Thursday, June 23, 2022

Will Germany return to nuclear power?

As Germany moves to wean itself off Russian energy, politicians are debating a pause to the country's planned nuclear phaseout. Experts warn, however, that it may not be so easy.

Germany still has three nuclear power plants in operation, including one near Landshut in Bavaria

Germany is heading into an energy crisis as Russia cuts gas supplies in retaliation for sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.

Finance Minister Christian Lindner warned this week that the country was on the brink of a "very serious economic crisis," and the government needed to explore all avenues to plug the gaps in the nation's energy supply.

To that end, Linder's business-focused Free Democrats (FDP), the smallest party in Berlin's governing coalition alongside the Green Party and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), have called to postpone Germany's nuclear energy phaseout. After several shutdowns in 2021, Germany currently still has three nuclear power stations running to provide 11% of the country's electricity. They are all set to be switched off by the end of the year.

Anti-nuclear protesters celebrated their victory in December when the Grohnde plant was shut down

Germany's opposition to nuclear power

The use of nuclear energy as a "green" alternative to fossil fuels is controversial in Germany. The Green Party has argued for decades that the environmental hazards of disposing of nuclear waste vastly outnumbered the benefits.

When they came to power in a coalition government under SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in 1998, they pushed successfully for the phaseout of nuclear energy. The subsequent conservative government under the center-right Christian Democrat Chancellor Angela Merkel first rolled back the timeline, but the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan turned the tide again and Merkel pushed her party toward the phaseout after all.

The CDU is now Germany's largest opposition party, and has been demanding that the nuclear phaseout be called off. "It is technically and legally possible" for the three remaining reactors to keep on operating beyond the end of this year, said CDU chairman Friedrich Merz on Tuesday.

He was contradicting Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the SPD, who had argued it would be too hard to source the necessary nuclear fuel rods in time. Scholz said that "no one has provided me with a feasible plan" to quickly increase the output of Germany's three remaining nuclear plants — which as of now provide only 11% of the country's electricity.

The Branchenverband Kernenergie, an umbrella organization for nuclear energy businesses in Germany, told the Müncher Merkur newspaper that an extension was indeed possible, but called for quick decision-making. "The power plants are in the process of shutting down. The longer you wait, the more difficult it will be to start them up again," it said.

According to Christian von Hirschhausen, an expert in energy and infrastructure at the German Institute for Economic Research, Scholz has the most scientifically sound grasp of the situation.

Bringing nuclear energy back online was technically and legally "impossible," von Hirschhausen told DW. There was no way to revert the decommissioning process over the next 18 months, he said, due to the time it takes to order, deliver and install equipment as well as enriched uranium.

"They would also need to implement a new set of safety standards and checks," von Hirschhausen added, to replace those that have not been carried out in years due to the phaseout, and new laws to govern the power plants' use.

Gas crunch

As it was winding down its use of nuclear power over the past decade, Germany's reliance on Russian energy sources was ratcheted up. Almost all of the country's heavy industry is reliant on natural gas, as are about half of German homes for their source of heating.

Early this year, around 65% of natural gas in Germany came from Russia. Now, that has dropped to below 40%. In 2021, about 53% of Germany's coal needed for power and industrial production was imported from Russia, which is to be reduced to zero after an EU-wide ban takes effect in August.

In order to head off an energy crisis, Berlin is looking to fill up its gas reserves from the current 60% to at least 80% by October, and to total capacity before the winter.

This plan has left politicians scrambling to secure new import partners for oil and gas and speed up the expansion of solar and wind energy. They have also reluctantly extended the lifespan of the country's coal plants, despite promises to phase out coal entirely by 2030.

Finance Minister Christian Lindner (left) backs nuclear energy, while 

Economy Minister Robert Habeck of the Greens is opposed

Many worry, however, that all this may not be enough, and they have been looking even further afield for new sources of energy. FDP lawmaker Torsten Herbst and Bavaria's center-right state premier, Markus Söder, were among the first to suggest Berlin lift its ban on fracking, a method of extracting shale gas that is popular in the United States but highly controversial for the amount of methane it leaks into the groundwater.

Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck, of the Green Party, remains opposed to nuclear energy and fracking, and finds it hard to advocate for something as destructive to the climate as coal.

But increasing the use of coal, von Hirschhausen said, "is just a temporary measure. It makes sense if we want to build up reserves...so that there aren't major shortages in the energy supply."

In an interview with public broadcaster ZDF on Tuesday, Habeck vowed that the government's ambitious plan to completely exit coal in the next eight years was still on track.

The coalition is set to debate ways to avert a potentially disastrous lack of energy supply in the next two weeks, with an eye to presenting a new plan at the beginning of July.

Edited by: Rina Goldenber


FACT-CHECKING

Fact check: Did Greta Thunberg demand everyone drive electric cars?

A photo montage has been posted by German lawmaker Hans-Ulrich Rülke claiming climate activist Thunberg wants everyone driving electric cars. Did she really say this? DW investigates.

Greta Thunberg did not demand that everyone drive an electric car

Misattributed and fabricated quotes can be found online far too often. They're commonly disseminated to ridicule or discredit political adversaries. Recently, a photo montage has been circulating on social media showing Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg holding a speech with a superimposed text reading: "I demand everyone drive electric cars now!"

The lower half of the collage shows a child looking into the camera, arms and T-shirt caked in mud. In the background, people work in muddy water. Text superimposed over this part reads: "We're mining the cobalt for your batteries as fast as we can, Greta."

Over 70% of cobalt for batteries is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo.


Hans-Ulrich Rülke's Facebook post on 20 June 2022

This montage was posted by German lawmaker Hans-Ulrich Rülke on Monday to his Facebook page. Rülke heads the liberal democratic FDP parliamentary group in Germany's southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg.

