Tour bus operator faces health and safety charges in deadly Icefield crash



Friday
The Canadian Press

JASPER, ALBERTA — A tour bus operator has been charged in a deadly rollover at the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park nearly two years ago and more charges could be on the way.

The Alberta government said Friday that Brewster Inc. faces eight charges under the provincial Occupational Health and Safety Act related to use and maintenance of seatbelts, failing to control hazards and failing to ensure equipment was in safe operating condition.

Three people were killed and 14 others had life-threatening injuries after the big-wheel red-and-white Ice Explorer lost control on the road to the Athabasca Glacier, about 100 kilometres southeast of Jasper, Alta., on July 18, 2020.

The bus with 27 people on board rolled about 50 metres down a moraine embankment before coming to rest on its roof.

Tours of the Icefield resumed last year. The tour bus operator said seatbelts had been added to the buses, and changes to driver training and road maintenance have been made.

Pursuit, the company that runs the Icefield bus tours, said in an emailed statement that it can't comment on specifics of the case because of legal proceedings.

"We continue to support a transparent and multi-agency investigation into this tragic accident," it said.

The case is to be in provincial court in Jasper on June 23.

A final RCMP report into the rollover has not been publicly released but was submitted to Alberta prosecutors in April.

The Crown will determine if the evidence warrants any criminal charges.

"The RCMP is aware of the charges that resulted from Alberta Occupational Health and Safety’s separate investigation. The RCMP have shared all requested investigative material gathered during the criminal investigation with the Ministry of Labour and Immigration as required by the Alberta OHS Act," the RCMP said in a release.

"The RCMP’s criminal investigation is independent, separate and parallel to the OHS investigation."

The RCMP said it will provide a further update to victims and families when the outcome of the criminal investigation can be shared.

There have been two civil lawsuits filed on behalf of people on the bus that day. Some plaintiffs have expressed concern about the delay in finding out what happened.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on May 13, 2022.

Facebook Marketplace, Carousell get lowest anti-scam scores

May 15, 2022

CNA – Facebook Marketplace and Carousell were rated the lowest among six e-commerce platforms for their “critical” anti-scam measures, Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said yesterday.

Facebook Marketplace and Carousell were awarded one tick and two ticks respectively, while Shopee received three ticks. Amazon, Lazada and Qoo10 were rated the full four ticks.

The e-commerce marketplace transaction safety ratings, a government initiative that was launched yesterday, serve to better inform consumers about the platforms’ anti-scam measures and create a safer online environment, Minister of State for Home Affairs Desmond Tan told reporters. “Essentially, it is a rating system to inform our consumers on what are the measures they have to look out for in transacting online, and when buying goods online,” he said on Friday.

“And at the same time, we also give them the information about the existing e-commerce platforms, and what are the measures they have in place to secure the transactions online.”

Tan chairs the Inter-Ministry Committee on Scams, which rates these platforms based on five measures: Seller identity verification, fraudulent seller behaviour monitoring, secure payment solutions, maintenance of transaction records and user data, as well as reporting and dispute resolution mechanisms.

Consumers can visit this microsite to see how the platforms perform in each measure.

Platforms with all the critical anti-scam measures in place will be awarded four ticks, MHA said, adding that the ratings will be reviewed annually.

Facebook Marketplace, for instance, does not offer secure payment solutions or seller identity verification, while Carousell makes these features optional.

The ratings system, first announced during the police’s annual statistics briefing this year, comes as SGD5.8 million was lost to e-commerce scams in 2021.

The 2,707 e-commerce scam cases reported last year made it the third-most prevalent type of scam, behind phishing scams and job scams.

The ratings system was developed together with the six e-commerce platforms, and covers major platforms with a significant local reach or a significant number of e-commerce scams reported, MHA said.

It does not cover businesses that have their own e-commerce platforms, like Courts or IKEA, as these have been assessed to be less susceptible to scams.

Beyond the ticks, consumers can refer to the microsite for general advisories that elaborate on the five safety features. These advisories will be refreshed every year.

The microsite also has platform-specific advisories, accessible by clicking on the platforms’ logos, that provide details on their safety features and the number of scam reports linked to each platform.

These will be updated every six months to allow the platforms to post more frequent updates on their latest safety features.

Secret British ‘black propaganda’ campaign targeted cold war enemies

An Israeli convoy passes Egyptian prisoners in the Sinai during the six-day war, June 1967. The Information Research Department put out fake Soviet comment on Egypt’s war effort. 

Photograph: Getty Images

Britain stirred up tensions, chaos and violence in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, according to declassified papers

Jason Burke
Sat 14 May 2022 

The British government ran a secret “black propaganda” campaign for decades, targeting Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia with leaflets and reports from fake sources aimed at destabilising cold war enemies by encouraging racial tensions, sowing chaos, inciting violence and reinforcing anti-communist ideas, newly declassified documents have revealed.

