Monday, June 07, 2021

Alberta NDP's Notley promises to make Alberta green energy powerhouse

EDMONTON — Alberta Opposition Leader Rachel Notley says if elected in 2023, her NDP will work to make the province a powerhouse in renewable energy.
© Provided by The Canadian Press

Notley says that includes moving Alberta’s electricity grid to net-zero emissions by the year 2035.

She says an NDP government will also develop geothermal energy, hydrogen fuel and manufacturing of carbon fibre from bitumen.

Notley made the comments in a speech at the Alberta NDP 2021 convention, held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The party, led by Notley, won the 2015 election but lost to the United Conservatives in 2019, and is looking to win back government two years from now.

Notley says Premier Jason Kenney has failed on all fronts to confront the pandemic by introducing half measures that have failed to keep people safe from COVID-19.

And she says photos this week of Kenney and his inner circle appearing to violate health rules while dining on the patio roof of a building near the legislature grounds show Kenney is in it for himself.

“He’s no leader,” said Notley Sunday in the online speech.

“Those photos (are) showing the premier and his most senior ministers huddled around a table, on top of his private Sky Palace patio, not a care in the world. No masks, no distancing, no rules. Just whiskey, waiters, and white linen tablecloths.

“They reveal the real Jason Kenney: a man who refuses to let his own rules prevent him from living his best life – a life that you and I can’t have yet.”


Kenney has insisted the dinner was within public health rules because it was under the 10-person limit on outdoor social gatherings. But he has not addressed apparent violations of masking and distancing rules.

Two of his United Conservative backbench members and two cabinet ministers have criticized the event for breaking health rules.

Notley also received 98.2 per cent approval from NDP members in the party's leadership review.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 6, 2021.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press


Rural councillors say Kenney needs to start listening to Albertans

Michelle Bellefontaine

CBC JUNE 5,2021

© Facebook Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley campaigned with Cam Gardner (far right) when Gardner ran for the NDP in Livingstone-McLeod in the 2019 provincial election.

Rural Alberta politicians say the Premier Jason Kenney and his governing United Conservative Party need to start listening to and caring about the issues faced by ordinary Albertans.

"Listen. Listen to what people have to say," said Bill Tonita, a councillor with Strathona County council. "We are at a time right now where it doesn't seem to matter what the issue is, our government is not listening."

Tonita, Gabrielle Blatz-Morgan, councillor with the city of Wetaskiwin, Cam Gardner, councillor with the Municipal District of Ranchlands, and Karen Shaw, councillor with Sturgeon County, participated in a panel discussion Saturday at the 2021 Alberta NDP virtual convention.

Lethbridge-West MLA Shannon Phillips asked the councillors what their constituents would tell Kenney if they could talk to him face to face.

"They would say start doing the right thing for Alberta rather than for your party," Shaw said.

Blatz-Morgan said Kenney needs to take care of issues like the access to physicians and the new curriculum without turning them into political issues.

"I would definitely tell him it's time to start caring about the people that you serve," she said.

The Alberta NDP has started focusing on rural areas to get ready for the next provincial vote in 2023. Party organizers are setting up new constituency associations and reactivating old ones that have gone dormant.

They are also reaching out to people with progressive views, and hosting Zoom calls to discuss issues like physician shortages, a lack of high-speed internet, and coal mining in the Rocky Mountains.

The party lost all of its rural seats to the UCP in the 2019 election. But the NDP now sees an opportunity now that recent polls suggest both Kenney and the UCP have plunged in popularity.

Gardner, who ran as an NDP candidate in 2019, said the way to get elected in rural Alberta is look to for common ground in the issues most people are concerned about.

"Everyone wants doctors," Gardner said. "Everyone wants a curriculum that says that the earth is round, it actually circles the sun and that fossils aren't here to trick us."

Gardner said people in rural areas no longer trust Kenney and his government. Shaw suggested authenticity is also an issue.

"Putting on a plaid shirt does not make you rural," she s
aid.


Double donations

The 2021 convention is the first for the NDP since it was forced out of government two years ago.

The NDP usually holds conventions every two years but last year's event was cancelled due to COVID-19.

The party has been on an upswing in the past year. In addition to rosy polling numbers, the NDP out-raised the governing party by about $15,000 in 2020, and more than doubled the UCP's donation totals in the first quarter of 2021.


Provincial secretary Brandon Stevens told the convention that the NDP attracted 12,000 new donors last year.

On Sunday, the delegates will hear a speech from party leader Rachel Notley, as well as vote on her leadership.

