Militant attacks hurt Pakistan relations with Afghan Taliban

By KATHY GANNON

May 19, 2022

1 of 6

FILE- Police officers attend the funeral prayer of a colleague who was killed in an overnight attack by Pakistani Taliban who targeted police in multiple attacks in Islamabad and elsewhere in the country's northwest, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Jan. 18, 2022. Faced with rising violence, Pakistan is taking a tougher line to pressure Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to crack down on militants hiding on their soil, but so far the Taliban remain reluctant to take action -- trying instead to broker a peace. (AP Photo, File)


ISLAMABAD (AP) — Faced with rising violence, Pakistan is taking a tougher line to pressure Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to crack down on militants hiding on their soil, but so far the Taliban remain reluctant to take action — trying instead to broker a peace.

Last month came a sharp deterioration in relations between the two neighbors when Pakistan carried out airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan. Witnesses said the strikes hit a refugee camp and another location, killing at least 40 civilians. UNICEF said 20 children were believed to be among the dead.

Pakistan never confirmed the April 15 strikes, but two days later its Foreign Ministry issued a sharp warning to the Taliban not to shelter militants.

The pressure has put the Taliban in a tight corner. The Taliban have long been close to several militant groups carrying out attacks in Pakistan, particularly the Pakistani Taliban, a separate organization known by the acronym TTP. The TTP and other groups have only got more active on Afghan soil since the Taliban takeover in August.

But the Taliban are wary of cracking down on them, fearful of creating more enemies at a time when they already face an increasingly violent campaign by Afghanistan’s Islamic State group affiliate, analysts say.

A series of bombings across Afghanistan in recent weeks, mostly targeting minority Hazaras, has killed dozens. Most are blamed on the Islamic State affiliate, known by the acronym IS-K. The bloodshed has undermined the Taliban’s claims to be able to provide the security expected of a governing force.

This week, the Taliban hosted talks between the TTP and a Pakistani government delegation as well as a group of Pakistani tribal leaders, apparently hoping for a compromise that can ease the pressure. On Wednesday, the TTP announced it was extending to May 30 an earlier cease-fire it had called.

The Taliban government’s deputy spokesman Bilal Karimi said it “is trying its best for the continuation and success of the negotiations and meanwhile asks both sides to have flexibility.”

But past cease-fires with the TTP have failed, and already the current one was shaken by violence last weekend.

Pakistan’s frustration appears to be growing as violence on its soil has increased.

The secessionist Baluchistan Liberation Army killed three Chinese nationals in late April. The TTP and the Afghan-based IS have targeted Pakistan’s military with increasing regularity.

Militant attacks in Pakistan are up nearly 50% since the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, according to the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies, an independent think tank based in Islamabad that tracks militant activities. The group documented 170 attacks between September and mid-May that killed 170 police, military and paramilitary personnel and more than 110 civilians.

The United Nations estimates that as many as 10,000 TTP militants are hiding in Afghanistan. So far, Afghanistan’s rulers have done little to dismantle militant redoubts on their territory.

Prominent Afghans from southern Afghanistan, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said the Pakistani Taliban and Pakistani Baluch secessionists had established several safe houses in the area during the previous U.S.-backed government’s rule and they have remained since the Taliban takeover.

The Pakistani airstrikes in April marked a dramatically tougher stance. They came after a militant ambush killed seven soldiers near the border with Afghanistan. Pakistani and Afghani border forces often exchange rocket fire amid disputes over the frontier — but it is rare for Pakistan to use warplanes on targets inside its neighbor.

The change came after weeks of political turmoil in Pakistan that unseated Imran Khan as prime minister. Khan had been an advocate of negotiations with militants and had campaigned for the world to engage with the Taliban after their takeover in Afghanistan.

Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the U.S.-based Wilson Center said Khan “had a soft spot for the Taliban as well as a principled opposition to the use of force in Afghanistan.”

With Khan now out of the picture and TTP attacks continuing, “we can expect a stronger Pakistani readiness to use military operations,” he said.

The Afghan Taliban are warning Pakistan against further military action, threatening retaliation.

The airstrikes “are not acceptable,” Taliban-appointed Defense Minister Mohammad Yaqoob warned Pakistan in late April. “The only reason we have tolerated this attack is because of our national interest, but it is possible we will not be so tolerant in the future.”

The son of the Taliban founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, Yaqoob is a powerful figure in the Taliban leadership, which is struggling to stay united amid disagreements about how to govern their war-ravaged nation.

The leadership council seems firmly split between two camps: the pragmatists and hard-liners. Pragmatists have pushed for global engagement and opening of schools to girls of all ages. The hard-liners want to return Afghanistan to the late 1990s Taliban rule when women and girls were denied access to most public spaces and a rigid and unforgiving version of Islam and tribal rule was imposed.

A flurry of repressive edicts of late suggest the hard-liners have the upper hand, including an order that women wear all-encompassing veils that leave only the eyes visible and a decision not to allow girls to attend school past the sixth grade.

Yaqoob falls among the pragmatists, according to several prominent Afghans familiar with the Taliban leadership. Still, there seems no decision among the leaders on either side of the divide to oust militants on their territory.

“I do not see any quick fix to the Pakistan-Afghan situation. The Taliban will continue to provide sanctuary to the TTP and hope they can extend their own influence into Pakistan over time,” said Shuja Nawaz, an expert and fellow at the South Asia Center of the U.S-based Atlantic Council.

“So, expect the situation to deteriorate, especially with the (Pakistan) military calling the shots on Afghan policy,” Nawaz said.

How gas interests slowed Chile’s clean energy transition

By DIANE JEANTET

FILE - Solar panels stand in the Quilapilún solar energy plant, a joint venture by Chile and China, in Colina, Chile, Aug. 20, 2019. Chile has long held itself out as a global leader in the fight against climate change and now nearly 22% of Chile’s power is generated by solar and wind farms, putting it far ahead of both the global average, 10%.