The effort, run from the mid-1950s through to the late 70s by a unit in London that was part of the Foreign Office, was focused on cold war enemies such as the Soviet Union and China, leftwing liberation groups and leaders that the UK saw as threats to its interests


The campaign also sought to mobilise Muslims against Moscow, promoting greater religious conservatism and radical ideas. To appear authentic, documents encouraged hatred of Israel.

Recently declassified British government documents reveal hundreds of extensive and costly operations.

“These releases are among the most important of the past two decades. It’s very clear now that the UK engaged in more black propaganda than historians assume and these efforts were more systemic, ambitious and offensive. Despite official denials, [this] went far beyond merely exposing Soviet disinformation,” said Rory Cormac, an expert in the history of subversion and intelligence who found the material when researching his new book, How to Stage a Coup: And Ten Other Lessons from the World of Secret Statecraft, to be published next month.

The Information Research Department (IRD) was set up by the post-second world war Labour government to counter Soviet propaganda attacks on Britain. Its activities mirrored the CIA’s cold war propaganda operations and the extensive efforts of the USSR and its satellites.

Alec Douglas-Home, who asked the IRD to target Ghana in 1964.

 Photograph: Express/Getty Images

The Observer last year revealed the IRD’s major campaign in Indonesia in 1965 that helped encourage anti-communist massacres which left hundreds of thousands dead. There, the IRD prepared pamphlets purporting to be written by Indonesian patriots, but in fact were created by British propagandists, calling on Indonesians to eliminate the PKI, then the biggest communist party in the non-communist world.

But the thousands of declassified documents studied by Cormac give by far the most extensive insight yet into the IRD’s disinformation operations.

“The British were only one actor among many, and a fairly minor actor too, compared with the quantity of material being produced and disseminated by the bigger players,” said Cormac, professor of international relations at Nottingham University.

“The UK did not simply invent material, as the Soviets systematically did, but they definitely intended to deceive audiences in order to get the message across.”

The IRD employed 360 people at its height in the mid-60s. However, its highly secretive Special Editorial Unit, responsible for the black propaganda effort, was much smaller. From its base in a nondescript office in Westminster, the unit used a variety of tactics to manipulate opinion.

One was to produce “reports” sent to warn other governments, selected journalists and thinktanks about “Soviet subversion” or similar threats.

The reports comprised carefully selected facts and analysis often gleaned from intelligence provided by Britain’s security services, but appeared to come from ostensibly independent analysts and institutions that were in reality set up and run by the IRD. One of the first of these, set up in 1964, was the International Committee for the Investigation of Communist Front Organisations.

Another tactic was to forge statements by official Soviet institutions and agencies. Between 1965 and 1972, the IRD forged at least 11 statements from Novosti, the Soviet state-run news agency. One followed Egypt’s defeat in the 1967 six-day war against Israel and underlined Soviet anger at Egypt’s “waste” of so much of the arms and materiel Moscow had supplied to the country.

The IRD also forged literature purporting to come from the Muslim Brotherhood, a mass Islamist organisation that had a significant following across the Middle East. One pamphlet accused Moscow of encouraging the 1967 war, criticised the quality of Soviet military equipment, and called the Soviets “filthy-tongued atheists” who saw the Egyptians as little more than “peasants who lived all their lives nursing reactionary Islamic superstitions”.

The IRD also created an entirely fictive radical Islamist organisation called the League of Believers, which attacked the Russians as non-believers and blamed Arab defeats on a lack of religious faith, a standard trope among religious conservatives at the time.

“Why is the Arab nation at this time afflicted by so much sorrow and disaster? Why were the brave forces defeated in the jihad by the evil heathen Zionists?… The answers are [easily] to be found … we are departing fast from the right path, we are following the course chosen for us by the communist-atheists for whom religion is a form of social disease,” it read.

Such claims became increasingly widespread in Egypt in the ensuing years, as a resurgence of religion swept the key strategic state.

Nor was the IRD above encouraging opposition to Israel if it made its forgeries more convincing, Cormac told the Observer.

Yemeni fighters belonging to the British protectorate in the south of the country, in the early 1960s. Photograph: Getty Images

A statement released by the IRD in February 1967 also purported to come from the Muslim Brotherhood, and attacked Egypt for using chemical weapons in its battle against a coalition of religious conservatives and tribes in Yemen backed by Britain and Saudi Arabia.

The IRD’s leaflets echoed other claims made by radical Islamists, arguing that military misdeeds should not be blamed on “the atheists or the imperialists or the Zionist Jews” but on “Egyptians who are supposed to be believers”.

“These Egyptian murderers have gone too far in their hypocrisy unpunished, but they can no longer pretend to be believers in God and in His Prophet and in His sacred book,” a leaflet read, asking: “If the Egyptians have to go to war and fight, why don’t they direct their armies against the Jews?”

