The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe was declared 'extinct' in the 1920s. New DNA research says otherwise.

Celina Tebor

Thu, March 31, 2022

California was home to over 1 million Native Americans before Spanish settlers arrived in 1769. By the 1920s, less than 20,000 were alive.

Almost one-quarter of Spanish missions in California were located in the Bay Area, and in 1925, anthropologist Alfred Kroeber wrote that the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe from the San Francisco Bay Area was “extinct for all practical purposes.”

Kroeber’s book was considered the “authority on California Indians” for decades, said Alan Leventhal, the Muwekma Ohlone's archaeologist and ethnohistorian.

The tribe has always bucked those claims and, now, there's scientific evidence on its side: Living Ohlone tribal members have a DNA link to their Bay Area ancestors from thousands of years ago, according to new research.

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The study, published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, studied eight present-day tribal members and 12 ancient individuals from the Bay in two settlements occupied as far back as 1345 C.E. and 490 B.C.E.

DNA analysis from the ancient individuals and modern tribal members revealed genetic links between the two groups, a finding that was somewhat surprising to researchers considering the massive decimation Spanish settlers brought to the population. To the tribe, it only affirmed what they already knew.

Lydia Bojorquez, left, Sebastian G. Sandoval, center, and Sebastian F. Sandoval of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe sing a prayer before naming the eagle chick, foreground, during a dedication ceremony at the San Francisco Zoo's Avian Conservation Center.

The Ohlone have been petitioning the U.S. government for federal acknowledgment for almost 30 years. But the process has been entangled in legal battles and bureaucratic red tape. The new findings will be an “eye-opener” for policymakers, Leventhal said.

“This becomes a vehicle for those people who would not take notice, or who would doubt about the tribe’s validity and veracity – that perhaps this was another example of injustice toward a population of people who have resided in the San Francisco Bay Area for 12,000 years,” he said.

The study is innovative in several ways, said Noah Rosenberg, co-author of the paper and professor of population genetics and society at Stanford University. The type of genomic analysis that researchers used has only been developed within the past decade.

NATIVE AMERICANS IN CHICAGO HAVE HIGH OPIOID DEATH RATES: So why won't they get tribal settlement money?

Another novel aspect of the research, Rosenberg said, was researchers and tribal members working closely together and creating objectives that mutually benefitted both parties. Throughout the process, the tribe had full oversight of their ancestral heritage sites.

“The questions posed were developed together, with the tribe, based on their understanding about oral histories and their own records,” Rosenberg said. “Their ancestors had been in these locations in the East Bay for a very long time.”

He hopes this study will become a “case example” of collaboration between archaeologists, genomic researchers, and tribal leaders.

Although only about 500 Ohlone ancestors are alive today, the new research resurrects their history, Leventhal said. The tribe is in its final throes of trying to achieve federal recognition.

“Privately, this further validates the tribe,” Leventhal said. “Now, as politicians are reading, they're noticing. And now we'll be lending support for the tribe's reaffirmation.”

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: California tribe isn't 'extinct,' after all: DNA links Muwekma Ohlone

Stephen Colbert Eviscerates His Network CBS For Hiring Trump's 'Craven Toady'

Ron Dicker

Fri, April 1, 2022

Stephen Colbert gleefully bit the hand that pays him on “The Late Show” Thursday.

The host slammed his network, CBS, for hiring former Donald Trump official Mick Mulvaney as a contributor in its news division. (Watch the video below.)

“What the fuck?” he exclaimed, though the last word was bleeped out.

Colbert explained Mulvaney’s shoddy history as Trump’s “craven toady” while serving as the former president’s acting chief of staff. Mulvaney admitted that Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine in exchange for political dirt (then tried to walk it back), dismissed the emerging COVID-19 crisis as a media plot to take down Trump and promised that if Trump lost the 2020 election, he’d concede gracefully. “He’s Nostra-dumbass!” Colbert cracked of the far-right Mulvaney.

“Why would the Tiffany Network’s venerable news division put this craven toady to a tyrant on their payroll?” Colbert asked.

In an apparent disclaimer to appease the network brass, Colbert said he was joking. But that’s what comedians do ― use humor to comment on serious issues.

Mulvaney’s new gig seemed to be preordained in an an earlier speech to staffers by CBS News President Neeraj Khemlani. In a recording obtained by The Washington Post, he said the Republicans would likely “take over” in the midterm elections, and that the network required more perspective from their side of the aisle.

“They’re not just reporting the news anymore, they’re predicting it now,” Colbert jabbed at his network.

Fast-forward to the 8:20 mark.