Claim: Greta Thunberg held a speech in which she said: "I demand everyone drive electric cars now!"

DW Fact check: False. 

The image in the top half of the montage shows Greta Thunberg speaking at the 2019 UN Climate Change conference COP25 in Madrid, Spain. During her talk, Thunberg implored the world to drastically cut greenhouse emissions, yet at no point said "I demand everyone drive electric cars now," let alone mention electric cars. Her full speech is available on YouTube. The electric car quote has been fabricated and falsely attributed to the climate activist.

reverse picture search using TinEye reveals the montage was already posted on the Reddit discussion forum on 23 November 2021. It was shared in the "r/cursedcomments" sub-forum, which invites users to post content that will leave readers "mystified" but also put a "smile on your face." The post has since been removed by moderators.

It is possible the content featuring Thunberg's fabricated quote was originally created and shared for entertainment, rather than disinformation purposes. It appears the montage was later, however, picked up and shared by others to discredit the climate activist.

A TinEye search reveals the lower half of the montage showing an African child along with miners working in the background was first published on 29 November, 2014, to Indonesian news platform www.liputan6.com 

Although Rülke's post has sparked considerable controversy, he has not removed it from his Facebook page. Speaking to German daily Rhein-Neckar-ZeitungRülke on Thursday defended sharing the montage, saying "I did not create the post, I merely shared it. Posts of this kind are always exaggerations. The aim was to draw greater attention to inhumane child labor in Congo." Asked why he had shared a fake and falsely attributed quote of Greta Thunberg, Rülke replied the climate activist had "rode electric cars in the US" which had attracted "great media attention."

This is not the first time Thunberg has been targeted by disinformation campaigns.

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TWO DEFEATS
Johnson's Tories crushed in twin UK parliamentary by-elections

Author: AFP|24.06.2022 

Boris Johnson's Tories lost the Tiverton and Honiton seat to the centrist Liberal Democrats, whose candidate Richard Foord took more than 6,000 votes / © AFP

Beleaguered British Prime Minister Boris Johnson suffered two crushing parliamentary by-election defeats on Friday, including in a southwest English seat previously held by his ruling Conservatives for over a century.

The Tories lost the Tiverton and Honiton seat to the centrist Liberal Democrats while the main opposition Labour party regained the Wakefield constituency in northern England, in stunning twin results set to pile new pressure on Johnson.


The votes were held Thursday after the two areas' former Tory MPs both resigned in disgrace in recent months.

Tiverton and Honiton's ex-lawmaker Neil Parish quit after admitting watching pornography on his phone in the House of Commons, while Wakefield's Imran Ahmad Khan was jailed for sexually assaulting a teenage boy.

The by-elections also follow months of scandals and setbacks that have severely dented the popularity of Johnson and his party, and come just weeks after he narrowly survived an attempt by his own lawmakers to oust him as Tory leader and prime minister.

The Conservatives had been tipped to lose both by-elections and Johnson vowed Thursday -- while in Rwanda for a Commonwealth summit -- not to resign if that occurred.

But the manner of the defeats will undoubtedly renew calls for the embattled leader to stand down as the highly damaging "Partygate" scandal centred on lockdown-breaching gatherings in Downing Street continues to dog him.


- 'Wake-up call' -


In Wakefield near Leeds -- one of dozens of traditional Labour seats that Johnson took in 2019 -- the opposition party won by nearly 5,000 votes / © AFP

The Liberal Democrats overturned a Tory majority of more than 24,000 to win Tiverton and Honiton -- which had voted Conservative in every general election since the 1880s -- by more than 6,000 votes, according to officials at a count centre in nearby town Crediton.

Meanwhile, in Wakefield near Leeds -- one of dozens of traditional Labour seats that Johnson took in 2019 on a promise to "get Brexit done" and address glaring regional economic inequalities -- the opposition party won by nearly 5,000 votes.

In speeches hailing their victories, both newly-elected MPs said Britain had lost faith in Johnson and urged him to quit.

Labour leader Keir Starmer, who is eyeing replacing Johnson as prime minister after the next general election due by 2024, said his party's victory in one of its former heartland seats showed it could win back power for the first time in more than a decade.

"Wakefield has shown the country has lost confidence in the Tories," he said in a statement, following Labour's first by-election win since 2012.

"This result is a clear judgment on a Conservative Party that has run out of energy and ideas."

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said his party has made "political history with this stunning win" and it was a "wake-up call for all those Conservative MPs propping up Boris Johnson".

"The people of Tiverton and Honiton have spoken for the country," he added.

"The public is sick of Boris Johnson's lies and law-breaking and it's time for Conservative MPs to finally do the right thing and sack him."

- Sense of crisis -



British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has spent months fighting for his survival after a series of controversies
/ © POOL/AFP

Johnson has spent months fighting for his survival after a series of controversies including the "Partygate" saga led many Tories to question whether he should remain as leader.

Various opinion polls have shown the public thinks he lied about Covid lockdown-breaking events at Downing Street and should resign.

Even before the controversy erupted last December, the 58-year-old Brexit architect saw the loss of two once-safe seats in by-elections last year.

He then scored dismally in May's local elections.


Weeks later, dozens of Conservative MPs triggered a no-confidence vote in Johnson which saw more than 40 percent of them desert their embattled leader, leaving him severely weakened and struggling to reset his turbulent tenure.

The polls come as Britain is gripped by 40-year highs in inflation and a cost-of-living crisis that has seen prices soar for everyday essentials such as energy, petrol and food.

Strikes this week by railway workers -- including on election day Thursday -- were some of the biggest seen in Britain in decades and have added to the sense of crisis.

