Turkish opposition head refuses to pay power bill in price rise protest

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey's main opposition party leader said late on Wednesday he will not pay his electricity bills until President Tayyip Erdogan withdraws recent price increases, as signs of discontent over surging inflation emerged across the country.

In January, inflation jumped to nearly 50% after a currency crash late last year triggered by Erdogan's unorthodox low interest rate policy, raising the cost of living for Turks already struggling to make ends meet.

In response, the government has raised the minimum wage by 50% but also increased the prices of gas, power, petrol and road tolls to account for import price volatility.

"I will not pay any of my electricity bills from today until Erdogan withdraws the price hikes which he signed on December 31," Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said overnight.

In a video released on his Twitter account, Kilicdaroglu also called for a reduction in the value-added tax imposed on power bills to 1% from 18%.

Electricity prices were raised by as much as 125% for high-demand commercial users and by around 50% for lower-demand households at the beginning of January.

Kilicdaroglu's announcement came after shopkeepers, city councils and a religious community group spoke out this week about the rising energy bills.

Some restaurant owners posted notices on windows highlighting ballooning electricity bills, social media posts showed, while Turkey's Alevi religious minority decided not to pay power bills for their places of worship, known as cemevis.

The record currency depreciation and soaring prices have hit Erdogan's opinion poll ratings ahead of elections set for no later than June 2023. The government says credit, exports and investment will help the country weather inflation.

Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said this week a new measure on power bills would be announced "very soon".

(Reporting by Daren Butler; Editng by Robert Birsel)

Refugee camp in Bogota park evokes pain of conflict

AFP - Wednesday

Far from their ancestral homes, more than 1,000 indigenous people displaced by conflict have been squatting in squalor since September in one of the Colombian capital's most emblematic parks.

© Juan BARRETO

"No-one should live in these conditions," said one volunteer delivering supplies to the camp

"We want rights and dignified conditions... food and security," said Luz Mary Queragama, one of the group's representatives.


© Juan BARRETO

The National Park is a rare island of greenery in the capital but it is now filled with tarpaulin, camp fires and washing lines

There are around 550 children among about 1,300 people camping in the National Park that sits alongside one of the busiest avenues in Bogota.

Some children are suffering from "malnutrition" and cold, said Queragama.

The majority of the squatters come from the Embera indigenous community based in the southwest regions of Cauca and Choco.

They say they fled violence by armed groups in their homelands and cannot return.

After five months of fruitless negotiations, the humanitarian problem has become a "historic crisis" according to the Colombian press.

- 'Rats and tuberculosis' -

With its shady paths, huge trees and playgrounds, the National Park is a rare island of greenery in the capital that attracts crowds at the weekend.


© Juan BARRETO

An Embera indigenous child plays in a makeshift camp

But instead of walkers, the park is now filled with tarpaulin, camp fires and washing lines.

Bare-footed children run around while mothers carrying babies on their backs sweep the paths and tidy up their makeshift shelters.

The smell of cooked corn and plantains fill the air.

There are just two public toilets in the park, while clothes are washed under a bridge using a sewer.

Men carrying sticks provide security for the camp.

"No-one should live in these conditions," said one volunteer delivering supplies to the camp.

"There are rats, tuberculosis, all sorts of illnesses ... the mayor's office is neglecting them, the government is doing nothing for them," she added, without giving her name.

The mayor's office insists it deployed "immediate humanitarian assistance" and is trying to find shelter for the refugees in Bogota ahead of helping them to "return in safety" to their homes.

But the squatters accuse the government of failing them.

In January, the interior ministry agreed to work with the mayor's office to coordinate the displaced people's return home.

The mayor's office says close to 1,200 Embera people have already returned to their villages with another 400 rehoused elsewhere.

Mayor Claudia Lopez has ruled out the "installation of an indigenous territory in the city."

- Unprecedented -

Indigenous people have been the most affected by Colombia's interminable conflict, after black Colombians.

A series of bloody attacks and murders in Cauca, where armed groups are battling over control of the lucrative drug trade, has caught the national attention.

During 60 years of conflict, Bogota -- home to eight million people -- welcomed hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the conflict.

Since the 2016 peace deal signed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the government, the capital has been home to 380,000 of the conflict's victims, including more than 19,000 indigenous people.