Notley received 97.8 per cent support from delegates in her last review at the 2016 NDP convention.


Sunday, June 06, 2021


Pressure mounts on UNC in Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure dispute

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — The pressure on trustees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to grant tenure to investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones continued to mount Friday as a major funding partner joined the call to change her status and a sought-after chemistry professor decided not to join the faculty over the dispute.

In addition, The Baltimore Sun published an editorial in which it drew a parallel between Hannah-Jones and the Tulsa race massacre of 1921, describing it in a headline as “the whitewashing of American history,” a reference to The 1619 Project led by Hannah-Jones. Some believe conservative criticism of this project is at the heart of the decision by the UNC Board of Trustees to deny her tenure at the school of journalism and media.

Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her work on The 1619 Project for the New York Times Magazine, accepted a five-year contract to join the journalism school’s faculty as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism. A trustee who vets submissions for tenure postponed consideration of Hannah-Jones’ application in January because of questions about her non-academic background, the head of the board of trustees said last month.

The school said little about why tenure wasn't offered, but then a prominent donor revealed that he had emailed university leaders challenging her work as “highly contentious and highly controversial” before the process was halted.

The foundation that endows the Knight chair encouraged the trustees to reconsider. Last week, Hannah-Jones issued a statement saying she had retained attorneys from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund as she considers legal action against the school. Dozens of members of the journalism school’s faculty have demanded an explanation.

Student leaders have joined faculty in demanding that trustees reconsider her tenure. A letter signed by professional athletes, writers and academics also assailed the university, saying the trustees “failed to uphold the first order values of academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas.”

A two-page ad appearing in The News & Observer of Raleigh last month featured 1,619 alumni and students at UNC-Chapel Hill who offered their support of Hannah-Jones and called on the school to grant the tenure request.

Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, asked in a letter to Board of Trustees Chairman Richard Stevens for assurances that Hannah-Jones “is being treated fairly and equitably in decisions regarding her appointment.” The letter was first reported by NC Policy Watch.

Besser cited what he called growing evidence showing the role that structural racism and discrimination play in health disparities for people of color in the U.S. It is in that context, he wrote, that he asked for reconsideration of tenure for Hannah-Jones.

“To honor our commitment to ethical conduct and practices, we ask that the UNC Board help us understand the steps it is taking to ensure that Ms. Hannah-Jones is treated fairly and equitably in decisions regarding her appointment,” Besser wrote.

While not directly addressing the tenure situation, university spokeswoman Joanne Peters Denny said in a statement that the school shares the foundation's commitment to addressing health and racial inequity, and considers the foundation's investment “critical to our ongoing work to solve the greatest public health challenges of our time.”

The chemistry department at UNC also revealed this week that Lisa Jones, an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, withdrew her candidacy to come to Chapel Hill, citing the trustees' decision on Hannah-Jones.

“Hearing of the delay of Nikole Hannah-Jones’ tenure decision led me to reconsider whether the environment at the University of North Carolina would be conducive to the achievement of my academic aspirations, which include promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Jones said in a statement Thursday. “While I have never met Ms. Hannah-Jones, as a faculty member of color, I stand in solidarity with her and could not in good conscience accept a position at UNC.”

Hannah-Jones responded to Jones' decision on Twitter, saying that “the solidarity shown me by Black women in particular during this crucible is something I will never forget.”

The school declined to comment on Jones' decision specifically, saying in a response that UNC is "committed to creating and sustaining an inclusive community of students, faculty and staff. We are dedicated to building a diverse learning environment with the highest caliber faculty and we remain committed to that mission.”

In an editorial Friday, the Sun pointed to the country's history of racism and how some people are made uncomfortable by it while others want to act as if it doesn't exist, a reference to The 1619 Project.

“There’s no guarantee that there will be a new vote on Ms. Hannah-Jones tenure, and it’s unclear when the board may take up the issue. ... But the public pressure has made it clear that history and truth still matter to many in this country,” the editorial said.

Tom Foreman Jr., The Associated Press

THE SONICS Legendary Tacoma Band 1964 1967 Full Album

BLUES MAGOOS PSYCHEDALIC LOLLIPOP 1966

 

US intel report on UFOs: No evidence of aliens, but ...


Video: U.S. intel report on UFOs inconclusive (NBC News)
Duration 1:09


WASHINGTON (AP) — Whatever or whoever they are, they’re still out there. U.S. intelligence is after them, but its upcoming report won't deliver any full or final truth about UFOs.
© Provided by The Canadian Press

The tantalizing prospect of top government intel finally weighing in — after decades of conspiracy theories, TV shows, movies and winking jokes by presidents — will instead yield a more mundane reality that’s not likely to change many minds on any side of the issue.

