After Roe, can states stop abortions on Native American lands?

Ben Adler
·Senior Editor
Thu, May 19, 2022,

Republican Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Sunday hinted at retribution for Indigenous Oklahomans should doctors readily perform abortions on tribal lands if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

But he was stepping outside the boundaries of state authority, according to Indigenous legal experts.

“The tribes in Oklahoma are super-liberal,” Stitt said on “Fox News Sunday,” as he discussed the implications of the leaked Supreme Court majority draft opinion, which indicated that the court is soon likely to revoke the constitutional right to an abortion. “We think that there’s a possibility that some tribes may try to set up abortion on demand. They think that you can be the 1/1,000th tribal member and not have to follow the state law. And so that’s something that we’re watching.

“Oklahomans will not think very well of that, if tribes try to set up abortion clinics,” he added.

Stitt signed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country this month. Experts in tribal sovereignty law, however, say that the legality of abortion on reservations probably won’t be up to the state government. While Oklahoma would criminalize abortion procedures if Roe v. Wade is overturned, as is widely anticipated, recognized tribes have considerable autonomy under federal law.

“Tribal nations existed before Oklahoma, and have a long history of women making health decisions for themselves,” Angelique EagleWoman, director of the Native American Law and Sovereignty Institute at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, told Yahoo News.

“Tribal nations, including the ones in Oklahoma, often entered in treaties — legal documents — with the United States. And, generally, treaties guarantee health services. Native Americans are the only people in the United States guaranteed public health services, and that’s administered through the federal agency called the Indian Health Service. There’s nowhere along the line of health care where the state attaches, or its laws come into play, for tribal members.”


Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt addresses a roundtable at the White House in June 2020.
(Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Many Native American women already lack direct access to abortions. Most pregnant women cannot obtain abortions from the Indian Health Service because of a 1976 law, known as the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or threat to the life of the mother. Those exceptions can be hard to prove. As a result, a 2002 study by the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center found that only 25 abortions had been performed in the Indian Health Service system since the law was passed.

Rachael Lorenzo, executive director for Indigenous Women Rising, an Indigenous abortion fund, recently told Indian Country Today that local Indian Health Service officials in Oklahoma and New Mexico don’t always offer abortion services even to women who qualify for one of the exceptions.

“Even though they are legally allowed to provide that care, they still don't, and every medical director has a different policy that guides their providers when they have a patient who is expressing they want to terminate their pregnancy,” Lorenzo said. “We have been told by providers ourselves that their medical directors tell them that they're not allowed to even mention abortion.”

Most Native American women who get abortions go to abortion clinics outside tribal land, which has already become increasingly difficult in more conservative states. Stitt recently signed a strict anti-abortion law, vowing that he wants his state to be “the most pro-life state in the country.” The Oklahoma law does not have an exception for victims of rape or incest.


Advocates for abortion rights march on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., to the Supreme Court on May 14. (Jose Luis Magana/AFP via Getty Images)

If the Supreme Court strikes down Roe next month, states would have even more leeway to enact strict abortion bans.

But state criminal law does not apply on reservations. “States are ousted from criminal jurisdiction on reservations,” EagleWoman said. “An understanding of tribal sovereignty and tribal jurisdiction would lead to the conclusion that there would be no engagement with state law whatsoever on tribal health care decisions or services.”

Oklahoma has the largest Native American population of any state, at more than 526,000, accounting for 13% of the state’s population. Oklahoma is home to 39 Indigenous nations and 19 million acres of reservation land, accounting for more than 40% of the state’s total.

Under a 1953 federal law, there are six states — Alaska, California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon and Wisconsin — that have jurisdiction over criminal law on reservations. Some other states, including Florida, Idaho, Montana and Washington, later obtained criminal law jurisdiction on reservations, but a 1968 law prevented any more states from doing so without tribal permission.

That is precisely why Stitt is concerned about Indigenous tribes setting up abortion clinics on reservations, once the facilities have been shuttered in the rest of his state. (Stitt’s office did not respond to a request for comment.)

The specific limits of tribal authority on the issue, however, have yet to be adjudicated by the courts. While a Native American provider of abortions on tribal land would be exempt from the Oklahoma law making it a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, to perform the procedure, that exception to state criminal law does not necessarily apply to interactions between non-Indigenous people, even on a reservation. If a non-Native doctor performed an abortion on a non-Native woman, Oklahoma might be able to prosecute a case, even if the clinic was on a reservation.