 

A CBS News exec said the network is hiring more Republicans because 'we know' they'll take over after the midterms: report

Tom Porter

Thu, March 31, 2022, 

Donald Trump in Bentonville, Arkansas.Benjamin Krain/Getty Images

• The Washington Post obtained a recording of a meeting with the CBS News copresident Neeraj Khemlani.

• He said a "likely" Democratic wipeout in the midterms meant CBS needed to hire more Republicans.

• CBS recently hired Mick Mulvaney, a former Trump aide who's been accused of pushing misinformation.

A CBS News executive told staff earlier this month that the network was hiring more Republicans as analysts because he believed there would "likely" be a Democratic wipeout in the 2022 midterm elections, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing a leaked recording it obtained.

Neeraj Khemlani, a CBS News copresident, made the remark just before the announcement that the network had hired Mick Mulvaney, who briefly served as President Donald Trump's chief of staff, as an analyst. The decision sparked internal backlash, The Post reported.

In February 2020, Mulvaney accused journalists of exaggerating the impact of the coronavirus to damage Trump. Mulvaney also played a key role in the campaign to pressure Ukraine to smear Joe Biden, which resulted in Trump's first impeachment.

In an apparent attempt to lay the groundwork for the announcement of Mulvaney's hiring, Khemlani told morning-show staff members that hiring Republicans would give the network better coverage, The Post reported.

"If you look at some of the people that we've been hiring on a contributor basis, being able to make sure that we are getting access to both sides of the aisle is a priority because we know the Republicans are going to take over, most likely, in the midterms," Khemlani said, according to The Post.

"A lot of the people that we're bringing in are helping us in terms of access to that side of the equation."

Mick Mulvaney.Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Political analysts widely expect the Republican Party to make significant gains in the midterms. A recent NBC News poll suggested that Biden's approval rating was sagging because of inflation and other economic issues.

If a "red wave" of Republican victories materializes, Democrats could lose control of the House and the Senate, stymieing Biden's plans for issues ranging from the environment to voting rights.

Relations between the media and the White House were at historic lows during Trump's term, with top officials frequently railing against the press and picking fights with individual reporters.

Many news outlets accused Trump and senior officials of spreading falsehoods and misinformation on issues including the COVID-19 pandemic and voter fraud.

Several former Trump officials have gone on to be employed as analysts on conservative-leaning networks including Fox News and Newsmax, though few have found regular gigs on mainstream networks.

CBS facing backlash from staff after hiring ex-Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney as pundit, report says


Johanna Chisholm
Thu, March 31, 2022

Staff from within CBS News are expressing their dismay at the company’s decision to hire ex-Donald Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney as a pundit for the network, the Washington Post reported.

On Tuesday, the company announced that the former Trump aide, who was notorious for spreading falsehoods and bashing the very press he’s now joining as an on-air contributor, would be a welcome addition to the network for the varied experience he would bring from within the White House (he’s served as both Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget and chief of staff).

Notably missing from Mr Mulvaney’s first introduction on CBS, however, was that important context.

“So happy to have you here … you’re the guy to ask about this,” anchor Anne-Marie Green said, introducing Mr Mulvaney as a “former Office of Management and Budget director”, but failing to mention under which administration.

The Washington Post reported that an emailed message from the standards department at CBS was later circulated to staff, without explicitly referencing that morning’s segment, to remind staff that “as we introduce these folks, we must always identify relevant background and biographical information,” including the specific administration a person worked for as a necessary disclosure.

The Post went on to report that, according to a recording obtained of CBS News’ co-president Neeraj Khemlani addressing staff about the new hire, the decision to bring Mr Mulvaney into the CBS family was part of a larger strategy to bring in people who can help with “access” to otherwise untapped parts of the political spectrum.

“If you look at some of the people that we’ve been hiring on a contributor basis, being able to make sure that we are getting access to both sides of the aisle is a priority because we know the Republicans are going to take over, most likely, in the midterms,” the network’s co-president said, according to the Post’s reporting.

“A lot of the people that we’re bringing in are helping us in terms of access to that side of the equation.”


It’s not uncommon for administration officials to go on to cushy contributor jobs, oftentimes raking in annual six-figure salaries. But the particular gripe that has put some CBS staff, and many political journalists online, at unease is the record of truth-telling that Mr Mulvaney exhibited during his tenure in the Trump administration, and has much less to do with the fact that he worked under the previous president.


One anonymous source who works at CBS News told the Post that: “everyone I talked to today was embarrassed about the hiring”, while another staff member, who also asked the news outlet for anonymity because they were unauthorised to comment on the matter, said “everyone is baffled”.

The ire that’s being drawn up by Mr Mulvaney’s hiring stems from his track record both with the press and with the truth.


