PPE

Canada ends contract with Malaysia's Supermax over labour allegations



(Reuters) - Canada has terminated its sourcing contract with Malaysian glove maker Supermax Corp following allegations about forced labour, the country's public services and procurement department said on Tuesday.

Malaysian factories making products ranging from medical gloves to palm oil have increasingly come under scrutiny over allegations they abuse foreign workers, who form a significant part of the manufacturing workforce.

Canada had paused imports of Supermax gloves in November, saying it would determine its next steps after receiving an audit report over the firm's labour practices.

"Based on the seriousness of the allegations and expected timelines for the final audit results, the Government of Canada has decided, and Supermax Healthcare Canada has agreed, to terminate by mutual consent the two existing contracts for the supply of nitrile gloves," the department told Reuters in an emailed statement on Tuesday.

Supermax did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In November, Supermax said it will speed up a process it had begun in 2019 to meet labour standards set by the International Labour Organisation.

Canada's move to pause imports last year followed an import ban on Supermax by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection in October. U.S. Customs cited reasonable information that it said indicated the use of forced labour in the Malaysian firm's manufacturing operations.

Supermax has said it was in contact with the U.S. agency to obtain more clarity and that it had commissioned an independent consulting firm to conduct an audit into the status of foreign workers at its factories.

Earlier this month, Supermax said it had introduced a new foreign worker management policy and enhanced its current human resources policies in light of the labour allegations.

The growing number of allegations over the treatment of labour at Malaysian companies have started to hurt businesses.

In November, home appliances maker Dyson terminated a contract with its biggest parts supplier, Malaysian firm ATA IMS Bhd, over forced labour allegations.

ATA has acknowledged some violations, made some improvements and said it now complies with all regulations and standards.

(Reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi; Editing by Ed Davies)

Dead birds freeze into Lethbridge’s Henderson Lake in ‘mortality event’

Eloise Therien 12 hrs ago

The City of Lethbridge is looking into the deaths of numerous waterfowl at Henderson Lake, including ducks and geese, following the region's recent cold snap and subsequent warm weather

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© Eloise Therien / Global News The City of Lethbridge estimates 50 to 70 waterfowl died in a recent mortality event.

"At Henderson we do have variable ice conditions," explained manager of the Helen Schuler Nature Centre, Coreen Putman.

"As the ice expands, the open water shrinks."

This contributes to overcrowding, resulting in injuries from fights, disease and other ailments.

Putman added artificial feeding can contribute to the inability to migrate, and reminds residents to refrain from this behaviour.

"There has been an increase in the number of people engaging in feeding birds," she said. "They're not able to engage in that migration because they're actually not healthy enough."

Video: Annual Christmas Bird Count underway in Lethbridge

According to Hiroshi Okubu, the city's parks operations manager, staff have been cleaning up the area when possible, but cannot venture onto the ice in its current state. When retrieved, the remains are bagged and sent to the landfill.

He added there are likely 50 to 70 dead birds in total, but predation from crows and eagles has made that number difficult to confirm.

"We have found heads, wings, feet along the shoreline and we've been picking up as we see that," Okubu said.

The city will be working with Lethbridge College to help determine the exact cause of the deaths.

There no risk to public heath at this time.

Workers at Teck Resources' British Columbia mine to hold ratification vote

(Reuters) - Canadian miner Teck Resources Ltd said on Monday that a union representing 1,048 workers at its British Columbia mine has agreed to hold a ratification vote on the mediators' recommendation

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© Reuters/CHRIS HELGREN Visitors pass a sign of sponsor Teck Resources at the PDAC annual conference in Toronto

The union will schedule a ratification vote to be concluded no later than January 24, the company said.

Last week, the company said it had received a strike notice https://reut.rs/3A7TJZQ from the union at its Highland Valley Copper Operations in British Columbia, without providing any reasons behind the potential strike.

