Dead IS chief was Iraqi ex-officer nicknamed 'Destroyer'

Issued on: 03/02/2022 -

Amir Mohammed Said Abd al-Rahman al-Mawla -- aka bu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi -- had a $10 million bounty on his head 

Handout US DEPARTMENT OF STATE/AFP/File

Paris (AFP) – The head of Islamic State group, whom the US declared dead in a special-forces raid Thursday, was nicknamed the "Destroyer" and presided over massacres of Yazidis before assuming the leadership.

Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, also known as Amir Mohammed Said Abd al-Rahman al-Mawla, took over the jihadist network two years ago after founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi blew himself up in a US special forces raid in October 2019.

Considered a low-profile but brutal operator, Qurashi had largely flown under the radar of Iraqi and US intelligence until that point.

He took over at a time when IS had been weakened by years of US-led assaults and the loss of its self-proclaimed "caliphate" in Syria and northern Iraq.

The US State Department slapped a $10 million bounty on his head and placed him on its "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" list.

Born in the northern Iraq town of Tal Afar and thought to be in his mid-40s, his ascension in the ranks of the extremist group was rare for a non-Arab, born into a Turkmen family.

Serving in the Iraqi army under Saddam Hussein, the late dictator toppled by the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Qurashi joined the ranks of Al-Qaeda after Hussein was captured by US troops in 2003, according to the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) think-tank.

In 2004, he was detained by US forces at the infamous Camp Bucca prison in southern Iraq, where Baghdadi and host of future Islamic State figures met.
'Brutal policymaker'

After both men were freed, Qurashi remained at Baghdadi's side as he took the reins of the Iraqi branch of Al-Qaeda in 2010, then defected to create the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), later the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

In 2014, Qurashi helped Baghdadi take control of the northern city of Mosul, the CEP said.

The think-tank said Qurashi "quickly established himself among the insurgency's senior ranks and was nicknamed the 'Professor' and the 'Destroyer'".

He was well respected among IS members as a "brutal policymaker" and was responsible for "eliminating those who opposed Baghdadi's leadership", it said.

He is probably best known for playing "a major role in the jihadist campaign of liquidation of the Yazidi minority (of Iraq) through massacres, expulsion and sexual slavery," said Jean-Pierre Filiu, a jihadism analyst at the Sciences Po university in Paris.

On Thursday, US President Joe Biden said that a global "terrorist threat" had been removed when Qurashi blew himself up after US special forces swooped on his Syrian hideout in an "incredibly challenging" night-time helicopter raid.

Hans-Jakob Schindler, a former UN official and director of CEP, called his death a "a major setback for ISIS" in terms of losing a second leader, but doubted it would be a game changer.

IS is thought to prepare for the killings of its leaders with plans for who will take over.
Global spread

Schindler said Quraishi "was not a very transformational leader" because IS had already started to shift from a group that controlled territory in Iraq and Syria to an international network of jihadist organisations under Baghdadi.

But Filiu argued that Qurashi's assassination could be "harder to overcome" than Baghdadi's.

He was "a genuine operational chief whose elimination risks preventing the resurgence of the jihadist group, at least temporarily."

Damien Ferre, director of the Jihad Analytics consultancy, said that Qurashi's legacy would be the reinforcement of the Afghan branch of IS, which has been increasingly active since the United States agreed in 2020 to withdraw its troops from the country.

Other researchers also see the rise of an IS branch around Lake Chad in west Africa as significant, with the group managing to draw fighters from the ranks of the Nigerian terror group Boko Haram.

"On the operational front during his time, Islamic State regained momentum in 2020 before seeing the quality and the quantity of its attacks fall last year," said Ferre.

On January 20, IS fighters launched their biggest assault since the loss of their caliphate nearly three years ago, attacking the Ghwayran prison in the Kurdish-controlled northeast Syrian city of Hasakeh to free fellow jihadists, sparking battles that left over 370 dead.

© 2022 AFP

THE CRUSADER OBLIGATION

Why is secular France doubling funding for Christian schools in the Middle East?

Thu, 3 February 2022



French President Emmanuel Macron announced this week that France would double financial support for Christian schools in the Middle East — a surprising decision for a country that prides itself on its secularism, which is baked into the country’s constitution. Experts, however, see Macron’s move as a wily attempt to court right-wing voters in a possible re-election bid.

“Supporting Christians in the Middle East is an age-old commitment in France, an historic mission,” declared the French president at an event at the Élysée Palace in Paris on February 1. Macron announced that financial aid for Christian schools in the Middle East would be doubled in 2022, going from €2 million to €4 million, co-funded by the French government and the religious organisation L’Oeuvre d’Orient.

French has been a secular state since a 1905 law definitively separated Church and State and guaranteed freedom of religion in the country. It means that religion is treated in France as a private matter, and public education in particular has to be secular – a policy that isn’t the case overseas, where the government works closely with L’Oeuvre d’Orient, a Christian non-profit which has historic ties with the Pope and is overseen by the archbishop of Paris. The charity works in areas such as healthcare and heritage protection, while also providing education with a religious slant.

The French government’s strategy of secular at home, sectarian abroad, can be attributed to France’s desire to keep its sphere of influence in the Middle East, says Bernard Heyberger, the director of studies at the École des Hautes études en sciences sociales and the École pratique des Hautes études in Paris.

“France supports Christian schools in the Middle East because it’s its only presence there,” he told FRANCE 24. “Until recently, archaeological digs were a sphere of influence for France, but there are fewer and fewer of them with the political situation in the region. Schools, therefore, are the best tool that France has to spread its influence: wherever France is sending funding, you can be sure there’s French-speaking education.”

French schools also ensure that the region has a French-speaking population, even if the number of French speakers has diminished.

“L’Oeuvre d’Orient has existed since the 19th century,” explained Heyberger. Massacres of Christians in the 1860s in Damascus and Lebanon horrified the French population and caused a surge in humanitarianism in the country.

“Napoleon III and the Third Republic instrumentalized this and invented the idea that France had been the historical protector of Christians in the region since the time of Saint Louis and Charlemagne. Ever since, France’s political right and far- right have latched on to this idea, which also comes up in left-wing talking points,” he said.
Christians: a political symbol of victims of terrorism?

Mihaela-Alexandra Tudor, a lecturer in communication and media sciences at University Paul-Valéry in Montpellier, says that Macron is deliberately targeting French Catholics before declaring his candidacy for this year’s presidential elections. It's one of similar gestures he's made towards the French Catholic community, including meeting the Pope twice during his mandate.