Poynter Institute’s Politifact, a nonprofit group of fact-checking journalists who have won a Pulitzer Prize for their work probing political claims made during the 2008 presidential election, ranks Mr Mulvaney’s scorecard as mostly false, false and at best, half-true.

In February 2020, while acting White House chief of staff, Mr Mulvaney attended the Conservative Political Action Conference and, while a deadly and then unknown virus was spreading across the globe and beginning to take hold in the US, he falsely claimed the “attention” then nascent pandemic was receiving was the press’ fault.


“They think this is going to be what brings down the president,” he told a room full of conservatives. “We know how to handle this.”

And in 2017, when acting as the head of the Office of Management and Budget, he went to the White House lectern and defended a Trump administration decision to withhold military aid from Ukraine for political purposes.

Column: Here are all the reasons CBS should never have hired Trump aide Mick Mulvaney for its newscast

Michael Hiltzik
Thu, March 31, 2022

Then-Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney at a press briefing in 2019. (Michael Reynolds /EPA-EFE/REX )

Staff members at CBS News are in an uproar over the venerable news department's hiring of former Trump White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney as a news commentator.

Their indignation is understandable and proper. Mulvaney, a long-time Republican functionary, distinguished himself during his tenure in the administration as a loyal Trump lackey.

He showed a micron-deep understanding of political and economic issues even when he served as Trump's budget director and acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

If he loses, Trump will bow out gracefully.

Mick Mulvaney, the new political commentator for CBS, showing how well he knew Trump in 2020

But he displayed a bottomless capacity to promote Trump's political goals, which boiled down the evisceration of federal programs aimed at helping the average American.

We'll get into the details in a moment. But first, let's examine the explanation that CBS brass offered to the network's news staff when they questioned Mulvaney's hiring.

“Being able to make sure that we are getting access to both sides of the aisle is a priority because we know the Republicans are going to take over, most likely, in the midterms,” CBS News co-president Neeraj Khemlani told staff members, according to the Washington Post's Paul Farhi, who was working from a bootlegged recording of the meeting. “A lot of the people that we’re bringing in are helping us in terms of access to that side of the equation.”

This is, of course, absurd. CBS is perfectly entitled to hire as many lobbyists as it wishes to make its case on Capitol Hill; putting them on the air, in essence to lobby the public, is another matter entirely. One question it raises is what value Mulvaney brings to the table. He's hardly a neutral voice, but if he's on the air merely to present his partisan slant, who needs him? Don't we get enough of that from elected politicians?

To be fair, CBS isn't the only news organization trying to curry favor in this way. In the old days, political types offering nothing but spin would be thrown out of the press room; now they're given a well-paid sinecure to provide "balance."

What Khemlani doesn't appreciate — or maybe he does and doesn't care — is that the quest for "access" has become the scourge of American journalism.

It's what produces puff pieces about political insiders (they're known in the trade as "beat sweeteners") and softball questions for politicians on the Sunday TV news programs.

TV news has become expert at taking people at their own level of self-esteem. What that fails to produce, however, is incisive news coverage of the sort crucial to the workings of our democracy.

So here comes Mick Mulvaney, introduced for his first appearance as a CBS commentator by anchor Anne-Marie Green to deliver his opinion of President Biden's proposed billionaires income tax.

“So happy to have you here,” Green fawned. “You’re the guy to ask about this.” The burden of her introduction was that Mulvaney was a Man Who Knows, but with his first words he acknowledged that he didn't know anything more about the billionaires tax than was embodied in Biden's own proposal; beyond that, his analysis was largely dismissive and, more to the point, indistinguishable from what one might hear from any GOP politician. (Mulvaney served as a Republican congressman from South Carolina from 2011 to 2017.)



Now let's take a closer look at Mulvaney's qualifications to opine about public issues. He was always someone who never let facts get in the way of partisan goals.

Start with his appearance in March 2017 on the CBS Sunday program "Face the Nation," when he was director of the Office of Management and Budget in Trump's White House. As I reported at the time, Mulvaney took the opportunity to deliver a drive-by shooting of some the nation’s neediest and most defenseless people: the disabled.

"Let me ask you a question,” he said to the moderator, John Dickerson, at the close of a seven-minute interview. “Do you really think that Social Security disability insurance is part of what people think of when they think of Social Security? I don’t think so. It’s the fastest-growing program. It grew tremendously under President Obama. It’s a very wasteful program, and we want to try and fix that.”

Dickerson's response to this volley of lies and disinformation, in its entirety, was: "OK, we’re going to have to end it there.”

Far be it from Dickerson to challenge someone who might be useful for providing "access."

If he were prepared to interview Mulvaney over matters of substance, however, he might have pointed out that, first, the disability insurance program has been part of Social Security since 1956, when it was signed into law by Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican president. He might have pointed out that Social Security is structured as both a retirement and an insurance program and has been since its enactment in 1935.