(Reporting by Rithika Krishna in Bengaluru; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Teck, Steelworkers at B.C.'s Highland Valley Copper mull mediator's contract proposal

Teck's Highland Valley Copper mine is pictured in British Columbia's interior, Sunday, March 26, 2017. Talks between Teck Resources Ltd. and United Steelworkers members at the mine have ended as the two sides consider a mediator's proposals to resolve a labour dispute.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan HaywardJOH/GAC

VANCOUVER - Talks between Teck Resources Ltd. and the United Steelworkers union at a British Columbia copper mine have ended as the two sides consider a mediator's proposals to resolve a labour dispute.

A statement from mediators Corinn Bell and Vince Ready says they have issued recommendations for a settlement between Teck and the union's Local 7619 at the Highland Valley Copper mine in B.C.'s southern Interior.

Details of the contract will not be released until Teck's executive committee and the roughly 1,000 union members vote on the proposals.

An official with the union says a date and location for the vote are still being arranged and members have been told to continue to report for work as usual.

A statement from Teck Resources says the union's ratification vote must be concluded no later than Jan. 24.

Steelworkers members at Canada's largest open pit copper and molybdenum mine have been without a contract since Sept. 30, 2021.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 17, 2022.

Companies in this story: (TSX:TECK.B)

Flawed diamonds may be the key to quantum internet

MINING.COM Staff Writer | January 16, 2022

Cubic diamond. (Reference image by James St. John, Flickr).

New research by a team at Japan’s Yokohama National University found that flaws in diamonds —atomic defects where carbon is replaced by nitrogen or another element— may offer a close-to-perfect interface for quantum computing, a proposed communications exchange that promises to be faster and more secure than current methods.


In a paper published in the journal Communications Physics, the group explains that as they developed their proposal, they also found a major problem: the flaws, which are known as diamond nitrogen-vacancy centers, are controlled by a magnetic field, which is incompatible with existing quantum devices.

“Imagine trying to connect an Altair, an early personal computer developed in 1974, to the internet via WiFi. It’s a difficult, but not impossible task. The two technologies speak different languages, so the first step is to help translate,” the researchers said in a media statement.

Having noticed this issue, they decided to develop an interface approach to control the diamond nitrogen-vacancy centers in a way that allows direct translation to quantum devices.

By combining the entangled emission demonstrated in this study with the previously demonstrated quantum teleportation transfer from a photon to a nuclear spin in diamond, researchers will generate quantum entanglement between remote locations based on quantum teleportation. (Image by Yokohama National University).

“To realize the quantum internet, a quantum interface is required to generate remote quantum entanglement by photons, which are a quantum communication medium,” Hideo Kosaka, one of the study’s authors, said.

According to Kosaka, the promised quantum internet is rooted in more than a century’s worth of work in which researchers determined that photons are both particles and waves of light simultaneously—and that their wave state can reveal information about their particle state and vice versa.

“More than that, the two states could influence each other: pinching the wave could bruise the particle, so to speak. Their very nature is entangled, even across vast distances. The aim is to control the entanglement to communicate discrete data instantaneously and securely,” he said.

The scientist pointed out that previous research has demonstrated this controlled entanglement can be achieved by applying a magnetic field to the nitrogen-vacancy centers, but a non-magnetic field approach is needed to move closer to realizing the quantum internet.

His team successfully used microwave and light polarized waves to entangle an emitted photon and left spin qubits, the quantum equivalent of information bits in classical systems. These polarizations are waves that move perpendicular to the originating source, like seismic waves radiating out horizontally from a vertical fault shift.

In quantum mechanics, the spin property—either right-or left-handed—of the photon determines how the polarization moves, meaning it is predictable and controllable. Critically, according to Kosaka, when inducing entanglement via this property under a non-magnetic field, the connection appears steadfast against other variables.

“The geometric nature of polarization allows us to generate remote quantum entanglement that is resilient to noise and timing errors,” Kosaka said.

The researcher and his team now plan to combine this approach with a previously demonstrated quantum information transfer via teleportation to generate quantum entanglement, and the resulting exchange of information, between remote locations. The eventual goal is to facilitate a connected network of quantum computers to establish a quantum internet.

“The realization of a quantum internet will enable quantum cryptography, distributed quantum computation and quantum sensing over long distances of more than 1,000 kilometers,” the expert said.