Most of them live in poverty in the poor south of the capital, getting by selling their handicrafts and begging.

But the gathering of more than 1,000 indigenous people in a single location of the capital is unprecedented.

The coronavirus pandemic -- which has left 40 percent of Colombians living in poverty -- has made things worse, particularly since the end of a housing allowance that forced many to head to the National Park.

The current priority for the mayor's office is to carry out a census of the occupants of the camp.

But the last time municipal officials tried so they were beaten and kicked out.

"They are illegally occupying a public park and preventing the public from using it," said one traffic policeman.

"They cut down trees for wood. They beg during the daytime and drink at night," she complained.

"It's a terrible situation for local residents," said a cook who works in a nearby restaurant.

"Some more or less political organizations bring them food and encourage them to stay there. It's getting very difficult."

A bloody tragedy flared up tensions at the end of January.

An Embera mother and her two young daughters were crushed to death by a truck, whose driver was beaten to death by a mob.

The only solution is "to have everyone rehoused here in Bogota," said Queragama.

"What we need from the government is guarantees that we will have housing here in the city, not outside Bogota.

"If there are government guarantees, we can start talking about a return to our territories."

But she fears that the "government is lying to take us back to our territory (and) to leave us there."

hba-dl/bc/bgs

Guatemala's Supreme Court strips anti-corruption judge of immunity


GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Guatemala's highest court announced on Wednesday it had revoked immunity from prosecution for Judge Pablo Xitumul, a prominent anti-graft crusader, in the latest setback in the fight against corruption in the Central American nation.

Xitumul is a judge in the country's high-risk courts, which were created after the U.N.-backed anti-corruption commission CICIG pushed reforms to investigate organized crime and corruption.

He has faced a slew of legal challenges that he regards as revenge for some of his high-level rulings, which have involved a former leader and top officials.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court decided by a majority to revoke his immunity, clearing the way for him to be investigated over a traffic-related incident from 2019.

The Supreme Court's move comes after other prominent anti-corruption judges and officials have been removed from their posts, jailed, or pushed into exile.

Xitumul was among a handful of judges on Guatemala's high-risk courts who submitted a formal complaint to the public prosecutor's office last year saying they were being persecuted and harassed by unidentified armed individuals.

In 2013, he handed down an 80-year sentence for genocide to the deceased former dictator, Efraín Ríos Montt. The sentence was later overturned.

Five years later, Xitumul also sentenced former Vice President Roxana Baldetti to 15 years in prison for corruption.

Last year, he drew praise from the United States ambassador to Guatemala, William Popp, who congratulated him for "being a fundamental pillar for a democratic state."

(Reporting by Sofia Menchu; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded to Marjorie Taylor Greene's 'gazpacho police' gaffe: 'She clearly banned all books from her house'

aharoun@insider.com (Azmi Haroun)

Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene "clearly banned all books from her house years ago."

The comment was in response to Greene mistakenly saying "gazpacho police," instead of "Gestapo."

Gazpacho is a beloved Spanish cold soup, and the Gestapo were the horrific Nazi secret police.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said her Republican colleague Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene "clearly banned all books from her house years ago" after Greene mistakenly said "gazpacho police" instead of "Gestapo" on Wednesday while criticizing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the US House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot.

"Not only do we have the DC jail, which is the DC Gulag, but now we have Nancy Pelosi's gazpacho police spying on members of Congress," Greene said on the far-right channel OAN's show "Real America with Dan Ball." "Spying on the legislative work that we do, spying on our staff, and spying on American citizens that want to come talk to their representatives."

Greene surely meant to say "Gestapo," the name of the Nazis' secret police in the 1930s and 1940s. Gazpacho is a Spanish cold soup, popular across the world.

Responding to a request for comment about the gaffe, a representative for Greene told Insider, "No soup for those who illegally spy on Members of Congress, but they will be thrown in the goulash."

During the show segment, Greene was criticizing subpoenas handed out to affiliates of former President Donald Trump by the House January 6 committee. She also lamented the treatment of people jailed in Washington, DC, on charges related to the attack.

There is no evidence the Capitol Police are spying on lawmakers, their staff members, or private citizens.

It wasn't the first time Greene had compared Democratic leadership or the Biden administration to the Nazi regime. In June, Greene eventually apologized after repeatedly comparing COVID-19 measures like vaccine and mask mandates to the Holocaust.

