongly disapprove of the Government’s handling of the curriculum.

Only 38 percent of people have said they approve of the curriculum — this marks the lowest approval rating tracked by Environics Research for the ATA in the last decade.

The UCP government has emphasized that there were over 100 teachers involved in the creation of the draft. However, ATA president Jason Schilling is suspicious of these claims because the government has not released an unfiltered report on the consultations.

“Albertans are saying to us that the curriculum is poorly done, and it is inappropriate for students. They also recognize that the problem was largely created because teachers were left out of the planning,” said Schilling.

Since the survey, the ATA has released a statement saying that, “The Government of Alberta needs to work alongside First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Elders and Knowledge Keepers, communities and organizations, to ensure that the curriculum is rebalanced to authentically include Indigenous ways of knowing, and Indigenous perspectives, experiences and stories in order to advance truth and reconciliation.”

In 2014, Alberta made a commitment to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada to include Indigenous knowledge in order to advance reconciliation.

On May 20, the Athabasca Tribal Council (ATC) demanded that the Government of Alberta cancel the draft because it ignores the history, culture and perspectives of Indigenous in the province.

Chief Allan Adam has said that Indigenous communities should be consulted on the draft, such as the Treaty 6, 7, and 8 Educators alliance. He also accused the UCP of erasing suggestions from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in K-2 and erasing information on treaties.

“This curriculum is blatantly meant to sustain and bolster systemic racism in the next generation,” said Adam. “The manner that the curriculum was developed and presented is disrespectful to all Albertans. This curriculum does not fulfill the commitments to truth and reconciliation and must be rescinded.”

The claims from Chief Adam caused Education Minister Adriana LaGrange to schedule a meeting with the Chief.

LaGrange’s spokesperson, Nicole Sparrow said, “Given the severity of these accusations it is disappointing that the chief did not raise these concerns with the minister directly.”

“In order to gather feedback directly from Chief Adam and the Athabasca Tribal Council, Minister LaGrange personally invited the chief to a subsequent meeting to discus the draft curriculum.”

The Chief’s sentiment however, is echoed by other divisions in Alberta. The Northland School Division (NSD) — which includes schools in Janvier, Fort McKay, Anzac, Conklin, and Fort Chipewyan — said that they rejected the curriculum because “the Indigenous perspectives and experiences that were included in the previous curriculum seem to be omitted.”

The entirety of the Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo schools divisions have also rejected the draft, as well as the Metis Nation of Alberta and the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations.

And it is not just rural areas and Indigenous Nations who are against the draft as the Calgary School Board of Education (CBE) has announced that they will not take part in the pilot program either. Edmonton Public Schools and Edmonton Catholic Schools will also not take part in the draft.

Calgary will however, provide feedback to the government. "As the largest public school board in Alberta, we believe it is vitally important to provide Alberta Education with feedback on the draft curriculum," the CBE said in a release on Friday.

"In the fall, we will gather meaningful feedback through focus groups with classroom teachers and curriculum specialists. Staff, parents/guardians and community members are encouraged to continue providing feedback."

Despite all of the controversy and public outcry, the UCP government is still resolved to pilot the draft in the upcoming Fall semester.

The draft is expected to be fully implemented for all K-6 schools in the 2022-2023 school year.

Visit alberta.ca/currriculum to view the draft. Albertans can review the document and offer feedback on the curriculum until spring 2022.

Jacob Cardinal is an LJI reporter for Alberta Native News.

Jacob Cardinal, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Alberta Native News

AND WHAT OF CHILD LABOUR IN THE WEST

Factory boss defiant as sanctions bite in China's Xinjiang

AKSU, China (AP) — A backlash against reports of forced labor and other abuses of the largely Muslim Uyghur ethnic group in Xinjiang is taking a toll on China's cotton industry, but it's unclear if the pressure will compel the government or companies to change their ways.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Li Qiang, general manager of the Huafu Fashion yarn factory in Xinjiang, told reporters that even though the company lost money in 2020 for the first time in its 27-year history, it bounced back by shifting to domestic orders.

