Remains of 215 Indigenous children were found at a former residential school in the province of British Columbia this week.

The Kamloops Indian Residential School, founded in 1890, became the largest school in the residential school system with enrollment peaking in the early 1950s at 500 Indigenous children [Library and Archives Canada/Handout via Reuters]

AL JAZEERA 29 May 2021

Indigenous people across Canada are grappling with the discovery of the remains of more than 200 Indigenous children, including some as young as three, at the site of a former residential school in the western province of British Columbia this week.

Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation chief Rosanne Casimir announced (PDF) on Thursday that the remains of 215 children were found on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, saying “an unthinkable loss that was spoken about but never documented” had been confirmed.

KEEP READING

From reservations to residential schools, Canada’s dark past

Canada’s Dark Secret

Canada’s dark history of abuse at residential schools

“To our knowledge, these missing children are undocumented deaths,” Casimir said.

“Some were as young as three years old. We sought out a way to confirm that knowing out of deepest respect and love for those lost children and their families, understanding that Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc is the final resting place of these children.”

The discovery of the mass grave has spurred “a collective pain and trauma” for Indigenous communities across Canada, said Danielle Morrison, an Anishinaabe lawyer. “Currently there [are] fires being lit, pipes are being lit, and ceremonies being held to honour all of those lost lives of those precious children,” she told Al Jazeera.

“This news is a stark reminder of the violence inflicted by the residential school system and the wounds carried by communities, families and Survivors into the present,” the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation at the University of Manitoba also said in a statement.

For more than 100 years, Canadian authorities forcibly separated thousands of Indigenous children from their families and made them attend residential schools, which aimed to sever Indigenous family and cultural ties and assimilate the children into white Canadian society.

The schools, which were run by churches from the 1870s until 1996, were rife with physical, mental and sexual abuse, neglect, and other forms of violence, and they created a cycle of intergenerational trauma for Indigenous people across Canada.

Founded in 1890 and run by the Catholic Church, the Kamloops Indian Residential School eventually became the largest school in Canada’s residential school system, counting 500 children at its enrollment peak in the early 1950s.

“The residential schools were opened with the sole purpose of removing the Indian from the child,” Morrison said. “It was to assimilate Indigenous people in Canada and it’s essentially, in the words of one of the superintendents at the time, to get rid of the ‘Indian problem’.”

During an online commemoration on Saturday, Karen Joseph, CEO of the Reconciliation Canada charity, said the discovery in Kamloops marked the first time a “whispered knowing was made real” and its effect is being felt across the country, especially by residential school survivors.

“Although those children that we are referring to right now went to the Kamloops Indian Residential School, we know that all of those children were not from Kamloops. That was the nature of residential schools, it was to take our children as far away from our homelands,” Joseph said.

“The grief is not localised into that community, and it is a huge burden that they are carrying right now.”

‘Cultural genocide’

In 2015, a national truth and reconciliation commission said the Canadian government had committed “cultural genocide” by forcing more than 150,000 Indigenous children to attend residential schools.

“The question of what happened to their loved ones and where they were laid to rest has haunted families and communities,” the commission said in its report, about the children who never returned home. “Throughout the history of Canada’s residential school system, there was no effort to record across the entire system the number of students who died while attending the schools each year.”

More than 4,100 children died due to disease or in an accident at the schools have been identified to date, the commission said, but efforts continue to identify others.

Derek Fox, deputy grand chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation in Ontario, said on Saturday that the discovery in Kamloops “shows how the legacy of the Residential School system continues to impact the lives of Residential School survivors and the families of those who never returned home”

“Even after all these years there are new tragedies of the Residential School system coming to light,” Fox said in a statement.

The Canadian government formally apologised for the residential school system in 2008, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday that the discovery of the children’s bodies “is a painful reminder of that dark and shameful chapter of our country’s history”.

In an open letter to Trudeau on Saturday, Chief R Stacey Laforme of Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation urged him to lower flags across Canada and declare a national day of mourning for the children.