Under 19th century Supreme Court rulings, “white on white” crime on Native American land is still subject to state law. Oklahoma could argue that a non-Native doctor performing an abortion on a non-Native patient falls into this category, although it’s unclear whether a court would agree. (As a practical matter, experts say, state investigators would lack the legal authority to gather evidence on a reservation, making it difficult to prosecute.)


A nurse checks the vitals of a Navajo woman at a COVID-19 testing center at the Navajo Nation town of Monument Valley, Ariz., in May 2020. (Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images)

Then there’s the possibility that federal prosecutors could enforce state laws against abortion under federal laws that allow the federal government to prosecute under state law “major crimes” such as murder on reservations.

“Let’s say you are not an Indian, and you’re on Indian lands, and you engage in some acts related to abortion that is criminalized in the state. Here’s how you are federally prosecuted: The federal government will assert that it has exclusive jurisdiction over that crime,” Matthew Fletcher, director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center at Michigan State University and chief justice of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians Supreme Court, told Yahoo News. “So, if it is a crime in the state and the federal crime doesn’t prohibit it, what the United States attorney can do is bring a federal prosecution by assimilating state law. They borrow the state criminal law and apply it in federal court.

“That’s a choice that likely will not occur in the event of a Democratic administration,” Fletcher added. “But in a Republican administration, you could totally see it happening.”

Taken as a whole, law professors say, the laws governing state crimes on Indigenous land amount to a “jurisdictional maze.”

“It’s a gray area,” Fletcher said. “It’s messy.”

Contemporary African art festival returns to Senegal


Ethiopian painter Tegene Kunbi Senbeto was awarded for three of his large compositions of brightly coloured geometrical blocks on canvas (AFP/SEYLLOU) (SEYLLOU)


Thu, May 19, 2022, 1:01 PM·2 min read


The 14th edition of the Biennale of Contemporary African Art, the continent's largest contemporary art event, opened Thursday in Senegal's capital with the top prize awarded to an Ethiopian painter.

After a two-year delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the event will until June 21 showcase works by the continent's top names in photography, sculpture, textiles and performance art.

"It's a celebration of the visual arts, of human genius and spirit, an event that has resisted the vagaries of time for over 30 years," said Moustapha Ndiaye, chairman of the exhibition's steering committee.

President Macky Sall attended the opening ceremony at Dakar's Grand Theatre, which featured musical performances from the Senegalese group Orchestra Baobab and the Malian singer and kora player Sidiki Diabate.

Diabate, who comes from a long line of traditional storytellers, poets and musicians known as griots, interspersed his electrifying show with spoken messages directed to Sall, who is currently the chair of the African Union.

West African states including Senegal slapped economic and diplomatic sanctions on Mali in January after the ruling junta proposed staying in power for up to five years.

"The African griot is here this morning to entertain you here in Dakar, and to tell you that Mali and Senegal are the same country," he said in French, to applause.

"Mr. President, I'm here to show Mali's love for you and to make you change your mind," he said, in an apparent reference to the sanctions.

"Yes, we love you, Mr. President, and we also express our grievances so that the situation can change for my country, Mali," he pleaded.

The international event includes nearly 300 exhibitions in Dakar and the nearby islands of Ngor and Goree. Exhibitions are also being held in other cities around Senegal.

The last biennale, in 2018, generated more than 8 billion CFA francs ($12.9 million at current rates) in transactions, according to Ndiaye.

Sall presented the grand prize to Ethiopian painter Tegene Kunbi Senbeto for three of his large compositions of brightly coloured geometrical blocks on canvas.

Several other prizes were awarded to artists from Benin, Tunisia and Senegal.

lp/prc/lal/ah

Nobel winner Jose Ramos-Horta sworn in as East Timor president


Former independence fighter and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jose Ramos-Horta was sworn in as president of East Timor ahead of celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of independence for Asia’s youngest country.


© Provided by Al JazeeraJose Ramos-Horta smiles during a press conference in Dili on March 22, 2022 [Valentino Dariel Sousa/AFP]

Crowds cheered late Thursday night as Ramos-Horta travelled by motorcade to parliament, where a ceremony kicked off nationwide festivities commemorating East Timor’s 2002 independence from Indonesia, which invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975.