"Emmanuel Macron’s message was designed as a counter-attack against the right-wing and far-right presidential candidates,” Tudor continues. “He is trying to bolster his track record in the face of the far right’s arguments about secularism and the risk of Islamist terrorist attacks.”

Political instability in the Middle East in the last decade and the Syrian and Iraq wars have drawn the French public’s attention to the plight of Christians in the region. Religious minorities, including Christians, have been particularly targeted during the conflict. The Vatican estimates that there are approximately 15 million Christians in the Middle East, making up about 4 percent of the population.

“Christians in the Middle East have become the symbol of civilian victims of Islamist terrorist groups,” explains Tudor. “After the terrorist attacks committed in France by the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda, the cause of Middle Eastern Christians has become intertwined with the French state’s domestic fight against terrorism and the defence of democratic values like religious freedom.”
Stepping into right-wing territory

"The issue of Christians in the Middle East is at the heart of my engagement,” declared Valérie Pecresse, the presidential candidate for right-wing party Les Républicains, while she was on a trip to Armenia. The National Rally’s interim president Jordan Bardella also said, “I don’t want us to suffer the same fate as the Middle East’s Christians,” and extreme right candidate Éric Zemmour, also on a political trip to Armenia, emphasised the necessity of defending Western civilisation, highlighting that the Christian world should “never refuse to wage war when it is attacked”.

Emmanuel Macron’s decision to double funding for Christian schools in the region is part of a long line of politicians courting right-wing Catholic voters. The president particularly wants to send a message to voters for the far-right candidate Éric Zemmour, “who can draw a lot on the Catholic fringes of the electorate”, explains Tudor. The majority of Christians in the Middle East who are supported by France are Catholics.

“France essentially funds Catholic education in the Middle East,” says Heyberger. “Lebanese Maronites and Catholic Greeks are France’s main intermediaries in the region – France has less contact with Egyptian Coptic Christians or Assyrian Christians, for example.”

French funding went to 174 schools in 2021, including 129 in Lebanon, 16 in Egypt, seven in Israel, 13 in the Palestinian Territories and three in Jordan.

But a major announcement like this could end up being a risky strategy for Macron. “It could be considered opportunistic,” says Tudor. “Catholics are used to presidential candidates asking discreetly for their support, but anyone can change their mind when they’re in the voting booth.”

This article was adapted from the original in French.

Spotify boss defends Joe Rogan deal as stock plunges

AFP
New Delhi, India Published: Feb 04, 2022



STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Spotify has found itself stuck between its $100 million flagship talent and a popular backlash over Covid-19 misinformation on his shows.

The head of embattled streaming service Spotify has told staff that Joe Rogan is vital to the company, but that he doesn't agree with the controversial podcaster.

The comments were published Thursday as the firm's stock went into freefall. Spotify has found itself stuck between its $100 million flagship talent and a popular backlash over Covid-19 misinformation on his shows.

Chief executive Daniel Ek told up-in-arms employees they did not have editorial control over 'The Joe Rogan Experience', which garners up to 11 million listeners per episode.

Graham Nash, India Arie withdraw music from Spotify in protest of Joe Rogan

"There are many things that Joe Rogan says that I strongly disagree with and find very offensive," he said, according to a transcript of the company town hall published by The Verge.

But "if we want even a shot at achieving our bold ambitions, it will mean having content on Spotify that many of us may not be proud to be associated with.

"Not anything goes, but there will be opinions, ideas, and beliefs that we disagree with strongly and even makes us angry or sad."

- Stock rout -

Shares in the company were down 17 percent Thursday in New York, as tech stocks dropped across the board. These shares have been on the slide since November, but have been badly hit by news that its subscriber growth is slowing.

The drop also comes as controversy swirls over the mega deal with Rogan, who has been accused of spouting misinformation about Covid-19 and vaccination, either directly or through the guests he has on his show.

Dwayne Johnson shows support for Joe Rogan amid Spotify misinformation controversy

That led last week to a burgeoning boycott spearheaded by folk-rock star Neil Young and Canadian songstress Joni Mitchell, who asked for their songs to be removed from the platform.

In response Ek announced this week that they would add a content advisory to podcasts about Covid-19, directing listeners to scientific and medical sources.

The Verge reported that staff had been eagerly awaiting the company meeting, with some feeling increasingly frustrated that Spotify was being driven by its deal with Rogan.

Ek told employees that podcasts such as Rogan's were vital if Spotify were to get its head above the competition in a crowded streaming field.

"We needed to find leverage, and one way we could do this was in the form of exclusives," he said, according to the transcript. "To be frank, had we not made some of the choices we did, I am confident that our business wouldn’t be where it is today."

But that is not to say the company agrees with everything its big-name podcast host utters, Ek said, framing Spotify not as a publisher, but as a platform.

"It is important to note that we do not have creative control over Joe Rogan’s content," he said.

"We don’t approve his guests in advance, and just like any other creator, we get his content when he publishes, and then we review it, and if it violates our policies, we take the appropriate enforcement actions."

Spotify is the latest tech company to find itself on the horns of a dilemma that pits a controversial -- and moneymaking -- anti-establishmentarian against advertisers, employees and public outrage.

Last year Netflix was forced to walk the line between defending comedian Dave Chappelle and placating critics who accused the company of giving air to anti-trans sentiment.

Spotify Backs Joe Rogan’s Disinformation Machine

Credit...Damon Winter/The New York Times

By Greg Bensinger
Feb. 1, 2022
OPINION
Mr. Bensinger is a member of the NYT editorial board.

The streaming service Spotify would like us to believe it is grappling with profound matters of free speech and censorship as it faces mounting pressure over repeated Covid disinformation from its star podcaster, Joe Rogan.

But there’s a far simpler explanation — it’s about the money. And the listening public is the one paying the price.

In recent days several well-known musicians have protested Spotify’s enormously popular podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience,” in which Mr. Rogan has, among other things, irresponsibly promoted ivermectin, used to treat parasitic infections, as a Covid treatment, and protested vaccine requirements. And when his guests have offered up gobs of bad information about Covid and vaccine efficacy, he has offered up too little pushback.

After hundreds of medical experts signed an open letter to Spotify denouncing such disinformation, the singer Neil Young issued an ultimatum to Spotify: “They can have Neil Young or Rogan. Not both.” Joni Mitchell soon followed, as did others like the Spotify podcaster Brené Brown, who vowed over the weekend not to release new episodes of her shows “Unlocking Us” and “Dare to Lead.”