 (AP Photo/Esteban Felix, File)


RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Chile holds itself out as a global leader on climate change. Nearly 22% of Chile’s electricity is generated by solar and wind farms, putting it far ahead of both the global average, 10%, and the United States, at 13%. It was one of the first countries to declare a target for renewable energy, in 2008.

Yet even as solar farms have spread across the north and center of the long, narrow nation, imported natural gas, a polluting fossil fuel, has been able to sideline the clean electricity they provide thanks to a sweet deal won from the government.

Marcelo Mena, a former environment minister in Chile, witnessed that waste of clean power before he took the helm at the new Global Methane Hub, a nonprofit aimed at reducing global methane emissions. Natural gas is basically methane.

”They’re actually hindering the power that we can deliver from renewable energy,” Mena said of his experience with natural gas in an interview with the Associated Press. “It’s been more of an opposition towards 100% renewable target.”

Mena became disillusioned as he saw renewable energy pushed out by fossil fuels in the north of the country, where sunshine is most plentiful.

“At the same time, in the south of Chile, there is a big lack of natural gas for heating and people are heating themselves with wood and choking on it. It was such a big contradiction,” said Mena. “That’s my personal journey.”

Chile provides a view into the way fossil fuel companies can manage to stay on top, even under governments that try to pursue clean energy.

The shock that led to an energy transition in Chile came in the mid 2000s, when Argentina drastically reduced gas exports to Chile to focus on its domestic market. Chileans faced strict power rationing and regular blackouts.

After scrambling to come up with an alternative, the nation saw an opportunity.

Chile receives some of the strongest and most consistent sunshine on the planet, especially in the Atacama Desert, in the north. So it was natural for the country to seek investment in solar and wind projects through public auctions and quotas that required electricity companies to offer a minimum amount of renewable energy.

Investors heard their call. Developers built out hundreds of solar, wind and geothermal plants throughout the country, which stretches 4,300km (2,700 miles) from north to south.

But the devil was in the details. To provide power when the sun wasn’t shining, the government also invested heavily in fossil fuel infrastructure.

Natural gas importers and owners of gas-fired plants successfully argued that to secure long-term contracts for gas, they needed a guarantee that the Chilean power grid would take their gas-fired electricity even when other, greener generators were making plenty of power.

Chilean power generator Colbun, a large consumer of natural gas, said international contracts in which LNG importers must pay for gas whether they need it or not, along with a lack of storage, leave the sector vulnerable.

“It is important that the regulations recognize this condition so that the electricity market has enough natural gas to ensure the safety and competitiveness of the system,” the company said in an emailed response to the AP.

The government allowed them to declare electricity from LNG imports as “forced gas,” meaning gas-fired electricity was given priority on the power market, which otherwise favors renewables.

“Any situation in the electricity market that preferences fossil fuel, taking space away from renewables, is a loss for the environment and for the energy transition,” said Ana Lía Rojas, who leads the Chilean Association of Renewable Energies and Storage.

Another consequence of forcing gas-fired electricity into the market is that it lowered electricity prices for all providers, meaning they got paid less, said Alfredo Solar, a solar plant manager with over 20 years of experience.

“I have worked in solar plants that, for example, were in default because the market price was much lower than what was projected,” Solar said, stressing that providers of renewable energy operate without contracts and depend on those revenues.

Emissions from burning gas, oil and coal for electricity, transportation and other uses are the chief driver of climate change. Last year, researchers calculated that nearly 60% of the world’s oil and gas reserves and 90% of the coal reserves need to stay underground by 2050 in order to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.

Natural gas or methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that has an even stronger impact on the environment than carbon dioxide, in the short term. Methane traps heat 84 times more effectively than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, making methane reduction one of the fastest routes to reducing global warming, experts said.

In November, during the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, the Biden administration, the European Union and dozens of other nations pledged to reduce overall methane emissions worldwide by 30% by 2030.

Last year, the Chilean government reduced the advantage given to natural gas power providers. Their power still enters the grid at a reduced price, but is not supposed to displace renewables. Yet the concept of “forced gas” still exists, and renewable advocates in Chile say the changes are not enough.

In other countries, battery storage is rapidly taking the place of new gas-fired power plants because they can provide electricity to the grid when the sun is down or the wind is not blowing. In the United States, this kind of stored electricity has increased 1200% in five years. An amount equaling what three nuclear plants can provide was installed in 2021. That was double the year before.

But large-scale battery storage is still too expensive to be widely used in Chile, said Daniel Salazar, former executive director of Chile’s northern power grid, now with consultancy firm EnergiE. “Chile has several projects, but they are still high-cost solutions that do not compete with other options,” Salazar said.

Even Rojas, of the Chilean renewable energy association, supported the role of natural gas. “Natural gas is the fuel of the energy transition, the technology that will allow us to make those adjustments, as long as it never takes space away from renewables,” she said.

In many other countries, the idea of natural gas as the fuel that enables the energy transition is fading. That’s because the fuel is only more climate friendly than coal if it does not leak out and is not deliberately released from wells and infrastructure along its path to the power plant. But studies and satellite imagery show both things do happen.

By 2030, solar power should account for 30% of total installed electricity capacity in Chile, according to the Association of Power Generators. That would make it the nation’s largest source of power.

Mena, the former environment minister, said the established energy companies used to tell him that phaseout of fossil fuels takes a long time. Five years ago, he said, people were telling him the price of solar could never plunge. But it did. “My take-home message is change comes from unreasonable people,” willing to go up against what is supposedly impossible, he said pointing to Chile’s large and growing clean energy sector. “We need unreasonable people making that change.”

____

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

EMOTIONAL PLAGUE

Suicides indicate wave of ‘doomerism’ over escalating climate crisis

While alarm over wildfires, droughts, flooding and societal unrest is on the rise, not many of us talk about climate angstThis article contains a description of a suicide

Wildfire approaches a woman’s house on the island of Evia, Greece, in August 2021. 

Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Oliver Milman
@olliemilman

Thu 19 May 2022 

It was a stunning, grisly act. A man, a climate activist and Buddhist, had set himself on fire on the steps of the US supreme court. He sat upright and didn’t immediately scream despite the agony. Police officers desperately plunged nearby orange traffic cones into the court’s marbled fountain and hurled water at him. It wasn’t enough to save him.

The death of Wynn Bruce, a 50-year-old photographer who lived in Boulder, Colorado, was a shock to those who knew him. “It was so upsetting,” said April Lyons, a psychotherapist who knew Bruce from a therapeutic dance class they both took. “He was a solid person, a compassionate, kind person. We had no idea he’d do this.”

Activists held a vigil at the New York supreme court for Wynn Bruce. Photograph: Karla Ann Cote/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock

Bruce’s father, Douglas, said he was sure the self-immolation – on 22 April, which is Earth Day – was “a fearless act of compassion about his concern for the environment”. There is no explicit evidence of this, although Bruce had posted a fire emoji to Facebook along with the Earth Day date of his upcoming suicide.

To some, though, the terrible act was an indication of the curdling anguish that many people now harbor over the escalating climate crisis. Bruce’s death felt hauntingly familiar.

Four years ago nearly to the exact date, David Buckel, a civil rights lawyer, walked to New York City’s Prospect Park early one morning, doused himself with gasoline and set himself alight. Unlike Bruce, Buckel, who was 60, left a two-page note emailed to media outlets minutes before his death stating that “my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves.”

Bruce’s death “did make me think of what David did and also the incredible pain this sort of act causes the people who love them”, said Terry Kaelber, who was Buckel’s husband. The duo were vegetarians and dutifully did their recycling. Buckel, a keen composter, had become somewhat agitated about environmental depredation. “You can never expect this, though,” said Kaelber. “My heart pours out to Wynn’s family.”

The deaths also provoked a sense of frustration that such horrific acts are not only contemplated, but then have an ephemeral impact when they do occur. Kaelber said that after the flowers of condolence were cleared from near the scorched grass of Prospect Park, some climate activists took to wearing red ribbons to remind others of Buckel’s sacrifice. But that, too, soon faded.

“We have no leaders on this issue, none, no one,” Kaelber said. “So I get the despair people have but the answer isn’t to do what they did. They could’ve had more impact joining with people who are driving for change. Imagine if Wynn had chained himself and 100 Buddhists to the gates of the supreme court instead.

“They think doing this will galvanize people, and maybe it will a few people, but my first thought with Wynn was that no one on the supreme court will care. It will just be this passing thing in the media. It’s tragic.”

Few people worried about the climate crisis are driven to self-harm over it, of course, let alone set themselves aflame in an echo of Thich Quang Duc, the Vietnamese monk who self-immolated in protest against the persecution of Buddhists in 1963.

Instead, climate activists have marched in huge numbers, joined divestment campaigns, glued themselves to roads and chained themselves to oil drilling equipment. “It’s just so clear to me that I have to take this stand,” said Peter Kalmus, a Nasa climate scientist as he handcuffed himself to a JPMorgan Chase building during a protest in Los Angeles last month. “We are heading towards fucking catastrophe – we are going to lose everything.”

Yet most of us who fret about climate change do so discreetly. Studies have shown that while alarm over worsening wildfires, droughts, flooding and societal unrest is on the rise, not many of us talk about climate angst with others, to avoid political arguments or simply avoid bringing down the mood.

Those who do speak out are often younger activists – research has shown that half of people between 16 and 25 years old believe the Earth may be doomed, while three-quarters feel anxiety when they think or hear about climate change. Some speak openly of not wanting to bring children into a hotter, harsher world.

“Living in climate truth is like living in a nightmare. It’s absolutely horrible and I can understand why the vast majority of Americans don’t do it,” said Margaret Klein Salamon, a clinical psychologist turned climate activist. “But the worst part is that everyone’s acting normal – it’s like we are zombies. The sense of helplessness and hopelessness is holding back conversations and political action.”

Salamon leads an organization, called the Climate Awakening, that facilitates “climate emotions conversations” both in-person and virtually that encourage people to open up about their climate fears. Salamon said that many describe living in a sort of waking, powerless nightmare where an obvious catastrophe is unfolding but society just blithely ignores it.

“Some people have described it as like they are at a funeral but everyone else is treating it like a party,” said Salamon. “People are still going to college, planning for retirement, doing all the things as if the future will look just like the past when we know that’s not true. There’s a delusion of normalcy.”

There are regular attempts to jolt us free from political inertia, whether that’s the increasingly exasperated excoriations of the Swedish school striker turned movement leader Greta Thunberg, the soaring success of the Netflix film Don’t Look Up, which satirized the blase attitude of politicians and the media toward scientific warnings, or the increasingly frantic pronouncements of António Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, who has said continuing use of fossil fuels is “madness” and the work of “dangerous radicals”.

This desire to shake people from a pall of complacency may have also motivated Bruce and Buckel, although Susan Clayton, a professor of psychology and environmental studies at the College of Wooster, cautions it’s risky to assume the full motivations behind a suicide. As social creatures who feed off each other’s cues, however, we are all affected by what Clayton calls “collective ignorance”.

“If there’s a fire and we look around us and see no one is doing anything, you can feel you are also expected to do nothing, not realizing that other people are looking to you for the same reason,” she said. “There’s this sense that people around us are not only doing nothing about this problem, but not even acting like it’s important.”

For all the efforts of various activists, and promises by governments to restrain dangerous global heating, carbon emissions leapt globally last year as we reverted back to the polluting status quo before Covid lockdowns. Wildfires are now a year-round menace to the US west. On Friday, it hit 51C in Pakistan, while India has baked in such extreme, record heat that dozens of people have died and birds are falling from the sky.