Dickerson might even have pointed out that Mulvaney was wrong to say disability was the “fastest-growing program." At the time, the disability rolls were not only not growing, but shrinking, and had been for more than two years. (The trend has continued up to the present day.)

Not only was the program not "wasteful," it had one of the lowest error rates of any government program — well below 1% of all benefits, as then-Acting Social Security Commissioner Carolyn Colvin had testified to Congress in 2012.

Mulvaney showed his commitment to sound government administration after Trump named him acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2018.

As one of his first acts in office, he went to a convention of credit union executives and boasted: “I am the acting director of the CFPB, something that’s apparently keeping Elizabeth Warren up late at night, which doesn’t bother me at all.”

Warren, you see, had conceived of the CFPB before her election to the Senate from Massachusetts in 2012 and had been its major defender in Congress since its founding. She had raised hell over several steps Mulvaney's CFPB had suddenly taken to scrap regulatory initiatives against abusive payday lenders.

Among them was a regulation, five years in the making, aimed at preventing payday lenders and other profiteers from lending to customers who they knew would be unable to repay the loans, as well as running up fees on customers and engaging in other abuses.

Mulvney abruptly withdrew, without explanation, a federal lawsuit against four allegedly abusive installment lenders. And he closed an investigation into World Acceptance Corp., a payday lender in his home state of South Carolina that had been accused of abusive practices, but had contributed at least $4,500 to his congressional campaigns.

To Mulvaney, Warren's objections to this deliberate enfeeblement of his agency's authority were grist for a comedy turn, offered for the amusement of the very financial services executives he was supposed to regulate. He saw his role as head of a consumer protection agency as protecting not only consumers, but the lenders from whom consumers needed protection.

“We are there to help protect people who use credit cards,” he told the credit union executives. “We’re also there to help and protect the people who provide that credit."

As Trump's chief of staff, Mulvaney spent his time trying to polish Trump policies. One might expect a politician's chief of staff to try to make his boss look good, but the policies he was defending don't speak well of Mulvaney's character.

In February 2020, he appeared at the American Conservative Union's CPAC conference to assert that news coverage of the emerging COVID pandemic was nothing but an effort "to bring down the President. That's what it's all about." It's almost certain that the White House knew at the time that the pandemic was a serious threat to public health.

On Nov. 7, 2020, Mulvaney's name appeared above a Wall Street Journal op-ed in which he assured readers, as the headline put it, "If He Loses, Trump Will Concede Gracefully." That was four days after the election, when it was already clear that Trump had lost. "I’m familiar with his manner and style and know a little about how he thinks," Mulvaney claimed, based on his 15 months in the Trump White House.

That's a claim that, to say the least, hasn't aged gracefully.

To bring Mulvaney's judgment into present-day context, he also defended Trump's attempt to strong-arm Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky into investigating Joe Biden's son Hunter by implying he otherwise would withhold U.S. aid to the country.

Asked at a press conference whether Trump was proposing a "quid pro quo," Mulvaney answered, "We do that all the time with foreign policy." Trump would be impeached for this scheme.

Put it all together, and it suggests that there is good reason to put Mulvaney before the audience of CBS News.

CBS should put him on the air to explain why he lied about the coronavirus threat in 2020, and what made him think that Trump would bow out "gracefully" after losing the 2020 election.

And why he thought it acceptable to extort a friendly country for purely personal partisan ends. And why he viewed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a shield for lenders, not consumers.

That's an appearance I'd like to see. But for CBS, unfortunately for us, that would be an obstacle to "access."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

UN’s rights council adopts ‘fake news’ resolution, States urged to take tackle hate speech

NOT CITIZENS OR NGO'S; THE STATE

01 April 2022

At the UN Human Rights Council on Friday, Member States adopted a plan of action to tackle disinformation, at the request of Ukraine and with widespread – but not universal - support.

Officially sponsored by Ukraine, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the UK and US, the draft resolution presented to the Geneva forum emphasised the primary role that governments have, in countering false narratives.

It notes with concern, “the increasing and far-reaching negative impact on the enjoyment and realization of human rights of the deliberate creation and dissemination of false or manipulated information intended to deceive and mislead audiences, either to cause harm or for personal, political or financial gain”.

‘Common enemy’

Although China said that disinformation was a common enemy of the international community, it disassociated itself from adopting the draft resolution, saying that there was too little emphasis on the root causes of fake news, and the role of human rights mechanisms.

Venezuela also declined to approve the text, citing bias and alleging that some of the sponsors of the draft resolution were behind disinformation campaigns.

