Jagmeet Singh Says The Freedom Convoy's Goal Is To 'Overthrow The Government'
Tristan Wheeler - Monday

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has said that the Freedom Convoy's goal is to "overthrow the government" and has called for an emergency debate in parliament ASAP.

Speaking during a press conference on Monday, February 7, Singh said, "It's clear that the state intent of this convoy is to overthrow the government."

He went on to say that those involved are "harassing citizens, threatening people [and] assaulting people."

Singh also mentioned reports of protesters allegedly lighting a fire in an apartment building in Downtown Ottawa, saying that these stories are examples of violent and dangerous behaviour "that is causing really severe consequences to people."



He's also calling for an emergency parliamentary debate on how to put an end to convoy blockades "and get Canadians through to the end of this pandemic."

Singh touched on the need to address alleged foreign interference from people in the United States and elsewhere in the world, too.

"There are many examples of American politicians and other folks who are funding this direct action that is trying to undermine our democracy," the NDP leader said.

Later, he repeated, “This is clear it’s not a protest, it’s an act to try to overthrow the government.”

Singh isn’t the only one calling out the protesters involved in the Freedom Convoys taking place.

Justin Trudeau previously described the group as a "fringe minority" that doesn’t represent all Canadians. More recently, an Ottawa City Council called the Freedom Convoy participants “terrorists.”

A day before Singh’s call for federal action, the City of Ottawa went into a state of emergency because of the demonstrations.

Police in the city have also announced that they will arrest individuals who provide fuel or other goods to those protesting.

The Freedom Convoy protests have been taking place in Ottawa and across the rest of Canada since January 29. Those involved include people against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and government lockdowns.

'Putting their foot on the throat of all Canadians': Federal ministers call for end of blockades

Ryan Tumilty -  POSTMEDIA

OTTAWA – Federal ministers said the blockade shuttering downtown Ottawa and two major border crossings are “putting their foot on the throat of all Canadians,” but for the second day in a row were thin on specifics on how they will help bring them to an end.


© Provided by National Post

Protestors block the roadway at the Ambassador Bridge border crossing, in Windsor, Ontario on February 9, 2022.

For the 12th day in a row, streets around Parliament Hill were closed as large trucks and smaller vehicles effectively blockaded the city’s core. A closure of the Coutts border crossing in southern Alberta has been in place for essentially as long and on Monday, protesters shutdown the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ont.

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said the protests were causing significant economic damage including forcing downtown Ottawa businesses to close and delaying huge volumes of traffic.

“I want to be clear, those participating in the convoy are hurting Canadians. They pose serious dangers for the economy, and they are breaking the law and no one is above the law,” he said.

Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair went further and called for a swift end to all the protests.

Blair, who was previously Toronto’s police chief, said the protesters were hurting Canadians.

“There are many criminal acts, acts of thuggery and obnoxiousness that they’ve inflicted on the people of Ottawa. Now as a result of their unlawful actions to block our highways leading into our points of entry with the U.S. they’re putting their foot on the throat of all Canadians.”

Earlier this week, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson asked the provincial and federal governments to come together to provide 1,800 additional officers to local police.

Ottawa protesters employ gas can subterfuge to frustrate police

Ottawa mayor calls for feds to provide 1,800 more police to clear protesters

“We must do everything in our power to take back the streets of Ottawa, and our parliamentary precinct, from the criminal activity and hooliganism,” he said. “We can contain the occupation, but we cannot end it without your support.”

Mendicino, who oversees the RCMP, said reinforcements were coming, but offered no details on when or how many officers might arrive.

Blair announced a tripartite table with representatives from the provincial, federal and municipal governments on Monday, but revealed Wednesday the province had not yet shown up to those meetings.

Trucker protests: Bloc Québécois MP suggests ‘crisis team’ creation to deal with ‘siege’ on Ottawa

“They have not been at the table for the first two meetings. We have indications from them today that they’ll be joining us,” he said.

Blair said despite the Ontario government’s absence there had been other conversations with the province and the government was working to find the resources.

Stephen Warner, a spokesperson for Solicitor General Sylvia Jones, said she had been in regular contact with federal cabinet ministers, including Blair and Mendicino about the situation in Ottawa.

He stressed politicians did not direct police.

“Policing protests is a responsibility carried out by local police services across Ontario, who have the resources and authority to ensure their communities remain safe,” he said.

Warner said the government had shared Watson’s request with the head of the Ontario Provincial Police. An OPP spokesperson said they were reviewing the request, but wouldn’t provide operational details about how many new officers might arrive or when.


© Provided by National Post

A person carries a fuel can in a stroller as truckers and their supporters continue to protest in Ottawa, Ontario, February 8, 2022. REUTERS/Patrick Doyle

Ottawa Police issued a warning to protesters Wednesday that blocking roads as they were doing constituted criminal mischief and they could be arrested, face vehicle seizures and if convicted end up with criminal records that would prevent them from crossing the U.S. border. One of the protesters’ original demands was for Canada to rescind a current requirement for cross-border truckers to be vaccinated.

Ottawa Police have revealed this week that protesters were subverting efforts to cut off fuel supplies by carrying around empty jerry cans. The police also said many of the vehicles had children inside, which would make any police operation more difficult.

The Ambassador Bridge carries a quarter of the annual trade between Canada and the U.S. with thousands of trucks making the trip every day in normal circumstances. Dozens of business groups called on governments to act swiftly to get the bridge reopened.

Perrin Beatty, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said action could not wait.

“This is the most important land crossing in North America and it needs to be reopened now,” he said on Twitter.

The delays were forcing some auto plants to shutter until more parts could arrive, and truckers were forced to take an hours-long detour to Sarnia, Ont.

Windsor’s Mayor Drew Dilkens said in a press conference that about 100 protesters were blocking the main access route to the bridge. He called for both provincial and federal help to end the protest.


© Photo by Geoff Robins / AFP

A line of trucks waits for the road to the Ambassador Bridge to reopen on Tuesday. The bridge is the single largest conduit for trade between Canada and the United States, with some $323 million worth of goods passing over the span each day.

“There has to be a resolution to get this border crossing open. It’s going to be impacting the economies of the United States and Canada,” he said. “You have 100 people who are holding hostage part of our national economy. That is why this cannot be allowed to be sustained for any length of time, action will have to be taken to reopen this bridge so the economy can continue to function.”

Twitter: RyanTumilty

Email: rtumilty@postmedia.com

Two decades and $30 million later, a B.C. mine proposal is officially dead


They say that history repeats itself because nobody was listening the first time.

B.C. rejected a proposed open-pit copper, gold and molybdenum mine for the second time Monday, spelling the likely end of a saga that lasted nearly 20 years, cost tens of millions of dollars and exposed flaws in B.C.’s environmental assessment process along the way

Plans for the Morrison mine, proposed for the shores of Morrison Lake, known as T’akh Tl’ah Bin, about 65 kilometres from Smithers on Lake Babine Nation territory, go back to the ‘90s — although miners have been eyeing the area for its gold and copper since as far back as the ‘60s.

But it wasn’t until 2003 when Pacific Booker Minerals officially entered into B.C.’s environmental assessment process that the gold, copper and molybdenum mine project, planned to produce 30,000 tonnes of ore per day over a 21-year period, really began to take shape.

