USA OPENS OIL RESERVES...

Sticky situation: Canada taps maple syrup reserves to meet soaring demand




An employee drives past pasteurized maple syrup at the Quebec Maple Syrup Producers storage facility in Laurierville, on December 9, 2021 (AFP/Andrej Ivanov)

Anne-Sophie THILL
Fri, December 17, 2021

Pancake lovers, fear not. Strong demand for maple syrup after a poor Canadian harvest has created supply-side woes, but Quebec province is tapping its strategic reserves to keep the world awash in the sweet, sticky stuff.

Experts are warning the shortages could be further compounded by climate change, which is already being blamed for last spring's shorter and warmer sugaring season.

To avoid shortages, the Quebec Maple Syrup Producers said it has released more than half of its stockpile of syrup.


"It's normal, that's what we want: The reserves must be the buffer between temperature, demand and production," explained the organization's president Serge Beaulieu.

Quebec makes almost three-quarters of the world's supply, and the organization -- sometimes called the OPEC of maple syrup -- represents more than 11,000 producers.

The group's massive reserves in the town of Laurierville, near Quebec City, are emblematic of Canada's hugely lucrative maple syrup industry.

Housed in a warehouse the size of five football fields, tens of thousands of barrels, each containing 45 gallons (205 liters), are stacked row upon row, up to the ceiling.

In Canada, maple syrup is serious business. Often called "Quebec gold" in the region, it sometimes has been treated more like gold itself.

During the "Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist" a decade ago, thieves stole Can$18.7 million worth of maple syrup from the facility.

At present, however, the only siphoning is to relieve market shortages: At the start of the year, some 105 million pounds were stored here. The stockpile has since been whittled down to only 37 million pounds.

- Warm spring woes -

The sap harvest usually starts in March, when temperatures are above freezing during the day but below zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight.

Harvesters traditionally hammered spiles into tree trunks and let the sap drip into buckets, but now collect it from multiple trees at once through a system of tubing, for refining.

Producer Laurie Larouche, 23, lamented to AFP that "last spring was cut short because it got hotter faster than usual so instead of having a good month of harvest we had perhaps only two weeks plus a few days here and there."

"We produced 50 percent less syrup" this year, said Maryse Nault, as she trudged through the snow to inspect spiles in trees on her farm in Saint-Marc-sur-Richelieu, 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of Montreal.

The province's total yield fell to 133 million pounds of maple syrup, about 20-40 pounds less than in four of the previous five years, according to the producer cartel's data, and far short of the 175 million pounds sold in 2020.

Researchers at the Quebec Ministry of Forests have concluded that the yield per maple tree could fall by as much as 15 percent by 2050, due mostly to increasingly warm weather in the month of April.

Meanwhile, sales have doubled over the past decade, including a 20 percent jump in just the first six months of 2021 compared to the same period the previous year.

Due to this rising demand, which has occurred both domestically and in key export markets such as the United States, Germany and Japan, producers have been authorized by the province's maple syrup federation to tap seven million additional trees over the next three years, bringing the total to 57 million.

The pandemic is partly to blame for the recent surge in demand, Beaulieu said.

"Due to Covid restrictions, consumers spent much more time at home, trying out new food products," he explained.

And, he added, syrup is increasingly replacing white sugar because it "is better for your health than refined sugar."

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Director del Toro spins macabre carnival fable in 'Nightmare Alley'


Director Guillermo del Toro's crew constructed a full-scale World War II-era carnival set for his film "Nightmare Alley" (AFP/VALERIE MACON)

Andrew MARSZAL
Thu, December 16, 2021, 7:08 PM·3 min read

Guillermo del Toro's new film "Nightmare Alley," set in a macabre 1940s carnival world of "geek shows" and grifters, is a modern parable about illusion, lies and greed, its director and cast said.

The pitch-black noir movie, out Friday, is del Toro's first since his Oscar-winning "The Shape of Water," and stars Bradley Cooper as a traveling "mind reader," who develops a lucrative side hustle in defrauding rich clients with sham seances.

Del Toro's crew constructed a full-scale World War II-era carnival set, capturing in eerie detail infamous sideshow practices like "geek shows," in which vagrants were trapped into performing gruesome acts by carnival bosses who preyed on their addictions to alcohol and opium.

"It's an indictment of a certain kind of ambition, or a certain kind of capitalism, or a certain kind of exploitation of other people for your happiness," said co-star Willem Dafoe, who plays carnival pitchman Clem Hoately.

"It was a beautiful world to enter, even though it's a little dark," he told a press conference.

The story, based on William Lindsay Gresham's novel and previously adapted into a 1947 film, finds Cooper's mysterious Stan Carlisle joining a carnival troupe and quickly learning the art of mentalism.

After tiring of tricking ordinary customers through coded messages to his assistant Molly (Rooney Mara), Stan teams up with Cate Blanchett's femme fatale psychiatrist Lilith to ensnare millionaire clients with promises he can contact their departed loved ones.

"There is an emptiness in him and a need for more -- more and more -- that I find pertinent" today, said del Toro, who cast Cooper in part "because he looks like a movie star from the '30s and the '40s."

Del Toro's "Shape of Water," which won best picture and best director at the 2018 Oscars, depicts a metaphor for modern racism through an inter-species romance in a Cold War military laboratory.

Similarly, the Mexican horror master wanted to "imbue" his latest movie "with the anxiety of this time."