The UN has warned that a broken perception of risk based on “optimism, underestimation and invincibility” is fueling such disasters. Oil and gas companies are planning, unhindered, a massive tranche of “carbon bomb” drilling projects that will propel us firmly towards climate catastrophe.

There is much to be anxious of, but some climate scientists argue we cannot let a wave of “doomerism” become paralyzing. There is still hope that concerted action will avoid the worst, that momentum is building for a cleaner, greener world. Activism is a good release valve for climate worries, Clayton said, not only to help confront the problem but as a forum to speak to others with similar concerns.

“Climate doomerism can be harmful, because it robs us of agency, the agency we still have in determining our future,” said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State University. “I fear that doomism and defeatism leads us down the path of inaction, or worse.

“It would be much better for folks to channel those emotions toward the common goal of speaking truth to power and holding our policymakers accountable for addressing the mounting climate crisis.”

To little public fanfare, two memorials were held for Wynn Bruce last week, one in Boulder and one in Minnesota, where his father still lives. Attendees spoke of his kindness and friendship. The media had noted the manner of his death as a terrible curiosity, rather than dig into his motivations, and quickly moved on to other topics. The planet continued to heat up.

“I don’t believe David or Wynn’s acts will drive change but maybe I’m wrong, and God bless them if it does,” said Kaelber. “But it really is no way to do things. There is a better way.”

In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 and online chat is also available. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

HomeServe agrees £4bn takeover by Canadian investment group

Multibillion-pound takeover of the domestic emergency repair business will net its founder and his wife almost £500m

HomeServe’s core business is selling emergency repairs insurance through utilities suppliers.

 Photograph: MBI/Alamy


Mark Sweney
THE GUARDIAN

Thu 19 May 2022 

The domestic repair and emergency services business HomeServe is to be sold to a Canadian alternative investment group in a multibillion-pound takeover deal that will net its founder and his wife almost £500m.

The Walsall-based company, which has grown into one of the UK’s largest domestic emergency businesses since being founded nearly three decades ago, accepted a £12-a-share offer from Brookfield Asset Management on Thursday that values the business at £4.1bn.

HomeServe, which is growing in the US, Europe and Asia, was founded by Richard Harpin as a joint venture with South Staffordshire Water in 1993. It has been listed on the FTSE 250 since 2004.

The deal values Harpin’s 7.38% stake, and the 4.76% controlled by his wife, Kate, at a combined £495m.

While the offer is a 71% premium on HomeServe’s share price the day before Brookfield’s interest in the company became public, it is lower than the £13.65 peak in 2020 when the group was seen as a “pandemic winner”.

HomeServe said the terms of the offer were “fair and reasonable” and it would recommend the deal to shareholders.

Brookfield said it has no current plans to break up the business, which employs 9,000 people directly and has tens of thousands of contracted tradespeople on its books, but intends to carry out a strategic review, including looking at whether parts could be spun off.

HomeServe’s core business is selling emergency repairs insurance through utilities suppliers but it also owns Checkatrade, the online platform for matching local tradespeople to homeowners needing services.

Huddersfield-born Harpin, 57, co-founded the business in the 90s because he found it so hard to find good tradespeople to reliably carry out repairs at properties in a housing rental business he owned at the time.

“HomeServe has become a world-class business with an important purpose – to make home repairs and improvements easy for homeowners and trades,” said Harpin.

“I am proud of the company we have built and am delighted that Brookfield is committed to providing long-term capital and global expertise, which I am confident will accelerate progress towards our vision to be the world’s largest, most-trusted provider of home repairs and improvements.”

Brookfield, based in Toronto, has Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, as its vice-chairman. HomeServe would not comment on whether Harpin would remain with the company under its new ownership structure.

BRASCAN/BROOKFIELD

Cuba hits back at U.S. as tensions rise over Summit of Americas

By Dave Sherwood -
© Reuters/ALEXANDRE MENEGHINI

HAVANA (Reuters) - A top Cuban diplomat on Friday told Reuters the United States was making a "desperate effort" to impose its will on the rest of the Western Hemisphere by determining which countries should be invited to the upcoming U.S.-hosted Summit of the Americas.

A Biden administration official said on Friday the United States had begun sending out invitations, but declined to say which countries were on the list. A senior State Department official said in April that Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela would likely be excluded because they have not shown respect for democracy.

Cuban Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, in a written statement to Reuters, said such a decision was a "reflection of American contempt for our region," in a sharp rebuke of comments on Thursday from Kerri Hannan, deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, accusing Cuba of using the Summit to distract from allegations of human rights abuses at home.

"[Hannan] should better explain what her government has decided to do and abandon ambiguous and unwarranted language about the right to participate in a non-U.S. event. It is [for] all of the Americas," De Cossio said.

A potential boycott of the June 6-10 summit by a growing number of leaders, including Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has raised the risk of embarrassment for President Joe Biden, who will host the gathering in Los Angeles.

Lopez Obrador said last week he would not go to the summit if Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela were not invited. His Bolivian counterpart, President Luis Arce, followed suit.

De Cossio said the United States had only itself to blame for the predicament.

"It is disrespectful that the official does not consider as genuine and independent the positions of Latin America and the Caribbean to demand an inclusive hemispheric summit," he said.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said late on Thursday the U.S. government was having “constructive conversations” with Lopez Obrador around the summit. He added that former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, Biden's special envoy for the summit, had a “good exchange of views” with Lopez Obrador in a two-hour Zoom meeting this week.

De Cossio has blasted such talks and the undersecretary's statements as part of a campaign by the U.S. to pressure regional leaders.

"The desperate efforts of...numerous officials of the United States throughout the region to impose their positions are well known," De Cossio told Reuters.