Johnson, who travels to Germany and then Spain for G7 and NATO summits after his current visit to Rwanda, is not due back in Britain until late next week.
Commonwealth meets in shadow of migrant, rights row

Author: AFP|24.06.2022

The Commonwealth represents about one-third of humanity
/ © AFP/File

A summit of Commonwealth leaders opens Friday in Rwanda as the host nation comes under scrutiny over its rights record and a migrant deal with Britain threatens to overshadow the meeting.

A bitter contest is also looming for the leadership of the 54-nation club of mainly former British colonies as it grapples with its changing identity and future relevance.

The Commonwealth represents one-third of humanity spanning parts of Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas but some of its most prominent leaders are skipping the summit, sending envoys in their place.

Prince Charles, representing Queen Elizabeth II as head of the Commonwealth, made the first visit of any British royal to Rwanda for the gathering, which culminates in two days of leadership meetings.

He will meet on the sidelines on Friday with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has been promoting his much-criticised deal to expel migrants to Rwanda since arriving in Kigali Thursday.

The scheme involves Britain deporting asylum-seekers thousands of miles away to Rwanda and has been fiercely opposed by the church, rights groups and -- reportedly -- Charles himself.

Johnson -- who discussed the plan with its other architect Paul Kagame at a meeting with the Rwandan president on Thursday -- said he would defend the proposal to Charles and other critics.

"What the critics of the policy need to understand, and I have seen loads and loads of criticism, is that Rwanda has undergone an absolute transformation in the last couple of decades," the British leader said.

- Rights scrutiny -

Johnson has vowed to press ahead with the deal, which has faced legal challenges in British and international courts, and loomed large ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

A first flight of asylum-seekers from the UK to Rwanda was due to take off last week but was halted following an intervention by the European Court of Human Rights.


British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has praised Rwanda's achievements under President Paul Kagame 
/ © POOL/AFP

Johnson also praised Kagame for the "leaps and bounds" achieved in Rwanda, despite widespread concerns over a lack of political freedom and civil liberties in the tiny African nation.

Rights groups have openly questioned the suitability of Rwanda hosting the Commonwealth, which has a charter that enshrines respect for democracy and human rights as core shared values.

More than 20 rights groups and civil society organisations have warned the Commonwealth risked credibility by staging the summit in Rwanda, where they said a "climate of fear" existed under long-ruling Kagame.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has also called on Britain to condemn Rwanda over its alleged "aggression" in the mineral-rich eastern Congo, where Kigali has been accused of stoking a rebellion.

- Leadership rumblings -

At least publicly these concerns have not been raised and a "ministerial action group" to scrutinise the behaviour of Commonwealth members released no statement after their meeting.


Britain's Prince Charles, pictured with Rwandan President Paul Kagame, has reportedly criticised the migrant deal / © AFP

Forums ahead of the summit have addressed everything from trade and investment to malaria, climate change, and mental health.

The leaders' meetings over the next two days behind closed doors will miss some heavyweights, including Narendra Modi of India, South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa and Australia's Anthony Albanese.

Republican movements are taking root in some Commonwealth nations and there has been renewed discussion about the future role of the royal family in the club, and its broader purpose in a post-colonial world.

At the same time, the west African states of Togo and Gabon are set to become the latest members of the Commonwealth despite having no historic ties to Britain -- like host Rwanda, which joined in 2009.

Friday will also bring to a head a tussle for the leadership of the Commonwealth that has turned ugly at times.

Kamina Johnson Smith is challenging Patricia Scotland for the post as secretary-general, despite Commonwealth convention dictating the incumbent should stand unopposed for a second term.

Smith, who is Jamaica's foreign minister, has the backing of the UK, which has publicly expressed dissatisfaction with Scotland's stewardship of the organisation.
Christian-born female rabbi shakes up Jewish Orthodoxy

Michael BLUM
Thu, June 23, 2022


A woman born in France to a Christian family was not an obvious candidate to become a trailblazing Orthodox rabbi in Israel, but 40-year-old former journalist Eliora Peretz has done just that.

After converting to Judaism and undertaking three intensive years of Jewish study, Peretz recently became one of the few women in Israel to receive an Orthodox rabbinical ordination.

Female rabbis have grown increasingly common in more liberal Jewish denominations, but among the Orthodox opportunities for high-level religious study and positions of religious authority are reserved for men.

Israel's Orthodox-controlled chief rabbinate has also refused to recognise Peretz's credentials, meaning she cannot officiate at a recognised synagogue.

Peretz told AFP that she does not see herself as an activist campaigning for rabbinical gender equality, but more of a "pioneer" -- and one comfortable highlighting injustices in Israel's rabbinical establishment.

"There is nothing written in our religious texts that prevents a woman from marrying a couple, but it's forbidden in Israel," Peretz, a married mother of two, said in an interview at a synagogue in Jerusalem.

While current rules prevent her from formally leading a congregation, she said she could "be a spiritual guide, offer lessons, and answer questions from the faithful... just like any male rabbi".

Peretz, a dual French-Swiss national, received her ordination from Daniel Sperber, winner of the prestigious Israel Prize for his achievements in Talmudic study and a revered rabbi who has challenged the Orthodox establishment.

Sperber in particular attracted headlines in 2020 for being a rare member of the Orthodox community to speak out against "gay conversion therapy", a practice widely considered a human rights violation.


- 'I had no choice' -



In 2019, a group of Orthodox women went to Israel's supreme court seeking to overturn a ban that prevents them from taking the rabbinical exam reserved for men. There has not yet been a final ruling in the case.

Currently only one female Israeli citizen leads an Orthodox congregation. Shira Mirvis was named the "spiritual leader" of a community in the Efrat settlement in the occupied West Bank, but she too has not been recognised by Israel's rabbinate and also does not serve officially as a rabbi.