Investigators have found no evidence the sightings are linked to aliens — but can’t deny a link either. Two officials briefed on the report due to Congress later this month say the U.S. government cannot give a definitive explanation of aerial phenomena spotted by military pilots.

The report also doesn’t rule out that what pilots have seen may be new technologies developed by other countries. One of the officials said there is no indication the unexplained phenomena are from secret U.S. programs.

The officials were not authorized to discuss the information publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Findings of the report were first published by The New York Times.

The report examines multiple unexplained sightings from recent years that in some cases have been captured on video of pilots exclaiming about objects flying in front of them.

Congress in December required the Director of National Intelligence to summarize and report on the U.S. government’s knowledge of unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs — better known to the public as unidentified flying objects or UFOs. The effort has included a Defense Department UAP task force established last year. The expected public release of an unclassified version of the report this month will amount to a status report, not the final word, according to one official.

A Pentagon spokeswoman, Sue Gough, declined Friday to comment on news stories about the intelligence report. She said the Pentagon's UAP task force is “actively working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on the report, and DNI will provide the findings to Congress.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, when asked about the report, said of the question at first, “It’s always a little wacky on Fridays.” But she added, “I will say that we take reports of incursions into our airspace by any aircraft — identified or unidentified — very seriously and investigate each one.”

The Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency have for decades looked into reports of aircraft or other objects in the sky flying at inexplicable speeds or trajectories.

The U.S. government takes unidentified aerial phenomena seriously given the potential national security risk of an adversary flying novel technology over a military base or another sensitive site, or the prospect of a Russian or Chinese development exceeding current U.S. capabilities. This also is seen by the U.S. military as a security and safety issue, given that in many cases the pilots who reported seeing unexplained aerial phenomena were conducting combat training flights.

The report's lack of firm conclusions will likely disappoint people anticipating the report, given many Americans' long-standing fascination with UFOs and the prospect of aliens having reached humankind. A recent story on CBS' “60 Minutes" further bolstered interest in the government report.

Luis Elizondo, former head of the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, said the one official's claim that there was no indicated link to secret U.S. programs would be significant. But he called on the government to be fully transparent.

"I think that our tax dollars paid for information and data involving UFOs," Elizondo said. “And I think it is the U.S. government’s obligation to provide those results to the American people.”

But skeptics caution that the videos and reported sightings have plausible Earth-bound explanations. Mick West, an author, investigator and longtime skeptic of UFO sightings, said he supported the military looking into any possible incursion of U.S. airspace, especially by an adversary.

“People are conflating this issue with the idea that these UFOs demonstrate amazing physics and possibly even aliens,” West said. “The idea that this is some kind of secret warp drive or it’s defying physics as we know it, there really isn’t any good evidence for that.”

The Pentagon last year announced a task force to investigate the issue, and the Navy in recent years created a protocol for its pilots to report any possible sightings. And lawmakers in recent years have pushed for more public disclosure.

“There’s a stigma on Capitol Hill,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told “60 Minutes” in May. “I mean, some of my colleagues are very interested in this topic and some kind of, you know, giggle when you bring it up. But I don’t think we can allow the stigma to keep us from having an answer to a very fundamental question.”

Nomaan Merchant And Robert Burns, The Associated Press
CANADA 
IN THE NATIONS CAPITOL CITY
Resumption of evictions during COVID-19 risks worsening of homelessness, affordable housing crisis

Bruce Deachman 
OTTAWA CITIZEN
JUNE 5,2021
© Provided by Ottawa Citizen Dustin Munro is one of the residents of 249 and 253 Des Peres Blancs that have received eviction notices.

The lifting of Ontario’s temporary pause on residential evictions this week could create a “devastating” housing crisis in Ottawa by tossing thousands of residents from their homes, Somerset Ward Coun. Catherine McKenney says.

“If you think about the people who simply fell behind (on paying their rent), they can catch up and find a way to work with their landlord. But, if you haven’t been able to pay anything because you’ve lost your job and have no income — let’s say it’s about three per cent, or 3,000 households that can pay nothing — that’s 3,000 households that we could find unhoused in Ottawa if they were all evicted.

“That would be devastating for the city, and there’s nothing we could do; we could not absorb that number of households.”
© Errol McGihon Catherine McKenney, the Ottawa city councillor for Somerset ward.