Ramos-Horta, 72, who led the resistance during Indonesia’s occupation, called for national reconciliation and unity as he took the oath of office shortly before midnight local time the time that the country declared independence 20 years ago.

“Today more than ever, we must be fully aware that only in unity will be able to achieve the development goals that we propose,” Ramos-Horta said.

The new president pledged to reduce poverty, improve health services for mothers and children, and promote a dialogue to restore political stability. He said he expects East Timor to become the 11th member of the regional bloc the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the next two years.

Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and Indonesian Coordinating Minister of Political, Law and Security Affairs Mohammad Mahfud were among those who attended the inauguration.

Ramos-Horta defeated incumbent Francisco “Lu Olo” Guterres, his fellow independence fighter, in an April 19 election runoff. Ramos-Horta, who was prime minister from 2006 to 2007 and president from 2007 to 2012, and Guterres have blamed each other for years of political paralysis in East Timor.

Living in exile for almost three decades and returning to East Timor at the end of 1999, Ramos-Horta was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996, along with Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo, in recognition of their work “toward a just and peaceful solution to the conflict” in the country.

“He is a great hero in the era of our struggle for independence,” Aderito Herin Martins, a resident of the capital, Dili, said of Ramos-Horta.

“Now it’s time for him to work on the critical issues of poverty and unemployment that still face our country as he promised in his campaign.”

East Timor’s transition to a democracy has been rocky, with leaders battling massive poverty, unemployment and corruption as the country continues to struggle with the legacy of its bloody independence battle and bitter factional politics that have occasionally erupted into violence.

The country’s economy is reliant on dwindling offshore oil revenues.

The United Nations estimates that nearly half of East Timor’s population lives below the extreme poverty line of $1.90 a day, and for every 1,000 babies born in the country, 42 die before their fifth birthday because of malnutrition.

Residents voted overwhelmingly for independence in a 1999 referendum held under UN auspices, despite widespread Indonesian intimidation and violence.

The vote had been unexpectedly offered by an overconfident Indonesian government following a long-running but largely fruitless resistance struggle. Indonesia’s military responded to the referendum results with a scorched-earth campaign that left East Timor devastated. Australia spearheaded a UN military mission to restore order from the chaos as the Indonesian forces left.

It took almost three more years for the half-island nation of just over one million people to become an independent and sovereign country on May 20, 2002.

Cannes war films delve into France’s painful colonial legacies

Benjamin DODMAN

The Cannes Film Festival explored the devastating human cost of war and colonisation in Philippe Faucon’s Algerian War film “Les Harkis” and the Omar Sy-starring “Father and Soldier”, whose director Mathieu Vadepied sat down for an interview with FRANCE 24.

© Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival

In November 1998, just months after France’s multi-racial football team lifted its first World Cup title, another legacy of the country’s colonial history passed away quietly in a faraway village north of Dakar, in Senegal.

Abdoulaye Ndiaye, who died aged 104, was the last of the Tirailleurs, the Senegalese riflemen who fought for their colonial masters in the trenches of northern France during World War I. He died just one day before France’s then-president, Jacques Chirac, was due to decorate him with the Legion of Honour in belated recognition of his services.

The failure to acknowledge Ndiaye’s sacrifice during his lifetime has stuck with French director Mathieu Vadepied ever since, inspiring the long-gestating project that has finally come to completion at the Cannes Film Festival.

“It felt like a symbol of France’s failure to recognise the Tirailleurs and tell their story,” said the director, a day after his film opened the festival’s Un Certain Regard sidebar to hearty applause.

Vadepied, who has travelled and worked in Senegal and elsewhere in Africa, said he felt a duty to exhume the history of the Tirailleurs. His film is a tribute to the young men of Senegal and other French colonies who were snatched from their homes and forced to fight in a war that meant nothing to them, for a “motherland” whose language most didn’t speak.

While the film’s original title, “Tirailleurs”, has evocative power in French, its English version highlights the director’s concern to approach war through an intimate focus on a father’s relationship with the son he is desperate to protect. “Lupin” star Omar Sy, the son of Senegalese immigrants, plays a weary village farmer who enrols in the army to watch over his son after he is forcefully conscripted by the French.