Peretz, born as Alexandra in Strasbourg, had other career paths available to her. She earned a PhD in a political communications and journalism before turning to religious studies.

Judaism, she said, had spoken to her since childhood and she pursued conversion after a "personal journey".

Her decision to become a rabbi was inspired by a thirst for more knowledge.

"I realised that what was offered to women, in terms of the depth of the subjects covered, was limited.

"So I had no choice but to become a rabbi if I wanted to study what fascinated me," she said.

mib/bs/hc
Swimming and surfing, Gazans savour a cleaner sea

Vu(m) AFP|Update: 24.06.202


Palestinian surfers ride a wave off Gaza City / © AFP

Palestinians in the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip are rediscovering the pleasures of the Mediterranean Sea, after authorities declared the end of a long period of hazardous marine pollution.

"It has been a year since I entered the water," said 22-year-old surfer Sabah Abu Ghanem.

"As soon as I enter the water and ride the waves, I feel free and happy; all the negative energy is replaced with positive energy," she told AFP.

Marine pollution has worsened in recent years in Gaza, where insufficient wastewater solutions have turned the Mediterranean into a dump.


The problem has been further exacerbated by the dilapidated infrastructure of the impoverished and overcrowded enclave.

The Gaza Strip is home to 2.3 million Palestinians who have been living under a strict land, sea and air blockade imposed by Israel since the Islamist movement Hamas seized power in 2007.

Only the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt is outside Israeli control and it too has remained largely closed.

Gaza's only power station, which supplies electricity to wastewater plants, has been repeatedly damaged by Israeli strikes.

But six months ago, a German-funded plant began operating in central Gaza, and now treats 60,000 cubic metres (more than 2 million cubic feet) of wastewater per day, which is half the enclave's sewage, according to Mohammed Masleh, an official at Gaza's environment ministry.

- 'I missed swimming' -



Palestinians in the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip are rediscovering the pleasures of the Mediterranean / © AFP

This is just the first phase of the project, and eventually, the plant could treat all wastewater in the territory.

The quality of marine water in Gaza has already improved significantly.

Now, according to samples collected by Gazan authorities, two-thirds of the enclave's beaches are suitable for swimming, said Masleh.


With the start of school holidays and hot summer temperatures, the beach offers a refreshing solace for the residents of Gaza, a narrow sliver of land wedged between the Mediterranean, Israel and Egypt.

It's a turning point for the enclave, where $300 million has gone into wastewater projects over the past decade, according to Maher Najjar, deputy director of the coastal waters authority.

The new treatment plant, located in Bureij, features generators and solar panels for electrical supply.

Najjar said it recovers 60 tonnes of solid waste each day, all of which would previously have ended up in the sea.



Palestinian surfers prepare to ride waves / © AFP

But although Sabah Abu Ghanem is back on her surfboard, she is still reluctant to bring along her children, who "have sensitive skin and could be infected."

Sitting on the beach in Gaza City with her children and grandchildren, Umm Ibrahim Sider was also cautious.

"I said no one is to go in the water but when the kids saw all the people, they went in and we couldn't stop them," said the 64-year-old Palestinian.

One of her grandchildren, Ibrahim, 13, insisted on staying in the water despite his eyes having turned red from the salt.

"I have missed swimming in the sea," he said.
Jesuit priests killed by gunmen in church in northern Mexico

By Mark Stevenson
The Associated Press
Tue., June 21, 2022

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Two elderly Jesuit priests were killed inside a church where a man pursued by gunmen apparently sought refuge in a remote mountainous area of northern Mexico, the religious order’s Mexican branch announced Tuesday.

Javier Campos Morales, 79, and Joaquín César Mora Salazar, 80, were slain Monday inside the church in Cerocahui in Chihuahua state.

They were apparently killed after a man fleeing a drug gang took refuge in the church, authorities said. The gang apparently pursued and caught him, and killed all three.

Chihuahua Gov. Maria Eugenia Campos confirmed a third man was killed, without identifying him. But President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said during his daily news conference that the man fleeing the gunmen was also killed.

The state government later identified the third man as a tourist guide, and said he had been kidnapped and taken to the church, apparently by the gunmen.

The governor said the killings caused “deep anger, indignation and pain” and “shook us to our deepest depths.“

López Obrador said authorities had information about possible suspects in the killings and noted the area has a strong organized crime presence.

Violence has plagued the Tarahumara mountains for years. The rugged, pine-clad region is home to the Indigenous group of the same name. Cerocahui is near a point where Chihuahua state meets Sonora and Sinaloa, a major drug-producing region.

A statement from the Roman Catholic Society of Jesus in Mexico demanded justice and the return of the men’s bodies. It said gunmen had taken both of their bodies from the church.

“Acts like these are not isolated,” the statement said. “The Tarahumara mountains, like many other regions of the country, face conditions of violence and abandonment that have not been reversed. Every day men and women are arbitrarily deprived of life, as our murdered brothers were today.”

For some reason, the gunmen did not kill a third priest who was at the church, but refused his pleas for them to leave the bodies of his two colleagues, said Narce Santibañez, the press director for the Jesuits in Mexico.

The surviving priest said his two colleagues had been killed with gunshots at close range.

The Tarahumara Diocese said in a statement that “the killers, not content with murdering them, have taken their bodies ... leaving a wake of pain, sadness and indigation among all of us who want to mourn them.”

The killing of priests has been a persistent tragedy in Mexico, at least since the start of the drug war in 2006.

The Rev. Gilberto Guevara serves in the parish of Aguililla in the western state of Michoacan, a town which has been on the front lines of cartel turf wars for years. Three priests have been killed in the area over the last decade.