(Reporting by Dave Sherwood in Havana; additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

Biden officials consider inviting Cuban representative to Americas summit -source

By Dave Sherwood and Matt Spetalnick - 

HAVANA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Biden administration officials are considering inviting a Cuban representative to the U.S.-hosted Summit of the Americas, a person familiar with the matter said, as Washington scrambled to head off a potentially embarrassing boycott by some regional leaders.

Discussion has focused on allowing a Cuban presence at the next month's Los Angeles summit below the level of the country's president or foreign minister, but it is at an early stage and no decision has been made, the source told Reuters on Friday.

President Joe Biden's aides were weighing the idea as his administration began sending out invitations for the summit. But for now U.S. officials declined to say what countries were on the list or whether the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua would be excluded.

A growing number of leaders, including Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, have threatened to skip the summit unless all countries in the region are allowed to attend.

The prospect for summit no-shows risks diplomatic failure for Biden, whose aides have hoped the summit, held every three or four years, would be a chance to reassert Washington's commitment to a region it is often accused of neglecting.

It was unclear whether Communist-ruled Cuba, which participated at the head of state level in the last two summits in 2015 and 2018 and has blasted Washington for its handling of the June 6-10 gathering, would even accept an invitation for lower-level observer status. The Associated Press first reported that the idea was under consideration.

The White House and the Cuban embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"We're still considering additional invites, and we'll share the final list of invites once all invitations have gone out," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.

The Biden administration has signaled for weeks that it could exclude the governments of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, saying they did not have respect for democracy.

But faced with pushback from Latin American and Caribbean countries, the White House had held off sending out invitations and refused to release a participants list.

A top Cuban diplomat told Reuters the United States was making a "desperate effort" to impose its will on the Western Hemisphere by determining which countries should be invited.

Cuban Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, in a written statement, said such a decision was a "reflection of American contempt for our region."

It was a rebuke to comments on Thursday from Kerri Hannan, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, accusing Cuba of using the summit controversy to distract from allegations of human rights abuses at home.

U.S. TALKS TO LOPEZ OBRADOR

Lopez Obrador said last week he would not go if Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela were not invited. His Bolivian counterpart, President Luis Arce, followed suit.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Thursday that U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, Biden's special envoy for the summit, had a “good exchange of views” with Lopez Obrador via Zoom this week, Sullivan said. But he gave no details.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is also likely to skip the meeting, sources told Reuters, without specifying his reason.

Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said he would not attend, a day after the United States criticized the reappointment of an attorney general it links to corruption.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said on Wednesday that his government was "not interested" in attending.

(Reporting by Dave Sherwood in Havana and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Aurora Ellis, Chizu Nomiyama and Bernard Orr)

African scientists baffled by monkeypox cases in Europe, US


LONDON (AP) — Scientists who have monitored numerous outbreaks of monkeypox in Africa say they are baffled by the disease's recent spread in Europe and North America.

Cases of the smallpox-related disease have previously been seen only among people with links to central and West Africa. But in the past week, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, U.S., Sweden and Canada all reported infections, mostly in young men who hadn’t previously traveled to Africa.

France, Germany, Belgium and Australia confirmed their first cases of monkeypox on Friday.

“I’m stunned by this. Every day I wake up and there are more countries infected,” said Oyewale Tomori, a virologist who formerly headed the Nigerian Academy of Science and who sits on several World Health Organization advisory boards.

“This is not the kind of spread we’ve seen in West Africa, so there may be something new happening in the West,” he said.

Monkeypox typically causes fever, chills, a rash and lesions on the face or genitals. WHO estimates the disease is fatal for up to one in 10 people, but smallpox vaccines are protective and some antiviral drugs are also being developed.

One of the theories British health officials are exploring is whether the disease is being sexually transmitted. Health officials have asked doctors and nurses to be on alert for potential cases, but said the risk to the general population is low.

Nigeria reports about 3,000 monkeypox cases a year, WHO said. Outbreaks are usually in rural areas, where people have close contact with infected rats and squirrels, Tomori said. He said many cases are likely missed.

Tomori hoped the appearance of monkeypox cases across Europe and other countries would further scientific understanding of the disease.

The WHO's lead on emergency response, Dr. Ibrahima Soce Fall, acknowledged this week that there were still “so many unknowns in terms of the dynamics of transmission, the clinical features (and) the epidemiology.”

On Friday, Britain's Health Security Agency reported 11 new monkeypox cases, saying that “a notable proportion” of the most recent infections in the U.K. and Europe have been in young men with no history of travel to Africa who were gay, bisexual or had sex with men.

Authorities in Spain and Portugal also said their cases were in young men who mostly had sex with other men and said those cases were picked up when the men turned up with lesions at sexual health clinics.

Experts have stressed they do not know if the disease is being spread through sex or other close contact related to sex.

Nigeria hasn't seen sexual transmission, Tomori said, but he noted that viruses that hadn’t initially been known to transmit via sex, like Ebola, were later proven to do so after bigger epidemics showed different patterns of spread.

The same could be true of monkeypox, Tomori said.

In Germany, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said the government was confident the outbreak could be contained. He said the virus was being sequenced to see if there were any genetic changes that might have made it more infectious.

Rolf Gustafson, an infectious diseases professor, told Swedish broadcaster SVT that it was “very difficult” to imagine the situation might worsen.

“We will certainly find some further cases in Sweden, but I do not think there will be an epidemic in any way," Gustafson said. "There is nothing to suggest that at present.”

Scientists said that while it's possible the outbreak's first patient caught the disease while in Africa, what's happening now is exceptional.

“We've never seen anything like what's happening in Europe,” said Christian Happi, director of the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases. “We haven't seen anything to say that the transmission patterns of monkeypox have been changing in Africa. So if something different is happening in Europe, then Europe needs to investigate that.”

Happi also pointed out that the suspension of smallpox vaccination campaigns after the disease was eradicated in 1980 might inadvertently be helping monkeypox spread. Smallpox vaccines also protect against monkeypox, but mass immunization was stopped decades ago.