France, meanwhile, insisted that disinformation was increasingly being used to attack human rights activists and journalists and urged more coordination and efforts among States to tackle it.

Echoing that message, India, noted that that social media companies had an important role to play in combating fake news, as its impact on our societies was increasing.

For its part, Indonesia said that countering disinformation was a top priority, before insisting that policies were best designed by national authorities, to take into account cultural differences.

Digital boom

Although disinformation is not new, modern-day digital tools and social media platforms have allowed maliciously incorrect information to spread widely, before false facts can be challenged and removed.

At a global level, the dissemination of fake news came to the fore in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, with unscientific remedies and anti-vaxxers gaining a massive online following among communities who were taken in by a proliferation of fake news and rumours.

In Colombia, the UN office there highlighted how several Latin America countries were targeted by enticing WhatsApp messages that said: “Stay home, the UN will bring you food,” in exchange for sharing personal data.

“It was false, of course. Yet, it led some people to go to the UN office, hoping to be given something to eat,” said Hélène Papper, head of UNIC Colombia.
Eroding trust in Ukraine

The problem has also surfaced in the Ukrainian crisis and affected the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has said that its lifesaving work there has been undermined by a “deliberate and targeted campaign of misinformation” aimed at destroying the relationship of trust that humanitarians need, to operate independently in war zones.

“False narratives around humanitarian work are dangerous,” ICRC spokesperson Ewan Watson told journalists in Geneva on Friday, adding that although the misinformation campaign was ongoing, “I’m relieved that it hasn’t translated into an inability to work”.

The Council’s decisions are not legally binding but carry the weight of the world’s pre-eminent body dedicated to promoting and protecting human rights.

Source URL
UN’s rights council adopts ‘fake news’ resolution, States urged to take tackle hate speech

Peru: Castillo to Dialogue With Transport Workers on Strike

President Pedro Castillo speaks out on transportation workers' strikes in Peru. 

April. 1, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@larepublica_pe

Published 1 April 2022

President Castillo ratified the government's position and advocated for dialogue to reach an agreement.

Peruvian President Pedro Castillo said Friday that he is willing to dialogue with carriers protesting against the increase in fuel prices.

In this sense, the Peruvian leader said to local media: "We are the government of dialogue and understanding. If we have to talk on the road, we will do it".

Previously, the Chief Executive urged the demonstrators to unblock the highways. In line with this, Castillo called on them to stop this attitude, stating that the most harmed is the community.

On the other hand, the heavy load carriers continue their protests even though the President of the Council of Ministers, Aníbal Torres, announced a possible agreement that favors both parties.



The Ministry of Agrarian Development and Irrigation (Midagri) called on transport and agricultural workers to continue with the dialogue with the government. The ministry said: "We ask our brothers from agriculture, livestock, irrigation and transport boards to work and dialogue with our different representatives, sent to work tables in the regions of our Peru, to listen to them and reach agreements and solutions for the good of our people."

However, some heavy load truck protesters have declared that the strike will continue until their demands have been heard, evaluated and implemented by the corresponding authorities.

PROTO-FASCISTS

How Belarusian Fighters in Ukraine Evolved Into Prominent Force Against Russian Invasion

April 02, 2022
VOA
Igor Tsikhanenka
Michael Lipin

Belarusian fighters of the Kastus Kalinouski battalion train in Kyiv region, March 2022. (Courtesy: Antos Tsialezhnikau)

WASHINGTON —

New details have emerged about Belarusians fighting for Ukraine against Russia's invasion as part of a broader struggle to free their own country from Russian domination and the rule of Moscow-backed autocrat Alexander Lukashenko.

Speaking exclusively to VOA in a Tuesday phone interview, the deputy commander of the largest pro-Ukraine Belarusian fighting force said its numbers have almost reached the size of an average Ukrainian battalion, which he said has about 450-500 troops.

"Several thousand more have applied to join us through our online recruitment tool," said Vadim Kabanchuk of the Kastus Kalinouski battalion, named after a Belarusian revolutionary who led a regional uprising against Russian occupation in the 1860s.

The Kalinouski battalion began forming in Kyiv after Russia had begun its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24. The battalion uses the Telegram channel @belwarriors to share news and images of its activities. On March 9, it announced its adoption of the Kalinouski name in a video posted to the platform.

Kabanchuk said he is one of a number of the Belarusian battalion's fighters who have been active in Ukraine's defense starting in 2014. That year, Russian forces invaded eastern Ukraine's Donbas region to foment a separatist uprising within its Russian-speaking community.

Belarusians have been drawn to fight for Ukraine for years in the hope that freeing it from Russian occupation would boost their own efforts to rid Belarus of Moscow's influence and end the 27-year presidency of Lukashenko, a key Russian ally.