And that’s also when it should have been stopped in its tracks, according to many who saw the project, right from its inception, as too dangerous to fish and water to proceed.

Adrienne Berchtold, ecologist and mining impacts researcher with SkeenaWild Conservation Trust, said the proposed site for the mine should have excluded it from consideration at the outset. But, as Berchtold pointed out, B.C. has no clear guidelines on unsuitable locations for mines — guidelines that would have saved everyone involved in the Morrison mine saga years of time and energy.

“A lot of resources have gone into evaluating this project, not only on the part of the government, but the proponent and First Nations and other community groups have [also] put tons of work … into debating this project that really never should have been proposed in the first place because of the high value of that habitat for sockeye.”

The Morrison mine was first rejected by the province in 2012 on the grounds that the risks to fish, water and communities outweighed any potential economic benefits from the project. About 90 per cent of Skeena River sockeye populations come from the Skeena watershed, of which Morrison Lake is a part, depending on the year.

It’s the same conclusion George Heyman, minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, and Bruce Ralston, minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, came to this week.

“Having reviewed the material provided to us, we have reached the same conclusion as our predecessors: there remain uncertainties and risks to fish and water quality,” the ministers wrote in their reasons for decision. “In light of that uncertainty, we do not think it would be in the public interest to grant an [environmental assessment certificate] for the Morrison mine.”

Yet for many involved in the process, it’s frustrating such uncertainty could trail through a time and cost-intensive process that has dragged on for nearly two full decades.

Vancouver-based Pacific Booker Minerals did not respond to The Narwhal’s request for an interview by time of publication. But in a February 2021 interview with Business in Vancouver, CEO John Plourde said the environmental assessment process, run through B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office, left his company in frustrating procedural limbo.

“They want us to tell them what we’re going to do. They’re supposed to tell us what we’re going to do,” he said in that interview.

Others say the process should never have dragged on for as long as it did given the insistent opposition to the project by the Lake Babine Nation.

From day one the nation flagged concerns with the proposed mine given its proximity to salmon spawning grounds and nursery habitat.

“It was a fundamentally flawed project,” Verna Power, councillor with Lake Babine Nation, said in a statement after the mine’s rejection on Monday.

“We cannot support any project that threatens our yintah (territory and natural resources) and our future as a people, so it is a huge relief that this project is finally dead.”

Power, who has experience working in mines, noted the Lake Babine Nation is not anti-mining in principle, but the risk the project posed to imperilled sockeye populations and other cultural and ecological values was too great.

“[Morrison mine] threatened our talok (sockeye salmon), the most precious resource in our territory. Talok define us as Lake Babine people,” she said.

The Skeena River is Canada’s second-largest salmon-producing watershed and in recent decades all wild salmon populations in the Skeena have declined, some by as much as 90 per cent.

The high risks to salmon were flagged by the province during the first 2012 assessment of the Morrison mine, with the ministers noting at the time that the project held “the potential to impact a genetically unique sockeye salmon population that contributes to the Skeena River sockeye.” The ministers also pointed out there wasn’t enough knowledge about the “behaviour” of Morrison Lake to adequately protect the quality of the water.

When the province first reviewed the project leading up to the 2012 decision, B.C.’s environmental assessment office found the company planned to use Morrison Lake to dilute effluent from the mine “in perpetuity.” The province also found the original design of the waste storage inadequate and the company later committed to lining the tailings pond with a geomembrane to prevent seepage of contaminated material.

Despite this, the office concluded the mine “would not result in any significant adverse effects with the successful implementation of mitigation measures and conditions.”

Yet Derek Sturko, the then-director of the assessment office, recommended B.C.’s ministers reject the project.

Based on these findings, B.C.’s then-Environment Minister Terry Lake and then-Energy, Mines and Natural Gas Minister Rich Coleman rejected the project. (The B.C. environmental assessment office makes a recommendation for or against a project but the final decision rests with these two ministers).

In response, Pacific Booker Minerals took B.C. to court, arguing the province had treated the company unfairly.

In an affidavit filed with the B.C. Supreme Court at the time, Sturko said the company wasn’t meeting provincial requirements in a timely manner. He also said he felt the company was committing to “whatever expensive and complicated late-stage mitigation measures it perceived might attain it a ‘clean’ environmental assessment.”

The company took exception with Sturko’s reasons for his recommendation the province reject the project, alleging they directly contradicted the results of the assessment, and said it should have been given a chance to respond. In its 2013 petition for judicial review, Pacific Booker Minerals noted the company had spent around $30 million on the project, including $10 million on the environmental assessment process alone.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge agreed with the company in 2013, overturning the province’s rejection of the Morrison mine. The judge noted the environmental assessment office director was entitled to make recommendations beyond the scope of the assessment but agreed with the company that it should have been provided a copy of the environmental assessment office’s recommendations to the ministers and given a chance to respond

When the courts overturned the decision, the province gave the proponent an opportunity to revise its plans, asking Pacific Booker to provide additional information.

It was an opportunity for all parties to make up for missteps in the environmental assessment process, said Richard Overstall, lawyer and former representative of Babine River Foundation, a non-profit environmental group that expressed concerns with the project as a participant in the assessment process.

After the 2013 court ruling, “the government — the [environmental assessment office] and the ministers — had to go back and do things properly, which they did,” Overstall told The Narwhal.

The province “gave the company several opportunities to revamp their application, essentially do more work, which was the main reason why it was rejected in the first place.”

Overstall said the process was marred by a lack of reliable information provided by the company, noting a dispute between Pacific Booker Minerals and Rescan, an environmental consultancy the company contracted to conduct studies as part of the provincial assessment. In 2010, Rescan filed a civil claim against Pacific Booker after the mining company allegedly failed to settle nearly $200,000 in unpaid invoices. In the claim, Rescan also alleged the mining company altered its technical reports to “minimize third-party professional statements of the project effects [on] the environment.”

The claim was settled out of court so the allegations were never proven.

The project then entered into an odd state of limbo, where the company’s application was reconsidered and the province had the opportunity to request more information. During this period, the company submitted three supplementary studies as requested by the province — each was deemed insufficient by the assessment office.

The inability of Pacific Booker to satisfy the province’s requests led to the company generating an unsuspecting ally, former Green Party leader and MLA Andrew Weaver, who argued in 2020 that the province’s handling of the Morrison mine application was plagued with “regulatory inconsistencies.”

Weaver raised questions about the strung-out assessment process, declaring in the B.C. legislature during question period that “despite numerous exchanges with the environmental assessment office and the completion of an in-depth study of Morrison Lake, Pacific Booker has been unable to clarify the precise nature of what is actually required… For Pacific Booker, this order [that the project undergo further assessment] has been tantamount to a rejection of its project without the ministry formally saying no.”

Overstall said the Morrison mine conflict is indicative of even deeper flaws in B.C.’s environmental assessment process, which is essentially an opportunity for government ministers to convince the public the province is protecting the environment, when in fact there is little accountability or transparency built into the process.

Overstall pointed to the assessment reports, which are referred to ministers for decisions on major projects like the Morrison mine, are in fact a composite work of multiple authors, often a mishmash of bureaucrats who are unnamed, meaning no individual can be held accountable for what these reports contain.

Ultimately the decision as to whether a large project should go ahead really rests with politicians who exercise complete discretion. And the environmental assessment process is “essentially greenwashing a political decision,” Overstall said.