"We wanted not to make a movie about the period. We wanted to make it about now," del Toro said.

"That essential moment we're in -- in which we have to distinguish narrative truth and narrative lie with reality -- is so important."

- 'Misfits' -

The film, seen as the final Oscar-contending heavyweight of the year to screen to critics earlier this month, has drawn praise for Cooper and Blanchett's performances, as well as its extravagant set design.

"We constructed 100 percent of the carnival," explained production designer Tamara Deverell.

"And when we were halfway through and Covid hit, we literally came back and saw half of the tents had just blown away."

Dafoe, who recalled visiting carnivals as a child and being drawn to their "darkly romantic" world, said his performance was inspired by "the production design, beautifully, of this very complete, almost truly functional" carnival.

Dafoe was drawn to the project by del Toro, whose work frequently spotlights "creatures and misfits and monsters and people that are outside of our society."

"He humanizes those people and pushes our understanding and compassion in all ways, in all of his movies."

amz/hg/sw

 FREAKS

Fictional film based on the true life experiences of circus sideshow freaks made in the 1930s. The film was edited for American distribution and banned in England for over 30 years. However, recently, it has taken on cult status for its campy plot and the real circus entertainers who appear in the film. Directed by horror film master Tod Browning.

Freaks (1932) #WarnerArchive #WarnerBros #Freaks

Gooble-gobble…we accept her…one of us, goes the haunting chant of Freaks. 

Yet it would be decades before this widely banned morality play gained acceptance as a cult masterpiece. Tod Browning (1931's Dracula) directs this landmark movie in which the true freaks are not the story's sideshow performers, but "normals" who mock and abuse them. Browning, a former circus contortionist, cast real-life sideshow professionals.

Directed By Tod Browning

Starring Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova

Ruthless Geek: Tyrone Power's Nightmare Alley

Friday, February 11, 2011

Power knew that Stanton Carlisle would be the role of a lifetime. Critics said Power played an "utterly reprehensible charlatan" who was "unscrupulous."

“Its carnival setting early on…brings to mind Tod Browning’s Freaks,” writes the My Blog author of the 1947 film, Nightmare Alley. Carny Stanton Carlisle (Tyrone Power) is watching the sideshow geek, whose “act” involves biting heads off of chickens. We don’t see the geek. The camera is locked on the barker and his banter. Then we hear the geek scream--and see Stanton’s reaction.

“How does a guy become a geek?” he asks a fellow carny. The question is answered through the unfolding of the plot and conclusion of Nightmare Alley.

Nightmare Alley was the pet project of star Tyrone Power, who purchased the rights to the novel of the same name by William Gresham. The star then convinced Darryl Zanuck and 20th Century Fox to sanction the project. It got a big budget and everything associated with Nightmare Alley was A-list. This film is one of the “darkest” noirs to come out of the 1940s. Tyrone Power wanted a vehicle to show that he could act, and boy did he pick a doozy. Power was an incredibly handsome leading man at 20th Century Fox and the roles that he usually played were romantic or swashbuckling--but not the kind of parts to show off any skill as an actor. Power wanted to be respected as an actor, not just known as a leading man and movie star.




Critical acclaim for Power in Nightmare Alley

The character of Stanton Carlisle is the antithesis of every role Power ever portrayed. The New York Times review of 1947 said that Power is “playing an utterly reprehensible charlatan” and that there is “little in the way of human wickedness that Mr. Power doesn’t do as the slick-tongued carnival spieler…” The review in Variety of late 1946 says of Power’s role, “Ruthless and unscrupulous, he uses the women in his life to further his advancement, stepping on them as he climbs.” Writing in 2007, the Self-Styled Siren says in her blog, “That Power worked so hard to put Nightmare’s Stanton Carlisle on the screen tell you something about him as an actor….[Power] fought long and hard for the chance to play the lead in a movie that equates entertainment with fraud and ends with his character barely hanging onto humanity.”

The plot of Nightmare Alley

Carlisle tells other carnies that he was raised in an orphanage and that his parents were not very interested in him. He also admits that he faked religious devotion to make his life in the orphanage more bearable. Carlisle is ambitious and wants to work a scam that will reward him handsomely. Stanton works the crowd for the carnival’s phony prophetess, Zeena (Joan Blondell). He knows that she and her now broken-down drunk husband Pete (Ian Keith) were once the top mentalist act on the circuit, and he is angling to get the code from either of them so he can move up the ladder of the carnival world. He is having an affair with Zeena, but she won’t betray her husband, whom she still loves.

One night Carlisle tries to pry the secret out of Pete and offers him a bottle of booze. He unwittingly gave him a bottle of wood alcohol and Pete dies. Shortly thereafter Zeena gives in and tell him the code. Then the two of them begin to work the act in the carnival. Carlisle has bigger fish to fry, so he leaves the carnival, marrying Molly, the “electric girl” (Coleen Gray).

They take off for Chicago and push the act to a higher level. But then in steps the femme-fatale, a psychiatrist named Lilith (Helen Walker). She is running her own scam with her wealthy patients and lures Stanton into working together with her to set up the biggest con yet. Lilith turns the tables on Carlisle and everything that he’s worked for begins to unravel. Stanton ends up a drunk hopping freight cars. Eventually he ends up back at the carnival--willing to do any job they offer him.