The Kalinouski battalion swore an oath of allegiance to Belarus and Ukraine in a Telegram video posted March 25. Four days later, in another video, battalion members said they had a new status as part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and held up green booklets that resembled Ukrainian military IDs.

There has been no confirmation of the Kalinouski battalion's announcement on websites run by the Ukrainian government and military. The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington did not respond to a VOA email asking whether it could provide such a confirmation.

Belarusian fighters of the Kastus Kalinouski battalion pose for a photo in Kyiv, March 2022. (Courtesy: Antos Tsialezhnikau)

Franak Viacorka, a senior adviser to exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, told VOA that he believes the Kalinouski battalion's declared integration into the Ukrainian Armed Forces is credible. He described the battalion as the biggest and "perhaps best organized" of the Belarusian groups fighting for Ukraine and said it has earned a right to display Belarus' national flag and coat of arms in its operations.

"As of now, they will be fighting not only in one place, not only in defense of Kyiv, but all over Ukraine," Viacorka said.

As Russia's full-scale invasion began, Belarusian fighters of what later became the Kalinouski battalion joined the Ukrainian military's volunteer Territorial Defense Force units in Kyiv, according to deputy commander Kabanchuk. The Kyiv Independent news site had reported in January that the Territorial Defense Force units would comprise former active-duty Ukrainian military personnel and other volunteers, including civilians.

Kabanchuk said some of the Kyiv territorial defense units that his fellow Belarusian fighters joined included Ukrainian fighters with ties to the Azov regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard. The Azov regiment is known for the far-right beliefs of some of its members and has been most active in Mariupol, the southern Ukrainian port besieged by Russia for weeks.

"We initially were part of Kyiv territorial defense units whose members called themselves part of the 'Azov movement,'" said Kabanchuk. "But we are not part of the Ukrainian National Guard's Azov regiment and don't want to be confused with it," he added.

Most Belarusians who volunteer to fight for Ukraine are driven not by far-right ideology but by a belief that Kyiv's struggle is part of their own fight to free Belarus from Russian imperialism, said former Belarusian Foreign Ministry official Pavel Slunkin in a phone call with VOA.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko pose for a photo during their meeting in Moscow, March 11, 2022.

"They include bloggers, journalists, I.T. specialists, factory workers. All kinds of professions. And they want to see Belarus as a democratic state," said Slunkin, now an analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Not all Belarusians who seek to join the Kalinouski battalion will make it through a multistage vetting process aimed at weeding out security threats, Kabanchuk explained. Those threats include the possibility of Lukashenko's agents trying to infiltrate the battalion, he said.

"Many of the thousands who applied will be rejected after in-person interviews at the Belarusian recruitment center in the Polish capital, Warsaw, which acts as a first-stage filtration hub for potential fighters," Kabanchuk said. "Others will be rejected as unsuitable after they arrive to the battalion bases."

Smaller groups of Belarusian fighters have been active in other parts of Ukraine in recent weeks, according to Belarusian opposition figures. In a Thursday tweet, Tsikhanouskaya said a recently formed regiment called Pahonia is training new volunteers on behalf of Ukraine's armed forces.




In a Friday statement to VOA, a spokesperson for the International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine, Norwegian-born Damien Magrou, responded to a question about Pahonia by saying Ukrainian officials are considering an initiative to integrate "suitable" Belarusian volunteers into the legion.

Kabanchuk said the Kalinouski battalion prefers not to join the international legion because his fighters have much more autonomy as a separate unit.

Viacorka, the Tsikhanouskaya adviser, said in a Thursday tweet that he hopes the Pahonia regiment will form the basis of a new professional Belarusian army in a post-Lukashenko era.

Lukashenko derided the pro-Ukraine Belarusian fighters last month, telling a government meeting that the fighters are "crazy" and motivated only by money.

As for his own troops, he has avoided sending them into Ukraine to join in Russia's invasion.

Kabanchuk said that if Lukashenko were to do that, some of the Belarusian military's forces would surrender, and others would turn against the Belarusian autocrat.

"He understands very well that sending troops into Ukraine will speed up the fall of his regime," Kabanchuk said.

Michael Lipin
Michael covers international news for VOA on the web, radio and TV, specializing in the Middle East and East Asia Pacific. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_Lipin

Art event featuring "comfort woman" statue in Tokyo
PUBLISHED : 2 APR 2022 AT 11:44
WRITER: KYODO NEWS

Journalists attend a preview of an exhibition of statues of "comfort women", who served as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II, in Kunitachi, outskirts of Tokyo, on Saturday. (Photo: AFP)

A controversial art exhibition featuring works such as a statue symbolizing "comfort women" who worked in Japan's wartime military brothels finally kicked off in Tokyo on Saturday, after being postponed for about 10 months due to protests by right-wing activists.