McKenney, who is council liaison for housing and homelessness and sits on the board of directors of Ottawa Community Housing, says the eviction moratorium gave some stability to people who lost their jobs or faced other financial hardships because of the pandemic and allowed them time to recover without worrying about homelessness. During the pandemic’s second wave, she says, the city estimated that between three and six per cent of roughly 108,000 renter households in Ottawa were either behind on rent or hadn’t been able to pay any rent at all.

The issue, McKenney adds, is typically less dire with landlords who have only a few tenants and tend to develop closer relationships with them. Far more problematic are companies with thousands of units and little or no connection with renters.

“They’re the ones trotting off to Landlord and Tenant Board to get people evicted, when in fact there’s nowhere for (tenants) to go.”

Ontario announced in January a suspension of most residential evictions while the province remained under a state of emergency and a stay-at-home order. But on Tuesday this past week, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing confirmed that the temporary measure would expire along with Ontario’s stay-at-home order and that evictions would resume.

During the time that evictions were suspended, however, Landlord and Tenant Board’s hearings into applications continued so the resolution of disputes wouldn’t be delayed. And, according to Ottawa-Centre NDP MPP Joel Harden, residential evictions didn’t entirely cease. Those that were already “in the pipeline,” he said, continued.

“The government has to understand, inasmuch as they may be getting complaints from big landlords who are frustrated that evictions aren’t happening fast enough, now is not the time to be throwing people out on the street,” Harden said.

“You can’t get blood from a stone. What are people to do when so many people have been thrown out of work and the CERB benefits have ended, and folks on income security programs like OBSP or OW … Those are woefully inadequate to pay for the increased costs of living.

“This government,” he added, “hasn’t done anything at all, beyond episodic eviction relief, for tenants.”

On Thursday, Bill 276: Supporting Recovery and Competitiveness Act, 2021, was passed at Queen’s Park. A section of the bill, which now requires only royal assent to become law, prohibits anyone from photographing or recording a hearing, including a Landlord Tenant Board hearing, or disseminating recordings. Offenders facing fines of up to $25,000
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Joel Harden, NDP MPP for the Ottawa Centre riding.

“Sometimes,” Harden said, “these sittings happen in between two-and-a-half to five minutes. Sometimes there are language barriers or issues with respect to people’s access to the internet, so many tenant advocates and tenant unions have sat in on and recorded these proceedings when, in their opinion, there’s been a very unfair procedure, and then released that on social media. But the government has instituted a bill to prevent that, and I think this shows, sadly, who the Ford government cares about in this pandemic.

“Recording a legal proceeding should not be understood as a criminal or unsavoury act,” Harden added, “but the Ford government is treating it as such, and I think it’s because the corporate landlords in Ontario are frustrated.”

William Blake of the Ontario Landlords Association agrees that tenant evictions are largely being driven by big corporate landlords. The OLA, he said, represents “tens of thousands” of small and medium-size landlords that he estimates constitute about 80 per cent of Ontario’s residential rental market.

“You’re going to have some people saying it’s great to end the moratorium,” Blake said, “but, among our members, there’s no happiness in evicting someone.”

Blake notes, however, that many smaller landlords who rely on rental income for their survival have no choice.

“Most are working-class landlords renting to working-class tenants, and we all have relatives who are renting as well. The vast majority of out members don’t want to evict somebody. However, just to get a hearing if someone decides not to pay rent can take over six months.

“It’s a terrible situation for both the tenants and landlords.”

Rather than ratcheting confrontation between the two sides, Blake says the OLA has been lobbying the province for more than a year for the sort of system being used in British Columbia, where low- and medium-income tenants can receive $500 per month, sent directly to their landlords.

“The B.C. government said airlines get bailouts, everybody gets bailouts, so let’s try to help landlords and tenants. It was a really good solution and it helped a lot of people.”

Blake said the OLA met with Premier Doug Ford and Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark to pitch the idea, but to no avail.

“Unfortunately, the Ford government didn’t come in and play the role they should have to help both sides. They have simply failed to do it, and it’s a total failure of policy. These evictions are not the solution.”

One Ottawa tenant who is greatly concerned about these recent developments is Dustin Munro, one of a dozen renters in a pair of Vanier apartment buildings who in late March received letters from a potential buyer of the building, threatening eviction if they didn’t agree to move. The letter, Munro said, cites pending renovations, or possibly demolition, as the reason behind the demand.