Site C dam to require 8.7% rate hike over two years: analyst

BC Hydro banking on a big bump in industrial power sales to mitigate rate hikes

Nelson Bennett

Aerial view of the Site C dam construction site with the approach channel pictured on the left, December 2021.BC Hydro

When the new Site C dam begins generating power in 2025, it will produce a major surplus of power that, without a significant increase in domestic sales, would require an initial 10% to 12% increase to power bills, according to BC Hydro's recent rate requests to the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC).

But BC Hydro is banking on a significant increase in industrial power sales that would mitigate the rate impact to 8.7% over the first two years — 3.28% in 2024-25 and 5.42% in 2025-26 — according a recent analysis by Richard McCandless, a former senior provincial government bureaucrat who does public policy analysis on his blog, BC Policy Perspective.

McCandless bases his analysis on BC Hydro’s three-year rate request and responses to questions posed by the BCUC and intervenors.

The project’s estimated capital cost has increased twice in recent years, from $8.6 billion under the BC Liberal government, to $10.7 billion under the John Horgan government and, more recently, again to an estimated $16 billion.

B.C. generates and uses roughly 59,223 gigawatt hours (GWh) of power annually. BC Hydro’s own generating assets – mostly hydroelectric dams – generate 49,591 GWh, and the utility buys another 14,737 GWh from independent power producers (wind, run-of-river, biomass) for a total of 64,328 GWh, although about 5,000 GWh hours is lost through transmission (line loss).

Site C dam would add another 5,100 GWh annually to B.C.’s power generating capacity.

The Site C powerhouse operations building is nearing completion, October 2021. BC Hydro

BC Hydro’s domestic power sales have been flat for a decade, McCandless notes in his analysis, and BC Hydro often sells surplus power through its trading arm, Powerex.

With the closure of pulp and paper mills – one in Mackenzie in 2021 and, more recently, Powell River – BC Hydro continues to lose big industrial customers.

But it is hoping, and planning, to make up for that loss with new industrial customers, notably the natural gas and nascent LNG sector. BC Hydro has been investing in new transmission lines to bring power to Northeast B.C., where B.C.'s natural gas sector is concentrated.
“BC Hydro currently produces a large surplus of electricity, which is sold (exported) by Powerex,” McCandless notes. “In 2020/21, the surplus was approximately 8,000 GWh (gigawatt hours).”

The new hydroelectric dam will have six generating units of 850 GWh each, which will be turned on one at a time every two or three months over a period of about one year, starting with the first one around December 2024.

The six Site C generating units in varying stages of installation, August 2021. . BC Hydro

According to McCandless’ analysis, BC Hydro is planning to add 6,000 GWh of new domestic sales.

“By creating new demand for BC Hydro’s clean power, the rate request assumes that a significant portion of the new power generated from Site C will be sold domestically for higher prices than would be obtained in the spot (trade) market,” McCandless writes.

“This allows BC Hydro to forecast a lower rate increase ...compared to what the increase would be if all the new power were exported.”

As a result of the increased domestic sales, BC Hydro hopes to mitigate rate hikes to all customers in B.C. It is projecting rate hikes of 3.28% in 2024-25, 5.42% in 2025-26, zero in 2026-27 and 1.8% in 2027-28.

So what happens if the new industrial customers don’t show up on time? BC Hydro will just act as though they did, and push the increased costs off into the future.

“If the BCUC accepts the high GWh forecast in BC Hydro’s rate proposal and the actual sales are less, BC Hydro will book the shortfall as revenue and defer the shortfall to the Load Variance Deferral Account,” McCandless notes. “Shortfalls are thereby transferred to future ratepayers and BC Hydro preserves its net income.”

Aerial shot of the Site C spillways basin and headworks, powerhouse and roller-compacted concrete dam and core buttress, October 2021. BC Hydro

CALVINIST MANAGEMENT PUNISHES STUDENTS
Concordia University students upset over elimination of semester break following strike
CBC/Radio-Canada 13 hrs ago

© John Shypitka/CBC Some students at Concordia University of Edmonton are upset with changes to the school calendar following a labour dispute.