The four-day "Non-Freedom of Expression Exhibition" in the suburban city of Kunitachi will showcase works by 16 artist collectives who have been unable to have their pieces shown at government-funded galleries due to what they label as "censorship and a self-imposed ban."

The exhibition, then titled "After 'Freedom of Expression?'" was forced to close its doors after three days in August 2019 in Nagoya when it was the target of threats. It later reopened in October for another seven days under tighter security and with attendance limited

This latest iteration of the event was initially scheduled to be held in Shinjuku, central Tokyo, from June to July last year but was put off after protestors gathered in vehicles near the venue to denounce the exhibition as "anti-Japan" through loudspeakers.

"We are so happy we were finally able to create an opportunity where people can actually see the exhibit," said Yuka Okamoto, a member of the organizing committee. "We've made every effort to make this happen."

The organisers said they are ready to respond to possible protests this time with the help of lawyers and volunteers.

Some people opposing the exhibition gathered around the venue, where one man holding a microphone with a Japanese national flag displayed behind him was seen criticising a work with the theme of Emperor Hirohito. "It's hurting people's feelings," he said.

About 20 people also showed up in favour of the art event, with some carrying placards saying, "We support freedom of expression."

In July last year, a similar exhibition in Nagoya was called off two days after its opening when a suspicious package exploded at the venue.

Later in the month, another controversial art event was held in Osaka under tight security despite repeated threats and protests.

An Osaka public facility withdrew permission to host that exhibition, citing the difficulty of guaranteeing security, but the event went ahead after Japanese courts gave it a green light in order to protect freedom of expression.

Fossil fuel backers overshadow climate change talks in Dubai

A flurry of summits this week across Dubai all focused in one way or another on climate change, or at least acknowledgement that the global energy transition is needed to keep temperatures from rising

By AYA BATRAWY Associated Press

1 April 2022,

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- A flurry of summits this week across Dubai addressed the threat of climate change, or at least acknowledged that a pivot away from fossil fuels toward cleaner sources of power is needed to keep temperatures from rising.

The glaring fault lines, however, lie on when and how to achieve this. For fossil fuel producers, like the United Arab Emirates, which hosted the gatherings, more investments, not less, are needed in oil and gas.

“We definitely at this time need to include all available resources,” UAE Minister of Energy, Suhail al-Mazrouei, said at an energy forum in Dubai.

“We cannot ignore or say we are going to abandon certain production. It’s just not the right time, whatever reason you have,” he said, adding that doing so would make prices too high for millions around the world.

It was a drumbeat echoed throughout the week in Dubai, reflecting the prominent voice fossil fuel producers are seeking to have in the global climate change conversation. It rang out at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum, the World Government Summit and a UAE-sponsored climate week in partnership with the United Nations.

OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo said that in the upcoming U.N. climate talks, known as COP27, in Egypt and next year's COP28 in the UAE, producers can address issues around "inclusiveness to ensure no sector is left behind, to address the issue of investment in the industry and to reassess the conversation."

He said limiting global temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) and the role of oil and gas “are not mutually exclusive.” That amount of warming compared to pre-industrial times is a benchmark and scientists say warming beyond it will expose people worldwide to far more extremes.

To drive home the argument, proponents of more fossil fuel investments pointed repeatedly to current high oil and gas prices as reminders of the global demand for oil. There was near derision at times that countries like the United States, the U.K. and others are calling for fossil fuel use to ramp down in the long term but also pleading for more oil to bring down prices for consumers.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other international bodies have said that to address climate change there should not be new investments in fossil fuel infrastructure and that the fuels, which are mostly responsible for climate change, must phase out over time.

That was reiterated in a 350-page report this week by The International Renewable Energy Agency that said the world must take “radical action” by investing $5.7 trillion each year through 2030 to shift away from fossil fuels. IRENA, which happens to be headquartered in the UAE capital of Abu Dhabi, said investments of $700 billion should be diverted away from the fossil fuel sector each year.

“The energy transition is far from being on track and anything short of radical action in the coming years will diminish, even eliminate, chances to meet our climate goals,” said Francesco La Camera, the director-general of IRENA, when the report came out.

OPEC, weighted by Saudi Arabia, projects that more oil will be needed through 2040 and beyond, particularly in Asia.

Brent crude stands at $105 a barrel, the highest in eight years. The prices are not only good for the oil-driven economies of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but also Russia, helping Moscow offset some of the pain from U.S.-led sanctions related to the war in Ukraine.

“Look at what is happening today. Who’s talking about climate change now? Who’s talking about attending to energy security, first and foremost?,” Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said in suggestive but careful remarks at the World Government Summit in Dubai.