Greene was panned online over her latest comment, with Ocasio-Cortez poking fun at efforts by GOP legislators and some school boards to ban books in schools.



"At least she leads by example. She clearly banned all books from her house years ago," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in response to the gaffe.

"For real though when you see how the GOP openly embrace and leverage fascist members of their party vs how much some Dems run away and frame their own base mobilizers as 'just as extreme' it's not hard to see how that asymmetry/false equivalence has contributed to where we are," she continued in an additional tweet.

More than 760 people have been arrested and charged with crimes related to the attack on the Capitol.

Ocasio-Cortez's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read the original article on Business Insider

Senate candidate who smoked blunt in ad burns Confederate flag in latest spot

Brad Dress - Wednesday

The Hill

Gary Chambers, a U.S. Senate candidate in Louisiana who went viral last month for smoking a blunt in a campaign ad, burned a Confederate flag while decrying restrictive voting laws in his latest video released on Wednesday.

In a one-minute video titled "Scars and Bars," Chambers is seen wearing a camo jacket as he pins a Confederate flag on a clothesline and ignites it with a lighter - right after he cites the famous Declaration of Independence line "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

As the flag burns, the Louisiana Democrat argues that inequality lingers and "remnants of the Confederacy remain" in the South. The candidate mentions gerrymandered districts and restrictive voting laws as "byproducts" of the Confederacy.

"The attacks against Black people, our right to vote and participate in this democracy, are methodical," he said. "Our system isn't broken. It's designed to do exactly what it's doing, which is producing measurable inequity."

According to the Brennan Center, 19 states passed 34 restrictive voting laws in response to a conservative push to tighten up elections following former President Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Earlier this year, Congressional Democrats attempted to push through a voting rights package to address the restrictive voting laws but failed to secure enough votes in the Senate.

Chambers is running to unseat Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) in the upcoming midterm election. He gained national attention last month with the release of a campaign ad in which he puffs on a blunt while arguing for the legalization of cannabis, the criminalization of which disproportionately affects Black people.

The candidate is a co-founder of a media outlet called The Rouge Collection and ran unsuccessfully for a U.S. House seat last year in Louisiana.

In Wednesday's video, Chambers mentioned other issues that affect Black Americans, including access to health care, which has been highlighted during the pandemic, as minorities have had higher rates of severe illness and death from COVID-19.

Chambers said 1 in 9 Black Americans do not have health insurance and 1 in 3 Black children live in poverty.

"It's time to burn what remains of the Confederacy down," he said in the video. "I do believe the South will rise again, but this time it will be on our terms."

Proposed Alabama bills would protect Confederate monuments and raise fines if they're removed

By Maya Brown, CNN - Wednesday

An Alabama legislative committee has advanced two bills designed to further protect Confederate monuments and criminalize people who attempt to remove them.

State Sen. Gerald Allen introduced the bills Tuesday. Under one of the proposed bills, the fine for removing a monument would increase from a flat fee of $25,000 to $5,000 for each day a monument isn't restored.

These bills come at a time when Americans continue to debate whether Confederate monuments should remain or be taken down across the country.

About 73 Confederate monuments were removed or renamed in 2021 and there are now 723 left in the United States, according to a Southern Poverty Law Center report released last week. There are also an additional 741 roadways, 201 schools, 51 buildings, 38 parks and 22 holidays honoring the Confederacy. According to the SPLC, there are about 156 Confederate symbols throughout Alabama.

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee's move Tuesday puts the bills in line for a vote by the Senate.

Jerome Dees, the Southern Poverty Law Center's Alabama policy director, told CNN he believes the proposed bills are part of a broader movement across the South to "preserve the Confederacy" and oppression that the monuments represent.

"The legislation that we're seeing are just reiterations of old Jim Crow oppression that works to continue that same psychological and mental pressure," he said.
What the bills would mean

One of the bills would make it a Class C felony to mark or damage a monument or a Class B felony if damage is done during a "riot, aggravated riot or unlawful assembly." The Class C felony carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years and the Class B felony could lead up to 20 years behind bars.

The other bill requires governments that demolish a historic building to make certain that the building or park that replaces it keeps the same name.

Dees said he believes the proposed bills are "wrong" from both a moral standpoint and a good governance standpoint.