“Aside from people in west and Central Africa who may have some immunity to monkeypox from past exposure, not having any smallpox vaccination means nobody has any kind of immunity to monkeypox,” Happi said.

Shabir Mahdi, a professor of vaccinology at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, said a detailed investigation of the outbreak in Europe, including determining who the first patients were, was now critical.

“We need to really understand how this first started and why the virus is now gaining traction,” he said. “In Africa, there have been very controlled and infrequent outbreaks of monkeypox. If that's now changing, we really need to understand why.”

___

Geir Moulson in Berlin, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen and AP reporters across Europe contributed to this report.

Maria Cheng, The Associated Press

SO DRY THEY IGNITE

These Cigarettes Are Being Recalled In Canada Because Of 'An Increased Fire Hazard'
Canada Edition (EN) - 
 Narcity


Some cigarettes are being recalled in Canada due to "an increased fire hazard" and more than 250,000 packages are affected.

This recall was issued by Health Canada on May 19 and it's for Viceroy brand cigarettes that were sold in Ontario, B.C., and Quebec.

The affected products are "Viceroy Full (Viceroy Original), Regular Size, 20 cigarettes" that come in individual packages and cartons because of concerns about their flammability.

While this might sound surprising given that cigarettes are lit with flames and then burned, there are specific regulations about it that need to be met.

According to Health Canada, cigarettes sold, made or imported in Canada have to burn their full length no more than 25% of the time.

Smokes that don't meet that requirement can actually pose a dangerous fire hazard if dropped on furniture, bedding or other textiles because they can start a fire.

The recalled cigarette cartons sold in Ontario, B.C., and Quebec have the traceability codes 3930 26 and 4230 26, and the UPC is 059300521883.

Individual packages sold in Ontario that were recalled have the traceability code 393226 ## CA. Packages sold in B.C. have 393226 ## CA or 423526 ## CA and ones recalled in Quebec have 423526 ## CA or 393226 ## CA.

All of the individual packages that are recalled have 059300021888 as the UPC.

See the full list here.

As of May 10, the company has not reported any incidents or injuries that were caused by the recalled darts.

If you have these recalled products, Health Canada recommends you immediately stop using them and contact the distributor, Imperial Tobacco Canada Limited, to arrange a return and replacement.

Narcity has reached out to Imperial Tobacco Canada for comment and the article be updated when a response is received.

This article’s cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.

Huawei 5G ban could be costly for Canadian consumers, smaller telcos


Craig Lord - 

Canada’s move to ban technology from Chinese vendors Huawei Technologies and ZTE from its 5G networks will have a bigger impact on smaller players in the telecom industry than the biggest carriers and could end up costing Canadians more on the wireless bills, observers say.

Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne announced late Thursday afternoon that Huawei’s tech cannot be used in the eventual development of these networks and that any such infrastructure already in place must be torn out.

Read more:
Why is Canada banning Huawei from 5G? Here’s what to know

That includes both 5G and the current-generation 4G networks, with operators given until 2027 to remove tech already in place. Huawei gear sold to Canadian telecoms includes components that allow mobile phones to connect to networks, for example.

Champagne said the government will not reimburse companies for these costs.

Putting the onus on carriers to strip their existing infrastructure of anything Huawei-made is going to hurt small companies providing vital service to Canadians living in remote and rural areas, says Samer Bishay, CEO of Ontario-based communication services company Iristel.

He says there’s “quite a bit” of Huawei technology across the 4G and earlier generation networks of Iristel and its subsidiary ICE Wireless, which provides wireless service to areas of Canada’s far north.

Huawei tech is largely cheaper than that of competitors Ericsson or Nokia, and it also endures well the harsh conditions of the Canadian North, Bishay says.

Deep-pocketed telecoms are more easily able to afford high-end equipment and replace it on a regular basis, he argues, while smaller players try to stretch the life cycles of their tech and save pennies.

“Guys like the incumbents — Bell, Rogers, Telus — it won't really make much of a difference for them. What it really hurts are the regional and small operators such as ICE Wireless,” he says.

The Huawei decision is a long time coming for Canada’s telecom industry, with partners such as the United States implementing bans on domestic firms doing business with the vendor back in 2019 while Canadian policymakers deliberated.

A 2021 Global News analysis showed that Canadian telecom companies spent $700 million on Huawei equipment for their networks while the government mulled the ban.

Although some of Canada's wireless providers had originally planned to work with Huawei, they had already backed away from the partnership in anticipation of the federal government's decision. In 2020, BCE Inc. (Bell) and Telus Corp. announced they would be working with Sweden's Ericsson as a supplier for their 5G networks.

Read more:
China will see Canada’s Huawei, ZTE bans as ‘a slap in the face,’ experts warn

Global News reached out to Bell and Telus — companies believed to have a significant amount of Huawei technology embedded in their existing networks — on Friday to get their reaction to the ban but did not hear back.

Rogers Communications told Global News the decision has “no impact” on its 5G deployment, which it’s developing with partner Ericsson.

Shares of the three telecom giants saw little movement on the markets Friday.

Shruti Shekar, a journalist with Android Central who’s followed the Huawei decision, tells Global News that large telecom companies struck deals with premium suppliers instead of waiting for a decision on Huawei because further delay would have put Canada’s 5G development further behind other markets such as the U.S. and South Korea.

But Canada’s delay in making a decision on the issue likely hurt smaller providers in northern and remote communities who took a chance on using the Chinese tech.

“If the government had made a decision sooner, then those smaller players could have figured out a different, alternative route … instead of already placing out all of that infrastructure in those northern communities,” she says.

“They're going to have to rip it up and that's not cheap. That's not going to be an easy task.”

Pushing Canadian telecoms big and small to expedite the replacement of fully-functioning technology will ultimately see Canadians pay more on their internet and phone bills, Bishay argues.

“I can assure you, it’s never the operator who pays for it. Even us as a smaller operator will always pass any type of increased cost or anything to the consumer,” he says.