Nightmare Alley: Morality Play and Film Noir

Nightmare Alley has many of the trapping of both a morality play and film noir. Carlisle has a religious quality to him as he gains confidence,power and money playing his mentalist act. His downfall may have something to do with divine intervention as punishment for what could be perceived as Carlisle's "playing God."

The chiaroscuro lighting is typical of film noir, as is the appearance of the femme-fatate in the person of Lilith the psychiatrist. The author of My Blog writes that there's a "peculiar redefinition of the femme fatale, who is reimagined as an almost androgynous and sexually ambiguous intellectual dominatrix; and even for a noir, the eventual depths to which our 'hero' sinks defies belief."
The role of a lifetime for Tyrone Power

Power knew he had something special when he bought the rights to Nightmare Alley. It was the crowning achievement of his career. The New York Times says of his performance, "Mr. Power has a juicy role and sinks his teeth into it, performing with considerable versatility and persuasiveness." The Self-Styled Siren writes that when Carlisle returns to the carnival at the end and desperately accepts a job, "Tyrone Power's still-beautiful face is as psychologically bare as any actor in noir."

Sources

T.M.P. "Nightmare Alley. At the Mayfair." The New York Times. October 10, 1947.

Political row in Brazil over dystopian film 'Executive Order'



'Actor and director Lazaro Ramos and his wife, actress Tais Araujo, before the screening of their movie 'Executive Order' at the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival on December 15, 2021 (AFP/Daniel RAMALHO)


Isabela CABRAL
Fri, December 17, 2021

In the Brazil of the near future, the government has found what it calls the answer to righting the wrongs of slavery: send its black citizens to Africa.

That dystopian premise is the point of departure for the new film "Executive Order," which is generating controversy in the Brazil of the present over allegations it is being censored by far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's government.

The film, the directorial debut from acclaimed actor Lazaro Ramos ("Madame Sata"), has won praise at a series of international festivals, from Moscow to Memphis.

But it does not yet have a release date in Brazil, where there are mounting accusations against the National Cinema Agency (Ancine) of dragging its feet on green-lighting films deemed uncomfortable for the Bolsonaro administration.

"I can't say whether it's bureaucracy or censorship, but both are barriers to culture," Ramos said when the picture screened at the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, which wraps up Sunday -- for now, the only time the movie is scheduled to play in Brazil.

"Executive Order" stars Ramos's wife, Tais Araujo, renowned actor and singer Seu Jorge ("City of God," "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou"), and Anglo-Brazilian star Alred Enoch (the "Harry Potter" franchise, "How to Get Away with Murder").

Araujo and Enoch play Capitu and Antonio, a doctor and lawyer with the trappings of professional success.

Capitu "is a black woman who doesn't really want to talk about racism at first -- she just wants to live," said Araujo.

"But then life comes calling, and she has to dive deep" into the issue.

- 'Accentuated melanin' -

The "executive order" of the film's title requires all black people -- or people with "accentuated melanin," in the script's Orwellian language -- to hand themselves in to the authorities to be removed to Africa.

Through Capitu, Antonio and his cousin Andre (Seu Jorge), viewers see how Afro-Brazilians organize a resistance to this mass deportation as the security forces begin arresting people in the streets.

The film is flush with references to structural racism in present-day Brazil, the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, in 1888.

"The idea of the film is to make people aware," Ramos told AFP.

"I want the viewer, in watching it, to cry and to say to themselves that they are capable of leading an anti-racist fight," he said.

"It was very moving," said Araujo.

Some authorities in its fictional government also bear strong resemblance to real members of the Bolsonaro administration.

In April, Bolsonaro ally Sergio Camargo, head of the Palmares Cultural Foundation, called for a boycott of the film.

"It's pure victim mentality and a defamatory attack on our president," said Camargo, a black Brazilian who has sparked controversy in the past by saying slavery was "beneficial for Afro-descendants."

It is unclear when Ancine will clear the film for release in Brazil.

The production team says it completed its application for funds to distribute the film in November 2020 and has yet to receive the official response.

Ancine says the application is "under review" and that it is following the "standard procedure."

- 'Marighella precedent' -

It is not the first such case to cause controversy.

Another Brazilian film that won applause on the international festival circuit, "Marighella," faced a similar delay.

Directed by "Narcos" star Wagner Moura, the film is a biopic on a leftist guerrilla leader who fought Brazil's military dictatorship (1964-1985).

Bolsonaro, a former army captain, is a fervent admirer of the former military regime, despite its large-scale human-rights abuses.

"Marighella" had its application to Ancine rejected twice in 2019, before finally being cleared for its Brazilian premiere last month.

Shortly after taking office in 2019, Bolsonaro said he wanted to "filter" Brazilian film productions.

"If there's no filter, we're going to get rid of Ancine," he said.

Ramos is undeterred.

"We're not going to stop debating this issue, or thinking about how this country was built," he said.

"Art is powerful, we can't give that up."

ic/jhb/jh/caw/bfm

Foreigners among 11 killed in Iraqi Kurdistan floods



Floods in Iraq (AFP/Laurence SAUBADU)


Fri, December 17, 2021, 12:31 AM·2 min read

Eleven people including two foreigners died Friday in flash floods which swept through northern Iraq after torrential rains in Arbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region, an official said.

In a country dealing with severe drought, many were caught by surprise as powerful storm waters started surging into their homes before dawn.