“The danger is always there,” Guevara said about working in the cartel-dominated region. “As long as we don’t get in the way, they respect us, just as the government respects as as long as we are useful to them.”

The church’s Catholic Multimedia Center said seven priests have been murdered under the current administration, which took office in December 2018, and at least two dozen under the former president, who took office in 2012.

The center said that on May 15, a priest who ran a migrant shelter in the northern border city of Tecate was found dead on a ranch.

In 2021, a Franciscan priest died when he was caught in the crossfire of a drug gang shootout in the north-central state of Zacatecas as he drove to Mass. Another priest was killed in the central state of Morelos and another in the violence-plagued state of Guanajuato that year.

In 2019, a priest was stabbed to death in the northern border city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.

Chihuahua’s governor wrote in her Twitter account that she “laments and condemns” the killings and said security arrangements had been discussed for priests in the area.

Campos Morales was ordained as a priest in 1972 and spent almost a half-century working in parishes in the Tarahumara region, known for its grinding poverty and scenic beauty.

Mora Salazar was ordained in 1971 and worked off and on in the Tarahumara in the 1970s and 80s before returning full time in 2000.

The Tarahumara people, who prefer the name Rarámuri, suffered centuries of poverty, exclusion and exploitation, with loggers plundering their forests and drug gangs cultivating marijuana and opium poppies in the mountains.

The Jesuits started missions among the Rarámuri in the 1600s but were expelled by Spain in 1767. They returned around 1900.

The Indigenous community has gained worldwide fame for their skill at running dozens of miles through their mountainous territory, often in leather sandals or barefoot, and have inspired and competed in ultra-long-distance foot races.


2 priests killed in Mexico devoted decades to remote region
Original Publication Date June 22, 2022 - 10:06 AM

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Well before many roads were paved in Mexico’s remote Tarahumara mountains, Jesuit priest Javier Campos crisscrossed the area on a motorcycle. During five decades ministering to its impoverished communities, his familiar imitation of a rooster and love of singing earned him the nickname “Gallo.”

His colleague Joaquín Mora was often at his side during the past 20 of those years, during which drug cartels tightened their grip on the region, filling the mountains with opium poppy and marijuana. Together they brought a moral authority to balance the outsized influence of drug traffickers, their fellow priests said.

The two priests, age 79 and 80, respectively, were shot to death in the small church on Cerocahui’s town square Monday, along with a tourist guide they tried to protect from a local criminal boss. The killer, who President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Wednesday had been identified, took their bodies.

Chihuahua Gov. Maria Eugenia Campos announced later Wednesday that all three bodies had been recovered without providing details.

“They were respected. Their word was taken into account,” said Jorge Atilano, another Jesuit priest, during a Mass Tuesday night in Mexico City.

But the priests had noted changes that made it increasingly difficult to navigate the ever-expanding criminal world.

The Rev. Pedro Humberto Arriaga, a Jesuit superior at a mission in southern Mexico and friend of Campos since their student days, said that when they last spoke in May, Campos told him of “the seriousness of the situation, of how the drug gangs had advanced in the region, how they were taking control of the communities.” Things were spinning out of control with more and more armed criminals moving throughout the area, he said.

Arriaga was not aware of threats against either priest, but everyone was conscious of the risks — there and across the country.

The church’s Catholic Multimedia Center said seven priests, including Campos and Mora, have been murdered during the current administration, which took office in December 2018, and at least two dozen under the former president, who took office in 2012.

The mountains have been the scene of other recent killings of Indigenous leaders, environmentalists, human rights defenders and a journalist who covered the area.

Mexico's persistently high murder rate has been a problem for López Obrador, who entered office making clear he had no interest in pursuing the drug war waged by his predecessors, which he blamed for the increased violence. His government has managed to slow the rise in killings, but not reduce them.

Even without pursuing cartel leaders and instead focusing on the country’s social ills, the killings have continued.

Barely halfway into López Obrador’s six-year term, the number of homicides — nearly 124,000 — has surpassed those during the presidency of former President Felipe Calderon, who accelerated the head-on conflict with the cartels.

There had been talk of pulling Campos and Mora out of the area for their safety and due to their age, but they refused. “They died as they lived, defending their ideals,” said Enrique Hernández, a friend of both men, during a Mass in Chihuahua’s state capital.

Both men were integrated into their communities of Indigenous Tarahumara, who prefer the name Raramuri, performing social work, defending the local culture and advocating for basic services, including education.

Arriaga recalled Campos' love of basketball and passion for singing, but said it was his willingness to immerse himself in the local culture that set him apart. Campos spoke two Raramuri dialects and participated in their dances and rituals.

The Jesuits have been known for their mission work in Latin America dating to colonial times, especially among Indigenous peoples, Andrew Chesnut, a professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, said in an email.

“In fact, they were expelled from both Brazil and Spanish America during the second half of the 18th century for being accused of depriving colonists of Indigenous labor by concentrating them at their missions,” Chesnut said.

During the past half-century, the Jesuits have been known as defenders of human rights and promoters of social justice. “The two are the latest victims in a country that has become one of the most dangerous in the world for Catholic clergy, mostly due to endemic drug violence,” he said.

At the Mass in Mexico City Tuesday night, Luis Gerardo Moro, the top Jesuit in Mexico, said the killings marked “a breaking point and a point of no return in the path and mission of the Society (of Jesus) in Mexico.” He said the order’s priests would continue denouncing the abandonment and violence that persists in the region and would not stay silent in the face of injustice.

López Obrador lamented the killings Wednesday and said that authorities were searching for a man who had a pending arrest order dating to 2018 for the suspected killing of a U.S. tourist.