But observers have pointed out that residential school survivors have been forced to sue Ottawa to seek reparations and accountability for what happened to them.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Last year, CBC News reported the government had spent 3.2 million Canadian dollars ($2.6m) fighting a group of survivors of St Anne’s Indian Residential School, an Ontario residential school rife with abuse, in court over a 10-year period

Others have also pointed out that while the residential schools may be closed, Indigenous children continue to be taken away from their families in disproportionate numbers across Canada.

According to census data, more than 52 percent of children in foster care in 2016 were Indigenous, while Indigenous children made up only 7.7 percent of the country’s total population.

“This is not a historical event,” said Joseph during the online event on Saturday. “This continues today – the loss of our children and the loss of our people for no other reason than the colour of our skin.”

Brazilians stage nationwide protests over Bolsonaro's Covid response

Issued on: 29/05/2021 

A protest against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in Rio de Janeiro, May 29, 2021. © MAURO PIMENTEL / AFP

Text by:NEWS WIRES


Brazilians staged protests against President Jair Bolsonaro's handling ofthe COVID-19 pandemic in at least 16 cities across the countryon Saturday, carrying signs such as "Out with Bolsonaro" and "Impeachment now."

Bolsonaro's popularity has plummeted during the coronavirus crisis, which has killed more than 450,000 Brazilians as the far-right leader played down its severity, dismissed mask wearing and cast doubt on the importance of vaccines.

Organized by leftist political parties, unions and student associations, Saturday's protests in the capital Brasilia and in Rio de Janeiro were peaceful, but in the northeastern city of Recife, police threw tear gas and shot rubber bullets.

Most protesters wore masks and tried to observe social distancing protocols, not always successfully, as they called for faster vaccinations countrywide.

Some protests, like the one in Rio, included images of former leftist president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva wearing the presidential sash.


Earlier in May, Lula met centrist Fernando Henrique Cardoso, also a two-term former president, for lunch in a public show of their common purpose to block Bolsonaro from gaining a second term in next year's presidential election.

Protests were expected in Brazil's largest city, Sao Paulo, later in the day.

(REUTER

Jim Acosta: ‘Herd Stupidity’ As Far Right Wages ‘War Against Science’

Mark Joyella
Senior Contributor FORBES
Media
I cover political media--and media politics



CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta arrives at US District Court in Washington, DC, on November 

CNN’s Jim Acosta noted Saturday that the United States USM -0.3% has hit an important milestone: half of the adult population is now fully vaccinated against Covid-19. “Yes, we are beating the virus,” Acosta said on CNN Newsroom. “But on this Memorial Day weekend, the country is far from healthy.”

“Throughout the pandemic, we’ve suffered from a serious case of herd stupidity,” Acosta said, “as the far right waged a war against science—and in some cases, the scientists like Dr. Anthony Fauci.”

Acosta pointed to two Republicans who have mocked efforts to contain the pandemic’s spread, Rep. Matt Gaetz and, Acosta said, his “partner in slime” Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Greene has drawn intense criticism for her remarks comparing mask-wearing to the holocaust. “You know, we can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany," Greene said. "And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about."

Airing a clip of Greene comparing Democrats to Nazis, Acosta shook his head, saying “it doesn’t make any sense. Shameful.”

==MORE FOR YOU

CNN’s Jim Acosta: ‘This Is Beginning To Look Like A Rebellion’

Mark Joyella is a five-time Emmy Award-winning journalist who worked at television stations in Miami, Orlando, Tampa and New York City. He's also worked in cable news at CNN and Fox. His writing on politics and media has appeared in Adweek, the New York Post, the Orlando Sentinel, and The Dallas Morning News.

THE BREXIT BASE

Anti-immigration protesters bring traffic to a standstill at port of Dover

 Comment

Jordan KingMETRO UKSaturday 29 May 2021 7:37 pm

Some men travelled from other parts of the country to protest against migrants arriving in boats in Dover (Picture: PA)

Anti-migrant protesters brought traffic to a standstill in Dover as they marched down the A20, blocking lorries from the key trade terminal. 

A group of about 50 people, with some travelling from other parts of the country, protested against migrants crossing the English Channel to get into the UK.

The demonstrators used smoke flares and marched along the dual carriageway, forcing lorry drivers to line up and wait for their route to the trade terminal to clear.