"The toll is now 11 after the civil defence discovered the bodies of three people who were missing, carried away by the waters. Among them are a Filipino national and a Turk," Nabaz Abdelhamid, a local administration official, told AFP.

Provincial governor Omid Khoshnaw had earlier given a death toll of eight, including women and children. He also reported "significant" damage, especially in a working-class district south-east of Arbil city.

Four members of the civil defence team who came to help residents were injured when their car was washed away, he added.

"Of the eight people who died, one died struck by lightning, while the others drowned in their homes," civil defence spokesperson Sarkawt Karach had said.

Many people have been forced to leave their houses, he added.

"Searches are ongoing for missing people," Karach said, warning that the death toll could rise.

- Vehicles washed away -

In Arbil, an AFP reporter saw torrents of muddy water pouring down roads.

Buses, trucks and tanker trucks were washed away by the storm waters, with some flipped over or turned onto their side.

Khoshnaw called on residents to stay at home unless necessary, warning that further rain was expected with fears of more floods.

Iraq has been hit by a succession of extreme weather events.

It has endured blistering temperatures and repeated droughts in recent years, but has also experienced intense floods --- made worse when torrential rain falls on sun-baked earth.

Hard ground and vegetation loss means the earth does not absorb water as quickly, and when storms hit they can become flash floods.

Scientists say climate change amplifies extreme weather, including droughts as well as the potential for the increased intensity of rain storms.

Experts have warned that record low rainfall, compounded by climate change, are threatening social and economic disaster in war-scarred Iraq.

The effects of low rainfall have been exacerbated by falling water levels on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers as a result of dam-building in neighbouring Turkey and Iran, Samah Hadid, of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), has said.

The severity of the drought has forced many farming families to leave their land and seek a living in urban areas.

In a study released Thursday, the NRC said half of the families living in drought-affected areas of Iraq need food aid.

That followed a warning in November from the World Bank which said Iraq could suffer a 20-percent drop in water resources by 2050 due to climate change.

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THEY VOTE THEIR CLASS INTEREST

'Fear of communism,' why Chile's rich vote right

THE CHILEAN BOUGEOISIE (1%)
 

FAR RIGHT CANDIDATE KAST

LEFT WING Chilean presidential candidate Gabriel Boric gestures during his closing campaing rally in Santiago on December 16, 2021 (AFP/MARTIN BERNETTI)

Mariëtte Le Roux
Fri, December 17, 2021

In Santiago's upper-class neighborhood of Lo Barnechea with its Ferraris, mansions and luxury retailers, 51.68 percent of people voted for far-right, neoliberal candidate Jose Antonio Kast in Chile's first presidential election round in November.

It is one of two neighborhoods out of dozens in greater Santiago where Kast, an apologist for Chile's brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet, amassed more than half the votes out of the seven candidates then in the race.

His rival in Sunday's runoff, leftist lawmaker Gabriel Boric, won the most neighborhoods, mainly in middle-class areas, but did not break the 50-percent ceiling in any of them.


Kast's defenders are vociferous in Lo Barnechea. The neighborhood is notable for also having gone against the stream last year to vote "No" in a referendum on whether Chile should approve a new constitution to replace the one enacted under Pinochet.

"One of the most serious issues is that it (the left) endorses violence," said entrepreneur Sergio Adauy, 52, referring to anti-inequality protests and clashes with the police in 2019 that caused dozens of deaths.

The resulting "uncertainty and fear" risks causing an outflow of capital, he said.

According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the top one percent of the population of Chile holds a quarter of the wealth.

- More money, more fear -

Kast is against marriage for same-sex couples and is anti-abortion. He is also a defender of Pinochet and the neoliberal economic system he left behind.

The candidate wants to cut taxes and social spending, contrary to Boric -- who wants to increase them and represents a leftist alliance that includes Chile's Communist Party.

For 53-year-old teacher Maria-Luisa Galleguillos, another resident of Lo Barnechea -- an area with golf and equestrian clubs some 20 kilometers (12 miles) northwest of central Santiago -- Kast will "give us security."

"I have children who recently started working. I want that they can live in their country, that they don't need to go to other countries to work," she told AFP at an up-market mall.

She said Kast's image has suffered due to "misunderstandings" spread by a "leftist" media, and explained she was grateful to Pinochet for making Chile a relatively rich country in Latin America.

"If it wasn't for Pinochet... we would have been like Venezuela today," Galleguillos said.

There is "much, much, much fear of communism here," said Francisca Olivares, 48, a lawyer who told AFP she was "an exception" in Lo Barnechea for not supporting Kast.

In the neighborhood there is "more money, therefore there is more fear of losing it," she said.

"We are an extremely divided country in terms of class. And that generates a lot of fear of the other, a lot of hatred of the other."

- Class divide -

In the neighborhood of Nunoa in Santiago's voting district 10, where Boric had his highest first-round turnout with 39.4 percent, voters say they are driven by civil rights and social equality.

Chile's social uprising was sparked in late 2018 by a rise in the price of metro tickets, but soon transformed into a revolt against the country's status as one of the most unequal countries in the world.

Nunoa resident Karla, 25, who did not wish to give her full name, said she supports Boric because of "what he stands for in terms of rights, social equality."

The student said she is particularly concerned about Chile's private pensions system, which costs workers an arm and a leg, yet leaves them with little to retire on.

But for Adauy, the entrepreneur, more accessible healthcare, education and fairer pensions, amount to handouts and are harmful to the economy.