On Wednesday, authorities put out a wanted poster for the accused killer, José Noriel Portillo Gil, alias “El Chueco,” or “The Crooked One.” They offered a reward of about $250,000 for information leading to his arrest.

Portillo Gil was also accused in the 2018 killing of Patrick Braxton-Andrew, a 34-year-old Spanish teacher from North Carolina who was traveling in the Tarahumara mountains. Portillo Gil's gang apparently suspected Braxton-Andrew of being a U.S. drug agent and killed him. Despite the criminality, the area’s natural beauty continues to draw tourists.

On Tuesday, Javier Ávila, another Jesuit priest working in the region since the 1970s, told local radio that the two priests knew their killer because he was a local crime boss. He said the man was “out of his mind, drunk” and had threatened locals to keep their mouths shut.

The man “told them, ‘If you talk and there’s some movement, I come for all of you and kill you all,’” Ávila said.

Authorities were also searching for three other people abducted Monday in the town of about 1,100 people.

Pope Francis, himself a Jesuit, said via Twitter: “How many murders in Mexico! Violence does not resolve problems, but rather only increases unnecessary suffering.”

Ávila said there was impunity for the crimes in the Tarahumara mountains and in all of Mexico. It is increasingly shameless and is fed by “the ineptitude of authorities at all levels,” he said. “We’re fed up.”

___

Associated Press writer Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed to this report.

News from © The Associated Press, 2022


EXPLAINER: What led to priests being killed in Mexico?

By Mark Stevenson, The Associated Press

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Two Jesuit priests and a tour guide murdered in Mexico’s Sierra Tarahumara this week are the latest in a long line of activists, reporters, travelers and local residents who have been threatened or killed by criminal gangs that dominate the region.

The Revs. Javier Campos, 79, and Joaquín Mora, 80, had spent much of their lives serving Indigenous peoples of the region. Authorities said they were shot to death in the small church on Cerocahui’s town square Monday, along with a tourist guide they tried to protect from a local criminal boss.

Tourists are drawn to the area’s imposing mountains, deep canyons and the indomitable Tarahumara Indigenous people, who refer to themselves as the Raramuri and are famed for their ability to run dozens of miles barefoot or in leather sandals. The mostly roadless region contains wonders like the Copper Canyon, often called Mexico’s Grand Canyon, and one of the country’s last working passenger trains.

But the mountains are a land of tragedy as well as beauty. The Raramuri are still largely impoverished after centuries in which their ancestral land was taken from them. They have suffered famine and starvation during the worst years, even in this century.

WHY IS THE SIERRA TARAHUMARA SO DANGEROUS?

Drug cartels have long used the remote mountains to plant illicit crops of marijuana and opium poppies. In the 2000s, the cartels expanded into illegal logging on Raramuri lands, driving out or killing anyone who opposed them. The Ciudad Juarez-based La Linea gang is battling the Sinaloa cartel, whose local branch is known as Los Salazar.

Isela Gonzalez, director of the Sierra Madre Alliance environmental group, said the gangs now compete to control local alcohol sales, extortion and kidnapping. “The Sierra Tarahumara is under a constant climate of violence,” Gonzalez said. She just returned from a Raramuri community, Coloradas de la Virgen, and noted, “There is a very violent atmosphere, a lot of shootouts between groups, and that is forcing a lot of people to flee.”

WHO ELSE HAS BEEN KILLED?

At least a half dozen Raramuri environmental activists have been killed in the Sierra Tarahumara in recent years, including anti-logging activist Isidro Baldenegro, who received the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize and was slain in 2017. The few suspects detained in those killings were likely only triggermen, and their possible links to drug gangs were apparently never fully investigated.

Journalist Miroslava Breach was killed by gunmen linked to the Los Salazar gang in 2017, apparently in retaliation for reporting on drug gangs’ ties to politicians.

Perhaps the case that drew the most attention was that of 34-year-old American hiker Patrick Braxton-Andrew, who was killed in 2018 in Urique, near where the Jesuits were murdered. Officials at the time identified the killer as José Noriel Portillo Gil, alias El “Chueco,”or “The Crooked One.” An alleged local boss for the Los Salazar gang, he is the same man wanted for killing the two priests.

WHAT HAS THE GOVERNMENT DONE?

The fact that Portillo Gil could be accused of killing a U.S. tourist and not be caught —and then be accused of slaying the two much-loved priests — left many people stunned.

“I just never understood how is it that the United States didn’t raise holy hell until they captured him” said Randall Gingrich, an environmental and educational activist who has worked in the Sierra for three decades. “Why wasn’t there a massive manhunt until this was resolved? How could he still be there?”

The Chihuahua state governor at the time, Javier Corral, pledged to “mete out an exemplary punishment to this criminal and his gang who, paradoxically, by acting in this cowardly way, have put an end to the Sinaloa cartel’s influence and control of this area. Nothing will stop us from capturing him.”

None of that happened. Portillo Gil continued to operate so freely that — according to state prosecutors — when the local baseball team he sponsored lost a game recently, “El Chueco” went to the home of two players on the opposing team, shot one, kidnapped the other and set their house on fire the same day the priests were killed.

“This illustrates a systematic impunity,” said Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope.

WHO ELSE HAS BEEN THREATENED?

Most who work in the Sierra Tarahumara report intimidation, threats and drug-cartel checkpoints even on main roads in the mountains. That atmosphere led in 2015 to the cancelation of the 50-mile-plus Copper Canyon ultramarathon after violence near the course.

The annual race was founded by ultramarathon competitor Micah True, who lived among the Raramuri, was inspired by their running prowess and wanted to benefit them while highlighting their culture. It was held successfully in March this year.