Rather than give in to critics, Spotify has held its ground and, in recent days, most of Mr. Young’s and Ms. Mitchell’s music has been pulled from its library. The service said suppressing or editing Mr. Rogan’s podcast would amount to censorship — but anyone who’s paid attention to online content moderation knows that’s a charade. Facebook, in particular, has trotted out that excuse time and again when it ought to have blocked or removed content or users.

Don’t be fooled. Peer just beneath the surface and it becomes clear that for big social media companies, matters of “censorship” are always matters of business. Facebook, for example, has had special exemptions from its rules for the very people who are most likely to be believed: politicians and celebrities. More such speech, more advertising revenue.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube remove content posted by regular folks every day with no apparent worries about grand matters of free speech. Removing accounts by Donald Trump and, more recently, Marjorie Taylor Greene after repeated and flagrant policy violations was done only when it became a business imperative.

If, as Spotify implies, Mr. Rogan’s views offend its sensibilities, there ought to be nothing to prevent the service from scaling his podcast back. As the exclusive rights holder for the podcast, it has more control over and responsibility for Mr. Rogan’s content than do social media companies over users who post Covid misinformation.

But Spotify paid dearly for Mr. Rogan’s podcast (a reported $100 million) and the will of two rockers past their primes and a few others, does not — from a business perspective — outweigh Mr. Rogan’s 11 million regular listeners. Mr. Rogan has expressed contrition and vowed to more carefully vet his guests. Spotify, for its part, said it will post warning labels on his content and that of others directly discussing Covid.

But that’s all window dressing. Twitter and Facebook’s experiments with warning labels and links to authoritative sources proved unable to stop the spread of misinformation during the 2020 election and haven’t been effective in culling similarly dangerous ideas in the pandemic.

In a Sunday blog post that did not include any mention of Mr. Rogan or his podcast, Spotify’s chief executive, Daniel Ek, appears to take a strong stance against violations of the service’s rules. Still, he resisted calls to take more muscular action. “There are plenty of individuals and views on Spotify that I disagree with strongly,” Mr. Ek wrote. “We have a critical role to play in supporting creator expression while balancing it with the safety of our users. In that role, it is important to me that we don’t take on the position of being content censor.”

Whatever Spotify executives’ true feelings about Mr. Rogan or the pandemic, Mr. Ek is really playing defense for his cash cow — and if he gives in on this issue and he’ll have to give in on the next one and the next one after that. Given an opening, there’s no shortage of customers and artists who’d be thrilled to pressure the company to remove content from Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, which has its own exclusive deal with Spotify. Losing Joni Mitchell is a shame, but losing Mr. Rogan or Mr. Obama would be terrible for business, whatever nonsense either may spew.

Investors have rewarded the strategy. Shares of Spotify are up more than 15 percent since Mr. Young’s music started being taken off the service last week, even amid what was the worst start to the year in over a decade for the broader market.

Mr. Ek’s blog post laid out the company’s rules of the road, but Spotify knew exactly who Mr. Rogan was when it signed its exclusive deal with him nearly two years ago. Before reaching the deal, Mr. Rogan had belittled transgender people, given airtime to Alex Jones and once likened a movie theater in a predominantly Black neighborhood as akin to “Planet of the Apes.”

Spotify knew what it was getting with Mr. Rogan. If its “longstanding platform rules” truly mattered or were being applied consistently, you’d expect Mr. Rogan to have already been dealt with.

Where the rubber meets the road for Spotify is a market backlash, a principled stance from bigger names like Taylor Swift, as some have suggested, or a slew of artists, not the trickle we’ve seen so far. So, for now, Mr. Rogan is untouchable and our health is at risk.

What the Joe Rogan Backlash Reveals About How We Handle Misinformation

Credit...Illustration by The New York Times; photograph by Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images

By Spencer Bokat-Lindell
Mr. Bokat-Lindell is a NYT staff editor.

OPINION

Feb. 1, 2022

The fields of the national discourse are everywhere polluted with falsity, lies and propaganda, we are told, and in the absence of a functioning regulatory state to appeal to, culture is called upon to clean up the mess.

The cycle is by now familiar: A private company — usually a tech company with a market capitalization in the tens or hundreds of billions — lends a provocateur a microphone, and sometimes a paycheck to boot. (In an attention economy, the distinction between the two can prove elusive.) The provocateur goes on to amplify claims that are inaccurate, inflammatory, even harmful. Objectors call for the provocateur’s microphone to be taken away, which invariably invites accusations of “censorship,” “illiberalism” and, of course, “cancel culture.”

The embattled speaker of the week is Joe Rogan, the host of the world’s most popular podcast. A few weeks ago, 270 doctors, physicians and science educators signed an open letter calling on Spotify, with whom Rogan has a $100 million contract, to “establish a clear and public policy to moderate misinformation” after Rogan broadcast false and misleading claims about Covid and coronavirus vaccines. Soon after, artists no less iconic than Joni Mitchell and Neil Young announced they would be withdrawing their music from Spotify because of its association with Rogan.

What does the furor over Rogan suggest about the merits and flaws of pressuring tech platforms to combat misinformation? How should a company balance the values of free speech and public health when one of its biggest moneymakers puts them in tension? Here’s what people are saying.
When speech is ‘dangerous’

Rogan, a self-described “moron,” has a habit of stoking controversy. (Just last week, he claimed it was “very strange” for anyone to call themselves Black unless they’re from the “darkest place” of Africa.) But amid a public health crisis, the signatories of the open letter argue, his Covid statements are “not only objectionable and offensive, but also medically and culturally dangerous.”

The reason for their concern is evident. Covid is still killing more than 2,500 Americans a day. Despite having first access to the best vaccines in the world, the United States ranks behind some 60 countries with respect to vaccination and booster rates, and has a much higher death rate per capita than its peers.

“In a matter of days, the United States will reach the ignominious number of 900,000 confirmed deaths, more than half of which occurred well after vaccines were widely available to high risk (by age or immunocompromised) status,” Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, writes. “It is now inevitable that we’ll soon see that toll rise to more than a million American lost lives, and we know that well over 90 percent of these deaths were preventable with vaccination.”

Some of the speech at issue:

Of the coronavirus vaccines, Rogan said, “If you’re a healthy person, and you’re exercising all the time, and you’re young, and you’re eating well, like, I don’t think you need to worry about this.”