He referred to the hardship Chileans suffered -- partly due to US economic blockades -- under the rule of Salvador Allende, Latin America's first elected Marxist president who was ousted by Pinochet in a coup d'etat.

"I think it is better to have a debit card than a ration card, which is what we had under the government of Allende," he said.

mlr/bfm

US court reinstates Covid vaccine mandate for large US businesses

Fri, December 17, 2021

The national mandate will cover more than two-thirds of US workers

A federal appeals court has reinstated a vaccine-or-testing mandate for large US businesses.

The mandate will require workers at private companies with more than 100 employees to get fully vaccinated against Covid-19, or be tested weekly.

It had been blocked by a court ruling last month, with critics citing "grave statutory and constitutional" issues.

But a three-judge panel ruled on Friday that delaying its implementation would hinder efforts against Covid-19.

The ruling, which would cover more than two-thirds of the nation's workers, marked a major win for President Joe Biden. But opponents have signalled plans to appeal the verdict at the Supreme Court.

Many businesses in the US already require their employees to be vaccinated. There are also requirements for military and federal contractors.

The US workers refusing to get jabbed

The latest mandate is set to be in place from 4 January.

In addition to its vaccine and testing regulations, it also requires companies to determine which of their employees are vaccinated, and to enforce a mask mandate among unvaccinated workers.

It was issued by the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in November. OSHA argued that it could save more than 6,500 lives and prevent a quarter of a million hospitalizations during the six months it would be in effect.

But the mandate attracted a raft of legal challenges from 27 states, as well as private companies and industry groups. Opponents argued that OSHA did not have the legal authority to enforce the rule, and that it would be costly and lead to worker shortages.

In a 2-1 ruling, the judges said these concerns were "entirely speculative".

"Fundamentally, the [rule] is an important step in curtailing the transmission of a deadly virus that has killed over 800,000 people in the United States, brought our healthcare system to its knees, forced businesses to shut down for months on end, and cost hundreds of thousands of workers their jobs," wrote Circuit Judge Jane Stranch.

Job Creators Network, a conservative advocacy group that was party to the case, said in a statement that it was disappointed with the decision.

"This mandate adds an incredible burden on small business owners who are still suffering negative effects of the pandemic," it added.

Similar mandates for healthcare workers and federal contractors are currently being held up in separate court disputes across the US.

More than 72% of the US population has received at least one Covid vaccination, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, some 80 million people in the US remain unvaccinated.

Hong Kong accuses activists of inciting poll boycott

YOU LIMIT VOTER ELIGABILITY NO NEED FOR A BOYCOTT

Only 20 of 90 seats in the legislature will be directly elected -- the rest will be chosen by interest groups and a small group of elites (AFP/Bertha WANG)

Sat, December 18, 2021, 12:57 AM·2 min read

Hong Kong has issued arrest warrants accusing five overseas activists of urging voters to boycott Sunday's polls for the legislature -- the first to take place under Beijing's "patriots only" rules.

Voters in the Chinese finance hub will pick new lawmakers under rules that have cut the number of directly elected seats in the legislature to 20 from a total of 90 seats.

Most of the city's traditional pro-democracy opposition have either been jailed, barred from standing, declined to take part or fled overseas.

Authorities accused Britain-based campaigner Nathan Law of inciting people to boycott the vote during a web conference held earlier this month.

It is not illegal in Hong Kong to cast spoiled ballots or refrain from voting, but this year it became a crime to incite others to a boycott or cast invalid ballots.

Offenders face up to three years behind bars and a fine of HK$200,000 ($25,600).

The arrest warrants also named Sunny Cheung, Timothy Lee, Carmen Lau and Kawai Lee -- all of whom have left Hong Kong.

The group hosted a livestream on social media Thursday during which they allegedly urged voters to stay home.

Authorities also cited social media content posted by Cheung, who is currently seeking asylum in the United States.

Cheung earlier told AFP that Hong Kongers should not "endorse the autocratic regime and help the regime to pursue a pseudo-democratic veil".

Last month Hong Kong issued similar arrest warrants for two other overseas activists including former lawmaker Ted Hui.

A further 10 people have been arrested inside the city and two formally charged.

Hong Kong's anti-corruption agency said investigations were ongoing and it would continue to take resolute enforcement action.

Law was invited to speak at a summit organised by the United States last week in which President Joe Biden hosted representatives of more than 100 countries to advance the cause of democracy.

His remarks at the meeting were denounced by Hong Kong officials but were not cited in the arrest warrants.

Beijing says Hong Kong's new voting system will put Hong Kong back on track after the city was rocked by huge and often violent democracy protests two years ago.

Critics counter that China has all but banned opposition politics and violated promises it made to maintain Hong Kong's freedom and autonomy after the city returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

hol/axn

Patriots or pretenders? Students navigate Hong Kong classroom crackdown

1 / 6
Patriots or pretenders? Students navigate Hong Kong classroom crackdownBeijing says a lack of patriotic education allowed Hong Kongers to be misled and radicalised, and has moved to incubate loyalty within students (AFP/ISAAC LAWRENCE)

Su Xinqi
Thu, December 16, 2021

Hong Kong teenager Sum says he lives a double life.

In school he presents as a dutiful student, happy to learn a new "patriotic" curriculum and stand to attention at the now regular flag-raising ceremonies he must attend.