But the 53-year-old Munro, an ODSP recipient and seasonal street-sweeper on Sparks Street who lost his job because of the COVID-19 pandemic, worries he won’t be able to move back or be able to find a similar affordable apartment — he currently pays about $660 for his bachelor apartment — when the dust settles.

Furthermore, he wonders how he was supposed to look for a new apartment while respecting the stay-at-home order. “Why is it that I can’t even go buy a pair of running shoes, but these guys who want to buy the property don’t seem to have to obey the rules? But they put us at risk by making us go look at new apartments.”

Munro sent emails to the three provincial parties, city and federal public health officials and others, asking for help, but says he hasn’t received much beyond lip service.

“Doug Ford sent a reply saying thanks for letting me know what you think, and the federal NDP sent me a reply saying, yes, it’s too bad you have to go through that demoviction stuff, but unfortunately we can’t help you because it’s a provincial jurisdiction.”

Munro is considering purchasing a used camper trailer in case he finds himself homeless, but says he hopes he can simply avoid being evicted. He recently reached out to the Ottawa chapter of ACORN, a national organization that advocates for residents of low- and moderate-income neighbourhoods.

© Errol McGihon Dustin Munro, left, Jude Belanger, middle, and Warren Cole are residents of 249 and 253 Des Peres Blancs who have received eviction notices.

According to Norma-Jean Quibell, co-chair of ACORN’S Ottawa West Nepean chapter, sternly worded letters threatening eviction and other high-pressure tactics have become more common during the pandemic as landlords — typically corporate ones — have tried to circumvent the restriction on evictions. The practice, she says, only worsens tenants’ anxiety.

“One of the things a lot of our tenants report is that, when their landlords do come around and start harassing them or giving them notices or trying to get them to go to the landlord tenant board, it creates a great amount of stress during an already stressful period. People have their kids at home, people have lost jobs, people are barely scraping by, and this adds a whole new level of stress.

“We’re seeing a lot of tenants going through a very stressful time because they’ve been having trouble with making ends meet. Many have lost jobs or had reduced hours, and landlords have still been handing out eviction notices because a lot of these tenants don’t know their rights, so they think they’re being evicted right away. So right now it’s a concern that a lot of low-income families are going to end up homeless because of the situation.

“This is going to cause a lot of problems,” she added. “A lot of tenants are going to have issues, they’re going to fall into rent arrears. This is going to increase the current housing crisis in Ottawa.”

Quibell adds that ACORN isn’t interested in fighting landlords. The group would like to see the province step in with assistance, similar to how it helped small businesses with loans and grants to pay their rent.

“We would like to see something similar for low-income people. Sometimes these people don’t qualify for CERB or EI, so there’s a big gap there, and people are falling through the cracks.”

ACORN and McKenney support the idea of a rent bank, a municipal project where those behind in rent payments can apply for loans or grants to help them stay in their homes. “We’ve seen something similar in Toronto and we would like to see it here in Ottawa,” Quibell said. “Something has to happen here. We want the ban to stay in place. We want the provincial government to step in to help these low-income people, these vulnerable people, because we know that that’s adding to the problem.”

McKenney notes that about 20,000 households in Ottawa pay more than 50 per cent of net income for rent, with a further 16,000 above the generally accepted affordability threshold of 30 per cent.

“So those renters are at serious risk of falling into homelessness, and they often do.

“For me, one of the frustrating things is that we don’t have the resources we need just to help people pay their rent. But at some point we’re going to have to, so we can decide to do it now, or we can wait until more people are homeless, but at some point we have to stop people from falling into homelessness.”

DEFUNDING POLICE WORKS FOR THE COMMUNITY

CALGARY

'It's a relief': $1 million from police to Alpha House’s DOAP teams will benefit the most vulnerable

Alanna Smith 


After struggling to secure consistent funding in the past, a $1 million reallocation from the police budget to a downtown outreach program run by Calgary’s Alpha House Society comes as a “relief” as their efforts are needed now more than ever.

Jacqueline Jerran, right, and Chelsey Cascadden, full-time DOAP members, help a homeless person outside Alpha House in Calgary on Thursday, August 15, 2019.

The Downtown Outreach Addictions Partnership (DOAP) program , which deploys mobile-response teams to support people living on the streets or struggling with substance use, is using the money to add two additional teams to its fleet, bringing the total to six. One will be Indigenous-focused and the other will run overnight.

In total, Alpha House is receiving $1,065,135 as part of a $16-million package from the Calgary Police Service and the City of Calgary to reform crisis response after calls for change echoed through Calgary’s streets last summer .