Without energy security, countries will lose the means to tackle climate change, he said.

Recent data show that despite rapid growth in renewable energy, total emissions of the gases that allow the Earth to warm are going up, not down, amid rising energy demand and the expansion of fossil fuel use.

The International Monetary Fund's Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva encouraged advanced economies to meet the goal of providing $100 billion a year in climate finance to developing countries. She made the remarks this week at Dubai's World Government Summit, where she unveiled an IMF paper titled “Feeling the Heat,” about adapting to climate change in the Middle East.

The argument made repeatedly by Sultan al-Jaber, who is both the UAE's Special Envoy for Climate Change and Managing Director of Abu Dhabi's state-owned oil company, is that the energy transition will take time. And in that period of time, he says, the world will need more oil and gas.

“Put simply, we cannot and we must not unplug the current energy system before we have built the new one,” he said at the energy forum.

At the U.N.-backed climate week event, which took place at the opulent Altantis hotel, he said the push to divest from hydrocarbons has led to a supply crunch.

In his dual roles as climate change envoy and head of ADNOC, the state-owned oil and gas firm, al-Jaber symbolizes the two paths the UAE is taking. On one hand, the country has committed to net-zero emissions within its own borders by 2050. On the other, it is committing to more oil and gas production for export. The country's commitments do not apply to the emissions from burning that fuel.

Al-Jaber summed up this dual track, saying the UAE is expanding production capacity of what he dubbed “the world’s least carbon-intensive oil to over 5 million barrels per day” and its natural gas capacity by 30%. Simultaneously, the UAE has plans to invest $160 billion in renewable energy to achieve its net-zero pledge.

Saudi Arabia, which pledged to have net-zero emissions by 2060, is similarly cutting emissions domestically while vowing to keep pumping oil until the last drop. The production capacity increases come as Gulf Arab countries experience rising temperatures and humidity, as well as water scarcity, threatening food security and life across the Middle East.

At the U.N. climate week event, environmentally conscious participants sipped on coffee and tea and feasted on buffet lunches in between panels and workshops on everything from food sustainability to water scarcity to carbon-credit swaps.

It left Yara Wael, 23, from Alexandria, Egypt, excited for her country's turn at hosting this year's major global climate summit, but she was also left baffled. She works with Egypt's Banlastic, which aims to end single-use plastic, and this was her first trip outside Egypt.

She pointed out how the paper cups for coffee and tea could have been biodegradable or reusable, and questioned where all the leftover food from the buffet was going.

“When we hold an event on the environment or climate change, we have to think about ourselves and what we’re doing now," she said.

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Follow Aya Batrawy on Twitter at http:/twitter.com/ayaelb

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

TURKEY'S WAR ON THE KURDS

New indictment seeks up to 5 years in prison for jailed Kurdish leader over decade-old tweet

By Turkish Minute
- April 2, 2022

Ankara prosecutors have filed a new indictment for jailed Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş, former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), on charges of terrorism based on a social media post dating back to 2013, the Mezopotamya news agency reported on Friday.

In the 28-page indictment, Demirtaş is accused of “disseminating propaganda for a terrorist organization” in a tweet that allegedly praised the leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Nov. 16, 2013, according to Mezopotamya.

Submitted by the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office to Ankara 17th High Criminal Court on March 23, the indictment calls for between one and five years in prison for Demirtaş, Mezopotamya said, adding that the court had yet to accept the indictment.

Turkish authorities had conducted direct talks with Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU, for over two years until the summer of 2015, when the death of two police officers near the Syrian border became the official reason for its collapse.

Since then, there have been continuing clashes between the PKK and Turkish security forces. More than 40,000 people, including 5,500 security force members, have been killed in four decades of fighting between the Turkish state and the PKK.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), together with its ally, the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), have long portrayed the HDP as the political front of the PKK.

The party denies links to PKK and says it is working to achieve a peaceful solution to Turkey’s Kurdish issue and is only coming under attack because of its strong opposition to Erdoğan’s 19-year rule.

Arrested on Nov. 4, 2016, on terrorism-related charges, Demirtaş has since then remained in prison despite two European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rulings in 2018 and 2020 that said Demirtaş was imprisoned for “political” reasons and not for “legal” reasons, ordering his “immediate release.”

In February an appeals court upheld a prison sentence of three-and-a-half years handed down to Demirtaş for insulting Erdoğan.

Demirtaş was an outspoken critic of Turkey’s ruling party AKP and its leader, Erdoğan, before he was jailed. He ran in the presidential elections of 2014 and 2018 as a rival to Erdoğan. The imprisoned leader conducted his election campaign from jail for the 2018 election.