Lots of the group, made up mostly of men, shouted ‘English streets’ and carried English flags. 

One protester, reclining on the tarmac in front of police, remarked: ‘If you can’t go abroad, lie in the street in Dover’. 

Kent Police arrested four people – two on suspicion of public order offences and two on suspicion of obstructing a highway. 

At one point, officers were seen pursuing someone through the town and past a busy funfair before he was detained in a shop. 

Most protesters had dispersed by 3.30pm. 

Protesters blocked the dual carriageway as they marched with English flags (Picture: PA)

One man was chased through the town and finally arrested in a shop (Picture: PA)

Kent Police arrested four people at the protest (Picture: PA)

Dover’s Tory MP Natalie Elphicke said: ‘Kent Police have had a challenging year – from the French closing the border to leaving the EU to coronavirus lockdowns and PCSO Julia James’ tragic death. 

‘They deserved a proper bank holiday break this weekend – not being sworn at by loud-mouthed protestors.

‘Time and again we see that the protesters’ day out causes direct damage to someone else’s livelihood, tourism, business and trade. That’s not right or fair.

‘It’s time to stop the small boats crossings but today’s protesters are not welcome in Dover. We don’t want them here. There’s no excuse for their disruption to trade and to our town.’ 

Superintendent Andy Gadd said today’s protests came with ‘minimal disruption to the local community’. 

‘We worked to balance the rights of those taking part in the protest with those living and working in Dover,’ he added. 

Cops were dotted all over Dover as similar protests in the past have seen scenes of violence.

Much like today, last September’s demonstrations brought traffic to a halt and in 2016, people threw bricks and smoke bombs at police. 

Demonstrators blocked the A20 for lorries trying to get to their key trade terminal (Picture: PA)

Some of the men shouted: ‘English streets’ as they marched through Dover (Picture: PA)

Border Force rescued 25 migrants trying to cross the English Channel today (Picture: PA)

Many have been angry over the increasing number of people making the dangerous 21-mile journey across the Channel. 

More than 3,100 people have reached the country’s shores in 2021 – with 25 migrants arriving earlier today. 

Although the UK is home to one of the highest immigrant populations in the world, it hosts very few refugees. 

Because four out of five asylum seekers stay in their regions, 85% of refugees end up in nearby developing countries, according to The UN Refugee Agency. 

Immigration has been at the forefront of the current Government’s agenda, with the Home Secretary promising multiple times to ‘take back control of our borders’.

MY JR HIGH ALMA MATER*
The King Edward elementary parent advisory council has voted unanimously to pursue a new name for the Strathcona-area elementary school.

© Provided by Edmonton Journal The parent advisory council at King Edward School, 8530 101 St., has passed a motion to rename the school.

THIS IS THE FORMER JUNIOR HIGH, ACROSS THE STREET IS THE ORIGINAL SCHOOL BUILT IN 1912

Jesse Enns Power, chairwoman of the council, said in a statement a parent raised concerns at a May meeting regarding the implications of the name and how it reflects a colonial past.

“We believe that the name King Edward reflects a colonial past which is neither relevant to the land the school is on, nor reflective of the diverse heritage of our community,” she said. “We question whether King Edward VII is someone we should look to honour as we teach our children values of inclusion, respect and social justice.”

She said the council has been working with social justice and anti-racist content at council meetings throughout the school year and have been partnering with the Strathcona Community League and a University of Alberta professor to learn more about the history of the area.

“We believe that the process of renaming would present an excellent opportunity for our students and youngest members of our community to learn and reflect on the history of this land and further our actions toward reconciliation,” said Enns Power.

The council brought the idea of renaming the school to their school board trustee, Michael Janz, who held a meeting Thursday evening to discuss the issue further. Many in attendance spoke about the importance of inclusion and having further discussions while others highlighted the continued role the Commonwealth has around the world.

Many of those in attendance said they would support a change to reflect local history.

In an interview, Janz said renaming an Edmonton public school is the sole responsibility of Edmonton Public Schools trustees.