When Rogan himself came down with Covid, he claimed he was treating himself with ivermectin, a drug that has become a popular vaccine alternative despite opposition from federal health authorities.


In Rogan’s final episode of 2021, he interviewed a scientist named Robert Malone, who likened the vaccine mandates to Nazi-era oppression and said Americans were trapped in a “mass formation psychosis.”

Just how many Americans Rogan’s pronouncements might have dissuaded from getting vaccinated is impossible to know. But with an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, his influence is “tremendous,” the signatories say.

Platform, or publisher?

In the throes of similar controversies, social media networks like Facebook have argued that they are merely platforms, not publishers, and aren’t responsible for moderating content that doesn’t violate their (shifting) terms of service. But commentators have pointed out that Spotify, unlike those other companies, directly paid $100 million for the exclusive rights to Rogan’s podcast, and the company has noted that his show has increased its ad revenue.

“Spotify doesn’t get to just put a content warning on Rogan’s episodes and treat him like they would any other podcast because he’s not any other podcast,” the tech journalist Ryan Broderick writes. “He’s their podcast.”

Appealing to tech companies to curb the spread of speech deemed dangerous has proved effective in some cases. “You can see it with villains as diverse as ISIS, Milo Yiannopoulos and Alex Jones,” the Times columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote last year. Peter W. Singer, a co-author of “LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media,” told her, “Their ability to drive the conversation, reach wider audiences for recruitment, and, perhaps most importantly to a lot of these conflict entrepreneurs, to monetize it, is irreparably harmed.”

[Read more: “Deplatforming: Following extreme internet celebrities to Telegram and alternative social media”]

With Rogan, though, Spotify has options besides canceling his podcast, Jill Filipovic writes. “They, obviously, don’t want to be a censorship machine, but they could remove episodes that further dangerous untruths, something they’ve already done with Rogan in the past, taking down an episode featuring his interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and another that featured fascist sympathizer Gavin McInnes,” she argues on CNN’s website. Otherwise, “if Rogan’s podcast is more akin to music than a truthful exploration of ideas featuring serious experts, then the company should categorize it as fiction or fantasy, and make clear to listeners that what they’re hearing is as divorced from reality as Major Tom was from planet Earth.”
The case against calling the Big Tech police

It’s wrong. Asking Spotify to crack down on Rogan may offend those who subscribe to the traditionally liberal view that the answer to bad speech is more speech. “Joe Rogan has a right to be wrong, and I have a right to hear him and his guests be wrong, if I want to,” Rod Dreher of The American Conservative writes. “Of course Young and Mitchell have the right to pull their music from Spotify, but do they really want to start this war? As artists, do they really want to put themselves in the position of playing self-righteous censors (because that’s what they’re trying to do: compel Spotify to cancel Rogan’s show).”

It’s unsustainable. It should be said that Young denies that he’s trying to censor anyone; he’s merely exercising his right to free association. “Private companies have the right to choose what they profit from, just as I can choose not to have my music support a platform that disseminates harmful information,” he wrote.

But what other commitments might such a principled stance compel? As Nick Gillespie of Reason points out, Young has an official channel on YouTube, which Joe Rogan is also on. “Should Neil Young, in the name of consistency, issue an ultimatum to YouTube and then bolt when the service refuses to yield to his demand?” he asks. The logic, taken to its conclusion, would end with “all of us at our own paywalled sites, secure in our purity of association but with much less to talk about,” he adds.

It’s a superficial solution. In Jacobin, Branko Marcetic argues that Rogan is a symptom of a larger problem of institutional mistrust. How, after all, did people come to look to him for medical advice in the first place? In Marcetic’s view, the blame falls at least in part on the political and public health establishments, which failed to communicate effectively during the pandemic. “If Spotify booted Rogan and the U.S. government banished him to the Arctic, you would still get Covid misinformation and mistrust, because of both these factors and the messaging failure that’s been endemic to U.S. institutions throughout these confusing, frustrating two years,” he writes.

It entrenches corporate power. Social media giants may be private companies, but they’ve also become points of entry to a de facto public square. For some, like the Times Opinion writer Jay Caspian Kang, that’s all the more reason to refrain from begging that they more rigidly enforce boundaries of socially acceptable speech.

“Nothing a tech company will do to suppress content on its platform will violate the First Amendment, but that’s also the problem we’re facing: There’s very little recourse for the silenced,” he wrote last month. “Cheering on the dismissal of toxic politicians, celebrities and thinkers, and arguing that private companies like Twitter can do whatever they want” if they are following their own terms of service, he added, “give social media companies license to do just that: whatever they want.”
If not Big Tech, then who?

Would it be preferable — more democratic, perhaps — if the power to moderate content belonged to the government rather than tech companies? “At least governmental speech restrictions are implemented in open court, with appellate review,” Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment expert, wrote in The Times last year. “Speakers get to argue why their speech should remain protected. Courts must follow precedents, which gives some assurance of equal treatment. And the rules are generally created by the public, by their representatives or by judges appointed by those representatives.”

Of course, as Emily Bazelon has written for The Times Magazine, Americans are deeply suspicious of letting the state regulate speech, too: “We are uncomfortable with government doing it; we are uncomfortable with Silicon Valley doing it. But we are also uncomfortable with nobody doing it at all. This is a hard place to be — or, perhaps, two rocks and a hard place.”

For Ben Wizner, the director of the A.C.L.U.’s Speech and Privacy Project, the solution may lie not in transferring Big Tech’s power to the state but in breaking it up. “We need to use the law to prevent companies from consolidating that amount of power over our public discourse,” he said last year. “That does not mean regulation of content. It would mean enforcing our antitrust laws in the U.S. We should never have allowed a handful of companies to achieve the market dominance they have over such important public spaces.”

Do you have a point of view we missed? Email us at debatable@nytimes.com. Please note your name, age and location in your response, which may be included in the next newsletter.

READ MORE

“Spotify Isn’t Really About the Music Anymore” [The Atlantic]

“Spotify Is Getting the Full Joe Rogan Experience, and It’s Awkward” [The New Republic]

“The Spotify Backlash Never Had a Chance” [New York]

Washington NFL owner accused of harassment at hearing

Thu, February 3, 2022

Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder was accused of sexual harassment by a former employee at a congressional hearing on Thursday (AFP/Patrick Smith) (Patrick Smith)

A former Washington Commanders employee told a US Congressional panel hearing evidence of workplace malpractice at the NFL franchise on Thursday that she was sexually harassed by team owner Dan Snyder.