Vadepied stressed the importance of rooting his story in Senegal and keeping an intimate gaze on the film’s protagonists while giving war itself a distinctly unspectacular treatment.

“I needed to start my story in Africa, to give a flavour of the protagonists’ lives before war and how the colonial experience came to shatter their world. I wanted the beauty and musicality of the Peul language to give a specific texture to the characters,” he said.

“We know the history of the war, but not that of the Tirailleurs,” Vadepied said, highlighting cinema’s “mission to educate, to pass on stories and historical memories, while also interrogating the society we live in.” He added: “The story of France’s colonial troops needs to be recognised and told, to allow subsequent generations to identify with this history too.”

As Sy, the son of Senegalese immigrants, told the audience at the Cannes premiere, “We don’t have the same (historical) memory, but we share the same history.”

The abandonment of Algeria's Harkis

“After this battle, you will no longer be indigenous, you will be French!” yells an officer in one of the film’s rare battle scenes, moments before the Tirailleurs leap out of the trenches and charge into muddy no-man’s land, soon to be mowed down by enemy fire. Similar empty promises were at the heart of Philippe Faucon’s “Les Harkis”, which screened in Cannes on Thursday, part of the Directors’ Fortnight running parallel with the festival.

The veteran French director, who was born to a French-Algerian pied-noir mother, has focused his latest work on the Algerian Muslims – known as Harkis – who served as auxiliaries in the French army during the country’s gruesome war of independence between 1954 and 1962.

The movie’s Cannes premiere coincides with the 60th anniversary of the end of a conflict that left open wounds on either side of the Mediterranean, and comes just months after President Emmanuel Macron asked for “forgiveness” on behalf of France for the abandonment of the Harkis.

>> Read more: Algerians and French share their stories of the Algerian War

“Join France, she will not betray you,” says an officer early in the film as reluctant recruits line up to enrol in the Harki units – some to feed their families, others out of loyalty to France or to avenge a family member killed by independence fighters. Little do they know that the government in Paris is about to negotiate a way out of the bloody conflict, leaving them behind.

When the French government eventually pulled its forces out, it left a majority of the Harkis to fend for themselves, despite earlier assurances that it would look after them. Trapped in Algeria, many were massacred as the country's new rulers took brutal revenge. Thousands of others were placed in camps in France, often with their families, in degrading and traumatising conditions.

Like Vadepied’s film, “Les Harkis” is not a conventional war film. It is less interested in the battle scenes than in the physical and emotional impact of war on its characters, and the heart-wrenching decisions they are compelled to make in the hope of preserving their livelihoods and those of their loved ones.

The movies talk about different wars, different epochs, and two countries with very different experiences of French rule. But they share a common concern for the human cost of war and colonisation, and for the need to confront troubled histories that continue to poison both France’s politics and its relations with its former colonies.

Sandstorms pose serious risk to human health


A satellite image provided by NASA Earth Observatory taken on May 5, 2022, shows a dust storm engulfing parts of Iraq and neighbouring countries (AFP/-)

Isabelle CORTES
Thu, May 19, 2022

Sandstorms have engulfed the Middle East in recent days, in a phenomenon experts warn could proliferate because of climate change, putting human health at grave risk.

At least 4,000 people went to hospital Monday for respiratory issues in Iraq where eight sandstorms have blanketed the country since mid-April.

That was on top of the more than 5,000 treated in Iraqi hospitals for similar respiratory ailments earlier this month.

The phenomenon has also smothered Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates with more feared in the coming days.

Strong winds lift large amounts of sand and dust into the atmosphere, that can then travel hundreds, even thousands, of kilometres (miles).

Sandstorms have affected a total of 150 countries and regions, adversely impacting on the environment, health and the economy, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said.

"It's a phenomenon that is both local and global, with a stronger intensity in areas of origin," said Carlos Perez Garcia-Pando, a sand and dust storm expert at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies.

The storms originate in dry or semi-dry regions of North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Central Asia and China.

Other less affected areas include Australia, the Americas and South Africa.

The UN agency WMO has warned of the "serious risks" posed by airborne dust.

The fine dust particles can cause health problems such as asthma and cardiovascular ailments, and also spread bacteria and viruses as well as pesticides and other toxins.