The Morrison mine project remained in its state of limbo until Dec. 2, 2021, when B.C.’s environmental assessment office once again referred the project to the ministers for a final decision, which resulted in Monday’s rejection.

Lake Babine Nation is all too familiar with the impacts of mining on its territory. Two shuttered mines on Babine Lake have been polluting the watershed for decades and the threat to struggling salmon populations is a concern for First Nations throughout the watershed.

“Our wild salmon populations are in the red zone … and [salmon are] the backbone of our culture,” Donna MacIntyre, Lake Babine Nation fisheries manager, previously told The Narwhal.

In its first recommendation B.C.’s ministers, the environmental assessment office flagged “the strength of claim of the Lake Babine Nation, in particular their moderate to strong prima facie case for Aboriginal Title” as reasons that factored into its counsel not to proceed with the project.

Early last year, Bill Bennett, former minister of mines under the BC Liberals, told Business in Vancouver Lake Babine Nation’s opposition to the mine played a role in the government’s original rejection of the project.

“It’s true that the local First Nation was not interested in having a mine built so close to the lake,” he said. “You hear that all the time — ‘It’s one of B.C.’s most important salmon lakes.’ Well, this one really is.”

Babine Lake, Na-taw-bun-kut, is the longest natural lake in the province and provides important nursery habitat for 30 populations of sockeye salmon. Morrison Lake also provides nursery habitat and spawning grounds, according to multiple studies conducted during the proposed mine’s environmental assessment. Those spawning grounds would be directly impacted by the mine, which would have been built along prime shore habitat.

“One of the biggest concerns with the projects that I’m aware of is that there are documented … groundwater upwelling areas on the shores close to where the mine would have been,” Berchtold, with SkeenaWild Conservation Trust, said. She explained those areas are where groundwater enters the lake, which “provides the stability of the temperatures in slightly warmer temperatures” that salmon eggs need to hatch.

Berchtold stressed the importance of preserving Morrison Lake’s salmon populations. Unique populations within a watershed helps the species as a whole adapt to changes in the environment. A 2021 study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology noted a decline of 70 per cent in sockeye population diversity in the Skeena River watershed.

“We need that genetic diversity,” she said. “We need that resilience across populations in terms of climate adaptation and all sorts of other other reasons.”

Downstream, Gitxsan and Gitanyow Nations shared Lake Babine Nation’s celebration of the fresh rejection of the mine.

“I think it was a good decision,” Simogyet (Chief) Malii Glen Williams, president of the Gitanyow hereditary chiefs, told The Narwhal. “There was too much risk associated with the planning of the mine and in light of the continued uncertainty of stocks in the Skeena. Some good data and good sound science prevailed here.”

Stu Barnes, chair of Skeena Fisheries Commission, said in a statement that the location of the mine made it dangerous to salmon from the start.

“The location of this proposed mine has extremely high ecosystem values for sockeye salmon that migrate into the Skeena River,” he said.

“We have maintained a razor sharp focus on this ill-conceived mine for over a decade to speak for the salmon that our communities rely upon for food and cultural survival.”

While Lake Babine Nation is breathing a sigh of relief over the decision to reject the mine, it is also charting a path forward to prevent this from happening again. The nation recently signed a groundbreaking agreement with the province which will enable the nation and B.C. to collaborate on future environmental assessments.

The agreement is the first made under the recently revised B.C. environmental assessment act.

“This is an important and significant step on our reconciliation journey with the people of Lake Babine Nation,” Minister Heyman said in a November press release.

“The first of its kind under this recent legislation, this agreement establishes a key shared decision-making precedent between the province and Lake Babine Nation moving forward, and ensures that Indigenous knowledge and values will be applied in full collaboration with the Nation.”

While Lake Babine Nation’s agreement helps ensure it has a leadership role in assessments moving forward, very few projects have undergone assessment under the revised legislation, which came into effect at the end of 2019. Critics of the province’s amended assessment legislation say B.C. missed the mark on making sure technical studies related to a project’s potential impacts on the environment are conducted by independent scientists, as opposed to consultants hired by proponents. Those critics, many of whom are scientists themselves, also noted the assessment process needs to be more transparent.

Critics of B.C.’s environmental assessment process have also pointed out that the process is predominantly used to approve projects and rarely to reject them. The arrival of COVID-19 delayed the province’s work to introduce regional environmental assessments that would look at the cumulative impacts of all past, present and future projects on the landscape and also potentially identify no-go zones for major resource projects.

When asked how many projects have been rejected under B.C.’s environmental assessment legislation, the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy did not respond directly to the question, instead noting many projects are changed or withdrawn before making it to the finish line. It remains to be seen what impact the revised legislation will have on projects moving forward.

“If issues or adverse impacts are not adequately addressed by a proponent, an [environmental assessment certificate] may not be issued, such as with the Ajax mine project in 2017, the Kemess North mine project in 2008 and the Ashcroft Landfill project in 2011,” the ministry wrote in an email to The Narwhal.

“Many projects also do not reach the final decision stage and are either terminated or withdrawn by the proponent prior to reaching … decision, or are changed substantially over the course of the [assessment].”

Lake Babine Nation Chief Murphy Abraham noted the significance of the agreement in his comments on the rejection of Morrison mine.

“Thanks to our new [environmental assessment] collaboration agreement with B.C., Lake Babine will be deeply involved in reviewing proposed mines in our territory from now on,” he said in a press release.

“Proponents who want to build a mine in our territory need to get to know our people, our values and our expectations. They need to work with us respectfully and develop projects that are sustainable for our yintah, our rights and our way of life.”

Matt Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Narwhal

SELF DIRECTED LEARNING
Pandemic lockdowns didn't disrupt preschoolers' language learning

By HealthDay News

Researchers found that, on average, babies and toddlers made greater gains in vocabulary during that early lockdown period, versus the pre-pandemic norm for youngsters their age. Photo by ReadyElements/Pixabay

The pandemic has dramatically disrupted kids' normal routines, but a new study suggests the initial lockdowns of 2020 did not necessarily hinder preschoolers' language development.

In fact, researchers found, there was an unanticipated "lockdown boost" in youngsters' vocabulary growth -- possibly because parents were spending more time at home.

Studying families in 13 countries, the researchers found that, on average, babies and toddlers made greater gains in vocabulary during that early lockdown period, versus the pre-pandemic norm for youngsters their age.

"Our study did not find any evidence of negative influences of social isolation on vocabulary development in 8- to 36-month-old toddlers during the initial lockdown," said researcher Julien Mayor, a professor of developmental psychology at the University of Oslo in Norway.

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There's a big caveat, though, according to Mayor and colleague Natalia Kartushina, also of the University of Oslo.

The investigators found no harm among families who were willing to participate in the study - but that group may not represent families at large, especially those who are less advantaged.

"We urge caution in generalizing this finding to all families, as it is likely that the most vulnerable families did not respond to the questionnaires," Mayor said.

Diane Paul, a speech-language expert who was not involved in the study, agreed on that caution.

But she also said the research may reassure many parents.

"Overall, these are positive, very encouraging findings," said Paul, who is director of clinical issues in speech-language pathology for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

The results also support what's already recommended to parents for fueling young children's language development: spend time reading together, and limit "passive" screen time.