“This is now in the past,” Li said. “We’ve turned things around in the first quarter of this year.”

Li blamed a sharp fall in foreign orders, as customers including Adidas and H&M cut ties, on “fake news" in a 2019 Wall Street Journal story that said brand name apparel makers and food companies were entangled in China’s campaign to forcibly assimilate its Muslim population. Huafu also cited U.S. sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic.

In a crackdown since 2017 after a series of militant attacks, the Chinese government has detained a million or more people in Xinjiang, a major cotton-producing region in China’s northwest that is home to the Uyghurs and other ethnic groups. Critics also accuse it of torture, forced sterilization and cultural and religious suppression.

Apart from cotton, much of the world’s polysilicon for photovoltaic cells comes from Xinjiang. The U.S. is now weighing sanctions over the alleged use of forced labor in the production of solar panels.

Xinjiang officials deny the charges and brush off Western criticism. They recently took about a dozen foreign journalists to the sprawling Huafu complex in Aksu city, where 780,000 spindles churn out 100,000 tons of colored yarn annually for sportswear and other items.

The company said in a preliminary estimate last month that it earned 120 million-150 million yuan (about $20 million) in the first three months of this year, after a 405 million yuan ($63 million) loss in 2020 as sales fell 10 percent.

Evidence of forced labor comes from people who have left China and government documents, but it is difficult to prove definitively at specific factories since human rights experts and others are unable to investigate freely. Diplomats and journalists traveling independently to Xinjiang are followed, and most residents, wary of getting in trouble, are unwilling to talk critically.

“The government doesn’t want information flowing out of the region and they’ve done a good job of making that difficult,” said Scott Nova, the executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium in Washington.

An ethnic Kazakh woman from Xinjiang who fled to Kazakhstan said she was forced to work for a week sewing uniforms in a factory in 2018 after spending almost a year in detention.

Dina Nurdybai ran a clothing business with 30 employees before she was detained. She said the factory work was not voluntary. She was released after authorities realized she was not on a list of long-term detainees.

“If they say they are taking you to a factory, you say ‘yes,’ " she said. ”If you don’t go, they’ll say you have problematic thoughts and persecute you.”

Others also have said they or their relatives were coerced to work in factories.

The government says such testimonies are fabrications. One worker, Paziliya Tursan, said above the hum of spindles at Huafu that reports of forced labor are nonsense. As officials listened in, she said people at the factory stick together like pomegranate seeds, echoing a metaphor used by President Xi Jinping to describe ethnic unity in China.

The U.S. decided last year that the evidence was strong enough to ban imports of clothing, cotton, hair products and computer parts from about a half dozen companies. In January, it expanded the ban to all cotton and tomato products from Xinjiang, which produces processed foods such as tomato paste and about one-fifth of the world's cotton.

U.S. customs denied a request this month from Japanese retailer Uniqlo to release a shipment of men's shirts that had been stopped at a southern California port under the sanctions.

Guixiang, a Communist Party spokesperson in Xinjiang, said companies may lose customers in the short run but eventually become stronger as they and their employees work harder and find new markets. “In some sense, the stress can be transformed into a driving force for the companies,” he said.

China has a huge domestic market and demand is growing in Southeast Asia, the Mideast, Africa and Eastern Europe, said Peng Bo, a senior vice president at Founder CIFCO Futures, a financial derivatives firm in Beijing. Chinese manufacturers also have gained market share as the pandemic hobbled competitors in other countries.

“Though the international market is important to domestic brands, it is not irreplaceable, particularly the European and American markets,” he said.

On top of import bans, the U.S. Commerce Department has blocked the sale of U.S. technology and parts to more than two dozen companies linked to human rights abuses in Xinjiang, including Huafu. That adds to pressure to stop dealing with the company.

Technology companies have also been targeted. Commerce added Nanchang O-Film Tech, whose customers have included Apple and Lenovo, to the blacklist last July. The company has employed Uyghur workers brought to Nanchang from Xinjiang, some 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) away, under restrictive conditions.