Cormac said that, as with much of the IRD’s output, the claims made were factually accurate, but the tone and fake source were designed to mislead. The leaflets about Yemen aimed to put pressure on the Egyptian leadership to accept a ceasefire.

Other material highlighted the poor view that Moscow took of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the limited aid offered by the Soviets to Palestinian armed nationalist groups. This was contrasted with the more supportive stance of the Chinese, in a bid to widen the split between the two communist powers.

One major initiative focused on undermining Ian Smith’s regime in Rhodesia, the former colony that unilaterally declared its independence from the UK in 1965 in an attempt to maintain white minority rule.

The IRD set up a fake group of white Rhodesians who opposed Smith. Its leaflets attacked him for lying, creating “chaos” and crippling the economy. “The whole world is against us … We must call a halt while we can still save our country,” one said.

Attempts to isolate African nationalists sometimes involved incitement of racial tension. In early 1963, the IRD forged a statement from the World Federation of Democratic Youth, a Soviet front organisation, which denounced Africans as uncivilised, “primitive” and morally weak. The forgery received press coverage across the continent, with many newspapers reacting intemperately.

Ian Smith, Rhodesia’s premier, centre, in 1965, another target of IRD’s activities.

 Photograph: Bettmann Archive

A similar forgery in 1966 underlined the “backwardness” and “political immaturity” of Africa. Another, a statement purportedly from Novosti, blamed poor academic results at an international university in Moscow on the quality of the black African students enrolled there. The IRD sent more than 1,000 copies to addresses across the developing world.

Cormac said there is little doubt that senior British policymakers knew about the IRD’s work.

In 1964, the Conservative prime minister, Alec Douglas-Home, told the IRD to target Ghana over fear that its mercurial president, Kwame Nkrumah, was tilting towards Moscow. Months later, the new Labour foreign secretary, Patrick Gordon Walker, encouraged the Foreign Office to maintain a “black propaganda potential and from time to time produce black material”. Walker was particularly interested in fomenting racial tensions between Africans and the Chinese.

As with most such efforts, the impact of the IRD’s campaigns was often difficult to judge. On one occasion, IRD officials were able to report that a newspaper in Zanzibar printed one of their forgeries about Soviet racism, and that the publication prompted an angry response. This was seen as a major achievement. Officials were also pleased when Kenyan press used fake material about the 1967 six-day war, and when newspapers across much of the Islamic world printed a fake Novosti bulletin on the conflict. Occasionally, western newspapers unwittingly used IRD materials, too.

Though the IRD was shut down in 1977, researchers are now finding evidence that similar efforts continued for almost another decade.

“The [new documents] are particularly significant as a precursor to more modern efforts of putting intelligence into the public domain.

“Liz Truss has a ’government information cell’, and defence intelligence sends out daily tweets to ‘pre-but’ Russian plots and gain the upper hand in the information war, but for much of the cold war the UK used far more devious means,” Cormac said.

Demo in Rome against Turkish attacks in Kurdistan

Kurds and their friends continue their protests against the increasingly ongoing attacks of the Turkish state in Kurdistan.


Play
ANF
ROME
Saturday, 14 May 2022,

Kurdish and Italian youths staged a civil disobedience action in Rome, Italy in protest at the Turkish state’s genocidal attacks in various parts of the Kurdistan territory.

During the demonstration at Fiumicino Airport, the activists also protested against the betrayal of the Iraqi Kurdistan government’s ruling party KDP, which cooperates with Turkey in its invasion operation against guerrilla-held Medya Defense Zones in southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq), ongoing since April 14.







British delegation heads to OPCW with report on Turkey’s use of chemical weapons in Iraqi Kurdistan

A delegation from Britain is heading to the headquarters of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague to press for action from the watchdog.

ANF
LONDON
Saturday, 14 May 2022, 09:40

A delegation from Britain is heading to the headquarters of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague on Tuesday to press for action from the watchdog.

The delegation has requested an appointment with the OPCW on the afternoon of Tuesday May 17.

Steve Sweeney, who has spent more than a year documenting Turkey’s alleged use of chemical weapons in Iraqi Kurdistan, will launch a report into his findings which includes damning testimonies from Kurdish villagers, medics and security forces.

He will deliver this, along with soil samples, video footage and other evidence, directly to the OPCW which has so far ignored letters, petitions and requests from Kurdish organisations and politicians.

A letter calling for a fact-finding team to be sent to the region as a matter of urgency will be hand-delivered.

Steve will be joined by Margaret Owen OBE, Andi Kocsondi and Melanie Gingell who will also address a rally at a protest event organised by local Kurdish groups at 1pm.

He said: “Turkey is alleged to have used chemical weapons hundreds of times since it launched its illegal invasion codenamed Operation Claw Lightning in April 2021.