Tiffani Johnston, a former cheerleader and marketing executive with the NFL team, said Snyder had touched her thigh under the table during a team dinner before later "aggressively" trying to steer her into his limosuine.

The allegation -- the first of its kind against Snyder -- was made as Johnston spoke at a roundtable organized by the House Oversight Committee to address workplace misconduct and sexual harassment at Washington's NFL franchise.


The Washington Football Team -- renamed the Commanders on Wednesday -- were fined $10 million by the NFL last year after an investigation found evidence of sexual harassment, bullying and intimidation.

The allegations centred around several managers and executives who have since left the franchise, but Snyder had not been accused of inappropriate behavior before.

Johnston told lawmakers on Thursday how she had been forced to rebuff Snyder's advances during a team dinner, where she had been seated next to the multi-billionaire owner.

"I learned that placing me strategically by the owner at a work dinner after this networking event was not for me to discuss business, but to allow him, Dan Snyder, to place his hand on my thigh under the table," Johnston said.

"I also learned later that evening how to awkwardly laugh when Dan Snyder pushed me aggressively towards his limo with his hand on my lower back, encouraging me to ride with him to my car.

"I learned how to say no even though the situation was getting more awkward, uncomfortable and physical."

She said Snyder only desisted after his attorney intervened, warning him it would be a "very bad idea."

- 'Outright lies' -

In a statement quoted by several US media outlets on Thursday, Snyder apologized for the workplace culture at his team but strongly rejected allegations of personal wrongdoing.

"I apologize again today for this conduct, and fully support the people who have been victimized and have come forward to tell their stories," Snyder said.

"While past conduct at the team was unacceptable, the allegations leveled against me personally in today's roundtable -- many of which are well over 13 years old -- are outright lies.

"I unequivocally deny having participated in any such conduct, at any time and with respect to any person."

In separate testimony in Thursday's hearing, Melanie Coburn, the team's former marketing director, recalled an incident during a staff trip to Snyder's home in Aspen, Colorado.

She said that after returning to Snyder's house following an evening function, she was told to go to her room in the basement and remain there.

"I later learned from a colleague, who was there, that it was because the men had invited prostitutes back," Coburn told the hearing.

She described the workplace culture at the team's headquarters as "deplorable, like a frat party run by a billionaire who knew no boundaries."

The oversight committee chair, Carolyn Maloney, meanwhile accused National Football League chiefs of covering up for Washington and Snyder by failing to publicly release the report into wrongdoing at the franchise last year.

"After 20 years of sexual harassment and abuse at the Washington Football Team, the team and the league have tried to sweep all of this under the rug," Maloney said in her opening statement.

"After an investigation by a respected lawyer found rampant and serious abuses at the Washington Football Team, the NFL covered it up.

"In a break from recent precedent, the league refused to release a written report and let Mr. Snyder off with a fine and a slap on the wrist."

rcw/js

ECOCIDE

Round-the-clock care for Peru's oil-stained sea birds

An untold number of sea birds were killed by a massive oil spill off the coast of Peru. 

A dozen Humboldt penguins are being nursed back to life 

(AFP/Ernesto BENAVIDES)

The spill was described as an "ecological disaster" by the Peruvian government

 (AFP/Ernesto BENAVIDES)

With oil on their wings, birds cannot fly or feed, and they lose the insulation they need to keep warm (AFP/Ernesto BENAVIDES)



The slightest vestige of crude can affect a bird's digestive system

 (AFP/Ernesto BENAVIDES)

The spill was classified an 'ecological disaster' by the government 

(AFP/Ernesto BENAVIDES)


Carlos MANDUJANO
Thu, 3 February 2022,

Hand fed fish and given gentle yet rigorous baths, penguins and other sea birds are slowly regaining their strength at a Peruvian zoo after a major oil spill that claimed many of their friends.

Of about 150 oil-stained birds rescued alive after the January 15 spill of some 12,000 barrels of oil, half later died.

The survivors -- penguins, cormorants and pelicans -- are being nursed back to health and independence at the Parque de Las Leyendas zoo in Lima.


With oil on their wings, birds cannot fly or feed, and they lose the insulation they need to keep warm.

Even birds not directly contaminated with crude fell ill or died after eating fish that were.

- 'Very stressed' -

At the zoo, the rescued birds are fed fish -- for the penguins it is their preferred prey of silverside and anchovies.

They are given a special rehydration mixture through a tube, bathed, and dried with a towel.

"Many of them arrived in very bad condition, which makes it difficult for us to handle them," said Giovanna Yepez, one of the rescuers at the zoo.

"The animals were very contaminated... were very stressed," she added. "It is a very hard job."

But after two weeks of intensive care, the penguins at least "have tripled their food consumption," said Yepez.

"I believe the penguins are on the right track, they are clean and waiting for the impermeability of their feathers to return so they can be released."

Even when the feathers appear clean, the slightest vestige of crude inside the beak "can affect (the bird) through the digestive system, the liver," added veterinarian Giancarlo Inga Diaz, hence the need for patience and thoroughness.

- 'Disaster' -

The spill, described as an "ecological disaster" by the Peruvian government, happened when an Italian-flagged tanker was unloading oil at a refinery off Peru's coast.

Spanish oil company Repsol said the tanker was hit by freak waves triggered by a tsunami after a massive volcanic eruption near Tonga, thousands of kilometers away.

The oil slick was dragged by ocean currents about 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of the refinery, prosecutors said, killing countless fish and birds, polluting tourist beaches and robbing fishermen of their livelihood.

The Humbold penguin -- a species classified as "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature -- lives in colonies on the Peruvian and Chilean coasts, feeding in the cold, nutrient-rich waters of the Humboldt Current which flows north from Antarctica.

Some 9,000 of the black-and-white flightless birds are known to exist in Peru.

They stand about 50 centimeters tall.

Peru has demanded compensation from Repsol for the spill at its refinery.

cm/fj/mlr/md

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

Repsol says it will finish cleaning up Peru oil spill in late March

By Marco Aquino

© Reuters/ANGELA PONCE 

Workers clean up an oil spill at the beach as demonstrators take part in a protest outside Repsol's La Pampilla refinery in Ventanilla

VENTANILLA, Peru (Reuters) - Spanish energy firm Repsol SA said on Thursday it will only finish cleaning up a large oil spill off the coast of Peru in late March, pushing back an earlier timeline it had set of late February.