“I’m certainly willing to engage with them and talk with them about that and explore what that process could look like to move ahead,” said Janz. “Until I looked into it, you don’t realize how many things in our community are named after monarchs. I think there are questions from a number of different folks how relevant that is.”

In order for a school to be renamed a trustee would have to put forward a motion to do so. That would be voted on and would need a majority of support to pass. Edmonton Public Schools would then consult with the community to find a new name for the school.

Janz said he has not decided one way or another if he would sponsor a motion but he is open to hearing from the community.

Edmonton Public Schools voted to change the name of Dan Knott school and Oliver School last September based on beliefs held by each namesake while they held public office. Janz said the process of renaming those schools is still ongoing.

DAN KNOTT WAS A SCHOOL TRUSTEE AND THE HEAD OF THE EDMONTON TRADES AND LABOUR COUNCIL AKA EDLC

Meanwhile in Toronto, members of the Queen Victoria Public School have requested a change of name to reflect the community.

* WE ORGANIZED (MY FIRST) STUDENT WALKOUT TO PROTEST THE CANCELLATION OF THE GRADE 9 GRAD

WHO says Covid origin investigation is being 'poisoned by politics'

Rich Mendez 


A top WHO official said Friday that investigations into the origins of Covid-19 are being "poisoned by politics."

The WHO has been repeatedly accused of allowing the Chinese government to avoid a thorough investigation into the origins of Covid-19.

U.S. health officials continue to maintain that the virus likely has zoonotic, or animal, origins.

© Provided by CNBC Executive Director of the World Health Organization's (WHO) emergencies program Mike Ryan speaks at a news conference on the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Geneva, Switzerland.

A top World Health Organization official said Friday that investigations into the origins of Covid-19 are being "poisoned by politics."

U.S. President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he's ordered intelligence agencies to conduct "a report on their most up-to-date analysis of the origins of Covid-19, including whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident."

The WHO has come under increasing pressure in recent days from U.S. and European officials to take another look at whether the coronavirus could have escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, after a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report came to light, revealing that three researchers sought hospital care after falling ill with Covid-like symptoms in November 2019.

Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's Health Emergencies Program, asked if countries could separate the politics from the science.

"Putting WHO in a position like it has been put in is very unfair to the science we're trying to carry out, and it puts us as an organization, frankly, in an impossible position to deliver the answers that the world wants," Ryan said at a news briefing.

The WHO has been repeatedly accused of allowing the Chinese government to avoid a thorough investigation into the origins of Covid-19, which was first discovered in Wuhan in late 2019. At a Senate hearing earlier this week Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., pressed White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci on the WHO's close ties to China.

"Can we agree that if you took (Chinese) President Xi Jinping and turned him upside down and shook him, the World Health Organization would fall out of his pocket?" Fauci responded by saying that he has no way of knowing China's influence on the agency.

The hypothesis that Covid-19 came from a Wuhan virology lab was initially dismissed as a right-wing conspiracy theory, but it's been gaining traction in recent weeks.

The majority of the intelligence community believes that it is equally plausible that the virus originated in a lab and in an animal. Federal health officials continue to maintain their position that it is more likely that the virus has zoonotic origins. The CDC's website still states "we know that it originally came from an animal, likely a bat."

WHO chief concedes 'slow' response to Congo sex abuse claims


LONDON (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization acknowledged the U.N. health agency's response to sexual abuse allegations involving employees who worked in Congo during an Ebola outbreak was “slow,” following an Associated Press investigation that found senior WHO management knew of multiple cases of misconduct

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

As the WHO’s highest decision-making body meets this week, countries were tackling subjects like how to reform the U.N. health agency's emergencies program after its missteps in responding to the coronavirus pandemic. At its week-long meeting of countries, the WHO held a roundtable talk on preventing sexual abuse on Friday.

“In many ways, we're all to blame for what happens in these situations,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, the WHO's emergencies chief.

Diplomats have already pressed WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on the issue behind closed-doors. At least six countries raised concerns last week about how the agency was handling sexual abuse and exploitation, citing recent press reports. Tedros tried to allay their worries.