“Banned munitions have been used in guerrilla tunnels and also against Kurdish villagers for more than a year, many of whom I met and are clearly suffering the effects of exposure to chemicals months after exposure.

“Medics and peshmerga have also confirmed this to me but have been threatened by both Turkish intelligence and security forces affiliated to the regionally dominant Kurdistan Democratic Party.

“While all eyes are on Ukraine. Nato’s second-largest army is committing war crimes in Iraqi Kurdistan.

“33 years ago the world remained silent and 5,000 Kurds were gassed by Saddam in Halabja.

“Now history is repeating itself once more. The OPCW must investigate as a matter of urgency and the international community must break its silence on the attempted genocide of the Kurds.”

Turkey blasts Swedish, Finnish support for rebels at NATO meeting

Turkey’s foreign minister described Swedish and Finnish support for Kurdish rebels as ‘unacceptable and outrageous’.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Berlin, 

Germany, on Saturday, May 14, 2022 [Michael Sohn/AP]

Published On 14 May 2022

Turkey’s foreign minister has described as “unacceptable and outrageous” the support that prospective new NATO members Sweden and Finland give to the PKK, a Kurdish rebel group designated a “terrorist” organisation by Ankara and its Western allies.

The PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) has waged a rebellion against the Turkish state since 1984 that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people, and Ankara’s criticism of Sweden and Finland has potentially complicated plans for NATO’s enlargement.

“The problem is that these two countries are openly supporting and engaging with PKK and YPG [People’s Protection Units],” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Saturday as he arrived in Berlin for a meeting with his NATO counterparts.

“These are terrorist organisations that have been attacking our troops every day,” Cavusoglu said.

“Therefore, it is unacceptable and outrageous that our friends and allies are supporting this terrorist organisation,” he said.

“These are the issues that we need to talk about with our NATO allies, as well as these countries [Sweden and Finland].”

Latvian Foreign Minister Edgar Rinkevics said that NATO will find a “sensible” solution to Finland and Sweden’s acceptance as new members despite Turkish concerns.

“We have had those discussions in the alliance many times before. I think that we have always found sensible solutions, and that we will find one this time also,” he told reporters in Berlin.

“Swedish and Finnish membership is of paramount importance to the whole alliance, and ultimately also to Turkey,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen, reporting from Berlin, said Sweden and Finland’s application to join NATO is expected in the coming days.

“It’s a big historical moment for both nations who have been neutral for such a long time,” Vaessen said, adding that Russia’s action in Ukraine had “pushed them towards NATO”.

All 30 NATO members must approve their application and the acceptance process is likely to take several months, Vaessen said, explaining that it is during the “so-called grey period”, between application and membership, that is most concerning for both countries. During this period, Sweden and Finland will not have the collective defence protection of NATO’s Article 5, which stipulates that “an attack on one, is an attack on all”, she said.

Negotiations

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, said earlier on Saturday that Turkey had not shut the door to Sweden and Finland joining NATO, but negotiations are needed with the Nordic countries and a clampdown on what Ankara views as terrorist activities.

Turkey considers YPG, the US-backed Kurdish fighters based in Syria, a “terrorist” organisation. Ankara views YPG as a PKK affiliate.

“We are not closing the door. But we are basically raising this issue as a matter of national security for Turkey,” Kalin, who is also the president’s top foreign policy adviser, told Reuters in an interview in Istanbul.

Kalin said the PKK was fundraising and recruiting in Europe and its presence was “strong and open and acknowledged” in Sweden, in particular.

“What needs to be done is clear: They have to stop allowing PKK outlets, activities, organisations, individuals and other types of presence to … exist in those countries,” he said.

“We will see how things go. But this is the first point that we want to bring to the attention of all the allies, as well as to Swedish authorities,” he added.

Erdogan surprised NATO members and the two Nordic countries by saying on Friday that it was not possible for Turkey to support enlarging the military alliance when Finland and Sweden are “home to many terrorist organisations”.

Any country seeking to join NATO requires the unanimous support of member states. The United States and other member states have been trying to clarify Ankara’s position on Finland and Sweden.

Sweden and its closest military partner, Finland, until now have remained outside NATO, which was founded in 1949 to counter the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

The two countries are wary of antagonising Moscow, but their security concerns have increased since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.

‘Mutual point of view’

Turkey, the second-largest military in NATO, has officially supported enlargement since it joined the US-led alliance 70 years ago.

Turkey has criticised Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, helped arm Kyiv, and has tried to facilitate talks between the sides, but has opposed sanctions on Moscow.

Asked whether Turkey risked being too transactional at a time of war, and when Finnish and Swedish public opinion favours NATO membership, Kalin said, “If they [Finland and Sweden] have a public concerned about their own national security, we have a public that is equally concerned about our own security,” he said.

Kalin said Russia’s sharp criticism of Finland and Sweden for their plans to join NATO was not a factor in Turkey’s position.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin told his Finnish counterpart on Saturday that joining NATO would be “a mistake”.