During lockdown, the researchers found, vocabulary growth was greatest among toddlers who had plenty of shared reading time with their parents, and less time gazing passively at tablets and TVs.

"These are suggestions we'd give to all families of young children," Paul said.

Of course, she noted, the early phase of the pandemic thrust families into a difficult time of school and day care closures. Even when parents could work from home, juggling that along with child care was a huge task.

So parents should not feel guilty if they did have to turn to devices more often during that period, Paul added.

In fact, in a second study, the same research team found that babies' and toddlers' total screen time did tick upward during lockdown -- especially when parents spent a lot of time in front of screens themselves.

Despite that, there was no evidence youngsters' language development suffered. That's possibly because of the time spent on other activities with their parents, according to the researchers.

And screen time is not necessarily negative, Paul pointed out. When young children watch "high-quality" content along with an adult -- talking and interacting -- that is different from passively sitting in front of cartoons.

"We're not saying never use screens," she said. "There are just ways to use them better."

The study, published in the journal Language Development Research, included more than 1,700 babies and toddlers aged 8 months to 3 years. The United States was among the 13 countries represented.

Parents completed standard vocabulary checklists on the number of words their child understood or said, at the beginning and end of the first lockdown in their respective countries. They also answered questionnaires on how often they and their child engaged in various activities during lockdown -- including reading together, outdoor play and structured games.

Overall, children in the study gained more words than expected, based on population norms for youngsters their age. And the more time spent reading with their parents, the greater those gains.

"This highlights the considerable impact of shared book reading in building a child's vocabulary," Mayor said.

Shared reading, Paul said, is more than simply reading a story to a child. It means pointing at pictures, asking questions and interacting in other ways that help youngsters learn to understand and use language.

"It's the time spent together," Paul said, "with contributions from the parent and the child."

More information

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association has more on child language development.

Copyright © 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Human rights advocates seek more congressional oversight of military drone strikes

By Catherine Buchaniec, Medill News Service

Afghan residents and family members of the victims gather next to a damaged vehicle inside a house, day after a U.S. drone airstrike in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 30, 

File photo by Bashir Darwish/ UPI | License Photo

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- Amid recent reports of civilian deaths from military drone strikes, human rights groups urged the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday to increase congressional oversight of the Pentagon's drone program.

The committee examined the legal and moral costs of targeted killings and weighed the benefits of expanding accountability measures.

A New York Times investigation into airstrikes that killed civilians, as well as an independent study from the RAND Corporation, found that the Defense Department was neither organized nor had enough resources to sufficiently assess and respond to incidents in which U.S. forces caused civilian deaths.

Last month, Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the Pentagon to develop plans to reduce civilian casualties in U.S. strikes. He issued the directive several months after the Pentagon admitted that an August drone attack in Afghanistan killed 10 civilians, seven of them children.

RELATED Declassified footage shows U.S. drone strike that killed Afghan civilians

"Our country has failed to live up to its civilian protection obligations," said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU National Security Project, adding, "We can continue down the costly old path or we can invest in alternatives that actually keep us all safer."

Although some lawmakers appeared receptive to increasing accountability measures within the drone program, the hearing quickly became contentious as committee members balanced the need for counterterrorism activities while also minimizing civilian casualties.



"Greater transparency with drone strike data is a way for the public to gauge the true value of the drone program and understand the care with which these operations are conducted," said Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif. "Hiding this information moves us in the wrong direction."

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But witnesses said inconsistencies between the Pentagon's data and information collected by third parties and the media mean transparency isn't enough.

Instead, the human rights groups encouraged lawmakers to look more broadly at Congress' constitutional role on matters of war.

Military power and authority have become too consolidated in the executive branch, according to Stephen Pomper, chief of policy for International Crisis Group and a former staff member of the National Security Council.

RELATED U.S. drone strike kills al-Qaida leader in Syria, CENTCOM says

"The best and probably only way to test the risks, weigh the costs and determine the proper scope of this in any conflict is to encourage" discussion among the various national security-related agencies and offices, Pomper said.

He also said it's time for Congress to increase its checks and balances on the executive branch by amending the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force and the 1973 War Powers Resolution.

While some Democrats on the committee appeared receptive to the prospect, Republicans instead focused on the benefits of drone strikes as part of the military's counterterrorism efforts.

"I can't believe we're talking about neutering the drone program at a time we need it most," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Nathan Sales, a former ambassador-at-large and coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department, noted that few military platforms are as "precise and discriminating" as drones.

"Other options can involve less precision, potentially resulting in greater risk of collateral damage and death," Sales said.

Ghana: University lecturers' strike cripples study

The ongoing strike has entered its fifth week and threatens to shut down public universities. As a result, thousands of local and international students have been left stranded.

    

College students in Ghana have missed out on classes for nearly five weeks now

Public universities in Ghana are on the verge of a shutdown in the coming weeks unless lecturers currently on strike for over four weeks return to work.

The lecturers, who are part of the national umbrella body called the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), downed their chalks on January 10, 2022, over poor working conditions.

The lecturers' union said the government had refused to implement a pay policy that pegs their basic salary and market premium at $2,084 (€1,824). A market premium payment is a salary bonus for a specific group of workers whose posts have been identified as "hard to fill."

This payment aims to prevent workers like university lecturers from abandoning their jobs for other sectors or even traveling abroad to teach elsewhere.

UTAG's leadership said that since December 2021, when its members migrated to Ghana's Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS), their basic premiums have decreased to $997.

There are fears that a prolonged lecturers' strike in Ghana could lead to campus shutdowns

Pushing for redress

One of the association's leaders, Dr. Felix Longi Yakubu Tonsuglo, told DW that the strike had become necessary to force the government to address what he called very poor  working conditions.  

"Our salaries have eroded. From 2013, we had an interim market premium of 114% of our basic (salary), which gave us a cedi equivalent of $2,084. But, as we speak now, that value has eroded to 52%," Tonsuglo said. "Right now, what a lecturer takes [home] is just a cedi equivalent of $900." 

Besides an increase in their salaries, the lecturers are also demanding a raise in book and research allowances. 

The ongoing strike could soon cross the 31-day mark, requiring managers to shut down their universities. But so far, there isn't any sign of a resolution.

When the lecturers started their strike, the country's National Labour Commission swiftly sued them, saying they could not continue industrial action while negotiating with the government, which is their employer. But the lecturers have rejected calls to end their strike. On February 4, a court asked the warring parties to resolve the impasse out of court.

Ghana's education minister, Yaw Osei Adutwum, told reporters that crucial decisions had been made since the court order. "As minister of education, I am a chief advocate and will do everything possible to ensure that this strike ends and their [lecturers'] demands are also considered. Further dialogue happens at the end of the strike," Adutwum said.

Vice-Chancellors Ghana — the umbrella body of managers of public universities — has said it hopes the lecturers and the government will soon reach an agreement to prevent the total closure of universities.

Dr. Felix Longi Yakubu, a lecturers' association leader, says the profession is underpaid

Empty lecture halls

"We are doing everything possible to ensure our lecturers get back to the lecture halls," Professor Okoe Amartey told reporters in Ghana's capital, Accra.

"We have been talking to our lecturers on the various campuses. We are coming to engage them further. We are appealing to them to return to the lecture halls while negotiation continues," Amartey said.