“I can understand the frustration,” he told a committee meeting of the WHO’s Executive Board on May 19. According to a recording of the meeting obtained by the AP, the director-general said it took time to deal with security problems in Congo, to install a commission to investigate sex abuse claims and to get the group up and running.

“The way this thing was run until now, although it was slow ... I hope it will satisfy,” Tedros said.

The WHO's press office declined to comment on Tedros’ description of a slow response but said the commission was "committed to conducting a comprehensive investigation into all recent allegations, including those relating to management actions.” The group's co-chairs were asked to sign a confidentiality agreement with the WHO.

The panel commissioned by the WHO does not include any law enforcement agencies to investigate if any of the reported sexual exploitation was criminal and its reports will be submitted only to the WHO.

Tedros created the panel in October, after news reports surfaced about sex abuse during the WHO’s efforts to contain the Ebola epidemic in Congo from 2018 to 2020. At the time, Tedros said he was “outraged” and would move quickly to punish those responsible.

But more than seven months later, the panel has yet to publicly release any details about its work or findings. The commission began its work in Congo on May 3 and expects to publish a report at the end of August, the group said.

Many countries said they expected more action, alluding to the AP’s recent story. Nearly 50 countries issued a joint statement Friday expressing their “deep concerns” about the WHO's handling of sexual abuse.

“We expressed alarm at the suggestions in the media that WHO management knew of reported cases of sexual exploitation and abuse, and sexual harassment and had failed to report them, as required by U.N. and WHO protocol, as well as at allegations that WHO staff acted to suppress the cases,” the joint statement said.

The United States, addressing the assembly Friday, urged other countries to hold the WHO accountable for its management of sex abuse claims; Canada, Australia, Britain, New Zealand and Mexico were among the countries that signed the statement.

Simon Manley, Britain's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, called for the WHO to reconsider issues including whether the U.N.'s internal oversight office should be involved in probing sex abuse claims and to clearly explain what the process would be for sharing its investigation results with member countries. Manley said earlier reports “lacked detail” and should have been shared earlier.

“We must from now on see much more transparency from the WHO,” he said.

An AP investigation published earlier this month found members of the WHO's senior management were told of sexual abuse concerns in 2019 involving at least two doctors employed by the agency during the Ebola epidemic in Congo.

The AP obtained a notarized contract showing two WHO staff members signed off on an agreement by Dr. Jean-Paul Ngandu to pay off a young woman he reportedly impregnated. Another doctor, Boubacar Diallo, bragged of his relationship with WHO chief Tedros and offered women jobs in exchange for sex, three women told the AP.

Even some WHO staffers appear unsatisfied at how the agency has handled the claims.

“We cannot afford to ignore signs of repeated, systemic failure of our Organization to prevent such alleged behaviors and to address them in a just and timely manner,” the WHO staff committee wrote in an email to staff and senior management last week. The committee urged WHO directors to take immediate action over the allegations, including reports that “senior management may have suppressed concerns.”

Some countries told the WHO’s top leadership during last week’s closed meetings they expected more details quickly.

“Now that WHO is considered a beacon to help us find our way out of this pandemic, it is so disheartening to learn about allegations of structural mishandling of cases of misconduct,” a representative of the Dutch government said, according to a meeting recording. “Reading the (press) articles made us doubt whether the many statements and discussions we have had (at the WHO about sex abuse) have been truly heard.”

The representative from the Netherlands called for more transparency to address “the gap in trust that is starting to emerge in this area.”

Dr. Catherine Boehme, Tedros’ Cabinet chief, responded that “some issues are still a work in progress.” She said WHO officials would soon meet with the commission investigating the Congo sex abuse allegations to discuss “the investigation around failure to report or active suppression, including the allegation of a cover-up.”

“We know there are weaknesses in the system, whether it’s the WHO or the U.N. system,” added Dr. Ibrahima Soce Fall, the WHO's assistant director-general for emergency response.

Some experts said the WHO’s failure to quickly punish those involved in sexual misconduct was disappointing, but not surprising.

“Aid organizations are operating in an accountability vacuum, in contexts where law and order has broken down and where there are no external systems able to hold them to account,” said Asmita Naik, an international human rights consultant who co-authored a report on sexual exploitation involving U.N. personnel.