Students at Concordia University of Edmonton are upset the school has eliminated the week-long semester break following a two-week faculty strike.

An online petition with over 1,800 signatures as of Monday asks that the institution reconsider reducing the semester winter break from a full week to the Family Day long weekend.

Christine Ryvers, a student in her last semester of an education after-degree program, started the petition.

She said plans with family or vacations will be dashed for many of her peers. For Ryvers, who lives in Fort McMurray but stays in Edmonton during the semester, it means less time with her fiance.

Eliminating the break will affect students' well-being, she said.

"A lot of it is like a mental break from classes too," Ryvers said. "University is hard. We may choose it, but it is a struggle to push through it sometimes."

An additional week has also been added to the end of semester — time that could be spent applying for jobs or getting into the workforce, Ryvers said.

Demanding course load

Anika Downham, a second-year science student, signed the petition.

Downham says that time off from classes is crucial for keeping up with a demanding course load — especially for those, like her, who are working full time.

She would like to see the university find another way to make up the lost time, "because this is just punishing the students for something that was out of our control."

Concordia vice-president Tim Loreman said universities in Alberta must provide students with a minimum number of instructional hours and, because of the strike delay, the school must make up two weeks' worth of instruction.

"I appreciate the challenges the strike has caused our students and I sympathize with them," Loreman said in an email. "It wasn't easy to cancel reading week, but it was better than the alternative — extending the winter semester into summer."

Loreman said the university will give students an extra day off on Feb. 22 and is asking faculty to reduce students workload that week.

The calendar change was announced on the same day a four-year collective agreement was reached between the university and striking faculty.

The agreement was ratified by 89 per cent of the membership, according to a statement from the Concordia University of Edmonton Faculty Association, bargaining agent for 82 full-time professors, librarians, placement coordinators and lab instructors.

The strike, which began on Jan. 4, was a first for faculty associations in Alberta and halted the start of the winter term for more than 2,500 students.

The university is set to begin classes on Wednesday. Classes will be online until at least Jan. 31.

Alaska harvests millions of Salmon bound for B.C. and North Coast


The Pacific Salmon Treaty is failing to protect North Coast and B.C. salmon from Alaskan commercial fisheries, a new report released jointly by Skeena Wild Conservation Trust (SWCT) and Watershed Watch Salmon Society (WWSS), on Jan. 11, states.

The Alaskan Interceptions of BC Salmon: State of Knowledge report indicates nearly 34 million pink salmon, with an unknown amount being of Canadian origin, were caught in Southeast Alaskan interception fisheries last year.

“The governments of Canada and B.C. need to stand up right now and do something about this Alaskan plunder,” Aaron Hill, executive director of WWSS, said.

The responsibility to deal with the consequences falls squarely on the desk of Joyce Murray, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, Skeena Bulkely MP Taylor Bachrach, told The Northern View on Jan. 13.

“The minister needs to do more to stand up for Canadian interests at the Pacific Salmon Commission,” the MP said. “Those conversations are happening right now in Vancouver. I certainly hope that the issues raised in this report are brought up as part of those conversations.”

“Alaskan fisheries are now the biggest harvesters of a growing number of depleted Canadian salmon populations,” Hill said.

In the summer of 2021, nearly 60 per cent of B.C. salmon fisheries were closed by the federal government, in order to restock the marine resource, after population numbers hit record lows.

Many of B.C.’s largest salmon runs pass through Alaskan waters on their way home to spawn in Canadian rivers.

“While commercial fishing was nearly non-existent in B.C. last summer, Alaskan fleets just across the border logged over 3,000 boat-days and harvested almost 800,000 sockeye (most of which were of Canadian origin),” both WWSS and SWCT stated in a joint press release.

In addition to sockeye, tens of thousands of Canadian Chinook and Coho were also harvested, as well as large but unknown numbers of co-migrating Canadian pink, chum, and steelhead, many of which come from threatened and endangered populations, they stated.

Also indicated was that more than 1.2 million chum were caught, with an unknown number of them returning in the co-migration to B.C. during a time when North and Central Coast chum populations were at very low levels. Hundreds of thousands of genetically distinct Nass and Skeena salmon, from 82 regional species, were also reported to have been caught across the border.

