BLACK HISTORY MONTH

'The Greatest Frontier Hero in American History' Was Formerly Enslaved: What to Know About Bass Reeves

Wed, February 23, 2022,

Bass Reeves

Public Domain Bass Reeves

Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok may rank as the Old West's best-known U.S. deputy marshals, but those two famous lawmen are strictly minor league when compared to Bass Reeves.

During his 30-year career, Reeves, who was known for his deadly prowess with his revolver and Winchester rifle, captured approximately 3,000 dangerous criminals and survived countless gun battles where he shot and killed at least 14 of the fugitives in self-defense.

"Bass was the most prolific law enforcement officer we've ever had in the United States," David Kennedy, the curator at the United States Marshals Museum — which will feature an exhibit about Reeves when it opens later this year in Fort Smith, Ark. — tells PEOPLE. "He worked in the most-deadly region and during the most-deadly time for deputy marshals."

Retired history professor Art Burton has spent decades researching and writing about Reeves, who died in 1907 at the age of 72, and has been instrumental in sharing his remarkable story with a new generation of fans.

"He's really the greatest frontier hero in U.S. history," says Burton. "You can't compare him to anybody. If an outlaw learned that Bass had a warrant out for their arrest, they'd often just turn themselves in. You couldn't run from him because he would always catch you."

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Born into slavery in 1838, Reeves ended up knocking out his enslaver in a fight during a card game, and fled to what was then-known as Indian Territory — which later became the state of Oklahoma — before becoming one of the first Black U.S deputy marshals.

He soon learned to speak many of the languages of the Native American tribes living there and eventually worked as a scout and a guide for lawmen who would venture into the territory in search of fugitives.

By 1875, the then-36-year-old Reeves received his commission to become a deputy marshal and before long was making a name for himself capturing some of the most dangerous, deadly criminals in the region who had fled there to escape justice.

"If a criminal had a reason to run into the territory, they had every reason to fight to the death," says Kennedy, who adds that nearly one-third of the 386 U.S. marshals ever killed in the line of duty lost their lives in that region during the three decades Reeves worked there.

Adds Burton: "There were lots of places to hide and the outlaws there were always ready to fight. It was the most dangerous area in the Wild West, a real killing field for federal lawmen. Bass basically walked into this valley of death every day for 32 years."

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Besides his uncanny marksmanship skills ("He shot one felon during a gun battle from a quarter mile away with his Winchester—that's like Michael Jordan type of stuff," says Burton), Reeves—who often donned disguises while hunting for fugitives—was most proud of his detective skills.

"Bass was always kind, considerate and conducted himself as a gentleman," adds Burton. "But if you were an outlaw, then it was like you were dealing with the devil."

Reeves believed so strongly in justice and abiding by the law that when he learned that his son, Bennie, was going to be arrested for murdering his wife in 1902 he asked the marshal in Muskogee, Ok., if he could ride out to his property and arrest him himself.

"He didn't want any deputies getting hurt, bringing his son in," says Burton. "His son knew of Bass's reputation. So when Bass told him, 'Let's go. I don't want to have to put you down, but I will if I have to,' Bennie did exactly what his father told him."

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Stories about Reeves' exploits abounded in the years after his death and there's been plenty of speculation that he was the model for the character of the Lone Ranger, created and popularized in a radio show by a Detroit radio station in the 1930s and 1940s.

"We can't prove conclusively that Reeves was the inspiration for the Lone Ranger," explains Burton. "But we can say unequivocally that Bass is the closest person to resemble the fictional Lone Ranger . . . But Bass is much bigger than the Lone Ranger because he was a real person."

Dry cleaners are beginning to close as the pandemic drags on



Teo Armus
Tue, February 22, 2022

The first to go in the neighborhood was GQ Cleaners, where the "For Rent" sign quickly replaced any semblance of life inside the blue-walled shop. Next was Kim's Cleaners, now an empty sliver of a strip mall up the street.

Gary and Chong Whitesides had for the past three decades run a dry-cleaning business in Alexandria, Va., halfway between the two shops, and they hoped they might inherit some customers to lift sagging profits at Auburn Cleaners. But the pandemic eventually shut them down, too.

"Whatever they had left over wasn't enough to give us a big boost," Gary, 61, said of the extra customers as he swept the tile floor of his gutted storefront last month. "It's just an example of how far down business has gotten. When people aren't going out to work, they're not bringing clothes in."

Two metal racks holding laundered shirts and pants were still by the window, where a paper sign summed up their fate: "Notice: Store closing."

Nearly two years after the pandemic changed daily life, the divergent economic consequences for small businesses are familiar: There are the mom-and-pops that managed to hobble through and those that couldn't make it. The entrepreneurs who found a way to pivot - to contactless "ghost kitchens" or online-only yoga - and the family-run outfits still praying for some kind of return to normal.

Auburn Cleaners was firmly in the latter camp until the omicron variant of the coronavirus and its staggering number of cases delayed a return to the office. The blazers and blouses would stay inside closets a few months longer, and the Whitesideses decided that was it: They would leave the storefront where they and a handful of employees had cleaned, pressed and packed since the couple purchased it in the early 1990s.

It was another dry cleaner lost to the coronavirus - the third casualty on a stretch of about eight blocks and a much larger omen for an industry that may never recover. Some trade groups expect that, by December, 30% of dry-cleaning businesses operating before the pandemic will have closed.