“Putin stressed that the end of the traditional policy of military neutrality would be a mistake since there is no threat to Finland’s security,” the Kremlin said in a statement on Saturday.

Fossils of a Dinosaur that Inspired 'Jurassic Park' Sold for Over $12 Million

CNN
14 May 2022 


CNN published this article:

His name is "Hector," he's over 100 million years old, and his fossils sold for more than $12 million in auction at Christie's.

Hector is the most complete skeleton of Deinonychus antirrhopus ever found, according to Christie's. The specimen, excavated in Montana in 2013, dates back to the early Cretaceous period: 115 to 108 million years ago. It's in a "remarkable state of preservation," the auction house says of the specimen, consisting of 126 original fossils on a custom-built frame.

The lot was expected to net between $4 million and $6 million, according to Christie's.

Instead, it sold for a jaw-dropping $12.4 million on Wednesday.

The 9-foot-long Deinonychus, which roamed western North America, was named for its distinctive and deadly claw on each foot, says the auction house. Deinonychus means "terrible claw" in ancient Greek.

"Shaped like a sickle and held up off the ground when not in use so as to maintain its lethal sharpness, this claw was used to disembowel its prey," said Christie's.

The lethal talon might be familiar to fans of the iconic film series "Jurassic Park," in which conniving velociraptors kill park guests and battle a Tyrannosaurus rex. However, in reality, Velociraptor was a small turkey-sized dinosaur found mostly in Mongolia. Filmmakers lifted its name, but took most of the attributes from the larger Deinonychus, according to Christie's.

Hector, only the third complete skeleton of Deinonychus ever found, has been privately owned since his excavation. The other two complete Deinonychus skeletons are owned by museums: one is on display at the American Museum of Natural History.

Dinosaur fossils, particularly for "celebrity" species like those featured in "Jurassic Park," have fetched impressive sums at auction in the past few decades. In 2020, a T.rex skeleton sold for a record-breaking $31.8 million, and in 2021, the world's largest Triceratops skeleton sold for $7.7 million.

0Bit coin

Bitcoin crash erases $36 million in value from El Salvador government's massive crypto investment as national debt grows

Hannah Towey
Fri, May 13, 2022

A store that accepts bitcoins in El Zonte, La Libertad, El Salvador on September 4, 2021

.MARVIN RECINOS/AFP via Getty Images

El Salvador, the first country to make bitcoin legal tender, racked up $36 million in cryptocurrency losses on Thursday.


The popular cryptocurrency plummeted 50% from its all-time high this week.


The government bought an additional 500 coins at $30,744 each on Monday, President Nayib Bukele said.

El Salvador – which became the first country to make bitcoin legal tender in September — has seen the value of its massive cryptocurrency investment plummet by $36 million as bitcoin dropped over 50% from its all-time high on Thursday.

President Nayib Bukele bet big that bullish bitcoin investments could rescue El Salvador's economy from its growing debt-to-GDP ratio. Now, the crypto market's crash is fulfilling critics' warnings against investing treasury funds into volatile digital currencies.

Bukele's administration has spent a total of $103 million on 2,301 bitcoins since September of last year, according to Bloomberg data. As of Thursday afternoon, the coins were valued at around $67 million. El Salvador currently owes an estimated $23.3 billion in national debt.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued multiple warnings to the administration about legalizing bitcoin as an acceptable form of payment for any purchase or debt. In February, Fitch Ratings downgraded El Salvador's default rating from a "B-" to a "CCC," citing financing uncertainty spurred by the law.

"Households and businesses who hold Bitcoin balances and save in Bitcoin could lose wealth through large swings in value," the IMF El Salvador team, led by Alina Carare, warned in February.

"The adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender is fully funded by public money, through a trust fund. If the price of Bitcoin was to plummet, the resources in the trust could be rapidly depleted," IMF continued.

Undeterred by the drop, President Bukele announced "El Salvador just bought the dip!" on Monday. The purchase was the country's largest to-date, adding 500 bitcoins priced at an average of $30,744 each to its holdings.



Bukele's bullish investment in cryptocurrency has led to a mixed reception by the country's citizens, with past bitcoin protests drawing thousands of attendees. A spokesperson for the administration did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

According to a September survey of 1,281 people, most Salvadorans (67.9%) disagree with the government's decision to make bitcoin legal tender. The nation's digital wallet, "Chivo Wallet," has not seen widespread use as the majority of sales continue to be paid in physical currencies, as Insider has previously reported.

El Salvador buys the bitcoin dip, adding 500 coins to its balance sheet

TUE, MAY 10,2022
MacKenzie Sigalos@KENZIESIGALOS

KEY POINTS

El Salvador just added another $15.5 million worth of bitcoin to its balance sheet, as the world’s most popular cryptocurrency continues its sell-off.