“Things will not change until those who perpetrate abuse or turn a blind eye are disciplined and conversely, those who speak up are rewarded,” Naik said.

___

Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

Maria Cheng, The Associated Press

NASA releases stunning new pic of Milky Way's 'downtown'




CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA has released a stunning new picture of our galaxy’s violent, super-energized “downtown.”

It's a composite of 370 observations over the past two decades by the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, depicting billions of stars and countless black holes in the center, or heart, of the Milky Way. A radio telescope in South Africa also contributed to the image, for contrast.

Astronomer Daniel Wang of the University of Massachusetts Amherst said Friday he spent a year working on this while stuck at home during the pandemic.

“What we see in the picture is a violent or energetic ecosystem in our galaxy’s downtown,” Wang said in an email. “There are a lot of supernova remnants, black holes, and neutron stars there. Each X-ray dot or feature represents an energetic source, most of which are in the center.”

This busy, high-energy galactic center is 26,000 light years away.

His work appears in the June issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Launched in 1999, Chandra is in an extreme oval orbit around Earth.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press

Mexican wrestling fans celebrate return of 'lucha libre'
AFP

The raucous sounds of roaring applause, lighthearted laughter and derisive whistles are again resounding through the cavernous Arena Mexico in the country's capital, a temple of the colorful "lucha libre" wrestling, as the receding threat of Covid-19 has allowed a return to something closer to normal.

© CLAUDIO CRUZ A masked wrestler is seen in action during an event at the Arena Mexico in Mexico City on May 28, 2021

© CLAUDIO CRUZ Wrestlers fight during an event in Mexico City's Arena Mexico on May 28, 2021 as an improved Covid situation has allowed the return of pro wrestling

Though the stands in the arena in the heart of Mexico City are far from full owing to Covid restrictions, the deafening echo of the voices of hundreds of enthusiastic fans, along with the grunts, taunts and shouts of the wrestlers, seem to make up for the empty seats.

© CLAUDIO CRUZ A seller arranges wrestling masks for sale outside the Arena Mexico in Mexico City; the return of pro wrestling has been a boon for nearby businesses

Ivan Martinez, a 47-year-old doctor, admitted to feeling "quite emotional." With his family, he had traveled the 1,700 miles (2,800 kilometers) from his native Tijuana, in the northwest, to see the return of pro wrestling.

"It gives me great joy to return to an arena, to the wrestlers I've loved and enjoyed since I was a child -- a love I've passed on to my own children," he said.

- Colorful masks, scowling faces -

In the ring, the colorfully garbed gladiators do their thing. Some of the hulking athletes wear the stern-looking masks that have made Mexican wrestling famous, while others, in dazzlingly colorful outfits, choose to bare their scowling faces.

Each leap, punch or hold culminates with a body being slammed to the canvas mat, producing gasps and thunderous applause from appreciative fans. But it is all more circus than true combat.

The return of professional wrestling has been a boon to businesses in the neighborhood, boosting sales of everything from masks and dolls of the more famous wrestlers, to food and drink.

"Many people depend on the wrestling," said Samia Garcia, a 40-year-old pharmaceutical biologist who was heading in to the show. "So I'm glad they are starting to open."

The city government has authorized the arena to sell only 500 tickets -- barely 3 percent of its normal capacity of 16,500. Everyone has to wear masks and maintain social distance.

Still, the sense of joy is almost palpable.

"I've loved wrestling since I was little," said Ramses Salas, a 26-year-old mask seller. "I used to run around in here when I was a child... and now I'm more than happy to come back."

All this has been made possible by a sharp improvement in Mexico's Covid situation.

With 759 people currently hospitalized with the coronavirus, the hospitals of Mexico City are currently at 9 percent of capacity -- down dramatically from 90 percent in January, and the lowest level since April 2020.

Mexico, with 126 million inhabitants, has registered 2.4 million confirmed cases and 223,072 deaths, making it the fourth hardest-hit country in the world in absolute numbers.

Experts say the steady decline in coronavirus cases and rising levels of immunity from vaccination or infection suggest that the worst of the pandemic may be over for Mexico.