Shekar is more uncertain about how the Huawei ban will hit consumers, but says prices going up is not out of the question.

“To offset the costs that they're going to have to incur now, there is a possibility that prices of your cell phone bills could go up, prices for internet services could go up again. It's a little too soon to say, but it's definitely a possibility,” she says.

Champagne framed the Huawei ban as a matter of not just business, but of national security, in his announcement Thursday. Critics of allowing Huawei into Canada’s 5G networks have pointed to Chinese government policy requiring corporations to spy for them if asked as a cybersecurity risk.

A spokesperson for China’s embassy in Canada said late Thursday the alleged security concerns were a “pretext for political manipulation” and accused Canada of working with the United States to suppress Chinese companies.

“China will make a comprehensive and serious assessment of this incident and take all necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies,” the spokesperson added.

Many believe the government delayed its 5G decision because of the dispute surrounding China's imprisonment of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig following the RCMP's arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.

Bishay acknowledges the political and security risks with Huawei, but says operators did not need a government edict to make secure choices for building 5G networks. But in the modern cybersecurity landscape, vulnerabilities are not limited to a single nation's tech exports, he argues.

“No network operator is going to want to have any piece of equipment if they know it's sending data back to somewhere else that is not authorized. But the technology now is so advanced that no matter how sophisticated or who your suppliers are, whether it's American or German, you are still vulnerable. And it happens,” he says.

“It's not about fixing one issue. It's about fixing an ecosystem. And that's really what we should be after.”

— with files from Global News's Anne Gaviola, Alex Boutilier, Amanda Connolly and the Canadian Press

CONSERVATIVES EAT THEIR OWN

First O'Toole, now Kenney: What some are saying it means for state of conservatism

Yesterday 
The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — The fall of Jason Kenney, a juggernaut of conservatism in Canada, has prompted many federal Tories to consider the future of the party, which is in the midst of being decided in a leadership race seen as a fractious fight for its soul.

Conservative MPs on Thursday reacted to Kenney’s resignation as Alberta premier with a mix of sadness, surprise and gratitude for his years of public service. The party stalwart, known for his organizational chops and outreach to new immigrants,served in the cabinet of former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper.

Harper applauded Kenney in a tweet Thursday for having dedicated 30 years of his life to conservative politics in Alberta, nationally and the movement overall.

Kenney announced his resignation as premier and United Conservative Party leader late Wednesday after narrowly winning a leadership review with just over 51 per cent of the vote. That verdict followed months of open rebellion by MLAs who, among other things, fiercely opposed Kenney's imposition of lockdowns and COVID-19 vaccine passports.

"This is a time, I think, of quiet reflection for conservatives in Alberta and in the conservative movement," said Calgary MP Stephanie Kusie, who is assisting with Pierre Poilievre's leadership campaign in the federal race.

"This is also a time not to panic, not to get excited, not to fight each other, but to stay focused on the principles and values which have allowed us to win before."

But that may be too late. Kenney is the latest conservative leader in the country to have found himself on the outs with his party's base for reasons that include their handling of the pandemic.

The last example before him was former federal Conservative leader Erin O'Toole, who was forced out in early February by a majority of his MPs. That breakup followed his struggle to satisfy supporters with a firm enough stance against vaccine mandates, as well as caucus disputes over his reversal on carbon pricing and gun control policies in an attempt to moderate the party's image.

Tourism Minister Randy Boissonnault, a Liberal MP from Edmonton, said Thursday he sees a trend of conservative leaders being pushed out of their parties for not being "extreme enough," saying that should be a wake-up call to the movement's moderates.

Before their respective falls, Kenney and O'Toole both painted themselves as trying to build modern, mainstream conservative parties that some darker, more extreme elements from within were trying to take in a different direction.

Veteran Conservative strategist Melanie Paradis sees that as being a direction fuelled by anger.

"Close observers have seen the movement going in this direction for awhile."

O'Toole and Kenney critics both faulted the pair for failing to manage their caucuses and leading with a my-way-or-the-highway approach.

Longtime Ontario MP Michael Chong, who served alongside Kenney in Harper's cabinet, said he believes conservative parties, both federal and provincial ones, are right now a reflection of the level of frustration Canadians feel after two years of pandemic living.

How much the Conservative party, namely those running to be its next leader, should lean into that frustration is up for debate.

"I think there is tremendous risk in the long-term. It may generate short-term gain, but there's tremendous risk in the long-term to holding up a mirror to anger instead of acknowledging it and offering solutions," said Paradis.

Poilievre, the longtime MP from Ottawa, has been accused by rival candidates of running a campaign of divisiveness and embracing support from the right-wing, anti-mandate and anti-government populism that was on display during the convoy protests seen across the country earlier this year.

The leadership contest has been contentious and at times involved candidates lobbing personal attacks at one another. The dynamics of the race recently spilled over into the caucus room.

Ed Fast, a longtime MP who is helping chair Jean Charest's leadership campaign, stepped down from his role as the Conservative finance critic late Wednesday.

Earlier that day, he had criticized Poilievre for proposing to fire the Bank of Canada governor over the country's high inflation rate.

"Mr. Poilievre's statements on monetary policy needed to be addressed. And I have absolutely no regrets for doing that," Fast said on Thursday.

Fast had told reporters he believed Poilievre's pledge hurt the party's credibility on economic issues and counted as interfering with the central bank's independence.

Some within caucus felt Fast had crossed a line by invoking his finance critic title in his remarks. Fast said he was made to feel like he needed to stay silent on Poilievre's attacks against the central bank and promotion of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin as a solution to inflation.

"You cannot be finance critic and then have an expectation from a leadership candidate that you should not speak out on issues he is speaking out on and that you vehemently disagree with," Fast said, though he declined to provide more details about what happened behind closed doors.

"I'm not going to comment on who said what and when and how. These are caucus colleagues, and my conversations with my caucus colleagues are confidential."