"These are oppressive pieces of legislation that work to enshrine the Confederacy further, and also work to strip agency from local citizens and elected officials who just want to have a say in what their cities and their communities truly mean," Dees said.

Alabama is one of the six states that have preservation laws. In an attempt to amend the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act, which forbids the "relocation, removal, alteration, renaming, or other disturbance of any monument located on public property" for 40 years or more, the bill would also raise the fine from $25,000 to $5,000 per day. It would additionally empower the attorney general to sue any government found in violation.

Even with the $25,000 fine, several Alabama cities have removed Confederate monuments since the law was passed in 2017.

Last October, the city of Montgomery renamed a street named after Confederate President Jefferson Davis and changed it to Fred D. Gray Avenue to honor the civil rights activist and attorney who represented Rosa Parks and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The city must pay the fine or may face a lawsuit. In 2020, the city of Birmingham was fined for placing a plywood barrier around the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Linn Park. That same year the city of Huntsville received a fine for removing a Confederate statue from the outside the Madison County courthouse.

A Confederate statue in Tuskegee has also been a target of community resistance for years and is now at the center of an upcoming lawsuit.

Allen's proposed bill also calls for the Alabama Historical Commission to design, construct and erect a statue of the late civil rights leader John Lewis.

"The statue shall include a protective barrier and pedestal base and shall be placed near the southeastern entrance to the Edmund Pettus Bridge," the bill text says.

Dees told CNN the SPLC's hope is that the Alabama legislature hears the voices of individuals from the local community who have spoken against the Confederacy.


© Jake Crandall/The Montgomery Advertiser via AP

Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed, second from left, poses with Fred Gray Jr. and Stanley Gray after the city council voted unanimously to rename Jefferson Davis Avenue after Gray's father, civil rights attorney Fred Gray last year.

USA
500,000 people have signed a petition supporting nurses' demands for safer working conditions. Meet the nurses leading the charge.

insider@insider.com (Allana Akhtar) -

© Provided by Business Inside

rNurses Abby Donley and Blake Lynch launched a petition calling for better working conditions for healthcare workers. Their petition is the fourth most-signed on Change.org in the last 12 months. Abby Donley and Blake Lynch

500,000 people signed a petition demanding better working conditions for nurses.
The petition launched by Nurses Abby Donley and Blake Lynch is Change.org's 4th largest in the last year.
Donley and Lynch said the aim to raise awareness about why nurses need to work with fewer patients.

Abby Donley, an intensive care nurse based in New York, believes she has post-traumatic stress disorder from the first COVID-19 wave in March 2020.

"The whole ICU was full of my patients," said Donley, who left hospital work in 2021 after 13 years as an ICU nurse. "To see all of your patients...paralyzed, sedated on a ventilator, and ultimately expired, it was pretty traumatic for me."

Donley said her hospital was over capacity due to the influx of coronavirus patients, and she felt that she couldn't give her patients the care they needed because she was stretched too thin due to understaffing. If hospital nurses don't have enough time with patients, Donley explained, they cannot adequately preform their job duties.

California is currently the only state that sets nurse-to-patient ratios in hospitals, often referred to as "safe-staffing ratios" that limit the number of daily patients a nurse can adequately treat at one time. ICU nurses in California, for example, can care for just two patients at once.

In an effort to make working conditions better for her peers, Donley, cofounder of the non-profit IMPACT in Healthcare, and fellow nurse Blake Lynch, who worked in hospitals for 8 years, launched a petition calling for hospitals to ensure nurses work with a safe level of patients at once.

At more than 500,000 signatures, Donley and Lynch's safe-staffing petition is currently the fourth-most-signed campaign on Change.org over the last 12 months, a company spokesperson told Insider. The petition ranks in the top 10 largest healthcare campaigns of all-time.

"This is one of several petitions started by nurses on Change.org during the pandemic that have seen remarkable signature growth," Change.org campaign director Alex Rapson said in an email to Insider. "Nurses are proving time and again that they are leaders in social change."
Nurses say without immediate change, they will reach a breaking point

Donley and Lynch said short-staffing was worsening before the pandemic. Healthcare worker burnout reached record levels the year before COVID-19 hit.