"That is an optimistic scenario," Jose Terol, a Repsol executive in charge of the cleanup told reporters during a visit to the company's emergency operations center.

The new timeline revises what company executives had said as recently as on Tuesday, that cleaning the beaches and the ocean would finish in late February.

Terol said the March deadline was tied to removing remnant oil from remote rocky cliffs, which are harder to reach due to strong waves.

The Jan. 15 oil spill of over 10,000 barrels of oil into the Pacific Ocean happened just north of Lima at Repsol's La Pampilla refinery, the country's largest.

Peru has called it the worst environmental disaster in recent memory and prosecutors have barred four top executives from leaving the country for 18 months.

Repsol has blamed the spill on unusual waves caused by a volcanic eruption thousands of miles away in Tonga, but the exact cause remains under investigation.

The government has accused Repsol of misrepresenting the size of the incident. Repsol first reported the spill involved 0.16 barrels before updating the figure to over 10,000, after the government's own estimate indicated the spill to be around 11,900 barrels.

Terol explained cleaning the ocean could end in mid-February if weather conditions allowed, while cleaning up the beaches would finish in late February.

"We estimate we'll be in an acceptable situation toward the end of March, more or less," Terol said.

He added that the oil had spread to an area of over 105 square kilometers (40.5 square miles), although it had dispersed into smaller stains.

Terol said Repsol had cleaned about 33% of the spill. The company said on Jan. 28 it had recovered 35% of all the oil spilled, a figure it has not updated since.

(Reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun; Editing by Karishma Singh)

Mexican kayaker on mission to clean up floating gardens




Kayaker Omar Menchaca collects garbage from the canals of Mexico City's floating gardens 

(AFP/CLAUDIO CRUZ)

Samir Tounsi
Thu, February 3, 2022

As dawn breaks over Mexico City's floating gardens, Omar Menchaca paddles his kayak through a maze of canals collecting garbage left by visitors to one of the last vestiges of the ancient Aztec capital.

In the silence of the early morning, before the hordes of tourists arrive, the 66-year-old retiree fishes plastic bottles and other debris from the waters of Xochimilco.

"I came here to train for my competitions," says the former athletics champion.

"Over time, unfortunately, I started noticing that these canals were full of garbage."

As his single-seater kayak glides by, herons and pelicans take flight in the morning mist.

In the distance, the Popocatepetl volcano, Mexico's second highest summit, rises more than 5,400 meters (17,700 feet) above sea level.

Menchaca seems to be far from the network of congested roads that serve Mexico City and its nine million inhabitants.

In fact, "the ring road is only 600 meters away," he says with a smile.

Menchaca regularly puts down his paddle and uses his bare hands to pick up garbage floating on the surface of the water amid aquatic flowers.

Xochimilco is a magnet for tourists who ride colorful gondolas through its network of canals and artificial islands created centuries ago by the area's indigenous peoples.

On weekends in particular, couples, families and groups of friends come to eat, drink and dance to the sound of mariachi music.

The reserve is home to endemic species including the critically endangered axolotl, a salamander-like amphibian.

Cleaning up the waste left by visitors is a constant battle for Menchaca, who offers tours during which he recounts the history of the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

He likes nothing more than to see children copy him by collecting waste.

"Xochimilco is visited by around 6,000 people on weekends. Unfortunately, these people don't take care of the place," he says.

Conservationists also worry about the impact of development encroaching on the area, which is listed as a Wetlands of International Importance under an intergovernmental conservation treaty.

- 'If we do nothing' -

Menchaca curses when he sees boats equipped with outboard motors.

"The canals are not very deep, barely half a meter," he says.

"A boat with an engine that carries up to 40 people causes noise and pollutes the wetlands with oil and gasoline."

At midday, Menchaca returns to the pier from which he set off through a vast canal with a breathtaking view of Mount Ajusco, which rises to some 3,900 meters within the city limits.

His kayak is overflowing with garbage.

On the way he greets a man shoveling mud from the canal to use as a natural fertilizer.

"The people at the pier should pick up all the garbage and not Don Omar," says the 69-year-old, Noe Coquis Salcedo.

Back on dry land, Menchaca deposes of the debris in a dumpster near the parking lot.

He believes his efforts make a small difference helping to preserve the place for future generations, in addition to the work of the city authorities who say they are "constantly" maintaining the canals.

"The canals are paths," says Menchaca, enjoying a beer and enchilada in the January sunshine after his hours of physical exercise.

"That's why when I see this garbage, I try to collect it so that whoever passes afterward can enjoy a clean path," he adds.

Nearby young people in swimsuits dive from the top of a gondola moored at the pier.

"If we do nothing for our planet there will come a time when..." Menchaca says before pausing, his hands outstretched like a gesture of helplessness.

"There won't be much left for us to enjoy," he concludes.

st/dr/st

SA private military contractors bolster Russian influence in Africa

SA contractors are said to be aiding Russia's influence in Africa.

Gallo Images/Brenton Geach

• Russia's footprint in African countries has grown in recent years thanks to backing from private military contractors.
• Mercenaries are said to have been contracted from South Africa.
• These military contractors belong to the "Wagner group", which apparently has no legal status.

---

Russia's geopolitical ambitions in Africa have in recent years been backed by private military contractors, often described as belonging to the "Wagner group" - an entity with no known legal status.

Most recently, Western nations have condemned the alleged arrival of Russian mercenaries in Mali's capital Bamako, a claim denied by the junta that seized power in 2020.

As relations with France worsen, the military rulers may be looking for ways to make up for shrinking numbers of European troops fighting Mali's years-old jihadist insurgency.

"Mercs (mercenaries) working in Africa is an established norm" thanks in part to decades of operations by contractors from South Africa, said Jason Blazakis of the New York-based Soufan Group think-tank.

READ | Biden sends US troops to Eastern Europe amid Russia and Ukraine tensions

"The Wagner folks are walking through a door that has long been open to their ilk," he added.

No information is publicly available about the group's size or finances.

But around Africa, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington has found evidence since 2016 of Russian soldiers of fortune in Sudan, South Sudan, Libya, the Central African Republic (CAR), Madagascar and Mozambique.

Botswana, Burundi, Chad, the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria and Zimbabwe are also on the CSIS's list.

In Africa "there is a convergence of many states' interests, including China's," Alexey Mukhin of the Moscow-based Centre for Political Information told AFP.

"Every state has the right to defend its business assets," he added.