"Dust particle size is a key determinant of potential hazard to human health," the WMO said.

Small particles that can be smaller than 10 micrometres can often become trapped in the nose, mouth and upper respiratory tract, and as a result it is associated with respiratory disorders such as asthma and pneumonia.

- 'Unbreathable' -

The most at-risk are the oldest and youngest as well as those struggling with respiratory and cardiac problems.

And the most affected are residents in countries regularly battered by sandstorms, unlike in Europe where dust coming from the Sahara is rare, like the incident in March.

Depending on the weather and climate conditions, sand dust can remain in the atmosphere for several days and travel great distances, at times picking up bacteria, pollen, fungi and viruses.

"However, the seriousness is less than with ultrafine particles, for example from road traffic, which can penetrate the brain or the blood system," says Thomas Bourdrel, a radiologist, researcher at the University of Strasbourg and a member of Air Health Climate collective.

Even if the sand particles are less toxic than particles produced by combustion, their "extreme density during storms causes a fairly significant increase in cardio-respiratory mortality, especially among the most vulnerable," he said.

With "a concentration of thousands of cubic micrometres in the air, it's almost unbreathable", said Garcia-Pando.

The sandstorms' frequency and intensity could worsen because of climate change, say some scientists.

But the complex phenomenon is "full of uncertainties" and is affected by a cocktail of factors like heat, wind and agricultural practices, Garcia-Pando told AFP.

"In some areas, climate change could reduce the winds that cause storms, but extreme events could persist, even rise," he said.

With global temperatures rising, it is very likely that more and more parts of the Earth will become drier.

"This year, a significant temperature anomaly was observed in East Africa, in the Middle East, in East Asia, and this drought affects plants, a factor that can increase sandstorms," the Spanish researcher said.

ic/ito/cel/npk/raz/gw

Bolsonaro In Renewed Attack On Voting System


By AFP News
05/19/22 

Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday renewed his attacks on the country's electronic voting system ahead of October elections in which he will face off against favorite Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro, lagging in opinion polls behind leftist ex-president Lula, has long sought to discredit the voting system in place since 1996, saying last year he would not recognize the election outcome unless the whole operation was replaced.

On Thursday, he told a meeting in Rio de Janeiro: "We cannot have an electoral system over which the shadow of suspicion hangs."

Voters in Brazil cast their ballots electronically at voting stations. But Bolsonaro has long argued for a paper printout to be made of each vote cast, suggesting the absence of a paper trail makes cheating easier.

He has not provided evidence of fraud, and the Superior Electoral Court insists the system is transparent and has never been tainted by irregularities.

Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro's comments about the country's electronic voting system have led analysts to fear that he may refuse to accept defeat in a scenario similar to the January 2021 invasion of the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump 

Photo: AFP / EVARISTO SA

Electronic voting allows for same-day election results in the giant country of 213 million people.

Earlier this month, Bolsonaro said his political party would sign a contract with a private company to audit the election.

And this week, he said Brazil could have "turbulent" elections.

"Imagine that on the evening of the vote, one side or the other has the suspicion that the election was not above board. We don't want that," he said on Thursday.

His repeated questioning of the system has prompted the Supreme Court to open an investigation into Bolsonaro.

His comments have led analysts to fear that he may refuse to accept defeat in a scenario similar to the January 2021 invasion of the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump, a hero of Bolsonaro's.

EDF’s UK Nuclear Project Cost Swells, Pushing Start Further Back

Francois de Beaupuy
Thu, May 19, 2022,


(Bloomberg) -- Electricite de France SA’s flagship Hinkley Point C nuclear plant project will cost more than expected and take longer to complete as the pandemic, supply-chain disruptions and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine boost the cost of materials and weigh on progress.

EDF now expects the two reactors it’s building in Southwest England to cost between £25 billion ($31.2 billion) and £26 billion, the French energy giant said in a statement Thursday. That’s up from a previous range of £22 to £23 billion.

It’s the fourth budget increase in five years. The company also pushed back the date when the first reactor will produce power by 1 year to June 2027.

“People, resources and supply chain have been severely constrained,” EDF said in the statement.

The two reactors are blazing a trail for a nuclear renaissance in Britain, as the government seeks to boost the country’s energy independence and reduce its reliance on fossil fuels. While rising costs of metals, cement and labor are affecting numerous industries, the revised plan may revive a controversy over how expensive the technology is and whether further holdups are inevitable.