The government has for weeks failed to get the lecturers back to the classroom. However, in the face of the real prospect of all public colleges being locked down, Adutwum told journalists that his ministry was working hard to get the tutors back to work.

"Our students are waiting, and we will do everything possible to make sure that our lecturers go back to the classroom," the minister said.

President Nana Akufo-Addo's government says it is working hard to end the lecturers' strike

Growing students' frustration

While the government hopes the lecturers will call off their strike sooner than later, the impact on students is becoming severe. Thousands of local and international students have been stranded for weeks.

One international student from Cuba studying medicine at the University of Development Studies in northern Ghana told DW that the strike had affected her finances and frustrated her studies.

"You know we have a budget. Our parents send us money for one month, and when you are not going to school, it is like you are wasting the money," the 20-year-old student, who chose to remain anonymous, said. 

 "It is my first time seeing something like this. People are going on strike because of the money. It is my first time. It is new to me. In my country, we don't have this," she said.

But local students, who are more used to such strikes, are also stranded and hoping for a quick resolution.

Strikes are nothing new in Ghanaian public universities. The same Ghanaian lecturers went on strike last year for similar reasons. They called it off days later after a series of negotiations with the government, 

In search of a lasting solution

"We are calling on our lecturers, on the government and all stakeholders to come together and make sure our lecturers return to the classroom," Emmanuel Boakye Yiadom, president of the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS), told journalists.

"But before they return, they should be a lasting solution where the lecturers may not see the need or the sense of returning to the strike again," Yiadom added.

At least 15 public universities are currently affected by the ongoing strike by the lecturers.

It is not only in Ghana that lecturers are agitating for better working conditions. In Nigeria, the Academic Staff Union of Universities has also raised issues over poor working conditions. The university lecturers have threatened to embark on a nationwide strike to fight for their demands.

Should this threat be carried out in Nigeria, it will be the second major strike in two years after the previous one lasted for nine months, leading to the loss of almost one full academic year.

French cave tells new story about Neanderthals, early humans

By FRANK JORDANS

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This undated photo provided by Ludovic Slimak shows scientists working at the entrance of the Mandrin cave, near Montelimar, southern France. Scientists have uncovered fossilized modern human remains and tools sandwiched between Neanderthal remains and tools in the stratigraphic record at a site in the Rhône Valley in France, suggesting occupation of the area alternated between Neanderthals and modern humans. (Ludovic Slimak via AP)


BERLIN (AP) — A hillside dwelling overlooking the picturesque Rhone Valley in southern France proved irresistible for our ancestors, attracting both Neanderthals and modern humans long before the latter were thought to have reached that part of Europe, a new study suggests.

In a paper published Wednesday by the journal Science Advances, researchers from Europe and the United States described finding fossilized homo sapiens remains and tools sandwiched between those of Neanderthals in the Mandrin Grotto, named after an 18th-century French folk hero.

“The findings provide archaeological evidence that these hominin cousins may have coexisted in the same region of Europe during the same time period,” the team said.

Using new techniques, the authors dated some of the human remains to about 54,000 years ago — almost 10,000 years earlier than previous finds in Europe, with one exception in Greece.

“This significantly deepens the known age of the colonization of Europe by modern humans,” said Michael Petraglia, an expert on prehistory at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

Petraglia, who was not involved in the study, said it had major implications for understanding the spread of modern humans and our interactions with the Neanderthals.

The researchers said they spent more than 30 years carefully sifting through layers of dirt inside the cave, which is 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of the French Mediterranean city of Marseille. They discovered hundreds of thousands of artifacts that they were able to attribute to either Neanderthals or modern humans. These included advanced stone tools known as “points” that were used by homo sapiens — our closest ancestors — to cut or scrape and as spear tips.

Similar tools from almost the exact same period have been found some 3,000 kilometers (nearly 1,900 miles) away, in present-day Lebanon, indicating that modern humans with a common culture may have traveled across the Mediterranean Sea, said Ludovic Slimak, one of the lead authors of the new study.

While the researchers found no evidence of cultural exchanges between the Neanderthals and modern humans who alternated in the cave, the rapid succession of occupants is in itself significant, they said. In one case, the cave changed hands in the space of about a year, said Slimak.

Katerina Harvati, a professor of paleoanthropology at the University of Tuebingen, Germany, who was not involved in the study, said the findings upend the idea that most of the European continent was the exclusive domain of Neanderthals until 45,000 years ago.

However homo sapiens’ first venture into the region wasn’t particularly successful, she noted.

“Mandrin modern humans seem to have only survived for a very brief period of time and were replaced again by Neanderthals for several millennia,” she said.

Slimak, an archaeologist at the University of Toulouse, said the findings at Mandrin suggest the Rhone River may have been a key link between the Mediterranean coast and continental Europe.

“We are dealing with one of the most important natural migration corridors of all the ancient world,” he said.

He and his colleagues expect to publish several further significant findings based on the mountain of data collected from the cave. Slimak said a steady supply of sand carried in by the local Mistral winds has helped preserve a rich trove of treasures that rivals other famous archaeological sites.

“Mandrin is like a kind of Neanderthalian Pompeii,” he said.

Study Places Homo Sapiens In Europe Earlier Than Thought

By Pierre CELERIER
02/09/22 

Homo sapiens ventured into Neanderthal territory in Europe much earlier than previously thought, according to an archaeological study published in Science magazine on Wednesday.

Up to now, archaeological discoveries had indicated that Neanderthals disappeared from the European continent about 40,000 years ago, shortly after the arrival of their "cousin" Homo sapiens, barely 5,000years earlier and there was no evidence of an encounter between these two groups.

The new discovery, by a team of archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists led by Ludovic Slimak of Toulouse University, pushes back the arrival of Homo sapiens in Western Europe to around 54,000 years ago.

Another remarkable finding of the research is that the two types of humans alternated in inhabiting the Mandrin cave in what is now the Rhone region of southern france.

The Mandrin site, first excavated in 1990, includes layer upon layer of archaeological remains dating back over 80,000 years.

"Mandrin is like a kind of neandertalian Pompeii, without catastrophic events, but with continuous filling of sands in the cave deposited progressively by a strong wind, the Mistral," Slimak told AFP.

His team uncoevered a layer, known as the "E layer", containing at least 1,500 cut flint points, more finely executed than the points and blades in the layers above and below.

Archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists led by Ludovic Slimak inside the Mandrin cave Photo: Handout via AFP / Ludovic Slimak

Very small in size, some of them less than a centimetre in length, these points "are standardised, to the nearest millimetre, something we haven't seen at all with Neanderthals," said Slimak, a specialist in Neanderthal societies.

These, he explained, were probably arrowheads, unknown in Europe at that time.

He attributes this production to a culture called Neronian, linked to several sites in the Rhone area.

In 2016, Slimak and his team visited the Peabody Museum in Harvard to compare their discoveries with a collection of carved fossils from the Ksar Akil site at the foot of Mount Lebanon, one of the major sites of the expansion of Homo sapiens to the east of the Mediterranean.

The similarity between the techniques used convinced Slimak that the findings at the Mandrin site were the first traces of Home Sapiens found in Europe.

A milk tooth found in the "E layer" confirmed his suspicions.

Some of the manmade fossils discovered in the cave which led to the archaeological findings Photo: Handout via AFP / Ludovic Slimak

In all researchers found nine teeth at the Mandrin cave site, belonging to six individuals.