In large metro areas, dry cleaning has long been seen a vehicle to the middle class for immigrant families, many of them Korean Americans who settled here in the 1970s through 1990s, industry experts say. There were low barriers for entry and limited need for language skills, not to mention a community of other store owners often willing to help with loans and training.

But even before the pandemic, many of those independent stores were bracing for change: Their U.S.-born children were choosing not to take over the family business, opting instead for white-collar fields. Even in buttoned-up Washington D.C., offices were loosening their norms for professional attire and lessening the need for professional cleaning.

"At one point, you had casual Friday, and then you went to casual every day," said Mary Scalco, the chief executive of the Drycleaning & Laundry Institute, a trade group based in Prince George's County, Md.. "Many of them repositioned themselves as convenience stores and took on a wider range of clothes - it's your golf shirts, polos, khakis, not just your ties and suits."

For the Whitesides, though, it was just a matter of keeping up with the multiple generations of clients that passed through the store - everyone from first responders and hotel workers to a U.S. congressman whom Gary declined to name. ("He has been in the news a little bit and coming under fire, and I don't want people to know he's living in this area," he said.)

Chong Whitesides, who immigrated to the United States from Korea as a teenager, had grown up working in her family's dry-cleaning stores and stuck around the business while Gary worked in telecommunications at a U.S. Army base in Maryland.

After they moved to Northern Virginia in the early 1990s, she decided to start her own business. The couple purchased the Auburn Cleaners store on East Glebe, a neighborhood mainstay on a block full of longtime establishments.

It soon became a family affair: Their son Jeremy, now a computer programmer, worked his way there through college. When Gary was laid off from his IT job during the Great Recession, he joined her - a ploy for them to spend more time together.

But the workweeks were 70 hours. Save for Sundays and a smattering of holidays, one of them was nearly always at the store - tagging clothes, checking for stains, pre-cleaning, spotting and pressing, then sorting and packing.

There would be seasonal rhythms: Spring meant prom dresses and wedding gowns; fall was for coats and sweaters. But "other than the very general seasonal things," he said, "it's a crapshoot from one month to the next."

Trade groups warn that the worst is yet to come.

Peter Blake, the executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Association of Cleaners, which represents 350 storefronts in the District, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, said that the number of closed outlets - about 10 to 15% of the industry — could double by the end of this year.

He said his group has also encouraged its members to diversify their business, dipping into wash-and-fold and delivery services that might appeal to customers who have few shirts that need to be pressed as they started working from home.

But as the original coronavirus gave way to the delta variant, which gave way to omicron, the outlook for the Whitesides was grim.

They shut down their store for a few weeks and then opened back up - with slightly limited hours - to serve the steady trickle of first responders and other front-line workers who came in through the summer of 2020. But business that year never reached more than a quarter of what it had been before the pandemic.

"There were all these different edicts - who can stay open and who can close - that was all undetermined for a while," he said. "At one point it didn't really matter, because no one was coming out anyway."

Auburn Cleaners received two rounds of loans through the Paycheck Protection Program, which "were enough to keep us going for a while," Gary said. (Some other business have relied on a special tax credit that was phased out in a federal infrastructure package last year, though industry groups are pushing to have it extended through March.)

The Whitesideses went through their savings. They crunched the numbers. They had some customers hanging on - and still do, even as they've shifted some operations out of a storefront entirely.

But the rest of their clientele, he fears, will simply never return.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Nigeria takes JP Morgan to court for $1.7 billion over oil deal


A sign outside JP Morgan Chase & Co offices is seen in New York


Tue, February 22, 2022
By Julia Payne

LONDON (Reuters) -A London high court began to hear a lawsuit on Wednesday launched by Nigeria against U.S. bank JP Morgan Chase, claiming more than $1.7 billion for its role in a disputed 2011 oilfield deal.

The civil suit filed in the English courts relates to the purchase by energy majors Shell and Eni of the offshore OPL 245 oilfield in Nigeria, which is also at the centre of ongoing legal action in Italy. A panel of judges in Milan acquitted the companies and executives, who all denied any wrongdoing, of bribery last March. Prosecutors have appealed the ruling.

In the court documents pertaining to the London case seen by Reuters, Nigeria alleges JP Morgan was "grossly negligent" in its decision to transfer funds paid by the energy majors into an escrow account to a company controlled by the country’s former oil minister Dan Etete instead of into government coffers.

The trial opened with details of the claim by Nigeria's lawyer, Roger Masefield. JP Morgan will present its defence early next week. The trial will end on April 7 and a judgment will likely take several months.

In court, Masefield said Nigeria's case rested on proving two key points: there was a fraud and JP Morgan was aware of the risk of fraud. He said JP Morgan had breached its duties.

"The evidence of fraud is little short of overwhelming," Masefield told the court.

"Under its Quincecare duty, the bank was entitled to refuse to pay for as long as it had reasonable grounds for believing its customer was being defrauded."

Quincecare is a legal precedent whereby the bank should not pay out if it believes its client will be defrauded by making the payment.

JP Morgan's London offices deal with business for Europe, Middle East and Africa, including Nigeria.

A spokesman for the bank in a statement to Reuters said it was "confident that it acted appropriately in making these payments" and said the bank would "robustly defend against this claim".

DAMAGES SOUGHT

The damages sought include cash sent to Etete's company Malabu Oil and Gas, around $875 million paid in three instalments in 2011 and 2013, plus interest, taking the total to over $1.7 billion. The Nigerian government at the time asked JP Morgan to make these transfers as part of the oilfield sale, court documents show.