“Most people had a really good experience,” said Gingrich.. “But well, there were people on the streets that were, you know, pretty questionable. I mean, there was definitely a heavy narco presence… The community benefits from (the race) but there’s potential there that something could go wrong.”

WHY WERE THE PRIESTS THERE?

The Society of Jesus, as the Jesuits are known, has a long history of defending Indigenous peoples, and longstanding ties to the Sierra Tarahumara. The Jesuits started missions among the Raramuri in the 1600s but were expelled from all Spanish territories in 1767, in part because colonists complained the missions were depriving them of Indigenous labor. They returned around 1900. The Jesuits carry out educational, health and economic projects and have a seminary there. The two murdered priests were well-regarded among the Raramuri, learning their language and customs.

WILL THIS REFLECT ON PRESIDENT ANDRÉS MANUEL LÓPEZ OBRADOR?

López Obrador has declared his government is no longer focused on detaining drug cartel leaders, and has often appeared to tolerate the gangs, even praising them at one point for not interfering in elections. The killings and other outbursts of violence come at an uncomfortable time for López Obrador.

Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of U.S. Northern Command, said last year that “transnational criminal organizations … are operating oftentimes in ungoverned areas, 30 to 35% of Mexico.” Hope calls that number “made up,” but says the government faces “a real problem of territorial control.”

In June, the U.S. Congressional Research Office released a report saying that López Obrador “has advocated policies that focus on the root causes of crime, but his government has not carried out counternarcotics operations consistently… More than halfway through López Obrador’s six-year term, he arguably has achieved few of his anticorruption and criminal justice aims.”

Mark Stevenson, The Associated Press



OH THE IRONY
US Senate passes gun safety bill, with House expected to follow

A bipartisan package of modest gun safety measures passed the U.S. Senate late on Thursday even as the Supreme Court broadly expanded gun rights by ruling Americans have a constitutional right to carry handguns in public for self-defense.

© Callaghan O'Hare, Reuters

The landmark court ruling and Senate action on gun safety illustrate the deep divide over firearms in the United States, weeks after mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, killed more than 30 people, including 19 children.

The Senate bill, approved in a 65-33 vote, is the first significant gun control legislation to pass in three decades, in a country with the highest gun ownership per capita in the world and the highest number of mass shootings annually among wealthy nations.

“This bipartisan legislation will help protect Americans. Kids in schools and communities will be safer because of it,” President Joe Biden said following the vote. “The House of Representatives should promptly vote on this bipartisan bill and send it to my desk.”

The bill, which supporters say will save lives, is modest – its most important restraint on gun ownership would tighten background checks for would-be gun purchasers convicted of domestic violence or significant crimes as juveniles.

Republicans refused to compromise on more sweeping gun control measures favored by Democrats including Biden, such as a ban on assault-style rifles or high-capacity magazines.

“This is not a cure-all for the ways gun violence affects our nation, but it is a long overdue step in the right direction,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the floor ahead of the vote.

The Supreme Court ruling earlier on Thursday, pushed through by its conservative majority, struck down New York state’s limits on carrying concealed handguns outside the home.

The court found that the law, enacted in 1913, violated a person’s right to “keep and bear arms” under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.

In the Senate vote late on Thursday, 15 Republicans joined all 50 Democrats in voting for the bill.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi applauded the bill’s passage and said in a statement it would advance in the House on Friday, with a vote coming as soon as possible.

House Republicans have instructed their members to vote against the bill, although since the chamber is controlled by Democrats their support is not needed for the bill’s passage.

After House passage, Biden will sign the bill into law.

The Senate action came weeks after an impassioned speech by Biden, in which he declared “enough” of gun violence and urged lawmakers to act.

Polls show that a majority of Americans support some new limits on firearms, demands that typically rise following mass shootings like those that occurred in Texas and New York.

Democrats warned that the Supreme Court ruling on Thursday could have dire consequences for gun safety nationwide.

“The Supreme Court got the ruling wrong,” Senator Chris Murphy, the lead Democratic negotiator on the gun safety legislation, said in an interview.

“I’m deeply worried about the court’s willingness to take away from elected bodies the ability to protect our constituents and that has real grave implications for the safety of our country,” said Murphy, whose home state of Connecticut, where 26 people were killed in a 2012 shooting at an elementary school.

Conservatives defend a broad reading of the Second Amendment, which they say limits most new restrictions on gun purchases.

The Senate’s 80-page Bipartisan Safer Communities Act would encourage states to keep guns out of the hands of those deemed to be dangerous and tighten background checks for would-be gun buyers convicted of domestic violence or significant crimes as juveniles.

More than 20,800 people have been killed in gun violence in the United States in 2022, including through homicide and suicide, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit research group.



‘Monumental win’

The Supreme Court ruling, authored by conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, declared that the Constitution protects “an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”

“This is a monumental win for NRA members and for gun owners across the country,” said Jason Ouimet, executive director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, in a statement.

“This ruling opens the door to rightly change the law in the seven remaining states that still don’t recognize the right to carry a firearm for personal protection.”

In the Senate, Republican backers of the new gun safety bill said that the measure does not erode the rights of law-abiding gun owners, who are among their most ardent constituents.

“It does not so much as touch the rights of the overwhelming majority of American gun owners, who are law-abiding citizens of sound mind,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said, who backs the legislation.

The bill provides funding to help states adopt “red flag” laws to keep firearms out of the hands of those deemed a danger to themselves or others. It would also fund alternative intervention measures in state where red flag laws are opposed and provide for enhanced school security.

It closes the “boyfriend loophole” by denying gun purchases to those convicted of abusing intimate partners in dating relationships, although if they have no further convictions or penalties they will be allowed to purchase again.

It also allows states to add juvenile criminal and mental health records to national background check databases.