In a tweet on Monday, President Nayib Bukele revealed that the country bought the dip, adding another 500 bitcoin to government coffers.

It is El Salvador’s largest coin purchase since it first began adding the digital currency to its balance sheet in Sept. 2021 — the same month it became the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, alongside the U.S. dollar.

President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, gestures during his speech at the closing ceremony of the Latin Bitcoin conference (LaBitConf) at Mizata Beach, El Salvador, where he announced “Bitcoin City”, on November 20, 2021.
Marvin Recinos | AFP | Getty Images

El Salvador just added another $15.5 million worth of bitcoin to its balance sheet, as the world’s most popular cryptocurrency continues its sell-off.

In a tweet on Monday, President Nayib Bukele revealed that the country bought the dip, adding another 500 bitcoin to government coffers.

It is El Salvador’s largest coin purchase since it first began adding the digital currency to its balance sheet in Sept. 2021 — the same month it became the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, alongside the U.S. dollar.

Bitcoin is down more than 8% in the last 24 hours, and it’s nearly 55% off its November all-time high.

El Salvador purchased bitcoin at an average price of $30,744, according to the president’s tweet.

The country’s total reserve is up to 2,301 bitcoin, or about $71.7 million at current prices, based on data tracked by Bloomberg.

This is the latest in a string of dip buys over the last nine months, in which President Bukele — who has tethered his political fate to the success of the country’s bitcoin experiment — has doubled down on his bitcoin bet, as the crypto market plummets.

The country’s decision to lean into bitcoin is not without its skeptics — a contingent that has been gaining momentum in recent months.

For months, the International Monetary Fund has bemoaned Bukele’s bitcoin experiment.

In January, the IMF pushed El Salvador to ditch bitcoin as legal tender.

IMF directors “stressed that there are large risks associated with the use of bitcoin on financial stability, financial integrity, and consumer protection, as well as the associated fiscal contingent liabilities.”

The report, which was published after bilateral talks with El Salvador, went on to “urge” authorities to narrow the scope of its bitcoin law by removing bitcoin’s status as legal money.

The IMF report went on to say that some directors had expressed concern over the risks associated with issuing bitcoin-backed bonds, referring to the president’s plan to raise $1 billion via a “Bitcoin Bond” in partnership with Blockstream, a digital assets infrastructure company. However, that bond offering was put on ice in March, due to “unfavorable market conditions,” according to Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya.

Part of El Salvador’s nationwide move into bitcoin also involved launching a national virtual wallet called Chivo that offers no-fee transactions and allows for quick cross-border payments. For a country where 70% of citizens do not have access to traditional financial services, Chivo is meant to offer a convenient on-ramp for those who have never been a part of the banking system.

IMF directors agreed that the Chivo e-wallet could facilitate digital means of payment, thereby helping to “boost financial inclusion,” though they emphasized the need for “strict regulation and oversight.” Many Salvadorans have reported cases of identity theft, in which hackers use their national ID number to open a Chivo e-wallet, in order to claim the free $30 worth of bitcoin offered by the government as an incentive.

A report published in April by the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research also showed that only 20% of those who downloaded the wallet continued to use it after spending the $30 bonus. The research was based upon a “nationally representative survey” involving 1,800 households.

El Salvador has been trying since early 2021 to secure a $1.3 billion loan from the IMF — an effort that appears to have soured over this bitcoin row.

The country will need to figure out some other backstop to shore up its finances. The IMF predicts that under current policies, public debt will rise to 96% of GDP by 2026, putting the country on “an unsustainable path.”

Protesters demand arrest of ex-Sri Lankan PM over attack

 By Associated Press
May 15, 2022

New Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (center) visits a Buddhist temple after his swearing-in ceremony in Colombo on Thursday, May 12, 2022. AFP PHOTO


COLOMBO: Sri Lankan protesters attacked earlier this week by pro-government supporters de-manded on Friday that new Prime Minister Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe arrest his prede-cessor for allegedly instigating the attack against them as they were calling for his resignation.

A group of protesters camped outside the official residence of the premier, who was appointed on Thursday night by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in a bid to hold onto power and quell the South Asian island nation's political and economic crisis.

For months, Sri Lankans have been forced to wait in long lines to purchase scarce imported essen-tials such as medicines, fuel, cooking gas and food because of a severe foreign currency shortage.

The president's elder brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, resigned as prime minister on Monday after the attack on peaceful protesters triggered a wave of violence across the country. Nine people were killed and more than 200 were wounded.

The group of about 10 protesters camped at the prime minister's residence said they don't trust Wickremesinghe, a former five-time premier, because he is close to the Rajapaksas.


Sri Lanka president agrees to remove brother as PM

"If he is truly on the side of the people," he should have Mahinda Rajapaksa arrested, said Wimal Jayasuriya, a 43-year-old teacher. If he doesn't arrest him, "then he has to get ready to go."