The reassessment comes as EDF is in talks with the UK government to arrange financing for a second UK nuclear plant that would use the same design. Delays and cost overruns may put off investors at a crucial point in negotiations for the proposed Sizewell project. Reactors compete for investor capital with renewables, which provide returns much quicker.

EDF has previously increased the Hinkley Point budget in 2017, 2019 and in January 2021, from an initial estimate of £18 billion when the contract was signed with the U.K. in 2016. The debt-laden French utility has a 66.5% stake in Hinkley Point C and China General Nuclear Power Corp. owns the rest. The cost overruns may force the French company to take on a larger part of the project.

New one year delay at UK Hinkley Point nuclear plant: EDF


PUBLISHED : 20 MAY 2022
WRITER: AFP

Hinkley Point, in southwest England, is Britain's first new nuclear power plant in more than two decades

PARIS - An already-delayed giant nuclear plant in southwest England will open a year later than planned and cost up to pound sterling3 billion more than previously thought, French electricity giant EDF said Thursday.

The total cost of Hinkley Point C, which aims to provide seven percent of Britain's total power needs, had already swelled to as much as pound sterling23 billion and had been due to begin generation in June 2026, already well behind schedule.

Hinkley Point is Britain's first new nuclear power plant in more than two decades.

"The start of electricity generation for Unit 1 is targeted for June 2027, the risk of further delay of the two units is assessed at 15 months, assuming the absence of a new pandemic wave and no additional effects of the war in Ukraine," EDF said in a statement adding that costs were now estimated between pound sterling25 billion ($31 billion, 30 billion euros) and pound sterling26 billion.

EDF said in its statement that there would be no additional cost to British consumers.

"During more than two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, the project continued without stopping. This protected the integrity of the supply chain and allowed the completion of major milestones. However, people, resources and supply chain have been severely constrained and their efficiency has been restricted.

"In addition, the quantities of materials and engineering as well as the cost of such activities, including, in particular marine works have risen," it added.

- 'Risky and expensive' -

Britain has a total of 15 nuclear reactors at eight sites around the country, but many of them are now approaching the end of their lifespan.

However, the government wants to maintain the 20 percent of electricity it generates from nuclear to help meet its pledge to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 and tackle climate change.

Critics have focused on the proposed design, which uses a new European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) system that has been beset by huge cost overruns and delays at sites in France and Finland.

Britain's National Audit Office has long criticised the scheme, with the watchdog saying the government has "locked consumers into a risky and expensive project with uncertain strategic and economic benefits".

Launched in 1992 as the pinnacle of French nuclear technology, the EPR was originally developed by Areva in a joint venture with Germany's Siemens, which later withdrew.

Later taken over by EDF, the project called for a plant able to operate for 60 years using pressurised water technology, the most widely-used in reactors around the world.

Similar problems to those at Hinkley have hit EDF's project at Flamanville in western France, although the firm has successfully launched two reactors with Chinese partners in Taishan, China.

US says 'Hotel Rwanda' hero 'wrongfully detained'


AFP

The United States said Thursday it has determined that "Hotel Rwanda" hero Paul Rusesabagina has been "wrongfully detained" by Kigali, which handed him a 25-year prison term.

Rusesabagina, who holds US permanent residence and Belgian citizenship, has denounced Rwandan President Paul Kagame as a dictator and was sentenced by a court on "terrorism" charges.

"The Department of State has determined Paul Rusesabagina is wrongfully detained," a spokesperson for the agency said.

"The determination took into account the totality of the circumstances, notably the lack of fair trial guarantees during his trial," it said.

The designation requires the State Department, which has earlier voiced concern about the case, to work to free him.

Rusesabagina, then a Kigali hotel manager, is credited with saving hundreds of lives during the 1994 genocide and his actions inspired the Hollywood film "Hotel Rwanda."

He has been behind bars since his arrest in August 2020 when a plane he believed was bound for Burundi landed instead in Kigali.

His family in a statement voiced hope that the designation will bring "increased pressure" from the United States on Rwanda to free him.

"Most importantly, Rusesabagina's health is deteriorating, and his family fears that he will die in jail in Rwanda if something is not done by the United States and others to free him," it said.