Shaundra Bruvall, a spokesperson for Alpha House, said adding two teams should help reduce wait times in the city, especially during the overnight hours.

The agency’s staff transport vulnerable individuals to supports across the city and work as a “conduit” to the homeless service sector. They also respond to overdoses, public intoxication and concerns from locals and businesses — reducing the need for police or emergency services.

“We know that some of the people we serve just have a bit more distrust toward members of authority. They might just be a bit more wary or more antagonistic if it was a cop that was showing up or a bylaw or peace officer,” said Bruvall.

“Having it being a civilian, and particularly a program that most of the people that we serve do recognize and do know, already puts that interaction off on a better footing.”

Last year, the DOAP team conducted 20,759 transports and served 3,685 unique clients. More than 1,400 referrals came from the police and EMS.

Team members also handed out more than 6,800 harm reduction supplies for safer consumption, 300 naloxone kits that can reverse overdoses and more than 1,600 bagged lunches.

Bruvall said the organization went through a “rough patch” in recent years, during which Alpha House had to rely on community support to make up gaps in DOAP program funding . But the additional $1-million backing means the program will be “safe” for the next year.

“It’s just a relief,” she said. “The DOAP team is just such a massive program, and connected with so many different organizations in the city, that it (was) just really disheartening and sad when we were looking down the road and thinking, ‘this team can’t operate.'”

Funding will be used to support all six teams, including vehicles, insurance, staffing and necessary supplies to help Calgary’s most vulnerable.

Police Chief Mark Neufeld said partnerships with programs like DOAP help keep people out of crisis and reduce repeat calls for service from the same individuals. He said It’s “proactive” work.

—With files from Madeline Smith
Turkey plagued by 'sea snot' outbreak


ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey’s president promised Saturday to rescue the Marmara Sea from an outbreak of “sea snot” that is alarming marine biologists and environmentalists.
© Provided by The Canadian Press

A huge mass of marine mucilage, a thick, slimy substance made up of compounds released by marine organisms, has bloomed in Turkey's Marmara, as well as in the adjoining Black and Aegean Seas.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said untreated waste dumped into the Marmara Sea and climate change had caused the sea snot bloom. Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city with some 16 million residents, and five other provinces, factories and industrial hubs border the sea.

Marine mucilage has reached unprecedented levels this year in Turkey. It is visible above the water as a slimy gray sheet along the shores of Istanbul and neighboring provinces. Underwater videos showed suffocated coral covered with sea snot.

Erdogan said he instructed the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization to coordinate with relevant institutions, municipalities and universities. Teams are inspecting waste water and solid waste facilities, along with other potential sources of pollution, he said.

“We will save our seas from this mucilage calamity, leading with the Marmara Sea,” Erdogan said. “We must take this step without delay.”

Marine experts say that human waste and industrial pollution is choking Turkey’s seas. They say the rise in water temperatures from climate change is contributing to the problem.

VIDEO

The Associated Press
Pipeline foes gear up for large northern Minnesota protests

SOLWAY, Minn. (AP) — Environmental and tribal groups opposed to Enbridge Energy’s ongoing effort to replace its aging Line 3 crude oil pipeline are planning large protests in northern Minnesota as the Canadian-based company gears up for a final construction push
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© Provided by The Canadian Press

Organizers say they expect hundreds of people to participate in the “Treaty People Gathering” on Monday, which they are billing as the largest show of resistance yet to the project. They plan to march to the headwaters of the Mississippi River, one of the water crossings for the pipeline, where they will deliver speeches and participate in organized civil disobedience.

Opponents of the project have say they will do whatever it takes to block completion of the project, including risk being arrested. Among those they say will be on hand Monday will be actors Jane Fonda, Catherine Keener, Rosanna Arquette and Taylor Schilling, as well as environmentalist and author Bill McKibben.

Line 3 carries Canadian crude from Alberta. It clips a corner of North Dakota on its way across northern Minnesota to Enbridge’s terminal in Superior, Wisconsin. The Canadian and Wisconsin replacement segments are already carrying oil. The Minnesota segment is about 60% complete.

Project opponents say the replacement pipeline, which would carry Canadian tar sands oil and regular crude, would worsen climate change and risk spills in sensitive areas where Native Americans harvest wild rice, hunt, fish, gather medicinal plants and claim treaty rights.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told Minnesota Public Radio News that he doesn't plan to deploy the National Guard during the event, saying he doesn't expect protesters to "interfere with lawful construction or lawful practices.”

The Associated Press