François Legault accuses Justin Trudeau of attacking Quebec's democracy and people

Sat, January 21, 2023 

MONTREAL — Quebec Premier François Legault is criticizing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for "attacking Quebec's democracy and people" by proposing to limit the use of the notwithstanding clause.

In a Tweet posted this morning, Legault said that this expressed desire by Trudeau is a "frontal attack" on the Quebec nation's ability to protect its collective rights.

Legault was reacting to an interview the prime minister gave to La Presse in which he noted his intention to better regulate the use of the notwithstanding clause, which permits provincial and territorial governments to override certain provisions of the Constitution. He told La Presse he's also considering referring the matter to the Supreme Court.

Legault says no Quebec government has ever adhered to the 1982 Constitution Act, which he says "does not recognize the Quebec nation."

He says governments led by the Parti Québécois, the Liberal Party and the Coalition Avenir Québec have all used the notwithstanding clause, notably to protect the French language.

He says it is up to Quebec's national assembly to decide on the laws that will govern the province and Quebec would never accept such a weakening of its rights.

Since first coming to power in 2018, Legault's government has invoked the notwithstanding clause twice to protect a recently introduced secularism law and language law reforms from potential legal challenges.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 21, 2023.

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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

The Canadian Press

WAIT, WHAT?   Qu'est-ce

99-year-old Quebec woman threatened with criminal charges for failing to appear for jury duty

Sat, January 21, 2023

Marion Lenko, 99, is bedridden and under 24-hour care in Montreal's West Island. (Submitted by Edward Ritchuk - image credit)

Edward Ritchuk's 99-year-old mother-in-law is in a long-term care home, bedridden, hard of hearing and unable to hold a conversation.

So he found it pretty odd when Marion Lenko was summoned to court for jury selection.

"When I first received the letter, I thought it was a joke," he said.

The summons was delivered first to her seniors' residence. Then in December, it was sent to Ritchuk's home in Beaconsfield, Que., an on-island Montreal suburb. She was expected to appear for selection earlier this month.

Richuk said he emailed her son, who lives in Florida and is legally responsible for Lenko. But he said her son never responded to the summons, failing to ask for an exemption.

"Then this week, I received a letter from the justice ministry saying that she has to appear on the 31st of January in court or procedures will be taken against her," he said.

Lenko was born in July 1923 and is now living under 24-hour medical care in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Que., in the West Island.

Ritchuk said he can't believe that there was no verification done before his mother-in-law was sent a letter saying she may be criminally liable for not fulfilling her jury duty.

Unable to get through on phone

Ritchuk says he tried calling the number provided in the letter, but was sent to an automated system and says he was unable to get through to anyone.

As far as he could tell, someone needs to appear in person. But Ritchuk can't represent his mother-in-law. It's her son who has power of attorney, and he's more than 2,400 kilometres away.

Ritchuk's wife died a couple of years ago and he has stayed in touch with Lenko, having known her since 1972. Now, he says he's stuck in the middle and is unsure what to do next.

Valeria Cori-Manocchio/CBC

Isabelle Boily, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice, said a person may be disqualified from serving as a juror or there may be circumstances preventing them from fulfilling their obligations.

"If so, it is possible to request an exemption or postponement of participation by completing the form received with the notice," Boily said in an email.

"This form must be sent to the sheriff with the supporting documents within 20 days of receiving the notice."

In addition, as indicated in the notice of summons of the prospective juror, it is possible for prospective jurors over the age of 65 to request the exemption by calling the sheriff's office within the required 20-day period.

Boily said it is possible for a family member to call in their place.

Lawyer calls situation 'shameful'

Eric Sutton, a criminal defence attorney in Montreal, said any Canadian citizen over the age of 18 can be summoned for jury duty. Information on exemptions comes with the summons, and the summons is sent by the sheriff's office based on the polling list, not birthdays.

It's up to the person who receives the summons to invoke or apply for the exemption with the forms provided, he said. He said the documents need to be filled out and proof provided.

He's skeptical that a simple phone call to the ministry or sheriff's office would be enough.

"From what I understand, this family tried to phone and to no avail," Sutton said, noting the exception would have very likely been accepted in this case were the documents filled out.

"Now she's facing this fear of possibly being fined or imprisoned. I saw it in the paperwork. That's pretty tough medicine for a 99-year-old woman who is hard of hearing. Shameful."

A new super-strain of gonorrhea that is resistant to 5 antibiotics has been detected in US patients, health officials say

Andrea Michelson
Fri, January 20, 2023 

A billboard from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation warning of drug-resistant Gonorrhea in Hollywood, California on May 29, 2018.Frederic Brown/AFP via Getty Images

• Two patients in Massachusetts caught a new multi-drug-resistant strain of gonorrhea.

• The patients recovered, but the bacteria was resistant to several antibiotics.