But when class ends the 16-year-old often heads to the courts to support friends being prosecuted for national security offences.

"I can pretend to be a loyal patriot," he told AFP after one recent hearing. "But I will also guard my heart by building both my body and my mind."

Sum's friends are part of a group of seven -- including four minors -- who were charged earlier this year with "inciting subversion" after authorities said they were discovered in possession of explosives and materials with pro-independence slogans.

The group includes a 15-year-old girl, the youngest person to be charged under a national security law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong after huge and often violent democracy protests swept the city two years ago.

- 'Chinese face, Chinese heart' -

Youngsters played a key role in those protests, as well as earlier democracy rallies in 2014 and 2012.

Of the more than 10,000 people arrested during the 2019 unrest, nearly 40 percent were students. Over 1,100 students have since been prosecuted, many of them serving time.

Beijing has dismissed the democracy movement, portraying it as an insidious "foreign plot" to destroy China, and says a lack of patriotic education allowed Hong Kongers to be misled and radicalised.

China has since moved to incubate loyalty within Hong Kong's 960,000 students, part of a wider campaign to remould the once outspoken city in the authoritarian mainland's image and root out dissent.

"Students educated in Hong Kong must not turn into individuals who only have a Chinese face but do not carry a Chinese heart," senior Chinese official Tan Tieniu said in a speech earlier this year on education reform.

Hong Kong authorities have rolled out new curriculums for students aged six to 18 to teach them about the four new national security crimes -- subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.

One explainer video released by the Education Bureau earlier this year featured a cartoon owl.

Authorities are also reforming the curriculum for "Liberal Studies" -- a class that government loyalists partly blamed for the protests -- and have renamed it "Citizenship and Social Development".

Patriots or pretenders? Students navigate Hong Kong classroom crackdownHong Kong authorities have rolled out new curriculums for students aged six to 18 to teach them about the four new national security crimes (AFP/ISAAC LAWRENCE)

- Campus tests -

Hong Kong's universities have been ordered to prepare their own national security courses.

Two of them, Baptist University and Hong Kong Polytechnic University, have made the courses a graduation requirement.

Mary, a 19-year-old Baptist student, said she recently attended a two-hour compulsory lecture given by a barrister who flew through a 260-page presentation filled with dense legalese copied from government documents and court judgements.

Students were told that any more than a 15-minute absence from the lecture would count as non-attendance.

She then had to pass a national security quiz within 21 days in order to graduate but repeatedly failed.

"I was given different questions every day and I was never told what mistakes I made every time I failed the quiz," she told AFP, asking for her last name not to be used.

One of the questions on the test, which AFP has seen, asked students whether a fictional character called "Mr Breach" had committed an offence under the national security law by holding a banner that read: "Let's end the reign of the single party".

Students were asked to choose between no offence, incitement to subversion, incitement to secession, or treason.

They had to guess 15 out of 20 multiple choice questions correctly to pass, which Mary eventually did.

The University of Hong Kong, the city's oldest, has yet to introduce its national security course but students describe a new culture of academic fear on campus.

"I would say resentment is simmering inside but we dare not speak out," Zack, a first-year HKU student, told AFP.

"Many, many people have been arrested. The purge is really effective," he said, referring to dozens of democracy figures charged with national security crimes over the last year.

Multiple universities, including HKU, have severed ties with their student unions who were vocally supportive of the democracy movement.

Zack said he used to organise student concern groups in secondary schools during the 2019 protests.

He has since distanced himself from political activities and even stopped watching news.

"My last hope is that the next generation can still tell wrong from right," he said.

"But honestly I can do nothing to help them. I won't have any children as long as I have to live in Hong Kong."

su/jta/axn/reb

China: Alibaba scandal sparks outcry over workplace harassment

Advocates have slammed tech giant Alibaba for firing an employee who reported sexual assault. Critics say assault and harassment of women are common in offices, where a widespread drinking culture also prevails.

    

While workplace protections exist in China, there is no viable legal method of enforcing them

Chinese tech giant Alibaba has reportedly fired a female employee who accused her former boss of molesting and raping her during a business trip earlier this year. The revelation has renewed the public's scrutiny over workplace harassment, which many Chinese women experience. 

According to China's state-run Dahe Daily, the woman, surnamed Zhou, was dismissed by Alibaba on November 25 for allegedly spreading false information and creating negative publicity for the company.

In its dismissal letter, Alibaba criticized Zhou for protesting in the company's cafeteria with a banner and a microphone, as well as for posting a long recount of the incident to the company's internal chat system. 

Zhou, who works for Alibaba's grocery delivery unit City Retail, told Dahe Daily that she never received any support or compensation from Alibaba and that the dismissal has left her "bitterly disappointed."  

"The reason why the whole thing escalated and caused a negative impact on the company was because of the relevant personnel's inaction in handling the situation, rather than the victim's mistake," she said.

After she was dismissed, the former president of City Retail, Li Yonghe, filed a defamation lawsuit in court, claiming that he had not ignored Zhou's complaint. He had resigned in August following Zhou's initial revelation. He asked the court to order Zhou to issue a written apology to him, to be posted for 15 consecutive days in a noticeable position on a nationwide website.

Heated debate on social media

Zhou emphasized again that she hadn't done anything wrong and would use legal means to defend her rights. News of her firing triggered heated debate on China's popular social media platform Weibo. Some accused Zhou of being dishonest with her accusations, while others defended her by pointing to a notification issued by the police, which stated that indecent assault had taken place on the night she indicated.