“We knew the Alaskans were intercepting a lot of B.C. salmon … but these numbers are staggering,” Greg Knox, executive director of SWCT, said.

The species’ migratory routes returning to provincial waterways run through Southeast Alaskan fishery district 104, which begins less than 150 km north-west of Prince Rupert and is located on the western-most coast of the Alaskan panhandle. The report suggests district 104 is where most of the returning fish are caught, often as bycatch (unintentional harvested species).

“I’m also appalled at their failure to report their bycatch of non-target species, which Canadian fishers are required to do,” Knox said.

In October Bachrach engaged in a visit to Washington to speak to Alaskan delegates specifically about the need for salmon protection.

“The measures in the original [Pacific Salmon] treaty are no longer up to the task of protecting B.C. salmon,” he said, on Jan. 13.

“[The] treaty was first negotiated back in 1985, at a time of relative abundance, and it was really a treaty focused on the sharing of economic benefits. Today in 2022, the context around wild salmon in B.C. is dramatically different. We have a huge conservation concern. We’ve seen stocks decline precipitously.”

Since the treaty was first signed many Canadian and American salmon stocks have declined to a point of being threatened or endangered. Canada started to close its interception fishing in northern B.C. in the 1990s to protect southern migrating salmon. Alaska now has the only major commercial net interception fisheries in place that target salmon and steelhead returning to another jurisdiction, WWSS and SWCT issued as background information to their press release.

Potential impacts of Alaskan harvesters on endangered salmon and steelhead population as well as possible gaps in the state’s monitoring of responsible fisheries management are also highlighted in the report.

“Canadian fishers and taxpayers are making incredible sacrifices to protect and rebuild our salmon runs, while the Alaskan interception fishery continues unchecked. It is irresponsible of both countries to continue to allow this,” Hill said.

Some chapters of the maritime treaty are set to renew in 2028.

“We can’t wait until 2028 to fix it,” Hill said.

Fish harvesting in Alaska has downstream effects on First Nations communities in B.C.

“There are [Indigenous] communities that haven’t been able to fulfill their constitutionally protected rights to food fisheries for years and years,” Bachrach said. “There are also indigenous nations that are working so hard to rebuild diminished runs of wild salmon and for these weak stocks, even a small percentage mortality can have a really detrimental impact.”

Fairness is one of the concepts that underline the international treaty and underscores Canada’s relationship with the U.S. when it comes to wild salmon, Bachrach said.

“One of the basic principles is the idea that Canadians and Americans should benefit from the resource in proportion to our respective country’s capacity to produce them,” he said.

Though mostly talked about in the context of who gets to catch how many fish, Bachrach said B.C. is in a place where it needs to focus on salmon conservation and on rebuilding the abundance and diversity of the natural resource.

“We need to come together around a vision of rebuilding because we’ve seen such troubling declines over the decades — and that’s where my focus really is,” Bachrach said.

With files from K-J Millar

Norman Galimski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Prince Rupert Northern View

New Zealand cheers Canada's loss in dairy dispute and calls for 'significant reform'

Jake Edmiston 

© Provided by Financial Post Cows are moved on a dairy farm near Cambridge. New Zealand says Canada has repeatedly broken its promise to let foreign cheese and butter flow more freely into the country.

New Zealand said Canada needs to overhaul its approach to dairy imports because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has repeatedly broken its promise to let foreign cheese and butter flow more freely into the country.

The public criticisms are the first in what trade lawyers expect could become an international pile-on following Canada’s loss to the United States this month in a long-running dairy dispute. Canada’s approach to dairy imports has long been a sore spot for trading partners, and the success of the U.S. in challenging that approach could embolden copycat actions under trade agreements Canada signed with the European Union and a group of mostly Asian countries that includes New Zealand, a major dairy exporter.

New Zealand’s ministry of foreign affairs and trade, “is currently considering its next steps to address these serious concerns,” spokesperson Susan Pepperell said in an email on Jan. 17.