The London case dates back to 1998 when Nigerian military ruler Sani Abacha awarded the offshore oilfield licence, OPL 245, to a company Etete owned.

The $20 million price tag - of which Etete paid about $2 million, according to court documents - was widely viewed by industry experts as too low given the block was expected to yield billions of dollars of crude, although it remains undeveloped.

Subsequent Nigerian administrations contested Etete's rights to the field, triggering years of legal wrangling until a deal designed to end the battles was struck in 2011.

Etete's company Malabu Oil and Gas handed the undeveloped OPL 245 back to Nigeria as part of a resolution agreement involving Shell and Eni.

To complete the deal, Shell and Eni paid a signature bonus of about $200 million directly to the Nigerian government and then deposited $1.1 billion in the Nigerian government's escrow account with JP Morgan, court documents show.

Etete's lawyers did not comment on the trial as Etete is not a party in this suit. Shell and Eni are also not parties to the London law suit and declined to comment.

(Reporting by Julia Payne; editing by Barbara Lewis)

Big Beef Loan Scrapped Amid Uproar Over Amazon Deforestation



Jessica Brice
Wed, February 23, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- A $200 million loan for Marfrig Global Foods SA has fallen apart amid growing concern that Brazil’s second-biggest beef producer is fueling deforestation in the Amazon.

The Inter-American Development Bank’s private-sector arm shelved a plan to lead the syndicated loan after a series of setbacks. First, a vote on the financing was pushed from December to May, according to two people familiar with the matter. The bank couldn’t agree with the company on environmental targets, as well as the financial terms of the loan, said one of the people. Now, the loan is inactive, according to IDB’s website, and will no longer go up for a vote.

Activist groups including Friends of the Earth started pressuring the bank to abandon the loan last year, alleging that the IDB credit line would violate the bank’s sustainability policies. For more than a decade, Marfrig and its biggest rivals like JBS SA have committed to ridding their supply chains of animals born or raised on deforested land.

Both companies say they set the highest standards for their suppliers, but a Bloomberg investigation published last month showed how they’re using a greenwashed version of an animal’s origin and working within a legal system so full of loopholes that prosecutors, environmentalists and even ranchers themselves consider it a farce. Amazon deforestation is now at a 15-year high, with more than 70% of illegally cleared land turning into pasture to graze animals.

Read more: How Big Beef Is Fueling the Amazon’s Destruction

The loan, in which $43 million would have come from IDB Invest and $157 million would have been syndicated, was announced in April 2021 to fund Marfrig’s Plano Verde+, or Green+ Plan, aimed at strengthening the sustainability of its beef supply chain.

Marfrig in an email confirmed that the loan is no longer under consideration and didn’t comment further. The IDB said by email that it “came to the mutual agreement that the conditions were not ideal to move forward with the loan” after carrying out in-depth due diligence of Verde+.

“We hope the IDB Invest’s decision to drop the Marfrig loan sends a signal to other banks,” said Kari Hamerschlag, deputy director of food and agriculture at Friends of the Earth U.S. “Public development banks cannot keep funding industrial livestock operations like Marfrig, which drive the climate crisis with deforestation, biodiversity loss and methane emissions in Brazil and globally.”

Marfrig’s 2031 bond traded 0.12 cent lower Wednesday at 88.18 cents on the dollar to yield 5.65%. Since the start of the year, the notes have fallen 7.4 cents.

A good day to die: doom for the dinosaurs came in springtime

Melanie During excavates the fossil of a Cretaceous Period paddlefish


Wed, February 23, 2022
By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - On a spring day 66 million years ago, paddlefish and sturgeon swam in a river that meandered through a flourishing landscape populated by mighty dinosaurs and small mammals at North Dakota's southwestern corner. Death came from above that day.

Scientists said on Wednesday well-preserved fish fossils unearthed at the site are providing a deeper understanding of one of the worst days in the history of life on Earth and shedding light on the global calamity triggered by an asteroid 7.5 miles (12 km) wide striking Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

The ensuing mass extinction erased about three-quarters of Earth's species, including the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous Period, paving the way for mammals - eventually including humans - to become dominant.

The researchers determined that it was springtime at the fossil site called the Tanis deposit - and throughout the northern hemisphere, including the spot where the asteroid hit - based on sophisticated examinations of bones from three paddlefishes and three sturgeons that died within about 30 minutes of the impact that occurred 2,200 miles (3500 km) away.

They found evidence that a hail of glass pelted the site, finding small spherules - molten material blasted by the impact into space that crystallized before falling back to Earth - embedded in fish gills. The Tanis fossils also indicated that a huge standing wave of water swept through after the impact, burying the local denizens alive. Among the dinosaurs living in the Tanis area was apex predator Tyrannosaurus rex.

"Every living thing in Tanis on that day saw nothing coming and was killed almost instantaneously," said Melanie During, a paleontology doctoral student at Uppsala University in Sweden and lead author of the research published in the journal Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04446-1

During compared the fossils deposited at Tanis to "a car crash frozen in place."

Multiple lines of evidence pointed to a springtime impact.

Annual growth rings in certain fish bones - resembling those in tree trunks - showed increased growth levels associated with springtime after reduced growth in leaner winter months. Chemical evidence from one of the paddlefishes indicated that food availability was increasing as it does in springtime, but not at peak summer levels.