Its parent OFILM Group said it lost 1.9 billion yuan ($300 million) last year because overseas customers dropped contracts. It did not say which customers.

The forced labor allegations extended to cotton picking late last year with a BBC story and a report by U.S.-based researcher Adrian Zenz. His study, based largely on publicly-available Chinese government documents, found “strong indications” of coercion and concluded that “it must be assumed that any cotton from Xinjiang may involve coercive labor, with the likelihood of coercion being very high.”

China accused Zenz and the British public broadcaster of anti-China bias. Foreign journalists were taken to a 40-hectare (100-acre) cotton field that was being planted by machine, and officials said mechanization has eliminated the need for most workers.

Picking cotton is more difficult than planting it, though, and where it is mechanized in Xinjiang, it often depends on American technology in the form of John Deere machines. Deere said in a statement that U.S. sanctions have affected its business but declined to provide specifics.

The government says 70% of harvesting is mechanized, but that varies from place to place. Use of machine picking is more common in the north. In southern Xinjiang plots tend to be smaller and more scattered, with 53% of total acreage harvested by machine in 2020, up from 35% in 2019, according to the government. It acknowledged that farmers still plant and harvest by hand in many places.

Nova of the Workers Rights Consortium said companies should not buy from Xinjiang because of the “substantial risk” of forced labor at any factory and the inability to conduct a proper inspection.

“A Uyghur worker cannot speak freely and candidly about forced labor, particularly if they are a victim of forced labor,” he said. “And so when you’ve got a combination of risk and the inability to manage that risk via labor rights due diligence, the only responsible approach . . . is not to source from that particular place.”

___

Si Chen in Shanghai contributed.

Ken Moritsugu And Dake Kang, The Associated Press

100s of Dead Whales Are Washing up on the West Coast—Scientists Don't Know Why

A dead whale washed up on the shores of the San Francisco Bay Area late Friday, marking the 12th such incident in the region so far this year.

© rainngirl/Getty A stock image shows a gray whale, seen from above, spraying water. An increase in the animals' deaths across the west coast of North America since January 2019 has led to an unusual mortality event (UME) being declared.

The death is just one of many in what scientists have called an Unusual Mortality Event (UME) along the west coast of North America. Since 2019, it has seen hundreds of gray whale deaths.

Reports on Friday, May 21, said the gray whale had washed up on Pacifica State Beach. It was a 47-foot male according to tissue samples, Giancarlo Rulli, a spokesman for The Marine Mammal Center, told CBS Sacramento.

Marine biologists often conduct an examination called a necrospy to try and find out more about what caused the whale to die. However, a necrospy was not possible in this case because the animal had been dead for too long.

The whale becomes the tenth gray whale to be reported dead in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021, in addition to one pygmy sperm whale and a fin whale, according to Bay Area news outlet The Mercury News.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has said elevated numbers of gray whale strandings—in which whales get stranded on land—have taken place in the current UME since January 1, 2019, from Mexico through Alaska.

As of May 6, 2021, the NOAA reported a total of 454 gray whale strandings across Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. That figure will almost certainly have increased.

While it has not been possible to identify the cause of death for all of these animals, a number of them are suspected or determined to have been killed by ships.

The NOAA also said early findings have shown "evidence of emaciation" in several whales studied, meaning they appeared abnormally thin or weak. The agency said more research was needed because such findings are not consistent across all whales examined.

In April, researchers concluded that a fin whale that washed up near Fort Funston, California, on April 23 had probably died after it was struck by a ship. They found that the whale had suffered trauma to its neck.

That incident was the fifth whale death in the Bay Area in April alone.

Likewise, the gray whale which landed on the Pacifica State Beach on Friday is the fifth to be reported this month, The Mercury News reports.

A UME is defined by the Marine Mammal Protection Act as "a stranding that is unexpected; involves a significant die-off of any marine mammal population; and demands immediate response."

Anyone who spots a stranded or floating whale should report it immediately, the NOAA states. 