Jayasuriya and the others said they were among the protesters who were attacked on Monday with metal and wooden poles by Rajapaksa supporters who were leaving the prime minister's residence after meeting with him.

Thousands of protesters have joined weeks of protests outside the president's office and the prime minister's residence demanding their resignations over the worsening crisis.

Mahinda and his family have taken refuge at a fortified naval base in Trincomalee, on the coun-try's northeastern coast. A court on Thursday issued travel bans against him, his former Cabinet minister-son and 15 others, including other former ministers, pending an investigation into the at-tack on the protesters.

In Sri Lanka, things fall apart

Wickremesinghe's appointment has been opposed by some politicians and religious leaders, who say he is part of a corrupt system they want overhauled.

As prime minister from 2015 to 2019, Wickremesinghe was accused of protecting the Rajapaksa family from allegations of corruption and other crimes after Mahinda lost a presidential election in 2015.

The main opposition party, which split from Wickremesinghe's leadership in 2020, also opposes his appointment as premier.

Wickremesinghe says he can prove he has the support of a majority of Parliament and will be able to solve the country's economic issues.

Sri Lanka's president to name new premier

Sri Lanka is near bankruptcy and has suspended repayment of its foreign loans pending negotia-tions on a rescue package with the International Monetary Fund.

It needs to repay $7 billion in foreign debt this year out of the $25 billion due by 2026. Its total foreign debt is $51 billion. The finance ministry says the country currently has only $25 million in usable foreign reserves.

LABOR MOVEMENT

Resident Physicians Are Unionizing — They Need Fighting Unions


Amid growing pro-union sentiment in the country, resident physicians are unionizing. They need fighting unions that challenge the for-profit healthcare system.


Mike Pappas May 14, 2022

Image via @cirseiu

Resident physicians are unionizing around the country. Most recently, residents at University of Vermont Medical Center (UVM), Stanford Medical Center, and Keck School of Medicine of USC all voted to join the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR), which is part of the larger Service Employees International Union (SEIU). These wins come despite ongoing pushback from the hospital bosses. This resistance is coming because hospitals know unionized resident physicians will be harder to exploit. More residents should fight to unionize to protect themselves and the care of patients, and in the process of winning unions, they should extend their fight and demands to challenge the dynamics of the healthcare system itself.

The growth in resident physician unions is occurring in the context of a growing pro-union sentiment around the country. Approval for unions in the United States is at its highest point in over 60 years, according to a recent Gallup poll. As part of this pattern of growing support, workers in Amazon recently voted to establish the company’s first union in Staten Island, and Starbucks Workers around the country continue to win union votes, even with ongoing pushback and union-busting tactics from the company. As interim ALU President Chris Smalls has noted, workers are unionizing as a way to fight back against their poor working conditions instead of quitting their jobs. Workers are seeing unions as ways to fight back collectively against the boss and more resident physicians are seeing joining a union as a way to do the same thing.

Still, though, only about one seventh of the over 145,000 resident physicians in the United States today are unionized. But 100 percent of residents should have a union. As we have written about previously, residents are cheap labor in an exploitative, for-profit healthcare system. In many ways, residency training itself serves to condition physicians to act as tools for a capitalist healthcare system constantly looking to cut staff and cut costs to increase profits. Much of the fight for resident unions goes against this dynamic. Residents at hospitals fight through their unions for more demands such as raises, housing stipends, and a better parental leave policy, etc.

And resident organizing for and through unions only increased during the height of the Black Lives Matter Movement and then again throughout varying waves of the pandemic as resident physicians were at the frontlines caring for patients and witnessing the outcomes of intersections of race and class under capitalism have on people’s bodies. These experiences highlighted very clearly how institutions that claim to care about health and well being ultimately put their bottom line above the well being of patients and frontline healthcare workers.

We undoubtedly need more resident unions, and as the number of resident unions grows, the most combative sectors of resident physicians need to explore how to push further beyond demands of workplace improvements and towards questioning the exploitative dynamic of residency itself and more largely the dynamics of the for profit healthcare system. For example, as we have written about in the past, residents often work 80-100 hours per week during their training. They serve as cheap labor for hospital systems and that labor helps uphold the factory-like dynamic of many of these healthcare settings. Resident programs claim to care about addressing these long hours, but argue their hands are tied. One potential avenue of resistance is for resident unions to begin to challenge the 80 hour workweek by forcing their hospitals or clinics to unilaterally cut work hours in contracts (for reference, our CIR union local did exactly this when I was a resident in NYC, winning the first reduced hour contract in CIR history).