Springtime marks a time of growth and reproduction for many organisms.

"This season is crucial for the survival of species," said study co-author Sophie Sanchez, an Uppsala University senior lecturer in palaeohistology.

In the southern hemisphere, it was autumn at the time, Sanchez noted, a season when many creatures prepare for the deprivations of winter.

Dinosaurs - aside from their bird descendants - went extinct, as did major marine groups, including the carnivorous reptiles that dominated the seas. Among the survivors were paddlefishes and sturgeons, which survive to this day.

The Tanis fossils helped the researchers better understand the events following the impact, which left a crater about 110 miles (180 km) wide at a Yucatan site called Chicxulub.

The asteroid rocked the continental plate, generated earthquakes, sparked extensive wildfires, unleashed a massive shockwave in the air and seismic waves on the ground, and spawned massive standing waves called seiche waves - perhaps hundreds of yards tall - in water bodies.

These waves, carrying immense amounts of sediment and debris, inundated the Tanis site within approximately 15 to 30 minutes after the impact, burying alive all the inhabitants, including the fish whose fossils were studied.

The peril did not end that day. A cloud of dust enrobed Earth, precipitating a climate catastrophe akin to a "nuclear winter" that blocked sunlight for perhaps years, condemning countless species to oblivion.

"Although most of the extinction unfolded during the aftermath of the impact, which lasted much longer, zero hour - the exact timing of the impact - determined the course of the mass extinction," said study co-author Jeroen van der Lubbe, a geochemist and paleoclimatologist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

(Reporting by Will Dunham, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)

U.S. Postal Service finalizes plans to purchase mostly gas-powered delivery fleet, defying EPA, White House


The United States Postal Service (USPS), United Parcel Service (UPS) and FedEx try to keep up with increased deliveries during the coronavirus pandemic in New York City. (STRF/STAR MAX/IPx)

Jacob Bogage and Anna Phillips
Wed, February 23, 2022,

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Postal Service finalized plans Wednesday to purchase up to 148,000 gasoline-powered mail delivery trucks, defying Biden administration officials' objections that the multibillion dollar contract would undercut the nation's climate goals.

The White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency asked the Postal Service this month to reassess its plan to replace its delivery fleet with 90% gas-powered trucks and 10% electric vehicles, at a cost of as much as $11.3 billion. The contract, orchestrated by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, offers only a 0.4-mile-per-gallon fuel economy improvement over the agency's current fleet.

Vicki Arroyo, the EPA's associate administrator for policy, issued a statement calling the Postal Service's decision a "crucial lost opportunity."

"Purchasing tens of thousands of gasoline-fueled delivery trucks locks USPS into further oil dependence, air pollution, and climate impacts for decades to come, and harms the long-term prospects of our nation's vital mail provider," Arroyo said.

Related video: Biden's nominees could shape the USPS's and Louis DeJoy's future



President Joe Biden has pledged to transition the federal fleet to clean power, and apart from the military, the Postal Service has more vehicles than any other government agency. It accounts for nearly one-third of federally owned cars and trucks, and environmental and auto industry experts argue that the agency's stop-and-start deliveries to 161 million addresses six days a week was an ideal use case for electric vehicles.

Federal climate science officials said the Postal Service vastly underestimated the emissions of its proposed fleet of "Next Generation Delivery Vehicles," or NGDVs, and accused the mail agency of fudging the math of its environmental studies to justify such a large purchase of internal combustion engine trucks.

But DeJoy, a holdover from the Trump administration, has called his agency's investment in green transportation "ambitious," even as environmental groups and even other postal leaders have privately questioned it. When DeJoy repeated the characterization at a public meeting of the Postal Service's governing board earlier in February, his remarks were met with chuckles from the audience.

Environmental advocates assailed the agency's decision, saying it would lock in decades of climate-warming emissions and worsen air pollution. The Postal Service plans call for the new trucks, built by Oshkosh Defense, to hit the streets in 2023 and remain in service for at least 20 years.

"Right now, putting aside the climate benefits and the air quality benefits, it is a smarter business decision to transition to electric vehicles," Katherine Garcia, acting director of the Sierra Club's clean transportation campaign, said in an interview. "Given our climate commitments, given our public health commitments, it is completely unacceptable for the USPS to cling to an overwhelmingly fossil fuel fleet."

"DeJoy's plans for the postal fleet will drag us back decades with a truck model that gets laughable fuel economy. We may as well deliver the mail with hummers," said Adrian Martinez, an attorney for the environmental law firm Earthjustice. "We're not done fighting this reckless decision."

DeJoy said in a statement that the agency was open to pursuing more electric vehicles if "additional funding - from either internal or congressional sources - becomes available." But he added that the agency had "waited long enough" for new vehicles.

The White House and EPA had asked the Postal Service to conduct a supplemental environmental impact statement on the new fleet and to hold a public hearing on its procurement plan. The Postal Service rejected those requests: Mark Guilfoil, the agency's vice president of supply management, said they "would not add value" to the mail service's analysis.

Now that the Postal Service has finalized it agreement with Oshkosh, environmentalists are expected to file lawsuits challenging it on the grounds that the agency's environmental review failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act. They will probably base their case on the litany of problems Biden administration officials previously identified with the agency's technical analysis.