'Hysteria'

Wagner does not officially exist, with no company registration, tax returns or organisational chart to be found.

When the EU wanted to sanction the group in 2020, it targeted Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin who is suspected of running Wagner.

It imposed further sanctions in December last year when mercenaries' arrival in Mali appeared certain - drawing accusations of "hysteria" from Moscow.

Western experts say military contractors are embedded in Russia's official forces like intelligence agencies and the army, providing plausible deniability for Moscow.

Their deployment to African countries aims to "enable Russia to... regain this sphere of influence" that fell away with the collapse of the Soviet Union, said CSIS researcher Catrina Doxsee.

The mercenaries' presence has been growing even faster since a 2019 Russia-Africa summit.

Moscow has been active "especially in what has traditionally been France's zone of influence" in former colonies like CAR and Mali, said Djallil Lounnas, a researcher at Morocco's Al Akhawayn university.

While military contractors sometimes shepherd Russian arms sales, the revenue "really pales compared with the profit they are able to generate from mining concessions and access to natural resources", Doxsee said.

That makes unstable countries with mineral or hydrocarbon wealth prime customers - such as in Syria where the mercenaries first became known to the wider public.

No questions asked

Lounnas said that another advantage for clients is a lack of friction over human rights and democracy that might come with Western partners.

"Russia has its interests. It doesn't ask questions," he added.

Reports of violence and abuse on the ground suggest that same latitude may extend to the mercenaries themselves.

In the CAR, the United Nations is probing an alleged massacre during a joint operation by government forces and Wagner fighters.

One military source told AFP that more than 50 people died, some in "summary executions".

Meanwhile the mercenaries' results do not always measure up to the hopes of the governments that hire them.

In Libya, Russian mercenaries suffered heavy losses in Marshal Khalifa Haftar's year-long attempt to conquer the capital Tripoli, which was ultimately unsuccessful.

Mozambique

And in Mozambique, the Russians retreated in the face of Islamic State group jihadists, ultimately losing out to South African competitors.

Although lacking language skills and experience with the terrain, Wagner "were picked because they were the cheapest", Doxsee said.

"They didn't have what it took to succeed," she added, noting that "they've had a fair few failures" across Africa.

Succeeding completely might actually harm the mercenaries' business model, which thrives on unrest, conflict and crisis.

"If a country such as the CAR hires them to train forces, to help them in their military efforts, it's in their interest to accomplish that just well enough to continue to be employed," Doxsee said.

"If they actually were to do it well enough to resolve the conflict, they would no longer be needed".

Row over 'machismo' in song by Brazil icon Chico Buarque


Mauro Pimentel

Joshua Howat Berger
Thu, February 3, 2022,

In 1966, the late bossa nova singer Nara Leao asked Brazilian music icon Chico Buarque to write her a song about a long-suffering woman waiting on her man.

Fifty-six years later, the widely loved song, "Com Acucar, Com Afeto" (With Sugar and Affection), is at the center of a firestorm in Brazil after Buarque said he had decided to stop singing it over criticism of machismo in its lyrics.

"The feminists are right," Buarque said in a documentary series on Leao's life that debuted on January 7 on Brazilian streaming platform Globoplay.

"I'm always going to agree with the feminists," added the singer, now a 77-year-old living legend of Brazilian popular music.

That triggered a tempest over "cancel culture," political correctness and feminism in a Brazil that is deeply divided heading into elections in October that will decide whether polemical far-right President Jair Bolsonaro gets a new term.

"This has reached the height of craziness! All because of the Feminists. CRAZINESS!" read one typical reaction on Twitter.

"That took a long time, didn't it?" went a typical reaction from the opposite camp.

"I always hated that shitty machismo-filled song. I think people who romanticize it are bizarre."

The song is written from the perspective of a woman who has prepared her man's "favorite sweet, with sugar and affection," but is stuck waiting for him to come home while he is out carousing at bars and ogling other women.

Despite it all, when he finally gets home, she sings, "I'll warm up your favorite dish... and open my arms for you."

- 'Suffering woman's song' -

"You have to understand that in those days, it never crossed our minds that that was a form of oppression, that women shouldn't be treated like that," said Buarque, an adored singer-songwriter known for his satin voice, blue-green eyes, heartthrob smile and a storied career spanning six decades.

"I'm not going to sing 'With Sugar and Affection' anymore, and if Nara were here, I'm sure she wouldn't sing it either," added Buarque, whose repertoire includes numerous songs written from a woman's perspective.

Leao, who died in 1989 at age 47, is considered one of the founders of bossa nova, the silky smooth musical genre that evolved from the Brazilian samba in 1950s Rio de Janeiro.

Buarque said she had asked him for a "suffering woman's song." He complied, and went on to sing it himself, as well.

But some commentators pointed out Buarque had not sung the song live since at least the 1980s, dismissing the row that erupted in the media, on social networks and in cultural circles as a trumped-up controversy.

"We need to pay attention to the fact that this episode was used to rail against feminism and social movements, supposedly responsible for censoring artistic creations and impose political correctness," columnist Amara Moira wrote on website BuzzFeed.

"None of that actually happened. But in these times of fake news and hair-trigger reactions, it hardly matters."

Whether the song and surrounding controversy are ancient history or not, they gave rise to a new musical creation this week.

On Wednesday, singer Viviane Davoglio and songwriter Iavora Cappa posted a revised version of the song to YouTube, called "Com Ternura e Com Afeto" (With Tenderness and Affection).

In their version, it is the female protagonist who goes out for a night on the town, then comes home to her crying man -- who warms up her favorite dish.

jhb/md

Tibetans protest 'Games of shame' at Olympic HQ

Robin MILLARD
Thu, February 3, 2022


Tibetan musician Loten Namling said he was dragging the Chinese flag 

because 'China destroyed my country. China destroyed my culture' 

(AFP/VALENTIN FLAURAUD)

Around 500 Tibetans marched outside the International Olympic Committee headquarters on Thursday, led by an activist on skis dragging the Chinese flag behind him, to protest against Beijing hosting the Games.

Tibetan demonstrators from across Europe marched the three kilometres (two miles) from the IOC building in Lausanne to the Swiss city's Olympic Museum, a day before the 2022 Winter Games' opening ceremony in the Chinese capital.

There were also demonstrations in other world cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Protesters in Lausanne, many carrying Tibetan flags, marched behind banners reading "Boycott Beijing Winter Olympics", "Stop human rights violations in Tibet" and "Games of shame".