Struggles should not stop around hours, however. Residents should also begin to think about challenging their own union leadership. As noted above, most residents unionize under the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR). The union often attempts to “play nice” or be cordial with hospital leaderships, even signing “no-strike” clauses with the hospitals or clinics at which they are based. But hospital executives are enemies of healthcare workers and patients, and there should be nothing cordial about relationships with them. The strike is one of the most powerful tools any worker has, and the potential for its use should never be signed away in a contract.

Resident mobilizations should go beyond the limits of medical residency. Resident physicians should fight together in their workplaces to challenge the exploitative healthcare system as a whole and push their unions to actually be fighting organs to fight for a better healthcare system. We see some glimmers of this in some of the current resident unionizing efforts where workers want to push for broader improvements at the workplace. At UVM, for example, they “want to tackle broader working conditions at the hospital, including an ongoing staffing shortage and a lack of adequate work spaces.”

In general, physicians today, whether still in residency training or outside residency training, must begin to see themselves as part of the working class, fighting with other workers for better conditions and against conditions that threaten the well being of the general public. For example, resident physicians could also mobilize their unions and fight with other unions to push back against recent threats to the right to abortion in the United States. Rank and file committees could be made to mobilize healthcare workers against the ongoing war in Ukraine. Unionized healthcare workers should be mobilized to confront these fights in their workplaces and in the streets.

As the pandemic showed us, the maintenance of individual and community health extends beyond the walls of any hospital or clinic. When the right to abortion is threatened, this threatens health and well being. When an Amazon worker is exploited by Jeff Bezos and forced to work in unsafe conditions, it does the same. As residents continue to unionize, their fight needs to become more dynamic and combative and spread across sectors to other healthcare workers and other workers more generally.


Mike Pappas is an activist and medical doctor working in New York City.

Sinn Féin leader says Boris Johnson using Northern Ireland as ‘pawn’ in games with EU

Mary Lou McDonald says Tories in ‘cahoots’ with DUP in threatening to tear up post-Brexit protocol

Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald speaks to the media in Dublin after a meeting of the party executive. Photograph: Sam Boal/PA


Harry Taylor
THE GUARDIAN

Sat 14 May 2022

The leader of Sinn Féin has accused Boris Johnson of playing games with Ireland and using it as a “pawn” in the UK’s continual trade battle with the EU, ahead of the prime minister’s visit on Monday.

Johnson is due to touch down in Belfast on Monday for talks after the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) blocked the election of a speaker in the Stormont assembly, a week after Sinn Féin topped the polls in elections.

Johnson will hold talks with politicians in Northern Ireland, but the Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald, said he was in “cahoots” with the DUP in stopping a new executive and assembly sitting.

Under Stormont rules, a new administration cannot be formed without the largest unionist party taking part.

McDonald said it was part of “a game of brinkmanship” with the EU over the Northern Ireland protocol and post-Brexit trading agreements.

Speaking after a meeting of the party’s ruling council, she said: “He has connived with the DUP to use Ireland, the north of Ireland, to use unionism in Ireland as a pawn in a wider game that is being played out with the European Union.

“That is clearly a shameful tactic and approach and it’s one that is absolutely not acceptable.

“We’re not one bit naive as to what’s happening here – it is very clear that the Tory government in London is in cahoots with the DUP to stall and to hold back progress, to frustrate the will of the people as expressed in the election and that, to anybody who calls themselves a democrat, is clearly unacceptable and clearly shameful. And that case will be made to Boris Johnson.”

The DUP, now Northern Ireland’s second party, is opposed to the protocol as it means checks on goods passing between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It allows the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic to stay open, in line with the Good Friday agreement.

However, the checks have meant delays for businesses.

The DUP leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, has said a “very clear message” needs to be sent to the UK government and the EU.

On Friday the former Brexit minister David Frost joined calls to scrap parts of the protocol. It is thought the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, could announce plans for legislation next week that would disapply some of the protocol. He said the UK should not “fear” a trade war with the EU.


DUP condemned for paralysing Stormont as protocol row deepens

McDonald said: “We’ve been here before. The British government threw out the process of Brexit and the negotiations and the ratification of the protocol.

“They have not acted in good faith, they have consistently threatened to act and have acted unilaterally.

“Let’s just be clear, the protocol is going nowhere, the protocol is a necessary outworking of Brexit, for which the Tory party and the DUP campaigned.

“The British government cannot use Ireland as a pawn, we won’t be the collateral damage in the Brexit negotiations.”

The DUP had a poor night in the elections, losing three seats, and its refusal to elect a speaker was criticised by Sinn Féin’s leader in Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill. The previous executive collapsed due to the resignation of the first minister, DUP politician Paul Givan, in February.

She added: “The British government have assisted the DUP in blocking tactics and this needs to stop. Certainly when we meet Mr Johnson on Monday we will make that clear to him.”

Why Politics is Toxic for Australia’s Women



Australian politics has a problem with women. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is accused of presiding over a culture of misogyny among the country’s political elite, where women face systemic mistreatment, and in some cases, sexual abuse.