The trade ruling that got New Zealand’s attention involved U.S. complaints that Canada was using a work-around to dull the impact of extra dairy imports allowed under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USCMA), the pact that replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement in 2020.

In the new treaty, Canada agreed to let in more dairy imports, effectively softening its supply management system that has historically used high tariffs on imports to shield the domestic dairy producers from competition. But Canada quickly upset the American dairy industry by handing the majority of the extra dairy import quotas to Canadian dairy companies that had little incentive to bring in competing U.S. brands. The result was that the imports skewed toward lower-value products that importers could turn into more expensive retail goods, including bricks of mozzarella for frozen pizzas.

The panel sided with the U.S., ruling that under the treaty Canada can’t hold back import quotas exclusively for domestic processors.

New Zealand said it was following the dispute closely and welcomed the result, since Canada has used a similar quota allocation mechanism under the 11-country Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). “New Zealand has repeatedly maintained that this is inconsistent with Canada’s obligations under CPTPP,” Pepperwell said, adding that the Canada’s system needs “significant reform.”

New Zealand complained that Canada hasn’t actually imported the additional dairy it committed to under the TPP, which took effect in 2018. The fill rate on those quotas are “unacceptably low,” with import volumes below 10 per cent of the negotiated level in some categories, Pepperwell said.

“This is adversely affecting New Zealand exporters,” she said. “It is also adversely affecting Canadian consumers, who are missing out on the increased consumer choice.”

Global Affairs Canada said it is meeting its commitments under TPP and officials have had “general discussions” with New Zealand on the matter.

Fill rates on quotas — known officially as tariff-rate quotas or TRQs — are influenced by the market, including “competitive domestic prices, low domestic demand, market proximity, and transportation costs,” Global Affairs spokesperson Lama Khodr said in an email. But fill rates are “very high” for key products such as cheese and butter, she said. “Over the last 2 years, the Butter TRQ has been almost completely filled, virtually all of which was of (New Zealand) origin.”

The federal government has been holding consultations on its quota allocation system since 2019, though that review process appears to have stalled, according to Meredith Lilly, an associate professor of trade at Carleton University who served as a trade adviser to former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

James McVitty, vice-president of trade strategy for the Americas region at New Zealand-based dairy company Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd., said the review hasn’t produced any changes and “we’re wondering where that’s at.”

Under the current rules, he said Canadian processors “sit on” the import quotas rather than use them.

“It’s given to our competitors who don’t have much reason to import milk,” he said. “Canadian consumers would be getting more grass-fed New Zealand butter on the shelves.”

SNAFU
Before pullout, watchdog warned of Afghan air force collapse

By KATHY GANNON

A-29 Super Tucano planes are on display during a handover from the NATO-led Resolute Support mission to the Afghan army at the military Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 17, 2020. A year-old report by Washington’s Afghanistan watchdog warned in early 2021, months before President Joe Biden announced the end to America’s longest war, the Afghan air force would collapse without critical U.S. aid, training and American maintenance. The report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko was classified back when it was written and only declassified on Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2021. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Months before President Joe Biden announced the U.S.’s complete withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, Washington’s watchdog warned that the Afghan air force would collapse without critical American aid, training and maintenance. The report was declassified Tuesday.

The report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko, submitted to the Department of Defense in January 2021, underscores that American authorities had been alerted that Afghanistan’s air force did not have the capabilities to survive after a U.S. withdrawal. In particular, the report points to U.S. failure to train Afghan support staff, leaving the air force unable to maintain its aircraft without American contractors.

U.S. air support to government forces was key in the 20-year-war against Taliban insurgents. Its removal — along with the inability of the Afghan air force to fill the void — was one factor that contributed to the Taliban’s sweeping victory as the Americans withdrew.

The inspector general’s office told The Associated Press on Monday that it is rare for SIGAR reports to be classified but when they are, a declassified version is issued by the Pentagon in under two months. The office said it did not know why it took the Defense Department more than a year before declassifying this particular report, or why it did so now, five months after the Taliban took power.

SIGAR has tracked and documented Washington’s spending and progress in Afghanistan since the office was established in 2008. It has released successive reports that documented corruption, Afghan and U.S. leadership failings and weaknesses within the Afghan army, offering recommendations on where to improve.