These ancient teeth were entrusted to Clement Zanolli, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of Bordeaux.

Using microtomography, similar to medical scanning technology, the verdict was clear.

The milk tooth from the "E" layer" was the only modern human tooth found at the site.

That "fossil molar from a modern human child provides the earliest known evidence of modern humans in western Europe", the Natural History Museum in London said in a statement

The archaeological team then used a pioneering technique, fuliginochronology, which analyses layers of soot impregnating the walls of a cave and the traces of ancient fires.

The reachers demonstrated that "this Modern human population occupied this Rhone territory for some 40 years," said Slimak.

At some point, the two populations either co-existed in the cave or on the same territory, the researcher concluded.

He imagines that Neanderthals could have served as guides to Homo Sapiens to lead him to the best sources of flint available, some of which were located up to 90 kilometres (55 miles away.

"Nothing new under the sun... This is precisely what happened when Europeans began the colonization of the Americas or Australia," he noted.

"The findings from Mandrin are really exciting and are another piece in the puzzle of how and when modern humans arrived in Europe,? concludes Professor Chris Stringer, co-author of the study and a specialist in human evolution at the Natural History Museum in London.

"Understanding more about the overlap between modern humans and other hominins in Eurasia is vital to understanding more about their interactions, and how we became the last remaining human species," he added.

This overlap, which was evident in Mandrin, now places the Rhone region as a "major migration corridor (for Homo sapiens) enabling them to reach the Mediterranean and continental European areas", said Slimak, who promises more discoveries from the Mandrin site.


© Copyright AFP 2022. All rights reserved.

Climate hope as scientists in UK set fusion record
Agence France-Presse
February 09, 2022

Prince Charles visiting the control room at the Joint European Torus (JET) experiment near Oxford, where scientists say they have broken a record for nuclear fusion 

ADRIAN DENNIS POOL/AFP

Scientists in Britain announced Wednesday they had smashed a previous record for generating fusion energy, hailing it as a "milestone" on the path towards cheap, clean power and a cooler planet.

Nuclear fusion is the same process that the sun uses to generate heat. Proponents believe it could one day help address climate change by providing an abundant, safe and green source of energy.

A team at the Joint European Torus (JET) facility near Oxford in central England generated 59 megajoules of energy for five seconds during an experiment in December, more than doubling a 1997 record, the UK Atomic Energy Authority said.

That is about the power needed to power 35,000 homes for the same period of time, five seconds, said JET's head of operations Joe Milnes.


The results "are the clearest demonstration worldwide of the potential for fusion energy to deliver safe and sustainable low-carbon energy", the UKAEA said.

The donut-shaped machine used for the experiments is called a tokamak, and the JET site is the largest operational one in the world.

Inside, just 0.1 milligrammes each of deuterium and tritium -- both are isotopes of hydrogen, with deuterium also called heavy hydrogen -- is heated to temperatures 10 times hotter than the centre of the sun to create plasma.

This is held in place using magnets as it spins around, fuses and releases tremendous energy as heat.

Fusion is inherently safe in that it cannot start a run-away process.

Deuterium is freely available in seawater, while tritium can be harvested as a byproduct of nuclear fission.

Pound for pound (gram for gram) it releases nearly four million times more energy than burning coal, oil or gas, and the only waste product is helium.

Reagan-Gorbachev fusion

The results announced Wednesday demonstrated the ability to create fusion for five seconds, as longer than that would cause JET's copper wire magnets to overheat.

A larger and more advanced version of JET is currently being built in southern France, called ITER, where the Oxford data will prove vital when the site comes online, possibly as soon as 2025.

ITER will be equipped with superconductor electromagnets which will allow the process to continue for longer, hopefully longer than 300 seconds.

About 350 scientists from EU countries plus Britain, Switzerland and Ukraine -- and more from around the globe -- participate in JET experiments each year.

JET will soon pass the fusion baton to ITER, which is around 80 percent completed, said Milnes.

"If that's successful, as we now think it will be given the results we've had on JET, we can develop power plant designs in parallel... we're probably halfway there" to viable fusion, he said.

If all goes well at ITER, a prototype fusion power plant could be ready by 2050.

International cooperation on fusion energy has historically been close because, unlike the nuclear fission used in atomic power plants, the technology cannot be weaponized.

The France-based megaproject also involves China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US.

Tim Luce, head of science and operation at ITER, said the project emerged in the 1980s from talks on nuclear disarmament between US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

"And the one thing they did agree on was using fusion as a cooperation," he told AFP.

"Somehow fusion has had the scientific panache to bring together disparate governmental entities and actually choose to work together on it."

Despite dozens of tokamaks being built since they were first invented in Soviet Russia in the 1950s, none has yet managed to produce more energy than is put in.

Ian Fells, emeritus professor of energy conversion at the University of Newcastle, said Wednesday's result was a "landmark in fusion research".

"Now it is up to the engineers to translate this into carbon-free electricity and mitigate the problem of climate change," added Fells, who is not involved in the project.

© 2022 AFP

Experts hail big step forward in fusion technology in UK


Britain's Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, 2nd left, talks with Professor Ian Chapman, CEO of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, left, Nanna Heiberg, 2nd right, and Joseph Milnes, head of engineering design unit, right, alongside the MAST Upgrade chamber, during his visit to the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) at the Culham Science Centre in Abingdon, southern England, Thursday Oct. 18, 2018. Prince William officially marked the end of the construction of the MAST (Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak) Upgrade Fusion Experiment. Researchers at the Joint European Torus experiment near Oxford managed to produce a record amount of heat energy over a five-second period, which was the duration of the experiment, the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority announced on Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022. (Adrian Dennis/Pool via AP, File)


LONDON (AP) — European scientists have taken a significant step closer to mastering a technology that could allow them to one day harness nuclear fusion, providing a clean and almost limitless source of energy, British officials said Wednesday.

Researchers at the Joint European Torus experiment near Oxford managed to produce a record amount of heat energy over a five-second period, which was the duration of the experiment, the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority said.

The 59 megajoules of sustained fusion energy produced were more than double the previous record achieved in 1997.

The agency said the result was “the clearest demonstration worldwide of the potential for fusion energy to deliver safe and sustainable low-carbon energy.”

“If we can maintain fusion for five seconds, we can do it for five minutes and then five hours as we scale up our operations in future machines,” said Tony Donne, program manager for EUROfusion. “This is a big moment for every one of us and the entire fusion community.”

Ian Chapman, CEO of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority, said the results were a “huge step closer to conquering one of the biggest scientific and engineering challenges of them all.”

The facility, also known as JET, is home to the world’s largest and most powerful operational tokamak — a donut-shaped device that is considered one promising method for performing controlled fusion.

Scientists who were not involved in the project believed it was a significant result, but still a very long way from achieving commercial fusion power.

Researchers around the world have long been working on nuclear fusion technology, trying different approaches. The ultimate goal is to generate power the way the sun generates heat, by pressing hydrogen atoms so close to each other that they combine into helium, which releases torrents of energy.

Carolyn Kuranz at the University of Michigan called the development “very exciting” and a step toward achieving “ignition,” or when the fuel can continue to “burn” on its own and produce more energy than what’s needed to spark the initial reaction.