Keeping the number of patients assigned to a nurse low both saves lives and decreases hospital expenses, according to data from Australia, which began regulating nurse-to-patient ratios in 2016. Since the laws went into effect, researchers found that 145 patients deaths were avoided and hospitals saved anywhere between $54 to $81 million as fewer people needed to be re-admitted.

The pandemic magnified hospital staffing problems, prompting 1 in 5 healthcare workers to quit during the pandemic, with many citing burnout as their reason for leaving.

Lynch worked in a hospital setting until 2019, when he transitioned to making videos about nursing for his roughly 3.5 million followers on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Lynch said he wants to help the public and other healthcare workers better understand how nurse-to-patient ratios impact care.

"We want to point out that nurses aren't being treated with respect or dignity when they've gone through the hardest time in their profession the past two years with," he said. "It's just getting worse and worse."

Lynch and Donley are calling for better oversight of hospitals to ensure workplaces enforce safe-staffing policies. The two nurses want the Joint Commission, a non-profit that accredits hospitals and makes sure they are complying with nationwide safety standards, to require hospitals limit the number of patients per nurse. The Joint Commission did not respond to a request for comment.

"I have four patients in the ICU — I should only have two paralyzed, intubated, or sedated COVID patients that need a lot of care — and I come home and I feel like I harmed those patients because the bare minimum is all they got," Donley said. "That's not nursing."

Supreme Court of Canada considers if mandatory listing on sex registry is constitutional

The fallout from a 2011 Edmonton sexual assault case has come before the Supreme Court of Canada.


© Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press

The Supreme Court of Canada held a virtual hearing Tuesday morning to consider the sentencing of an Edmonton sex offender.

Janice Johnston - 

cbc.ca

Tuesday

The country's top court has been asked to consider striking down two sections of Canada's sex offender laws as unconstitutional.

In 2011, the Stephen Harper's CONSERVATIVE government altered the Criminal Code so the names of sex offenders would automatically be placed on the sex offender registry.

The changes meant judges no longer had discretion on whether to submit names of sex offenders to the registry. It also mandated that anyone convicted of two sex offences or more would automatically be placed on the registry for life.

On Tuesday morning, appearing virtually in the Supreme Court, Edmonton defence lawyer Elvis Iginla asked the justices to replace mandatory placement with judicial discretion.

Iginla represents Eugen Ndhlovu who pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault in 2015. He admitted that in 2011, when he was 19 years old, he sexually assaulted two women at a house party.

Ndhlovu was sentenced in provincial court to six months in jail followed by probation for three years.

Ndhlovu had no prior criminal record and was deemed a low risk to reoffend but, because he was convicted on more than one count of sex assault, his name was automatically added to the registry for life.

Ndhlovu filed an appeal with the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta, arguing his charter rights had been violated.

The Court of Queen's Bench judge agreed. Justice Andrea Moen struck down the 2011 legislative changes, meaning that sex offenders in Alberta convicted of two or more offences would no longer be automatically placed on the list.

"In my view, the mandatory registration for all sex offenders upon conviction of two or more offences, without regard to the seriousness of the offences or the offender's propensity to reoffend, is overbroad," Moen wrote.

The case advanced to the Alberta Court of Appeal, where there was a split decision. Two of three judges ruled automatically adding the names of sex offenders to a national registry for life does not violate the offender's charter rights.

The third justice dissented, ultimately leading to Tuesday's hearing before the Supreme Court of Canada.

Crown argues for status quo

Alberta Crown prosecutor Jason Russell argued in favour of maintaining the current legislation.

"The objective is to formulate a comprehensive database for law enforcement," Russell said. "We just don't have the tools to say which offender is going to re-offend."

Russell compared automatic listing on the registry to mandatory DNA orders for certain designated offences.

He acknowledged there's a modest impact on the offender's privacy rights, but argued that for most offenders the information remains unused in a highly secured database unless they are suspected of re-offending.

The subject of judicial discretion led to some spirited debate between the judges and lawyers.

"Let's cut to the chase," Justice Malcolm Rowe said to Russell. "The parliament of the day said, 'We don't like judges exercising their discretion. We want to make this an iron rule with no exceptions. It's plain on its face. We don't care what the circumstances are.'

"And you're saying that's perfectly fine."

Russell agreed.

The court also heard from interveners representing attorneys general for Canada and three provinces.