The latest development follows Alibaba's decision to fire the manager for Zhou's alleged sexual assault her in August. In addition to City Retail's then-president resigning, also its human resources chief resigned.

Yaqiu Wang, the senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, told DW that she was surprised by Alibaba's decision to fire Zhou, as she thought the tech giant would care more about its image. "Despite the large amount of negative publicity, they still chose to fire her," she said.  

At the time, Alibaba also pledged to introduce policies to prevent sexual harassment, emphasizing that the company has "zero tolerance" for sexual misconduct and that its top priority is to ensure a safe workplace for all employees. Staff at Alibaba demanded justice for Zhou, while China's state-run tabloid Global Times criticized the tech giant's slow response to the case.  

In the opinion piece, Global Times said the sexual harassment scandal was a "serious blow" to Alibaba's reputation and urged the tech giant to "calm down and make adjustments."

Lack of legal protection for women 

Some observers think this latest twist highlights an unfortunate trend of workplace sexual harassment in China. According to Human Rights Watch, a figure in 2018 shows that at least 40% of Chinese women said they have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. 

Women make up more than half of the workforce in China

"In China's workplace culture, too often women are considered an instrument for men's entertainment and a tool to boost organizational morale and productivity," said Jieyu Liu, deputy director of the China Institute at SOAS, at the University of London. "Women employees are routinely subject to sexual innuendo at work," she wrote in a piece on news website The Conversation.

Others point out how the lack of sexual harassment cases in court highlights the challenges that Chinese women face while trying to seek justice.

Wang of Human Rights Watch said that while laws in China require companies to be responsible for handling sexual harassment cases, there are no specific provisions that hold companies accountable.  

"So even though the law says companies are responsible, there are no detailed rules, and the threshold for a woman to prove she was sexually harassed is very high," she told DW.

In September, Zhou Xiaoxuan, viewed by many as the face of China's #MeToo movement, lost her case against a prominent state broadcaster host, whom she had accused of groping and kissing her forcibly in a dressing room while she was an intern in 2014. Despite the loss in court, Zhou said she planned to appeal the decision.

Critics say drinking culture leads to harassment

China's work drinking culture is viewed as another main cause of workplace sexual harassment. Following Zhou's accusations in August, her former supervisor admitted that he had behaved too intimately with her while he was drunk. Later, Alibaba's CEO Zhang Yong said in a memo that the company "resolutely opposes the ugly drinking culture."

Nie Huihua, an economics professor at Renmin University in China, described China's drinking culture as a "bad habit" that only exists because Chinese enterprises lack clear organizational structures, making the culture of drinking the main way for people to establish relationships and build mutual trust in workplaces. 

However, Nie believes the dependence on drinking culture as a method to establish mutual trust in the workplace leaves women vulnerable. "China's drinking culture reinforces men's positions in organizations and is usually very male-dominated," Nie told DW. "Because women usually don't drink much, these situations usually reflect very uneven power relations between men and women."  

China is the largest beer market in the world

Wang believes that protest and resistance are some of the best tactics women can use to resolve problems stemming from this drinking culture.

"They can't just rely on the promises made by Chinese men or companies to solve problems extending from the drinking culture," she said. "It is only after Zhou attracted the world's attention to the issue that Alibaba came out to criticize workplace drinking culture in China."

Even though China is increasing the intensity of its online censorship, Wang still believes that speaking up online is also an effective way for Chinese women to grab the public's attention on sexual harassment incidents.  

"Despite the censorship and the possible witch hunt initiated by some men, Chinese feminists and their supporters continue to come forward and speak up online," Wang said. "I think the fundamental way to solve problems like sexual harassment in China is still protest, even if they may face backlash."

But as the public space for protest continues to shrink domestically, Wang believes that the Chinese feminist movement abroad will also become very important to the #MeToo movement in China.

"There are many Chinese feminists in the United States, and they have been saying that if they can't do it [protest] at home, they will continue to do it from abroad," she said.

Edited by: Leah Carter

Tigray: New wave of abuse in Ethiopia, rights groups report

Eyewitness accounts allege security forces aligned with Ethiopia's army are rounding up and killing Tigrayan civilians, rights groups have reported. The UN is set to consider investigating the country for war crimes.

    

A new report describes a surge of abuses by Amhara security forces and militias against Tigrayan civilians

Thousands of Tigrayans are being forcibly expelled, detained or killed in a fresh wave of ethnic violence in the western part of Ethiopia's Tigray region, two rights groups warned on Thursday.

In a joint statement, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) blamed armed groups from Amhara, which are aligned with Ethiopia's military, for the abuses.

"Without urgent international action to prevent further atrocities, Tigrayans, particularly those in detention, are at grave risk," said Joanne Mariner, director of crisis response at Amnesty International.

Tigrayan civilians describe atrocities

Western Tigray has seen some of the worst violence in the 13-month war between Ethiopia's military, aided by forces from the Amhara and Afar regions and Tigrayan forces (TPLF).

"Tigrayan civilians attempting to escape the new wave of violence have been attacked and killed. Scores in detention face life-threatening conditions including torture, starvation, and denial of medical care," HRW and Amnesty International said.

They spoke to 31 people in western Tigray who described the surge of abuses.