The EPA and top White House environmental regulators have accused the mail agency of signing a contract for the new trucks and then using a faulty study to support its decision. Officials said the resulting analysis, which should have been written before a deal was made, relied on incorrect calculations of the new trucks' greenhouse gas emissions, the cost of fuel and the estimated cost of buying a larger share of electric vehicles.

EPA officials have also criticized the mail agency for basing its analysis of electric vehicles on current charging infrastructure, which is in a nascent stage, and for only considering either shifting to an entirely electric fleet or switching over just 10% of its delivery vehicles. The Postal Service's own analysis showed that about 95% of mail carriers' routes could be electrified.

Regulators and activists had asked the agency to study more alternatives, especially since the agency has said that budget concerns are its main impediment to a cleaner fleet. The administration and lawmakers are considering giving the Postal Service more funding to buy electric vehicles. Biden's Build Back Better plan, for example, would provide $6 billion for a fleet of 70% electric vehicles.

Analyzing more purchasing plans is important, critics say, because the environmental study is supposed to look beyond the fleet's emissions or the pollution it would cause. It should also look at how and where vehicles will be deployed, argued said Sam Wilson, senior vehicles analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"What would be reasonable to do would be to have a high-level scenario of 95% battery-electric vehicles, which matched [the Postal Service's] own assumptions," Wilson said. "Even a 75- or 55% analysis would be reasonable."

New Zealand Protest, an Echo of Canada's, Digs In and Turns Ugly


Demonstrators and the police outside of the Parliament grounds in Wellington, New Zealand. 

Pete McKenzie
Wed, February 23, 2022

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The anti-government protests that jolted Canada have been quashed. But 9,000 miles away, in the capital of another Western democracy largely unaccustomed to violent tears in the social fabric, an occupation on the grounds of Parliament has entrenched itself and turned increasingly ominous.

Hundreds of demonstrators opposed to New Zealand’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate are in their third week of encampment in Wellington, erecting tents, illegally parking vehicles and establishing communal kitchens and toilets in a deliberate echo of the Canadian siege.

Initially, the New Zealand occupation had a carnival atmosphere, with a popcorn stand and a doughnut truck and a number of children brought in by their parents. New Zealanders joked that it was the country’s only omicron-era music festival: Officials blared Barry Manilow and James Blunt to try to drive out the protesters, who responded with some Twisted Sister of their own.

In recent days, however, after police moved to evict some protesters, the demonstration has grown more violent. On Monday, protesters threw feces at the police. On Tuesday, a driver tried to ram a car into a large group of officers, and three other members of the force required medical attention after protesters sprayed them with what a police statement called a “stinging substance.”

Many demonstrators describe Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, a global symbol of the political left, as a dictator. Some have threatened journalists and politicians with execution. Others have shouted at students wearing masks on their way to school. Many espouse support for conspiracy theories like those of QAnon.

While the protesters represent a tiny minority of New Zealanders, the division is notable in a country that has been lauded for its highly effective response to COVID-19. The escalating words and violence, experts say, demonstrate the dangerous influence that exported American disinformation is having on otherwise stable democracies around the world.

“There is a tsunami of bile every day,” said Sanjana Hattotuwa, a researcher at the New Zealand think tank Te Pūnaha Matatini who studies disinformation. It is “a torrent of hate and harm directed towards individuals promoting the vaccine and the prime minister.”

Although rifts were already present in New Zealand society, they were “exacerbated by conspiracism which had its genesis outside the country,” Hattotuwa said. “Everything which you would associate with QAnon in the United States is here.”

The protesters were initially united under the banner of opposition to vaccine mandates, which cover workers in certain fields in New Zealand. But they encompass a variety of people, including vaccine skeptics, those aggrieved by mandate-related job losses and far-right conspiracy theorists.

The weekslong protests in Canada, which began as a response to vaccine mandates for truck drivers, were broken up Saturday with tear gas and mass arrests. In New Zealand, by contrast, police have proceeded more carefully, in part because of early challenges and still-fresh memories of a brutal crackdown on protesters four decades ago.

On the protest’s third day, when officers attempted to dislodge some demonstrators, more extreme protesters sidelined the occupation’s organizers and pushed back against the police. After a daylong struggle in which children were placed on the protest’s front line, the police were repelled.

Since then, officers have cautiously patrolled the protest. The police commissioner, Andrew Coster, who was appointed to the role in 2020 after emphasizing the importance of maintaining public support for the force, expressed concern that more confrontational tactics could lead to bloody clashes.

Coster invoked the so-called Springbok tour of 1981, when thousands of New Zealanders protested against the traveling rugby team from apartheid South Africa. Police violently broke up those protests, including by using batons against protesters on Molesworth Street — a street that anti-mandate protesters now occupy. The episode harmed the police’s reputation for decades.

On Sunday, in an interview with TVNZ, Coster emphasized his reluctance to repeat that experience. “If we look to the low points of policing in our country, we would look to points like the Springbok tour,” he said.

But the police’s reluctance to take stronger action seems to have emboldened the protesters.

Many hundreds more people and cars joined. The occupation consumed nearby streets and shut down wider Wellington, with businesses closing after demonstrators harassed staff members for requiring masks and proof of vaccination. In anticipation of a long stay, some protesters drilled holes into the ground to anchor their tents. New protests emerged in other cities.

Some protesters have relished being part of what they see as a global movement. Reuben Michael, a demonstrator who was sitting at the occupation’s eastern edge Wednesday, noted that “this phenomenon has gone around the world.”