Tibetan artist Loten Namling, who has lived in Switzerland for 32 years, led the procession on skis painted with the word "freedom".

"The reason why I'm dragging the Chinese flag is China destroyed my country. China destroyed my culture. Let them realise how painful it is for us," he said.

"Never, ever should they give the Olympics to mass murderers and dictators. It's time to say stop."

Demonstrators chanted "No rights, no Games" and "Beijing Olympics: genocide Games" as they marched past the Olympic rings.

Meanwhile, student activists got on the roof of the IOC entrance to hold up a banner reading "No Beijing 2022".

- Spotlight on sponsors -

One placard displayed a skier in front of a tank with the Olympic rings for wheels, replicating the famous photograph of the lone protester blocking a column of tanks during Beijing's deadly 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Another said: "Don't let Beijing 2022 become Berlin 1936".

The lead-up to the Winter Games has been overshadowed by human rights concerns, the Covid-19 pandemic and even fears about the Chinese government snooping on athletes.

Karma Choekyi, president of the Tibetan community in Switzerland, organised the Lausanne protest.

She claimed the Olympics and their financial backers had turned a blind eye to the civil liberties situation in China.

"The Chinese communist regime is empowered and they feel this kind of Games legitimises their right to crack down on the human rights of the people under them," she said.

"We condemn the IOC and the sponsors for making this happen."

Tibet has alternated over the centuries between independence and control by China, which says it "peacefully liberated" the rugged plateau in 1951 and brought infrastructure and education to the previously underdeveloped region.

But many exiled Tibetans accuse the Chinese central government of religious repression, torture and eroding their culture.

- 'Inexplicable' hosting choice -

Wearing a Tibetan Buddhist monk's robes, Thupten Wangchen, a member of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile, said they were not against the Olympics but against the choice of host.

"IOC: please, from now on, in future Olympics, choose a country which has human rights and freedom of religion," he said.

Karma Thinlay, president of the Tibetan Community France group, said it was "inexplicable" that Beijing had been awarded the Olympics for a second time, after the 2008 summer Games.

"The goal of the IOC is to build a better world through sport. Unfortunately it's not the case at all," he said.

Demonstrator Chime, 20, who described herself as stateless, said the Games holding their opening ceremony celebrations on Friday was "so sad".

"Is business, is the Olympics more important than people's lives? If we Tibetans are not human beings for you, then do it," she said.

In Los Angeles, around 50 people descended on China's consulate to protest the holding of the games in Beijing.

Kevin Young of the Santa Barbara Friends of Tibet, said the Games were a veneer for an abusive government.

"I don't want that the human rights violations, the torture in Tibet, Hong Kong, against the Uyghurs, gets minimised with this Olympic Games," he told AFP.

"We don't want to remain silent in the face of the oppression of the (Communist Party) regime.

rjm/cb-hg/jfx

Using military to end trucker protest 'not in the cards': Trudeau

More protests against Covid vaccine mandates, like the one seen here in Ottawa last Saturday, are expected this weekend (AFP/Lars Hagberg)
Lars Hagberg


Michel COMTE
Thu, February 3, 2022

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday poured cold water on sending in the military to clear protestors opposed to Covid vaccine mandates, whose convoy of big trucks are clogging Ottawa's downtown.

The city's police chief, under pressure from locals weary of harassment and incessant honking, had pitched the idea during a briefing the previous day.

"That is not in the cards right now," Trudeau told a news conference, adding that governments must be "very, very cautious before deploying the military in situations against Canadians."


Since Saturday, Canada's capital has been beset by protestors led by truckers opposed to mandatory Covid vaccines for traveling between Canada and the United States.

By midweek, their numbers had dwindled to several hundred from a peak of 15,000 over the weekend, but they continued to make their case against public health measures loudly.

Trudeau, who's isolating after contracting Covid, said it was up to police to deal with them, but added that the federal government is ready to provide support from federal police and intelligence services.

At the same time he urged protestors to go home, saying locals had had enough of the "significant disruptions" caused by the protestors.

- Honking at parliament -

Outside parliament, protestors -- whose leaders vowed at a news conference Thursday to stay until all Covid restrictions are lifted -- strolled between the big rigs, Canadian flags draped over their shoulders and waving anti-Trudeau placards.

"I am here supporting the protest for my children," Caroline Leader, who lives a two-hour drive from the capital, told AFP.

"They're six and eight, and I believe they deserve full freedom, bodily autonomy. They should be free to move around, to travel regardless of their medical choices or status," she said.

Manning a grill on the street and serving pancakes, scrambled eggs and sausages to protestors, local resident Shannon Laurent agreed that people "should be allowed to choose whether or not to get vaccinated."

The so-called "Freedom Convoy" set out from Canada's Pacific coast in late January, with supporters along the way joining them for the 4,400-kilometers (2,700-miles) drive.

Bal Tiwana, from Calgary, lamented not being able to travel as much as he used to, due to pandemic restrictions.

"Me and my wife used to travel all the time, and now can't get on a plane or drive across the (Canada-US) border to leave the country," he said.

Since November, anyone traveling by train or plane within Canada or departing from a Canadian airport must present proof of vaccination against Covid-19.

- 'Fatigue has set in' -

Although most Canadians (68 percent, according to an Abacus poll) do not support the protest, it's clear that many are growing increasingly frustrated by public health restrictions on their daily lives.

"Fatigue has set in," explained Roxane de la Sablonniere, a psychologist at the University of Montreal.

In Canada, most measures enacted by provincial governments remain very restrictive, among the toughest in the West -- including lockdowns, a curfew in Quebec that has now been lifted, and capacity limits on restaurants, bars and other public venues.

"The majority of the population does not support the truckers in Ottawa, but there is still a significant minority who identify with it," Daniel Beland, a politics professor at McGill University in Montreal.

And it's much higher than the 10 percent of Canadian adults who have not received Covid jabs, he noted.

This upcoming weekend, the Ottawa protest is expected to swell again, while similar demonstrations are planned in other cities including Quebec City and Toronto.

"Our movement has grown in Canada and across the world because common people are tired of the mandates and restrictions in their lives that now seem to be doing more harm than good," convoy organizer Tamara Lich told a news conference.

"We will continue our protest until we see a clear plan for their elimination," she said.

Meanwhile in Alberta, a group of truckers and farmers protesting vaccine mandates at a border crossing to the US state of Montana allowed traffic to partially resume Thursday.

tib-amc/mdl