"When the people tried to escape... [the Fano] attacked them with machetes and axes," a 34-year-old farmer told them, referring to an Amhara militia group. "We were passing bodies and we were all in shock ... After we calmed down, we noticed that there were more bodies there too. Everywhere you turned, there would be five, 10 bodies."

The Ethiopian military has been fighting Tigrayan forces for more than a year

Civilians driven away in trucks

According to witnesses, whose stories were partly corroborated by satellite imagery, Amhara security forces, including the region's police and members of local militia, Fano, rounded people up and took people to makeshift detention sites.

One former detainee, who escaped from the sites, told the rights groups he knew of 30 people who died while he was held there, including seven of the 200 men in his cell.

"All of us have gone through it [the beatings] but the most vulnerable ones were the [older men],” he said. "They couldn't handle the torture, that's why they were dying."

A government spokesman denied Amhara security forces were responsible for the attack. He told Reuters news agency the abuses were committed by Tigrayan forces.

Atrocities committed by all sides

Rights groups have accused fighters on all sides of carrying out atrocities including sexual violence, extrajudicial murder and ethnically motivated crimes.

Last week HRW accused TPLF fighters of summarily executing dozens of civilians in two Amhara towns they briefly controlled between August and Septemb

Amharas and Tigrayans are two of Ethiopia's largest ethnic groups. They both lay claim to western Tigray where the war erupted in November 2020.

Amhara has sided with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed against the TPLF.

UN to discuss war crimes in Ethiopia

Thursday's report comes a day before the UN Human Rights Council special session on possible war crimes committed during the conflict.

The UN has estimated that 20,000 people were recently evicted from western Tigray, and more than 1 million have been displaced from the area since the war began.

"The global paralysis on Ethiopia's armed conflict has emboldened human rights abusers to act with impunity and left communities at risk feeling abandoned," said Laetitia Bader, Horn of Africa director at HRW.

"As evidence of atrocities mounts, world leaders should support the creation of an international investigative mechanism and the UN Security Council should put Ethiopia on its formal agenda," she added.

lo/sms (AP, AFP, Reuters)

European supermarkets pull beef products linked to Brazil deforestation

Supermarkets across Europe have withdrawn beef products linked to deforestation in Brazil. Corned beef, beef jerky and fresh prime cuts are among the products that won't be on some shelves much longer.

    

Most land-clearing in the Amazon rainforest is linked to cattle ranching

Multiple supermarkets across Europe have pledged to remove beef products that are linked to deforestation in Brazil, a US activist group announced on Thursday.

Chains including Carrefour Belgium, Delhaize and Auchan will be removing products. Other chains including Albert Heijn in the Netherlands, as well as Lidl and Sainsbury's and Princes in the UK, are also involved.

Products that are being withdrawn include corned beef, beef jerky and fresh prime cuts, which are suspected to have been sourced from cattle raised in the Amazon and the Pantanal tropical wetlands.

The withdrawals come after US activist group Mighty Earth partnered with Brazilian non-government organization, Reporter Brasil, to reveal links between deforestation and the Sao Paulo manufacturing plants of Brazilian meat processing giants JBS, Marfrig and Minerva

THE WORLD'S MOST IMPORTANT FORESTS NEED PROTECTION 

Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon rainforest is an important carbon sink and one of world's the most biodiverse places. But decades of extensive logging and cattle farming have eradicated about 2 million square kilometers (772.2 million square miles) of it, while less than half of what remains is under protection. A recent study showed that some parts of the Amazon now emit more carbon dioxide than they absorb.
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'Cattle laundering' hides beef's origin

Reporter Brasil has alleged that JBS was involved in a scheme known as "cattle laundering," where cows are indirectly sourced cows from illegally deforested areas. In such a scheme, cows are raised on illegally deforested land, then sold on to a legitimate farm before being sent to the slaughterhouse, to obscure the origin of the cattle. 

The widest-reaching pledge came from Lidl Netherlands, which said it would stop selling all beef originating in South America starting in 2022. The less dramatic moves were limited to halting sales of certain corned beef or beef jerky products.

Mighty Earth criticized German supermarkets, including Rewe, Edeka, Metro and Netto, for failing to commit to similar initiatives.

"We look at the origin of the products that we would have in other countries — if we find any — to make similar decisions if the case arises," Agathe Grossmith, Carrefour's director of corporate social responsibility, told the AFP news agency.

 A spokesman for Sainsbury's, which sources most of its beef products from Britain and Ireland, told AFP it was working to ensure proper sourcing of its corned beef products outside Brazil.

 An Albert Heijn spokesperson told AFP: "We have now taken the decision to eliminate progressively Brazilian beef and are seeking out alternatives from other countries of origin." 

Deforestation increasing in Brazil's Amazon

Meat processor JBS told the Reuters news agency that it had zero tolerance for illegal deforestation and that it has already blocked more than 14,000 suppliers for failing to comply with its policies. It also said monitoring indirect suppliers was a challenge for the entire sector, but that JBS will institute a system capable of doing so by 2025.

Under the rule of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, deforestation has soared in Brazil's Amazon, with Bolsonaro claiming it will lift people out of poverty.Deforestation hit a 15-year high in 2021, according to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research.

Most of the deforested land is used for cattle ranching.

Mighty Earth director Nico Muzi said in a statement that the "noose [is] tightening" around the necks of those involved in deforestation.

aw/sms (AFP, Reuters)