The New Zealand protesters have successfully forced a conversation about vaccine mandates. On Monday, in what many saw as an effort to encourage the protesters to leave, Ardern said that vaccine mandates were likely to end after the current omicron outbreak peaks in the coming months.

But the protesters have largely dismissed the prime minister’s comments. One young woman sitting on the steps of a parliamentary war memorial angrily insisted, “She’s told too many lies. It’s too hard to trust her.”

While police have not moved decisively against the demonstrators, concerns about increasing radicalization, as well as wider public dissatisfaction with the occupation, have prompted officers to take more active steps to contain the occupation.

On Monday, police escorted forklifts carrying large concrete blocks to establish a border around the protest. During early-morning operations in the days since, police have begun shrinking that border to try to squeeze protesters into leaving.

The number of protesters appears to have dwindled. But they have left behind a group that shows little interest in deescalation, prompting concerns that violence is increasingly likely.

When five male protesters sitting on the lawn of an occupied law school were asked what would happen if police tried to evict them, one answered, “We’ll hold our line.” A second noted, “There might be bloodshed,” prompting a third to insist, “But it’ll be peaceful.”

The second protester paused, then emphasized, “We’ll stay to the end.”

© 2022 The New York Times Company

The US Version of the Canadian Trucker Convoy Had a Tough First Day



Paul McLeod
Wed, February 23, 2022

WASHINGTON — America’s attempt to replicate the Canadian trucker protest movement got off to a slow start Wednesday as a modest number of trucks hit the road on their way to Washington, DC.

Loosely connected organizers are trying to replicate the success of the anti–vaccine mandate Freedom Convoy, which traveled from Western Canada to the capital city of Ottawa. Hundreds of vehicles and thousands of protesters effectively took over downtown Ottawa for three weeks before police cleared them out.

A lightly rebranded People’s Convoy took off from Southern California Wednesday in the same spirit. Around a dozen big rig trucks and a couple of hundred people gathered at a parking lot in the city of Adelanto for the kickoff, according to Ben Collins of NBC News. Their plan is to spend 11 days moving through Texas, then north to Indiana, then east arriving at Washington next Saturday. It’s not clear how many truckers are along for the full ride.

Meanwhile, another convoy from Scranton, Pennsylvania, was a bust, as only one truck, driven by organizer Bob Bolus, and a handful of personal vehicles showed up. They set out for Washington regardless.

The People’s Convoy will not make it to Washington in time for President Biden’s State of the Union address Tuesday, but the Scranton group will. Bolus said his convoy would significantly disrupt traffic into the district, though he made those comments when he expected many more trucks to take part.

The Canadian truckers became an international cause celebre due to their shocking success in capturing the attention of a G7 nation. The protesters also blockaded border crossings, causing major trade disruptions.

Their American counterparts are starting small and may have a harder time replicating that energy. For one, their side has already largely won. Lockdowns and vaccine mandates have vanished in most jurisdictions as local and state governments bowed to pressure to reopen. The People’s Convoy website claims $465,000 has been raised in donations. The Canadian convoy earned millions from American donations alone, though most of that money has been returned or frozen by Canadian authorities.

The People’s Convoy will also not be able to waltz into downtown Washington and park around the Capitol building, robbing them of the dramatic images of Ottawa protesters partying in front of Parliament. In fact, organizers say that’s not even their goal. After discussing with local officials, the final destination is listed only as “DC Beltway area.”

“The People’s Convoy will abide by agreements with local authorities, and terminate in the vicinity of the DC area, but will NOT be going into DC proper,” says a convoy press release.

The Pentagon approved 700 unarmed National Guard troops to be deployed to the District of Columbia for traffic control starting next week. DC Police and US Capitol police had asked the Pentagon for reinforcements to deal with trucker convoys.

The Metropolitan Police Department of DC did not respond to questions of whether they reached out to Ottawa officials about their experience with the convoy.

The immediate plan for the People’s Convoy is to stop in Kingman, Arizona, for the night, then wake up and head east, hoping to attract more vehicles along the way. Their demands are to end the national state of emergency that was first declared in response to the COVID pandemic in March 2020 as well as to “restore our nation’s Constitution.”

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D.C. Truck Convoy Organizer’s Plan Sputters Like a Busted Engine

Zachary Petrizzo
Wed, February 23, 2022, 

Christopher Dolan

At first, ardently MAGA trucker Bob Bolus vowed that his makeshift “freedom convoy” making a beeline from Scranton, Pennsylvania to D.C. this week would “choke” the nation’s capital like a boa constrictor in protest of vaccine mandates.

But on Wednesday, when his overhyped convoy turned out to be a piddly procession of one, Bolus backtracked, telling The Daily Beast that his plans have changed and he will not attempt to interfere with traffic.

“We’re not putting a chokehold on D.C. today,” the Pennsylvania-based trucker told The Daily Beast by phone shortly after noon, before quickly getting his hopes up again about one day disrupting Beltway traffic: “Not to say that it wouldn’t happen in the very near future. It’s just going to be an idea of what’s to come.”

This particular wing of the convoy movement was originally slated to arrive in the D.C. metro area around noon, with the hopes of causing a gridlock blockade like the Canadian anti-vaccine mandate trucker demonstration that caused chaos in Ottawa until it was dispersed by police. Earlier this week, the Pentagon approved the use of nearly 700 National Guard personnel to assist local authorities with the possibility of multiple convoys blocking up the D.C. area.