Five additional interveners representing criminal lawyers associations, civil liberties groups and the Ontario HIV Legal Network filed factums in support of Iginla's appeal.

Iginla said he thought that overall the hearing went well.

"They knew what the issues were," Iginla told CBC News following the hearing. "They asked some very tough questions.

"Anytime you appear before an appellate court, all you can really hope for is that they listen to you … and the point you're trying to make.

"So I couldn't have asked for more."

The court has reserved its decision.

NUCLEAR WASTE

CNL seeks support for disposal facility

Pembroke – It is a crucial year for Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) with the pending hearings on the Near Surface Disposal Facility (NSDF) and President and CEO Joe McBrearty is hoping all municipalities in the county will lend a voice of support for this massive clean-up effort.

“It enhances the protection of the river and the environment,” he told Renfrew County council recently. “The material is already there. It is in our 40-year-old buildings. It is in our soils.”

He was at council not only asking for support, but delivering an update on the facility, including informing council of the innovative cancer therapy studies currently underway there. CNL is at a pivotal point now, dealing not only with waste from seven decades of research and work, but also rehabilitation as it looks forward to continuing research.

“Our primary mission is environmental restoration of legacy stuff that was a result of 70 years of incredible effort at the Chalk River campus, which has benefited the entire world,” he said.

CNL plays an important role in the county with around 2,800 employees, mostly in the Chalk River/Deep River and Pembroke and Petawawa areas. He said the economic impact is spread throughout the county.

The priorities for CNL – outlined in Vision 2030 – are to restore and protect the environment, provide clean energy for today and tomorrow and improve the health of Canadians. This is done through conducting the largest and most complex remediation in Canada, spanning three provinces, as well as supporting the CANDU and LWR industry, and additionally being involved in SMR/vSMR (Small Modular Reactors) demonstration, advanced fuels and materials and hydrogen sciences. He pointed out in the last five years 100 structures on site have been taken down with the land being remediated.

“It reduces risk to our public. It reduces risk to our workforce,” he said. “It reduces risk to our precious environment.”

The current nuclear remediation process is the most complex in Canada, he added.

“It takes awhile because we have to do it in a very painstaking manner to protect our workforce and protect our environment,” he said.

The “heart and soul” of CNL has been isotope production and this continues with work on a new isotope which targets cancer tumours with very little impact on other cells, he said. The Ac-225 radioisotope program is a very exciting development in fighting cancer, he said. The Actinium 225 is attached to a targeting molecule and when the isotope decays, it emits high energy alpha particles. Those particles kill the cancer cell, leaving nearby healthy cells unharmed. He said this is being considered as a potential treatment for a number of cancers, including prostrate, pancreatic and bladder cancer, as well as leukemia.

“If we can save even one life through our research here, that is incredibly important,” he said.

The need for this material is expected to increase by 100 to 300 times in the next 10 years.

“We believe we can be at the forefront of this,” he added, noting this is a project for the next two decades and more.

The vision is for a new facility housing a cyclotron particle accelerator co-located with a pharmaceutical grade isotope processing capability. This will not only save lives in Canada but put Canada in the forefront as a global provider of a rare medical isotope. It will also generate high tech employment opportunities.

Meggan Vickerd, the general manager of waste management, spoke about the NSDF, noting CNL is viewing this as a key element.

“The NSDF is key to improving the state of our waste storage,” she said.

The waste has been onsite for decades and this is dealing with that waste, she stressed.

“The proposed NSDF will protect the public and the environment in every stage of the facility,” she said.

Having this facility demonstrates waste is no longer a problem and clears the way for future research, she added. It also enhances the protection of the Ottawa River, she said.

This year is important in the hearings for the facility. She noted any interventions to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission must be submitted by April 11. As a result, CNL will be reaching out to the municipalities in the county looking for support. The preference is for in-person recommendations.

“We are hoping for positive interventions from all our communities,” she said.

The hearing is scheduled for late May and will be held in Renfrew County.

Municipal Support

Warden Debbie Robinson said it is not only important for the county to speak out in favour of the NSDF, but also municipalities.

“We need more than one voice from the county supporting CNL,” she said. “We need 18 voices. The county and the municipalities.”

The warden said the request for support will go to the Development and Property Committee for a recommendation and come back to council.