At the end of the day, Fast said, he and interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen felt his position as finance critic had become "untenable," adding that the issue had been brewing for some time.

For Calgary MP Greg McLean, who has yet to endorse anyone in the leadership contest, the "nastiness" of the tone of the race "just doesn't work."

He said what happens on the campaign trail should stay there and not be allowed to interfere in the work MPs are doing in the House of Commons to hold the Liberal government to account.

"I think Mr. Fast served his office honourably and I think that his stepping down — it doesn't make me happy."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 19, 2022.

Stephanie Taylor, The Canadian Press

Canadian premier abruptly quits amid surge in far-right influences

Conservative Jason Kenney, Alberta premier, leaves province’s top job after barely surviving a leadership review

Jason Kenney speaks in Calgary on 18 May.

Photograph: Canadian Press/REX/Shutterstock

Leyland Cecco in Toronto

THE GUARDIAN

Thu 19 May 2022 

The abrupt resignation of Alberta’s premier has shocked the western province and raised questions about the ideological direction of Canada’s conservative movement amid a surge in far-right and populist influences.

Jason Kenney announced late on Wednesday that he was leaving the province’s top job after barely surviving a leadership review. A slim majority of party members – 51.4% – had voted in favour of keeping him in power but Kenney said that support wasn’t enough to justify remaining head of the governing United Conservatives.

“The result is not what I hoped for or frankly what I expected,” Kenney told supporters. The premier had previously said he would view any result above 50% as a win.

“He had seemed so doggedly determined to remain on his leader … with even a single vote more than those who voted against him,” said Lori Williams, a professor of political science at Calgary’s Mount Royal University. “So his decision was very much a surprise.”

Once a star cabinet minister under former prime minister Stephen Harper, Kenney returned to Alberta to unite warring conservative factions and oust the governing leftwing New Democratic Party.

He won a strong majority in 2019, but his tenure was marred by party infighting and threats of mutiny. His pugilistic brand of politics won him allies but also created a growing list of enemies and disaffected party members.

“It takes a truly extraordinary leader to try to persuade people who may dislike and disrespect one another to work together for the sake of governance,” said Williams, pointing out the only Canada politician able to effectively take on this challenge was Harper.


Canada’s Covid protests highlight rise of rightwing populist movements

Kenney’s popularity cratered during the coronavirus pandemic as he fought off criticism from within his own party amid fierce debates over public health measures. Rightwing elements were angered by restrictions on businesses and movement, but more moderate party members feared an overwhelmed health care system. At one point during the pandemic, Alberta had one of the highest coronavirus infection rates in North America.

As the debate intensified over who should speak for the party, the premier warned in March that conservative movement was being overrun by far-right “lunatics … trying to take over the asylum”.

But turning on his own party probably accelerated challenges to his leadership, say former supporters.

Rick Bell, political columnist at the Calgary Sun and longtime advocate of the outgoing premier, wrote that the fall of Kenney was “stunning” but expected.

“He never listened. Never. He was right. We all were wrong. Until we were right,” wrote Bell.

Even though the province has lifted its public health restrictions and significant revenue from oil and gas is flowing into the provincial treasury, voters seem unwilling to forgive Kenney.


Canada: key Conservative says party risks takeover by far-right ‘lunatics’

Kenney joins a growing list of conservative premiers unable to finish out their term: since 2004, Alberta has seen seven premiers. Only one – New Democrat Rachel Notley – served a full term.

But Kenney’s departure amid bitter infighting over the ideological direction of the party, will loom over the current race for a federal Conservative leader.

The national party has already turfed two of their leaders in recent years, Erin O’Toole and Andrew Scheer, both of whom campaigned to the right and then tried to woo centrist voters in a general election.

“There’s almost competing imperatives facing a leader of a coalition Conservative party. One is to win the support of their own caucus – and the other is to win an election by appealing to a broader range of electors,” said Williams. “But neither really seems compatible.”


Canada Conservatives oust leader Erin O’Toole

A federal Liberal from Alberta called the recent resignations a “disturbing trend” among his political rivals.

“The conservative movement in this country is heading to a dark place. And I find that very troubling,” Randy Boissonnault told reporters on Thursday.

As conservatives in Alberta grapple with their party’s future, Williams sees a difficult and unenviable task for the eventual leader.

“You really have to wonder who would want to take this on. Who would want to risk their reputation and their political future on the challenges we’re seeing boiling up within this party?”

BITCOIN IS A SCAM

Alberta RCMP warning businesses of bitcoin scam

Anna Junker -  Edmonton Journal


Mounties are warning Albertans of a scam involving bitcoin that has defrauded employees and businesses out of thousands of dollars.

In a news release Friday, RCMP said they have received a number of complaints from businesses who have fallen victim to the “Head Office Bitcoin” scam.

Police said staff would receive a call from someone claiming to be a regional or district manager, and in many cases researched the names of staff and managers. The fraudster would have information on the business operation, including names and roles of staff and various store policies in order to convince the employee they are who they claim to be.

Staff are told that an important shipment is coming, and receiving it is vital, but there has been a problem with payment for the shipment and the only way to not delay the shipment is payment in bitcoin.

Police said a second person then calls claiming to be from the shipping company to confirm the shipment and provide a tracking number, as well as emphasize payment is required before delivery.

In some cases, employees took money from the store to the bitcoin ATM, while in others employees took funds both from the store and their personal accounts in order to make the payment.

The first caller would remain on the line with the employee until they have completed the bitcoin transaction. Only after did the employees realize they were a victim of fraud.

“Alberta RCMP are encouraging businesses to protect themselves by providing in-house fraud awareness training and sharing warnings like this alert with their staff,” Mounties said. “Institute clear, two-step approval processes, using a code word or ID number for financial transactions, and empower your employees to say ‘no’ to potential frauds.”

Anyone who is a victim of a scam should report it to their local police service.