Wrestling fans hope it won't be long before they can fill all the seats in the arena.

jla/yo/bbk/acb

The brazen arrest of a Belarusian activist has terrified dissidents all over the world

Analysis by Luke McGee, CNN , MAY 29, 2021


The chilling story of a Belarusian dissident being plucked from the sky while traveling on a passenger jet over the country's airspace sent a message to other opponents of President Alexander Lukashenko: you're not safe anywhere

© Sergei Grits/AP Belarus police detain journalist Roman Protasevich in Minsk, Belarus, Sunday, March 26, 2017. Dozens protestors were detained during attempt to rally in downtown Minsk. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Roman Protasevich was arrested in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, after Ryanair flight 4978 was diverted to land in the country following a "security alert." He is charged with "organizing mass riots and group actions that grossly violate public order," from outside the country, via his Telegram channel.

He has confessed to the charges in a video which his supporters believe was made under duress.

Life has been difficult for Belarusian dissidents since last year's elections, in which Lukashenko, often described as Europe's last dictator, claimed to have won over 80% of the vote.

In the weeks that followed, mass protests took place across the country with many believing that the poll was rigged. Three of the women who stood in opposition to Lukashenko disappeared from sight or fled the country in fear for their lives after the election.

"No one can feel safe in Europe," Franak Viacorka, an adviser to Svetlana Tikhanovksya, one of those opposition figures, told CNN earlier this week, speaking about the wider repercussions of Belarus's forced downing of the Ryanair plane for the entire continent.

Speaking from exile in Lithuania, Viacorka said in a subsequent interview that even in Vilnius, he had received death threats and made to feel unsafe. "There are no limits for this regime. I have a special application which sends a signal to my friends and family if something happens to me."

While skyjacking is in itself a very unusual act, this kind of transnational repression is increasingly common in a world where authoritarians are less afraid of consequences.

"What's more common is states using the institutions of other states in order to get to people," says Nate Schenkkan, co-author of Freedom House's report, Out of Sight, Not Out of Reach: Understanding Transnational Repression. "Authoritarian states might label someone a terrorist at home then recruit local law officials to have them detained and deported," he explains.

Schenkkan points to the case of Roohollah Zam, an Iranian activist who was lured from France to Iraq where he was subsequently kidnapped, taken to Iran and executed. "This case is important to note as he was also operating a Telegram channel which allowed him to have an influential voice while overseas. The regime didn't like that."

The report also highlights the case of Paul Rusesabagina, a high-profile critic of Rwandan president Paul Kagame. Rusesabagina's family believes he was kidnapped from Dubai in August 2020.

Schenkkan's report explains that Rwanda's government claimed they had "achieved his return through 'an international arrest warrant,' only for the authorities in the United Arab Emirates to deny that they had cooperated in the return." This was claimed, the report says, to add some legitimacy to the abduction.

© Christoph Soeder/AP "Freedom for Raman Pratasevich" (Protasevich) is written on a protest wagon in front of the Embassy of Belarus in Berlin, Germany, Monday, May 24, 2021.

Freedom House found that transnational repression is becoming a normal phenomenon, noting that many governments were using the same methods to attack their critics abroad. Those methods ranged from outright detention to online intimidation. Alarmingly, it concludes that the "consequences for transnational repression are currently insufficient to deter further abuse."

These trends of copycat repression and insufficient consequences have not gone unnoticed by dissidents elsewhere. And for many, the case in Belarus has stoked further fears.

"With China and Russia arduously promoting authoritarianism, leaders have more confidence in committing human rights violations," says Nathan Law, a Hong Kong human rights activist exiled in London. "I may now need to not only avoid going to countries where China has good relationships, but also taking planes flying over their territory," he said, following the detention of Protasevich in Belarus.

© CNN Roman Protasevich appeared in a video from a Minsk detention center.

Law is one of the six activists in exile that Hong Kong police have issued an arrest warrant for under its controversial national security law, which claims worldwide jurisdiction and allows for extradition to the Chinese mainland.