Laurentian Hills Mayor Jed Reinwald said he has been involved in the nuclear industry for about 35 years. Recently a lot of work has been done at the local site, he added.

“I see the improvements that have been made there in the last 10 to12 years,” he said.

Mayor Reinwald said he will be in support of the NSDF.

“Our council is very much behind it,” he remarked.

Mayor Michael Donohue of Admaston/Bromley said the role of nuclear remains very important.

“I cannot see there is any path addressing climate change moving forward without nuclear energy being a part of that,” he said.

The fact most of the material being disposed of at the NSDF is already on site at Chalk River is not widely known and should be, he said.

“By in large the waste is generally what has been generated on site,” he said.

If this waste is not entombed then it will have to be moved off site through the highway elsewhere, he noted.

Renfrew Reeve Peter Emon pointed out when the Go-Co (Government Owned Contractor Operated) model was first presented to the County of Renfrew a decade ago there was much unknown and there was a desire for more information on how this would work and the impact locally.

“Our asks at the time were engagement and information, which we are getting,” he said.

The importance of CNL (AECL at the time) and the need for a future vision for the facility were key to a desire to see the site flourish, he said. Since then, CNL has kept the county informed and there has been a lot of engagement locally, he said.

“We know we have to give back to Canadian taxpayers,” Mr. McBrearty noted.

Debbi Christinck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Eganville Leader

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPTIALI$M

A sign of ransomware growth: Gangs now arbitrate disputes


RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Cyber criminal gangs are getting increasingly adept at hacking and becoming more professional, even setting up an arbitration system to resolve payment disputes among themselves, according to a new report by the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom that paints a bleak picture of ransomware trends.

Ransomware gangs, which hack targets and hold their data hostage through encryption, caused widespread havoc last year with high-profile attacks on the world’s largest meat-packing company, the biggest U.S. fuel pipeline and other targets. Western governments have pledged to crack down on the cyber criminals, who operate largely in and around Russia, but have little to show in the way of progress.

The new report on 2021 ransomware trends highlights the growing maturity and specialization of the ransomware market, with independent operators filling a lucrative niche market. Specialists now range from the hackers who can break into networks or develop ransomware to the nontechnical operators who negotiate payments with victims. The United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre said it's seen some ransomware gangs offer a 24/7 help center to victims to expedite ransom payments and restore encrypted data.

There's even money to be made by arbitrators who can settle payment disputes among the various ransomware criminals, according to the report.

“The criminal marketplace is incredibly, incredibly efficient and constantly evolving," said John Hultquist, vice president of intelligence analysis at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant. "The fact that they can operate like this, it’s evidence of our failure to get a good grip on this problem.”

The report also describes the growing technical skills of ransomware gangs, which have been able to target cloud infrastructure — often touted as a safer alternative to storing data locally — and developed code to stop industrial processes. U.S. authorities said they'd seen ransomware attacks involving 14 out of 16 designated critical infrastructure sectors, including the defense industrial base, agriculture and information technology sectors.

“When critical infrastructure is held at risk by foreign hackers operating from a safe haven in an adversary country, that’s a national security problem,” National Security Agency Cybersecurity Director Rob Joyce said in a statement, adding that addressing ransomware is a “significant focus” of the NSA.

The joint report was issued Wednesday by the FBI, the NSA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the U.S. as well as the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre and the Australian Cyber Security Centre.

The report said that after major highly disruptive hacks on the Colonial Pipeline in the U.S. in May and on Brazilian meat processor JBS SA in June, "ransomware groups suffered disruptions from U.S. authorities in mid-2021" and have targeted midsize victims to reduce scrutiny.

But the UK and Australian authorities said they'd not seen any similar trend in their countries. Kaspersky Labs reported in December that ransomware-related incidents in 2021 accounted for 47% of its global response, up from 38% the previous year. In the U.S., however, targeted ransomware attacks that its intelligence network detected were down 33% in 2021 compared with the previous years. That compares with a 30% rise globally.

In the past month, ransomware victims have included operators of maritime fuel depots in Belgium and Germany and media outlets in Portugal. A cyberattack on the wireless provider Vodafone in Portugal this week had all the hallmarks of ransomware, though the company's CEO for Portugal said it received no ransomware demand.

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Associated Press writer Frank Bajak in Boston contributed to this report.

Alan Suderman, The Associated Press