But now, as Bolus confessed to The Daily Beast, his tiny convoy will just “peacefully” sit in Beltway traffic and not attempt to cause any such backup.

“We’re going to go with the flow. Today we’re going to go with the flow of traffic,” a defeated Bolus told the Beast. “If they go at two miles an hour, we will be at two miles an hour.”

As of midday Wednesday, there were merely eight vehicles in his group, as reported by Reuters producer Julio-César Chávez, who has been traveling with the Bolus convoy.

The singular 18-wheeler driven by Bolus has several SUV and pickup-driving supporters in tow, but otherwise, according to Chávez, all other big-rigs on the road have driven past the convoy. The group‘s voyage began with a delay after Bolus got two flat tires, ABC 7 News reported.

Earlier this week, Bolus garnered heavy press attention for his convoy after telling Fox 5 D.C. that he intends to “shut down” the Capital Beltway, likening his alleged group of truckers to a deadly boa, which “squeezes you, chokes you, and it swallows you—and that’s what we’re going to do to D.C.”

The trucker has built a small following on Facebook for his pro-Trump antics, but some of his followers seemed skeptical of the convoy idea from the start. “I’m in agreement with this cause, but I have to warn you that the quickest way to lose that support in the DC region is to disrupt business and people’s commute worse than it already is,” one such supporter wrote.

One day before departing for D.C., Bolus broadened the convoy movement’s anti-vaccine mandate protest to include grievances like the death of Jan. 6 Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt, the teaching of “critical race theory” in schools, and rising fuel costs.

Asked whether his tiny caravan of a single tractor-trailer and several gas-guzzling SUVs is needlessly burning through that increasingly expensive fuel, Bolus said no.

“We don’t consider it a waste of gas or anything else,” he asserted. “We as Americans feel we are standing up for our rights.”

Inspired by Canada convoy, U.S. truckers plan trek to D.C. to oppose COVID-19 rules

Truck drivers are seen parked on Constitution Avenue near the White House in Washington as they stage a protest amid the COVID-19 pandemic on May 1, 2020. On Wednesday, a convoy of truckers will begin a trek from California to the capital to oppose federal COVID-19-related mandates. 

File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 23 (UPI) -- Modeled after the "Freedom Convoy" that disrupted a border crossing in Canada for several days this month, a group of American truckers is set to travel across the United States in an 11-day journey to protest COVID-19 restrictions, beginning Wednesday on the West Coast.

Organizers for the group, known as the People's Convoy, are planning to have 1,000 semi-truck drivers gathered in Adelanto, Calif., for the start of the trek that will take them to Washington. Adelanto is about 65 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.

The group argues that the "government has forgotten its place" and is overextending its reach with federal COVID-19 restrictions, and says they should be removed.

"The message of The People's Convoy is simple," the group said in a statement. "The last 23 months of the COVID-19 pandemic have been a rough road for all Americans to travel: spiritually, emotionally, physically and -- not least -- financially.

"It's time for elected officials to work with the blue-collar and white-collar workers of America and restore accountability and liberty -- by lifting all mandates and ending the state of emergency -- as COVID is well in hand now and Americans need to get back to work in a free and unrestricted manner."

During a rally Tuesday at Adelanto Stadium, organizers said the truckers will receive encouragement and blessings from speakers as they depart on their journey. After departing Wednesday, the group planned to make stops in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas before arriving in Oklahoma on Saturday.

Hundreds of unarmed National Guard troops have been approved to help Washington, D.C., police handle convoys that arrive in the area.

 File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI

As the nationwide trek continues, they will move through Missouri, Indiana and Ohio before heading south to Maryland and ultimately arriving in the Washington, D.C., area on March 5.

Unlike the Canadian Freedom Convoy -- which blocked various roads, including the Ambassador Bridge linking Ontario and Detroit, and ultimately led to the arrests of almost 200 people -- the People's Convoy says it does not plan to obstruct roadways or bridges.

"This convoy is about freedom and unity," the group said in a statement. "The truckers are riding unified across party and state lines and with people of all colors and creeds -- Christians, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Mormons, agnostics, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, Republican, Democrats. All individuals are welcome to participate."

There are also other potential convoys that are mulling similar trips cross-country -- including "Truckers for America" and the "American Truckers Freedom Convoy" later in March.

Earlier this month, authorities said they were monitoring possible convoy plans to drive across the country and arrive in D.C. in time for President Joe Biden's State of the Union address on Tuesday. Officials at the time said they were also looking for a convoy-style protest at Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles on Feb. 13.

The Defense Department said on Tuesday said that it received a request from U.S. Capitol Police for troop deployment in Washington ahead of the convoy's planned arrival. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has approved about 700 National Guard members to aid police ahead of the convoy's arrival. Officials said the National Guard support troops will not be armed.

Workers across Turkey go on strike as inflation bites

AFP , Wednesday 23 Feb 2022

Soaring inflation in Turkey has propelled a wave of strikes unlike any the country has seen since the 1970s, as workers demand more money to counter the shrinking value of their pay.

Workers of Yemeksepeti Banabi motorcycle couriers attend the weekly speech of the main opposition Republican People s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu to his MPs in the Turkish Parliament in Ankara on February 15, 2022. AFPShareSupermarket warehouse worker Bekir Gok was sacked this month -- alongside 256 of his colleagues -- for demanding an extra four Turkish liras (30 US cents) per hour, the equivalent of a loaf of bread.