Ed Browne 

MAY 24,2021

 

Legitimation strategies for coal exits in Germany and Canada

INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED SUSTAINABILITY STUDIES E.V. (IASS)

Research News

 

Ending our dependence on coal is essential for effective climate protection. Nevertheless, efforts to phase out coal trigger anxiety and resistance, particularly in mining regions. The governments of both Canada and Germany have involved various stakeholders to develop recommendations aimed at delivering just transitions and guiding structural change. In a new study, researchers at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) compare the stakeholder commissions convened by the two countries, drawing on expert interviews with their members, and examine how governments use commissions to legitimize their transition policies.

In the study, the researchers identify similarities and differences in the broader contexts of the respective transitions. Coal-fired power generation plays a far more significant role in Germany than in Canada, for example. Nevertheless, there are many similarities; in both Canada and Germany, the coal sector is largely concentrated in rural, economically disadvantaged regions. As a result, concerns about job losses have hampered efforts to phase out coal-fired energy generation sooner rather than later. The federal systems of the two countries are not always conducive to a rapid energy transition: the Canadian provinces and Germany's Länder can put the brakes on national ambitions.

Under these circumstances, coming up with a roadmap for the coal phase-out was no easy task. "The national governments of Canada and Germany attempted to legitimize their respective decisions to phase out coal through the strategic involvement of key stakeholders and potential veto players. This was an attempt to strike a balance between different interests," says lead author Konrad Gürtler. The Canadian government set up a task force with a rather limited mandate that focused on achieving a local just transition for workers and communities. Germany's Coal Commission, on the other hand, had to navigate complex expectations around the timing and pathway for the coal phase-out, its impact on the energy transition, and structural change in the affected regions.

In focus: Climate justice, just transitions, and energy justice

In both cases, the governments pursued their legitimation strategies in a two-stage process, explains Gürtler: "Governments involved stakeholders, who in turn had to respond to the expectations of various societal groups. In the process, negotiations engaged with very different ideas of justice: Climate justice, fair transitions, energy justice." The Canadian task force had a strong focus on affected regions and on identifying and representing the needs of communities; in the case of the German Coal Commission, a wide range of stakeholders - from industry associations and trade unions to scientists and environmental activists - brought their concerns to the table.

In early 2019 the Canadian task force presented the government with recommendations for a plan of action, which the government intends to implement within the framework of its proposed "Just Transition Act". This legislation has not yet been passed, however. In Germany, the Coal Commission negotiated a minimal compromise, which was only partially adopted by the federal government. The implementation of this compromise has since been questioned by former members of the Coal Commission and could be overtaken by new developments, such as the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court on the Climate Protection Act.

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WATER IS LIFE
Water crisis ‘couldn’t be worse’ on Oregon-California border

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The water crisis along the California-Oregon border went from dire to catastrophic this week as federal regulators shut off irrigation water to farmers from a critical reservoir and said they would not send extra water to dying salmon downstream or to a half-dozen wildlife refuges that harbor millions of migrating birds each year.  

© Provided by The Canadian Press

In what is shaping up to be the worst water crisis in generations, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said it will not release water this season into the main canal that feeds the bulk of the massive Klamath Reclamation Project, marking a first for the 114-year-old irrigation system. The agency announced last month that hundreds of irrigators would get dramatically less water than usual, but a worsening drought picture means water will be completely shut off instead.

The entire region is in extreme or exceptional drought, according to federal monitoring reports, and Oregon's Klamath County is experiencing its driest year in 127 years.

“This year’s drought conditions are bringing unprecedented hardship to the communities of the Klamath Basin,” said Reclamation Deputy Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton, calling the decision one of “historic consequence.” “Reclamation is dedicated to working with our water users, tribes and partners to get through this difficult year and developing long-term solutions for the basin.”

The canal, a major component of the federally operated Klamath Reclamation Project, funnels Klamath River water from the Upper Klamath Lake just north of the Oregon-California border to more than 130,000 acres (52,600 hectares), where generations of ranchers and farmers have grown hay, alfalfa and potatoes and grazed cattle.