She said the results appeared “very promising” for ITER, a much larger experimental fusion facility in southern France that uses the same technology and is backed by many European countries, the United States, China, Japan, India, South Korea and Russia. It is expected to begin operation in 2026.

Riccardo Betti, a fusion expert at the University of Rochester, said the achievement lay mainly in sustaining the reaction at high performance levels for five seconds, significantly longer than previously achieved in a tokamak.

The amount of power gained was still well below the amount needed to perform the experiment, he added.

Ian Fells, an emeritus professor of energy conversion at the University of Newcastle, described the new record as a landmark in fusion research.

“Now it is up to the engineers to translate this into carbon-free electricity and mitigate the problem of climate change,” he said. “Ten to 20 years could see commercialization.”

Stephanie Diem of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said the technology used by JET to achieve the result, using magnets to control ultra-hot plasma, show that harnessing fusion — a process that occurs naturally in the stars — is physically feasible.

“The next milestone on the horizon for magnetic fusion is to demonstrate scientific breakeven, where the amount of energy produced from fusion reactions exceeds that going into the device,” she said.

Rival teams are racing to perfect other methods for controlling fusion and have also recently reported significant progress.

Scientists hope that fusion reactors might one day provide a source of emissions-free energy without any of the risks of conventional nuclear power.

___

Follow all AP stories on climate change at https://apnews.com/hub/climate.

Scientists make breakthrough with nuclear fusion record

European researchers have leaped closer to making nuclear fusion a practical energy source for humanity. It's the same power-generating process that makes stars, including our own sun, shine.


The donut-shaped tokamak in Culham, England, where the plasma mix was heated to set the latest record

Scientists have announced on Wednesday fresh progress in the mission to make nuclear fusion a safe, practical and clean energy source, setting a record for the amount of nuclear fusion energy produced.

The experiment at the Joint European Torus (JET) facility near Oxford, England, set a record of generating 59 megajoules of sustained fusion energy in a five-second period — well over double the previous amount.
What is nuclear fusion?

The fusion process is a reverse of what happens in existing nuclear power plants — nuclear fission — where energy is released when large atoms are broken down into smaller ones.

Nuclear fusion comes from bashing together two small atomic nuclei at such high temperatures that they fuse — and release energy.

The nuclei would normally repel one another, so unimaginably high temperatures are needed to make them move quickly enough to actually collide.

It's the same basic process that sees hydrogen in the sun converted into helium, generating sunlight and making life on Earth possible.

Fusion offers the prospect of climate-friendly, abundant energy without pollution, radioactive waste.

OUR SUN — A GIGANTIC FIREBALL

Spectacular campfires

The probe took these excellent pictures of our sun from 77 million kilometers away. Small solar flares have never before been so clearly visible. As it gets closer to the sun, the Solar Orbiter will specifically investigate these eruptions. It will also research how solar storms — which can cause problems for us on Earth — emerge.

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What did the scientists do?

In the experiment, the scientists heated tiny amounts of deuterium and tritium — two forms of hydrogen gas — to temperatures 10 times hotter than the center of the sun.

The superheated plasma can't be held in a normal container, which would be destroyed by it. Instead, it's kept in place by powerful magnets inside a donut-shaped machine known as a tokamak.

There, as it spins around and fuses, the plasma releases enormous amounts of heat as nuclear material is converted into energy.

While that sounds slightly terrifying, the process is fundamentally safe in that — because it is so difficult to start and keep going — it cannot start a runaway process.

In terms of fuel, deuterium can be found in seawater, and tritium can be produced from lithium as a byproduct of the whole process.

Per kilogram of material used, the process releases nearly four million times more energy than burning fossil fuel, with unreactive helium the only waste product.

Why is the latest result important?

At present, generating the sort of temperatures needed for fusion means more energy needs to be put in than can ever be extracted.

The fact that so much more power has been generated this time around means scientists are measurably closer to making the process sustainable.

Ian Chapman, the head of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, described it as a landmark event that moves researchers "a huge step closer to conquering one of the biggest scientific and engineering challenges of them all."

"It is a reward for over 20 years of research and experiments with our partners from across Europe."

"It's clear we must make significant changes to address the effects of climate change, and fusion offers so much potential. We're building the knowledge and developing the new technology required to deliver a low-carbon, sustainable source of baseload energy that helps protect the planet for future generations. Our world needs fusion energy."
Where does it go from here?

Scientists say years of work are still needed, with the level of energy achieved so far only modest, but that the record shows they are headed in the right direction.

"The record, and more importantly the things we've learned about fusion under these conditions and how it fully confirms our predictions, show that we are on the right path to a future world of fusion energy," said Tony Donne, program director at the EUROfusion consortium of research institutes. "If we can maintain fusion for five seconds, we can do it for five minutes and then five hours as we scale up our operations in future machines."

A larger, more advanced version of JET is currently being built in southern France, called ITER, supported by seven members — China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the United States.

How are Gulf countries coming to terms with their history of slavery?

Despite having officially outlawed slavery, Arab states in the Gulf region have downplayed the legacy of repression and racism faced by minorities. But some countries are taking the first steps to address the past.


The legacy of historic slavery is only slowly being acknowledged by Gulf states

Modern slavery is still widespread in the Arab states of the Gulf region, where millions of migrant workers are forced to work under grueling conditions with little or no pay.

The"kafala" system, for example, a practice still common across much of the region's countries, allows employers to hire unskilled workers from places like Africa and South Asia. In return, workers give up their passports and the possibility to leave the country or change jobs without permission from their employers.

But the region's record of benefiting from forced labor isn't a recent development. Traditional slavery, where people were kidnapped and sold as slaves far from home, was still legal and practiced in large parts of the Gulf region as late as the 1970s.

Unlike modern slavery, which some Arab states like Qatar are slowly beginning to take steps to address, the legacy of historic slavery remains largely unacknowledged and somewhat of a taboo issue.

Dealing with racism on a daily basis

"We usually get along well, Backs, Arabs and Baluch, but as soon as a fight breaks out, appalling racial slurs are shouted out loud," said Yassar Khalaf, a 27-year-old Black sailor from Bahrain, who regularly travels to other port cities across the Gulf.

"It is very easy for people to disrespect us," said Maddah G., a Black man from Iraq who didn't want to give his full name. "People call us Abeed, [Arabic for slave — Editor's note]. It is so common that they don't even suspect it might be offensive," he told DW.

Historians estimate that between 800,000 to 1.2 million slaves were brought to the Gulf region in the 19th century

Born and raised in a Black community near the southern port of Basra, Maddah is one of roughly 1 million citizens of Black African descent living in the Gulf region. Most are descendants of enslaved people brought to the region in the 19th century.

However, "not all the Africans who lived in the region were brought here as slaves," said Hesham Al-Awadi, a history and political science professor at the American University of Kuwait. "Some of them arrived voluntarily for reasons such as pilgrimage or trade and then stayed permanently.

"Another part of the African population in the Gulf is the result of intermarriage of sailors with locals, marriage between two equals," he added.

Maddah G. doesn't know where exactly his ancestors came from, like many other Black people in the Gulf region. But "whether his grandparents were slaves or not is irrelevant," he said "at least for those who keep calling Black people Abeed in the 21st century."