"He is a 67-year-old cancer survivor who appears to have suffered one or more strokes in recent months," it said, adding that visitors had recently noticed he was experiencing pain in his left arm.

Rusesabagina's family recently filed a $400 million lawsuit in the United States against Kagame, the Rwandan government and other figures for allegedly abducting and torturing him.

Rusesabagina was convicted in September of involvement in a rebel group blamed for deadly gun, grenade and arson attacks in Rwanda in 2018 and 2019.

sct/des

Russia's invasion of Ukraine sets off Latin American fertilizer race




Portuguesa is an agricultural region known as Venezuela's 'granary' 

(AFP/Yuri CORTEZ)

Esteban ROJAS with Latin American bureaus
Thu, May 19, 2022,

The first rainy season downpour in Venezuela's western region of Portuguesa has fallen and now it's time to plant corn, a staple in this South American country known for its traditional arepas.

But just like much of Latin America, the race is on to find enough fertilizer for the crops.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine 10,000 kilometers away has limited the supply of the key agricultural supplement throughout the region.

Some 80 percent of the 180,000 metric tons of fertilizers used annually in Venezuela are imported, mostly from Russia but also from Ukraine and Belarus, according to the Fedeagro union of agricultural producers.

Western sanctions against Russia and Belarus, as well as Ukraine's difficulties in exporting while under siege, has left the whole of Latin America scrambling to find replacements.

Russia is the world's largest exporter of fertilizers with more than 12 percent of the global market, but its sales have been virtually paralyzed by sanctions.


"Thank God we managed to buy Russian fertilizers in business talks in October and November, paid in December and they were able to arrive in February and March," Celso Fantinel, the Fedeagro president, told AFP.

However, Fantinel said they are still short by about a third of their needs -- but the weather waits for no-one, and there is no time to find alternatives.

As it is "we're producing 30 percent of our capacity" due to Venezuela's economic crisis that saw the country suffer eight years of recession and four years of hyperinflation, said Ramon Bolotin, president of the PAI independent agricultural producers.

"Even so, there aren't enough fertilizers for this 30 percent."

"Chemical fertilizers are essential," he said, for a country where three percent of the 30 million population works in agriculture "to feed the other 97 percent."

"We'll work with what we have ... although in some places they will need to underdose."

- Massive shortage -

For Venezuelan farmers, it is yet another headache in a country already suffering fuel shortages due to the collapse of its vital oil industry.

In Portuguesa, an agricultural region known as Venezuela's "granary," petrol station queues stretch for kilometers.

Venezuela's farming sector was expecting to sow 250,000 hectares of corn, 50,000 of rice, 60,000 of sugarcane and 70,000 of other products such as coffee and cacao, according to Fedeagro.

The fertilizer shortfall is a massive obstacle. One hectare of corn crops can produce 10 tons of harvest, but that figure can fall to as low as three or four tons if the conditions are not right.

The whole of Latin America faces the same issue, particularly its two agricultural giants.

Last year, Brazil imported almost 81 percent of the 40.5 million tons of fertilizer it used, and 20 percent of that came from Russia, according to the government.

Argentina imported 60 percent of its 6.6 million tons, of which 15 percent came from Russia.

Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru are also, to a greater or lesser extent, dependent on Russian fertilizers.

In March, Ecuador President Guillermo Lasso said his government would subsidize fertilizer imports due to the "increase in the price of agricultural materials" sparked by the international crisis.

Horst Hobener, a corn grower in Turen, Portuguesa, told AFP prices have risen 120 percent in a matter of months.

- Alternatives sought -

The collapse of Venezuela's oil industry has affected the petrochemical industry, which in the past covered the internal demand for fertilizers.

"This has been felt a lot," said Fedeagro vice-president Osman Quero.

"In the last three years we have been sourcing the fertilizers ourselves" through intermediaries.

Farmers have asked the government to reactivate its petrochemical complex in the northern Carabobo state, which has been semi-paralyzed since 2017.

According to state oil company PDVSA, it has the capacity to produce 150,000 metric tons of nitrogenous and phosphate fertilizers a year.

Russian fertilizers used by farmers in Turen are made up of 10 percent nitrogen, 26 percent phosphorus and 26 percent potassium.