Only one irrigation district within the 200,000-acre (80,940-hectare) project will receive any water from the Klamath River system this growing season, and it will have a severely limited supply, the Klamath Water Users Association said in a statement. Some other farmers rely on water from a different river, and they will also have a limited supply.

“This just couldn’t be worse,” said Klamath Irrigation District president Ty Kliewer. “The impacts to our family farms and these rural communities will be off the scale.”

At the same time, the agency said it would not release any so-called “flushing flows” from the same dam on the Upper Klamath Lake to bolster water levels downstream in the lower Klamath River. The river is key to the survival of coho salmon, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. In better water years the pulses of water help keep the river cool and turbulent — conditions that help the fragile species. The fish are central to the diet and culture of the Yurok Tribe, California's largest federally recognized tribe.

The tribe said this week that low flows from drought and from previous mismanagement of the river by the federal agency was causing a die-off of juvenile salmon from a disease that flourishes when water levels are low. Yurok fish biologists who have been testing the baby salmon in the lower Klamath River are finding that 70% of the fish are already dead in the traps used to collect them and 97% are infected by the parasite known as C. shasta.

“Right now, the Klamath River is full of dead and dying fish on the Yurok Reservation,” said Frankie Myers, vice chairman of the Yurok Tribe. “This disease will kill most of the baby salmon in the Klamath, which will impact fish runs for many years to come. For salmon people, a juvenile fish kill is an absolute worst-case scenario.”

Irrigators, meanwhile, reacted with disbelief as the news of a water shut-off in the canals spread. A newsletter published by the Klamath Water Users Association, which represents many of the region's farmers, blared the headline, “Worst Day in the History of the Klamath Project.” Farmers reported already seeing dust storms that obscured vision for 100 yards (91 meters), and they worried about their wells running dry.

About 30 protesters showed up Thursday at the head gates of the main dam to protest the shut-off and ask the irrigation district to defy federal orders and divert the water. The Herald and News reported that they were with a group called People’s Rights, a far-right organization founded by anti-government activist Ammon Bundy.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, both Democrats, have declared drought emergencies in the region, and the Bureau of Reclamation has set aside $15 million in immediate aid for irrigators. Another $10 million will be available for drought assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Ben DuVal, president of the Klamath Water Users Association, urged his members to remain peaceful and not let the water crisis “be hijacked for other causes.”

The seasonal allocations are the region's most dramatic development since irrigation water was all but cut off to hundreds of farmers in 2001 amid another severe drought — the first time farmers' interests took a backseat to fish and tribes.

The crisis made the rural farming region hundreds of miles from any major city a national political flashpoint and became a touchstone for Republicans who used the crisis to take aim at the Endangered Species Act, with one GOP lawmaker calling the irrigation shutoff a “poster child” for why changes were needed. A “bucket brigade” protest attracted 15,000 people who scooped water from the Klamath River and passed it, hand over hand, to a parched irrigation canal.

The situation in the Klamath Basin was set in motion more than a century ago, when the U.S. government began draining a network of shallow lakes and marshlands, redirecting the natural flow of water and constructing hundreds of miles of canals and drainage channels to create farmland. Homesteads were offered by lottery to World War II veterans.

The project turned the region into an agricultural powerhouse — some of its potato farmers supply In ’N Out burger — but permanently altered an intricate water system that spans hundreds of miles and from southern Oregon to Northern California.

In 1988, two species of sucker fish were listed as endangered under federal law. Less than a decade later, coho salmon that spawn downstream from the reclamation project, in the lower Klamath River, were listed as threatened.

The water necessary to sustain the coho salmon downstream comes from Upper Klamath Lake — the main holding tank for the farmers’ irrigation system. At the same time, the sucker fish in the lake need at least 1 to 2 feet (30 to 60 centimeters) of water covering the gravel beds they use as spawning grounds.

The drought also means farmers this summer will not flush irrigation water into a network of six national wildlife refuges that are collectively called the Klamath National Wildlife Refuge Complex. The refuges, nicknamed the Everglades of the West, support up to 80% of the birds that migrate on the Pacific Flyway. The refuges also support the largest concentrations of wintering Bald Eagles in the lower 48 states.