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However after the workers at the Migros supermarket chain went on strike, they won back their jobs as well as salary rises and other demands, giving inspiration to dissatisfied employees across the country.

"We were asking for the price of a loaf of bread! It's nothing compared to what we've helped them earn since the pandemic began," Gok said.

Turkey's annual inflation rate officially reached 48.7 percent in January, and workers have struggled to keep up with the sky-rocketing cost of living.

Industrial action is rare in Turkey, where the major strikes that marked the 1970s remain a distant memory for most -- a military coup in 1980 led to a crack down on union activities.

However the country has seen more than 60 strikes, factory occupations, protests and boycott calls involving at least 13,500 workers in less than two months, according to the independent Labor Studies Group.

One of the most prominent recent strikes was launched on February 1 by motorcycle couriers for the food delivery company Yemeksepeti Banabi.

"We put our own lives in danger doing this work. We're not working in a four-walled office, we deliver packages in snow and rain," said Izzet Baskin, a 27-year-old delivery worker for the company in the capital Ankara.

'No hope left'

His colleague Ferhat Uyar said that "we can't think or see ahead".

"We have no hope left. We continue this resistance to try and get ahead of the issues," the 27-year-old said.

After paying his rent and energy bills, Uyar said he is unable to afford the products he delivers, such as takeaway coffee from Starbucks.

Yemeksepeti Banabi delivery couriers currently receive 4,253 liras ($305) a month, now the minimum wage after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan increased the rate by 50 percent for 2022.

But the Turk-Is union said last month the poverty level was 13,844 liras. The Banabi workers are on strike demanding less than half that figure: 5,500 liras.

German company Delivery Hero bought Yemeksepeti Banabi for $589 million in 2015.

Freight workers' union Nakliyat-Is, which is supporting the delivery workers on strike across Turkey, said nearly 100 couriers were killed in the past three months, compared with 190 deaths in all of 2020.

"These are workplaces where there is no supervision of employees' health or security," the union's Ankara representative Bayram Karkin said.

To make their demands heard, the riders -- instantly recognisable in their fluorescent pink jackets and helmets -- blocked roads with their motorcycles.

The company then made an overnight administrative change to officially register the workers under the "office" label rather than as transport workers, so they could not be members of the Nakliyat-Is union, Karkin said. There is an ongoing legal case challenging the move.

There were calls on social media for a boycott against companies accused of ignoring employee demands, and unions say Yemeksepeti Banabi saw a drop of 70 percent in orders.

The success of delivery workers at Turkish e-commerce company Trendyol has also inspired many seeking more pay.

After being offered a pay rise of 11 percent, they went on strike in late January. After three days, they accepted an increase of 39 percent.

New worker 'spring'

Basaran Aksu, the organising coordinator of the Umut-Sen union, said this could just be the beginning.

"The results of collective bargaining will come out soon in April or May, and we'll see a rise in concerns about livelihoods and the future. I believe this will lead to a rise in workers' movements," Aksu told AFP.

Neslihan Acar, of the DGD-Sen union which represents Migros employees, said that "workers' conditions have deteriorated with the pandemic".

Migros, which claimed the striking 257 supermarket workers had "occupied" its warehouses, welcomed back the employees in a statement after the deal was resolved on Sunday.

Aziz Celik, a labour lecturer at Kocaeli University, said workers' protests would continue for as long as the cost of living was high.

"Workers who seek to unionise in the private sector face a lot of pressure, they are sacked," Celik said.

But despite the difficult conditions, DGD-Sen's Acar was confident that change is coming.

"Anger is accumulating. The workers will create their own spring."

Lebanon thwarts IS bomb plot targeting

Hezbollah bastion

AFP , Wednesday 23 Feb 2022

Lebanon has thwarted a plan by the Islamic State group to carry out three suicide bombings targeting Shia religious compounds in Beirut's southern suburbs, the interior ministry said Wednesday.

File photo: Members of the Lebanese security forces deploy during an anti-government protest in the capital Beirut. (AFP)

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"A terrorist group had recruited young Palestinian men in Lebanon to carry out major bombing attacks using explosive belts" and other munitions, Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi told a press conference.

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"Three separate targets were to be hit at the same time," the ministry said, in an operation Mawlawi said would have caused a large loss of life.

Lebanon's Internal Security Forces (ISF) said the instructions for the bomb plot came from an IS operative based in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh, who is in touch with fellow Sunni extremists in Syria.

The instructions were passed to an undercover ISF agent who had successfully managed to infiltrate IS networks in Lebanon.

On February 7, the ISF agent was instructed to prepare attacks on a Shia religious compound in the Al-Laylaki neighbourhood, the Imam al-Kazem compound in Haret Hreik and the Al-Nasser mosque in Beirut's Ouzai suburb, the ISF said.

He was given three explosive vests and other weapons to conduct the attacks on February 16, the ISF added.

Beirut's southern suburbs, a stronghold of Shia militant group Hezbollah, saw a wave of bombings in 2013 and 2014 carried out by Al-Qaeda linked militants in retaliation for Hezbollah's intervention in the civil war in neighbouring Syria on the side of the Damascus government

According to the ISF, the planned attack by IS was meant to "pay homage" to the group's slain leader Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, killed in a US raid on his home in rebel-held northwestern Syria last month.