"We have two fundamental ingredients: urea (nitrogen) and phosphorus and we would only need to import potassium chloride," said Fantinel.

They are exploring other options but the global shortfall has meant many exporters have suspended sales due to their own domestic needs.

Ruben Carrasco from the Lima Chamber of Commerce told AFP that Russia is looking for ways to use third parties such as Norway to return to the market.

"Who knows, maybe next year other alternative sources will be tried," said Bolotin.

erc/jt/bc/des

Ontario Liberal candidate a long-time employee of U.S. coal polluter

Bryan Passifiume 

POSTMEDIA

As the Ontario Liberals vow to legislate limits on industrial pollution and further green energy policy throughout the province, one candidate in a key Windsor-area riding has spent the past 25 years working for an American energy company that largely relies on coal-fired power plants.


Photo of DTE Energy's St. Clair Power Plant across the St. Clair River from Ontario.

Running in the hotly-contested riding of Essex for the Ontario Liberal Party, Manpreet Brar’s official biography lists her as an “information technology professional” for a Michigan-based “Fortune 500 company for the last 24 years,” as well as an employee of an energy company boasting over “2.2 million customers.”

Online professional directories list Brar as an employee of DTE Energy, a 136-year-old power generation corporation that operates four coal-fired power plants along the Canada-U.S. border.

Once the heart of the American car industry and part of the industrial manufacturing belt that dominated the northeastern United States, pollution and industrial contamination in the Detroit-area remains a serious environmental issue.

According to DTE’s own data , just under 58 per cent of the company’s electricity is generated using coal — followed by nuclear (28 per cent,) natural gas (8.95 per cent,) and less than one per cent for oil and hydroelectric generation.

DTE’s renewable generation capacity sits at just under 10 per cent — mostly consisting of wind generation but also one per cent or less using biomass, solar or wood.

Regional averages across all power plants in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin put coal generation at 36 per cent, followed by nuclear at 28 per cent and 26 per cent for natural gas.

DTE’s sulfur dioxide emissions last year amounted to about three lbs. (1.3 kilograms) per megawatt hour, well above the regional average of 1.16 lbs. per megawatt hour.

DTE also generated around 1,000 lbs. more carbon dioxide per megawatt hour than the regional average, and 1.31 lbs. of nitrogen dioxide per megawatt hour last year — above the 0.82 lb. generated by other plants.

A byproduct of burning sulfur-rich fossil fuels, long-term exposure to even small amounts of environmental sulfur dioxide can be hazardous to human health.

Two years ago, DTE agreed to begin reducing emissions at their southeast Michigan coal-fired power plants as part of a settlement with the EPA that stemmed from a 2010 lawsuit filed by the U.S. government for violations of the federal Clean Air Act.

As part of that settlement, DTE will install pollution controls on its coal-fired Belle River, River Rouge, St. Clair and Trenton Channel power plants, invest $5.5 million to replace older diesel school and municipal transit buses with newer, cleaner models, and $1.8 million in civil litigation penalties.

Upon completion, these programs should reduce annual sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by around 125,000 metric tons.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the Detroit area had failed to meet air quality standards imposed to limit sulphur dioxide emissions.

This determination, the EPA said in a news release, puts the U.S. governmental agency on the road towards developing a federal plan to reduce emissions after a successful 2016 lawsuit by U.S. Steel overturned mandates from state regulators to draft plans to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions.

Ontario’s last coal-fired power plant, Thunder Bay Generating Station, went off-line in early 2014 — the fulfillment of policy enacted in 2002 by then-Premier Ernie Eves to make the province Canada’s first to do away with coal generation.

Former Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne later introduced legislation banning coal from ever again being used for power generation in the province.

The Ontario Liberals’ 2022 platform takes credit for Ontario’s coal plant shutdown, claiming a 24 per cent reduction in carbon emissions and subsequent reductions in cases of asthma and daily smog alerts.

The party pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions 50 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, and reach net-zero by 2050 — in addition to halving existing methane pollution levels and investing $9 billion in green energy jobs.

“We’ll require high-emitting industries, which create up to 30 per cent of Ontario’s total carbon pollution, to cut their emissions further by strengthening the Emissions Performance Standards in line with our 2030 target,” read the Liberal platform’s chapter on eliminating carbon emissions.