Senator John Cornyn, the lead Republican negotiator on the bill, was booed last week as he discussed its contents during a speech before a Republican Party convention in his home state of Texas.

(REUTERS)




Freedom and fear: the foundations of    WHITE   America's deadly gun culture


Paul HANDLEY
Thu, June 23, 2022, 9:47 AM·6 min read


It was 1776, the American colonies had just declared their independence from England, and as war raged the founding fathers were deep in debate: should Americans have the right to own firearms as individuals, or just as members of local militia?

As a landmark Supreme Court decision expanded gun rights Thursday, just weeks after a mass killing of 19 children in their Texas school, the debate rages on and outsiders wonder why Americans are so wedded to the firearms used in such massacres with appalling frequency.

The answer, experts say, lies both in the traditions underpinning the country's winning its freedom from Britain, and most recently, a growing belief among consumers that they need guns for their personal safety.

Over the past two decades -- a period in which more than 200 million guns hit the US market -- the country has shifted from "Gun Culture 1.0," where guns were for sport and hunting, to "Gun Culture 2.0" where many Americans see them as essential to protect their homes and families.

That shift has been driven heavily by advertising by the nearly $20 billion gun industry that has tapped fears of crime and racial upheaval, according to Ryan Busse, a former industry executive.

Recent mass murders "are the byproduct of a gun industry business model designed to profit from increasing hatred, fear, and conspiracy," Busse wrote in May in the online magazine The Bulwark.

Yet in the wake of the May mass shootings of Black people at a supermarket in New York state and children and teachers at their school in Uvalde, Texas, consensus emerged for US lawmakers to advance some modest new gun control measures.

Nearly simultaneously the US Supreme Court struck down Thursday a New York state law restricting who can carry a firearm, a significant expansion of gun rights.

- Guns and the new nation -



For the men designing the new United States in the 1770s and 1780s, there was no question about gun ownership.

They said the monopoly on guns by the monarchies of Europe and their armies was the very source of oppression that the American colonists were fighting.

James Madison, the "father of the constitution," cited "the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation."

But he and the other founders understood the issue was complex. The new states did not trust the nascent federal government, and wanted their own laws, and own arms.

They recognized people needed to hunt and protect themselves against wild animals and thieves. But some worried more private guns could just increase frontier lawlessness.

Were private guns essential to protect against tyranny? Couldn't local armed militia fulfil that role? Or would militia become a source of local oppression?

In 1791, a compromise was struck in what has become the most parsed phrase in the Constitution, the Second Amendment guaranteeing gun rights:

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

- 1960s gun control -

Over the following two centuries, guns became an essential part of American life and myth.

Gun Culture 1.0, as Wake Forest University professor David Yamane describes it, was about guns as critical tools for pioneers hunting game and fending off varmints -- as well as the genocidal conquest of native Americans and the control of slaves.

But by the early 20th century, the increasingly urbanized United States was awash with firearms and experiencing notable levels of gun crime not seen in other countries.

From 1900 to 1964, wrote the late historian Richard Hofstadter, the country recorded more than 265,000 gun homicides, 330,000 suicides, and 139,000 gun accidents.

In reaction to a surge in organized crime violence, in 1934 the federal government banned machine guns and required guns to be registered and taxed.



Individual states added their own controls, like bans on carrying guns in public, openly or concealed.

The public was for such controls: pollster Gallup says that in 1959, 60 percent of Americans supported a complete ban on personal handguns.

The assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, brought a push for strenuous regulation in 1968.

But gunmakers and the increasingly assertive National Rifle Association, citing the Second Amendment, prevented new legislation from doing more than implement an easily circumvented restriction on direct mail-order gun sales.

- The holy Second Amendment -



Over the next two decades, the NRA built common cause with Republicans to insist that the Second Amendment was absolute in its protection of gun rights, and that any regulation was an attack on Americans' "freedom."

According to Matthew Lacombe, a Barnard College professor, achieving that involved the NRA creating and advertising a distinct gun-centric ideology and social identity for gun owners.

Gun owners banded together around that ideology, forming a powerful voting bloc, especially in rural areas that Republicans sought to seize from Democrats.

Jessica Dawson, a professor at the West Point military academy, said the NRA made common cause with the religious right, a group that believes in Christianity's primacy in American culture and the constitution.

Drawing "on the New Christian Right's belief in moral decay, distrust of the government, and belief in evil," the NRA leadership "began to use more religiously coded language to elevate the Second Amendment above the restrictions of a secular government," Dawson wrote.
- Self-defense -

Yet the shift of focus to the Second Amendment did not help gunmakers, who saw flat sales due to the steep decline by the 1990s in hunting and shooting sports.

That paved the way for Gun Culture 2.0 -- when the NRA and the gun industry began telling consumers that they needed personal firearms to protect themselves, according to Busse.

Gun marketing increasingly showed people under attack from rioters and thieves, and hyped the need for personal "tactical" equipment.



The timing paralleled Barack Obama becoming the first African American president and a rise in white nationalism.

"Fifteen years ago, at the behest of the NRA, the firearms industry took a dark turn when it started marketing increasingly aggressive and militaristic guns and tactical gear," Busse wrote.

Meanwhile, many states answered worries about a perceived rise in crime by allowing people to carry guns in public without permits.

In fact, violent crime has trended downward over the past two decades -- though gun-related killings have surged in recent years.

That, said Wake Forest's Yamane, was a key turning point for Gun Culture 2.0, giving a sharp boost to handgun sales, which people of all races bought, amid exaggerated fears of internecine violence.

Since 2009, sales have soared, topping more than 10 million a year since 2013, mainly AR-15-type assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols.

"The majority of gun owners today -- especially new gun owners -- point to self-defense as the primary reason for owning a gun," Yamane wrote.

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