Since the 2001 U.S-led invasion that ousted the Taliban and during the long war that ensued, Washington spent more than $145 billion on reconstruction in Afghanistan and nearly $1 trillion on its military engagement. Billions went to building up the Afghan military forces.

Biden announced in April that the last 2,500-3,500 U.S. troops would leave along with NATO’s 7,500 troops, following a deal reached with the Taliban by the Trump administration. The announcement started a rapid collapse of the Afghan defense forces.

The Taliban’s sweep through the country was swift, with many areas falling without a fight as Afghan troops — many of whom had not received their salaries from the Afghan government in months — fled. Afghan warplanes continued to hit Taliban positions in some areas in June and July last year, but it was not enough to stem the tide.

The Taliban entered Kabul on Aug. 15 after U.S.-backed President Ashraf Ghani fled the capital. By the end of August, the U.S. completed its chaotic departure and the evacuation of tens of thousands of Afghans, marked by images of young men clinging to departing U.S. aircraft for an opportunity to live in the U.S. and flee the Taliban’s harsh and restrictive rule.

Over the preceding months, Afghan officials had warned that the air force was not able to stand on its own. Ata Mohammed Noor, a powerful warlord in northern Afghanistan who was a key U.S. ally in the 2001 defeat of the Taliban, said the fleet was overused and under-maintained.

“Most of the planes are back on the ground. They cannot fly and most of them are out of ammunition,” he said.

The newly declassified SIGAR report says that between 2010 and 2019, the U.S. spent $8.5 billion “to support and develop” the Afghan air force and its elite unit, the Special Mission Wing. But the report warns that both are ill-prepared. It also warns against removing the hundreds of U.S. contractors who maintained the aircraft fleet.

According to the report, NATO and the U.S. switched in 2019 from building the air force to making sure it had a chance at long-term survival.

But Sopko gave their efforts a failing grade, saying the Afghan air force hadn’t been able to get the qualified personnel needed to set itself on the road to independence.

He said a combination of U.S. and NATO military personnel, as well as U.S.-funded contractors, had focused on training pilots but had not prioritized training for 86% of Afghanistan Air force personnel, including its support staff.

Even as the U.S. Department of Defense touted the Afghan air force’s progress “in combat operation capabilities, pilot and ground crew proficiency, as well as air-to-ground integration,” Sopko said, they continued “to struggle with human capital limitations, leadership challenges, aircraft misuse, and a dependence on contractor logistic support.”

___

Follow Gannon, the Associated Press News Director for Afghanistan and Pakistan, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kathygannon

'Fire on ice': Jamaica make history with 3 bobsleigh teams to Olympics

Jamaica have qualified for three Olympic bobsleigh events for the first time ever, their team said, setting the stage for a "Cool Runnings"-style underdog drama to unfold at the Beijing Games

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© MARK CARDWELL Jamaica first sent a four-man bobsled to the 1988 Calgary Winter Games (pictured)

For the first time in 24 years, Team Jamaica will send a four-man sled, the event which inspired the popular film about the Caribbean country's first unlikely foray into the winter sport.

"It will be fire on ice," Team Jamaica said Monday on their official Twitter account. "This will be the 1st time JAM has qualified in 3 Olympic bobsled events: four-man, two-man and women's monobob".

But in a sign of the challenges they face, the team have been trying to crowdfund $194,000 for new equipment since late November, with an appeal called "Cool Sleds for the Hottest Thing On Ice".

"(The athletes) are as committed, hardworking, resilient, and talented as any, but without elite sleds they can never reach their potential," the webpage reads.

"We don't want to be drag racing in a Prius."

So far less than $4,000 has been raised.

Jamaica also missed a two-woman spot at Beijing on a tiebreaker, but could still make it as first alternate if a qualified nation gives up a spot.

The country's bobsleigh team made headlines with their improbable attempt at Olympic glory in Calgary 1988, and their story as told in the 1993 film captured imaginations around the world.

Last minute team member replacement Chris Stokes is now the president of Jamaica's bobsleigh federation.

bur-reb/mtp