Why are the consequences so insufficient for egregious offenders? Tatyana Margolin, Eurasia director at Open Society Foundations, thinks it's a cocktail of a rise in global authoritarianism and a growing indifference to those leaders from citizens of democratic nations.

"We can safely say that the authoritarian tide has moved across the world, including in the US under Trump's presidency," Margolin says, pointing to Donald Trump's perceived love of strongmen in countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia.

"Citizens in the West are less bothered about the plight of migrants now, so are less compelled to have sympathy for people seeking refuge. This has led to immigration policies that make attaining refugee status harder and people easier to target," she adds.

Trump's friends in Russia and Saudi Arabia have been guilty of some of the worst examples of transnational repression in recent years.

The brazen behavior of the two Russian operatives believed to be behind the 2018 attempted murder of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English town of Salisbury is a good indication of how much Moscow cares about the consequences of these actions. The pair gave an almost mocking interview to Russian state TV shortly after being identified as suspects in the nerve agent poisonings, making light-hearted claims about being cathedral enthusiasts who were only in the UK to visit the historic town. The mountain of evidence against them suggests otherwise.

Multiple Western nations, including the US, imposed sanctions on Russian companies and individuals, and expelled Russian diplomats in the wake of the Salisbury attack, though it's unclear if these actions have cowed Moscow.

"I don't think the words safety or security apply to anyone who is opposition in Russia," says Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition politician who has been poisoned twice in Moscow in five years, told CNN last year.

© ALEXEI DRUZHININ/Sputnik/AFP/Getty Images Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) shakes hands with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko during their meeting in Sochi on February 22, 2021.

Vladimir Ashurkov, another opposition figure, says that the "situation with Roman Protasevich is probably every dissident's nightmare." Speaking from London, he adds that he has "no doubt that Russian security services are capable of conducting assassinations," and expresses concern that Lukashenko "raised it to a new level with the usage of a hoax bomb" -- a concern of many who fear that what one authoritarian leader gets away with, others emulate.

© YASIN AKGUL/AFP/AFP via Getty Images A demonstrator holds a poster picturing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and a candle during a gathering outside the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul, on October 25, 2018.

The most reported incident in recent years was probably the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey in 2018. Numerous reports have pointed the finger at the inner circle of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but no real action has been taken against Riyadh's most powerful man.

Then-president Trump was criticized for ignoring CIA findings that bin Salman personally directed the murder.

Ali Al-Ahmed, a high-profile dissident based in Washington DC, says that he avoids traveling for fear of being "taken or killed." "It happened to Jamal and it could happen to me," he says, adding that traveling to other Arab countries is not an option because he fears being "captured and sold" back to the Saudi government.

Al-Ahmed also explains that even with the security that should come with living in the US, he is still subjected to intimidation online. "People accuse me of being a terrorist, presumably to make Americans nervous of me and to build a case for having me arrested and extradited."

Despite authorities in the US knowing the kind of misery Al-Ahmed lives with, he says "we have to be realistic." He says that even countries like the US and UK, which bill themselves as human rights defenders, have to have a "pragmatic" relationship with Saudi Arabia.

"If they gain something from placing sanctions on MBS, they will. If they need to maintain a relationship, they will make a load of noise but will put sanctions on lesser figures," he adds.

What can be done to make Western governments care and act? For now, very little. The trend towards more inward-looking societies has existed for some time -- and the coronavirus pandemic has done nothing to help.

"We are moving towards a state-centric world view which has resulted in migration policies that are more interested in national security than refugees," explains Schenkkan.

This insular, nationalist thinking means it's harder to make people care about things that happen to other people. Margolin believes that the Belarus arrest will be old news very soon.

"There is outrage across the world, but how long will it last? It will be replaced by another story and things in Belarus will go back to normal. The international community must stand with the people of Belarus and ensure that doesn't happen," she says.

The dire situation facing political dissidents living in exile is unlikely to improve soon. Until Western leaders make meaningful stands against countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and many others, the benefits of capturing a political opponent for domestic reasons will outweigh the risk.

And, unfortunately for the people this most affects, that won't happen while so many of the world's largest democracies place human rights below economic or strategic interests with some of the most oppressive regimes on earth.