Little-known part of Gulf history

Slave trafficking in the Gulf existed for centuries, but it wasn't very pervasive until the 1800s. Owning slaves was a sign of status, limited to a small group of wealthy elites, said historian Matthew S. Hopper in his 2015 book, "Slaves of One Master." Slaves weren't exclusively African and came from various places across the Middle East, the Caucasus and the Indian subcontinent, wrote Hopper.

This changed in the second half of the 19th century, when the booming global demand for the region's date fruit and natural pearls created the urgent need for a workforce. Arab traders began increasingly kidnapping people from northeastern parts of the African continentand selling them in slave markets in the Gulf.

Thousands of African slaves were forced to work as pearl divers in the waters of the Persian Gulf

Following the global recession of the 1930s, the pearl and date markets collapsed. Many slaves who worked in palm plantations or the pearl industry were freed by owners who could no longer afford to sustain them, according to Hopper.

But it took a few decades until all Arab states of the Gulf region officially banned owning and trading slaves. Iraq had already formally abolished slavery in the early 1920s, and countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia followed suit in 1952 and 1962, respectively. Oman, once one of the biggest slave markets in the region, was also one of the last. It outlawed the practice in 1970.

Taboo topic

But despite having officially banned traditional slavery for decades, Gulf societies have not yet reckoned with their past as slave traders.

Abdulrahman Alebrahim, an independent researcher in modern Gulf history, believes recent laws enacted under the pretense of national unity make it a topic that could fuel social divisions. That has made it difficult for scholars in to even research the issue. These laws include regulations on press, printing and publishing, enacted in Bahrain in 2002 and Kuwait in 2011.

"[These laws] have significantly prevented people — local historians, in particular – from discussing sensitive issues which are considered socially taboo," he told DW. "Even when this topic is addressed academically and within the framework of social justice and equity, it is strongly frowned upon."

While pointing out that the history of slavery in general terms is not a very sensitive issue, researchers could face difficulty once they begin to go into details and talk about the ongoing impact of slavery. In Kuwait for example, "mentioning the names of freed slaves' families and their descendants is punishable by law," said Alebrahim.

In Al-Awadi's view, cultural reservations are a more important obstacle. Black people and other ethnic minorities in the Gulf countries still refrain from highlighting their ethnic and cultural heritages in an attempt to fit in, and instead put the emphasis on their nationality, he noted.

Liwa, a traditional dance of African origin, is now considered a part of the Gulf's regional cultural heritage

"It has something to do with the way we explain our national identities here in the Gulf… We mainly emphasize homogeneity between our people, on the things we have in common," he told DW. "We do not celebrate our heterogeneity in our daily discourse."

Maddah G. cannot imagine that anyone in his community would be willing to talk about their African origins and the fact that many Africans were brought here as slaves. "As long as no one is ashamed of their slave-owner grandparents, you cannot expect Black Arabs to be comfortable with their own past," he said.

Slow change is underway

However, some corners of the Gulf region are taking the first steps to recognizing the legacy of slavery.

Qatar opened Bin Jelmood House, the first museum to focus on slavery in the Arab world, in Doha in 2015. The museum explicitly speaks about Qatar's role in a lucrative slave trade and highlights the ordeals of its victims: men forced to risk their lives pearl diving in Gulf waters and people brought by force from Africa to work on oil rigs after World War II.

"Development has been so fast in Qatar, we wanted to look at how things changed, how Qatar was affected by slavery and how slaves were integrated into society," Hafiz Abdullah, the museum manager, told the Reuters news agency at the time.

The museum explicitly links the slave trading of the past to human trafficking and bonded labor today. "The story of slavery did not end in 1952," said Abdullah. "People need to focus on human exploitation today and how we can change that."

"On social media, people have been increasingly addressing slavery in the Gulf and its social and ethnic roots with specific reference to local Black populations," said Alebrahim. "[And] in recent years, the academia sphere and the new generation of Gulf academics have had more interest in slavery history."

Another step to recognition came last year, when Al-Awadi published "" one of the first Arabic publications on the topic.

"For years, when narrating the Gulf history, we have focused on the urban people, famous people, rich people, rulers and elites," said Al-Awadi. "[This has come] at the expense of sometimes silencing, skipping, overlooking, ignoring, marginalizing women, the poor, slaves, people who had no voice.

"This book could be the beginning of a new culture," he added.

SEE

Story of the Barbary corsairs,

by Lane-Poole, Stanley, 1854-1931; Kelley, J. D. Jerrold (James Douglas Jerrold), 1847-1922

Our navy and the Barbary corsairs

by Allen, Gardner Weld, 1856-1944

The Barbary corsairs : warfare in the Mediterranean, 1480-1580

by Heers, Jacques

Publication date 2003

Language English

271 pages : 

The Barbary Corsairs first appeared to terrorize shipping in the 16th century. These Muslim pirates sailed out of the ports of North Africa and, acting as officers of the sprawling Ottoman Empire, plundered the trading routes of the Mediterranean and sowed horror in the hearts of Christians everywhere. The most famous and powerful were the Barbarossa brothers, sons of a renegade Christian. The true founders of the Algiers regency, they initially preyed on fishing vessels or defenseless merchantmen before growing bolder and embarking upon more brazen expeditions - attacking fortified ports and cities; raiding and kidnapping inhabitants of the African coast; and hunting ships from the Christian nations. In this book, the author follows the extraordinary exploits of the brothers, and those of other corsairs and profiteers, set against the turbulent backdrop of trade, commerce and conflict throughout the Mediterranean during the 14th - 16th centuries

AMERIKA POST ROE

El Salvador woman freed after 10 years in prison for abortion


A woman in El Salvador -- where protestors seen here in September 28, 2020 rallied for the legalization of abortion -- was freed from prison Wednesday February 9, 2022, after 10 years behind bars for having an abortion (AFP/Yuri CORTEZ) (Yuri CORTEZ)

Wed, February 9, 2022

An El Salvadorian woman was freed from prison Wednesday, after the remaining 20 years of her 30-year sentence for having an abortion were commuted.

"We celebrate Elsy's release from prison after 10 years behind bars," said Morena Herrera, president of the Citizens Association for the Decriminalization of Abortion (ACDATEE), in a statement.

"Her wrongful conviction of 30 years for aggravated homicide is over."

According to ACDATEE, Elsy -- who has been identified only by her first name to preserve her anonymity -- suffered an "obstetric emergency" on June 15, 2011, after which she was taken into custody.

"The judicial process was marred by irregularities, it did not respect her procedural rights, it did not respect the presumption of innocence and she was immediately detained," the association added.

Elsy is the fifth woman imprisoned for abortion in El Salvador to be freed since December.

Since 1998, abortion under any circumstance has been outlawed in El Salvador, even in cases where there is a danger for the health of the mother or child.

While maximum prison sentences for abortion are eight years, charges are usually filed for "aggravated homicide," which carry sentences of up to 50 years.

The director of the Women's Equality Center, Paula Avila-Guillen, called on El Salvador President Nayib Bukele "to liberate all the other innocent women" currently behind bars under similar circumstances.

ob/mav/roc/des/mlm

WHILE THE COUNTRY IS NOMINALLY CATHOLIC THESE ANTI WOMEN LAWS WERE INTRODUCED BY POLITICIANS ALIGNED TO AMERICAN PROTEST EVANGELICALS NEO COLONIALIST OUTREACH PROGRAMS