• Gonorrhea is the second most common STI in the US — and it's on the rise.

Health officials are on alert since a new strain of gonorrhea was detected this week in Massachusetts that is showing signs of resistance or reduced susceptibility to all drugs that are recommended for treatment.

Two apparently unrelated cases of gonorrhea were either resistant to treatment, or harder than usual to treat, with five classes of antibiotics according to a press release from the state health department.

Although both cases were eventually cured with ceftriaxone — the antibiotic that's currently recommended to treat gonorrhea — the bacteria was not as susceptible to the medication as usual, according to an alert the Massachusetts Department of Public Health sent to clinicians. In other words, it put up a fight.

This is the first time that a strain of gonorrhea in the US has displayed resistance or reduced response to not just one, but seven different drugs across five classes of antibiotics, the clinician's alert reported. Two other medications from the same class as ceftriaxone also showed reduced efficacy in lab tests, along with four unrelated antibiotics.

Gonorrhea is on the rise in the US 

While there used to be several options available to treat gonorrhea, the pool of drugs that can successfully stop the infection is shrinking — just as infections are increasing in the US. New cases of gonorrhea increased 10% by the end of 2020 compared to the year before, according to the CDC. Overall, gonorrhea cases have increased 131% since 2009, and it has become the second-most common sexually-transmitted infection in the US.

The disease often has no symptoms, but when symptoms are present they may include a burning sensation when peeing; unusual discharge from the penis or vagina; and bleeding between periods, according to the CDC. These symptoms can also indicate another STI, such as chlamydia.

Gonorrhea has already evolved resistance to some antibiotics

Back in the 1990s, there were a few different antibiotics that were prescribed to treat gonorrhea. Infected patients had the choice of ceftriaxone or cefixime — both cephalosporins — or ciprofloxacin, which comes from a different class of medication.

However, strains of gonorrhea that were resistant to ciprofloxacin soon appeared to circulate in Hawaii and on the West Coast, according to the CDC. The agency stopped recommending the drug as a gonorrhea treatment in 2007.

Now, public health officials fear that our best existing treatment for gonorrhea could meet the same fate.

"The discovery of this strain of gonorrhea is a serious public health concern which DPH, the CDC, and other health departments have been vigilant about detecting," Margret Cooke, head of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, said in a statement Thursday.

Genetic sequencing revealed the strain had a marker for reduced susceptibility to ceftriaxone, but it is not yet clear how far the strain has spread. According to the alert sent to clinicians in Massachusetts, eight cases of the same sequence type have been identified in the UK between December 2021 and June 2022, and some cases have also been seen in Asia.

Colombia, ELN rebels to resume peace talks in Mexico in February

Mayela Armas and Luis Jaime Acosta
Sat, January 21, 2023 



Colombia, ELN rebels to resume peace talks in Mexico in FebruaryColombia's government negotiators and National Liberation Army (ELN) members hold a news conference, in Caracas


By Mayela Armas and Luis Jaime Acosta

CARACAS (Reuters) - Colombia and the National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel group said on Saturday they will resume peace talks in Mexico next month, overcoming a recent impasse after the government recently declared and then called off a bilateral ceasefire.

There was a first cycle of talks last year in Caracas to end the guerrillas' part in nearly six decades of war.

The about-face on the ceasefire came after ELN said it had not agreed to it. The government blamed a misunderstanding of the ELN's position.

Both sides held an emergency meeting in Caracas this week and agreed to hold the second round of negotiations on Feb. 13 in Mexico, one of the guarantor nations for the talks along with Norway, Venezuela, Cuba and Chile.

"In said cycle, the issue of society's participation in peace building will be addressed. At the same time, a bilateral ceasefire will begin to be discussed and agreed upon," said a statement issued following the emergency meeting.

Colombia and the ELN said they would jointly examine progress in implementing agreements reached during the first cycle of talks and agreed to keep communication channels open even when not at the negotiating table.

For the ceasefire to work, "you have to agree on the rules of the game and protocols, and these protocols in turn cover the armed forces and the ELN. That will take time," said Pablo Beltran, head of the ELN delegation.

Beltran said he hopes to advance "substantially in the agreement" at the next meeting in Mexico.

The government has said ceasefires remain in force with another four groups: two dissident groups founded by former FARC rebels and crime gangs the Clan del Golfo and Self-Defenses of the Sierra Nevada.

President Gustavo Petro, a former member of the M-19 urban guerrilla group and who took office last year, has pledged to seek peace agreements or surrender deals with armed groups of all stripes.

(Reporting by Mayela Armas in Caracas and Luis Jaime Acosta in Bogota; Additional reporting by Johnny Carvajal; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by David Gregorio)

LIKE SPACESUITS FOR WOMEN ASTRONAUTS

From Hardhats to Boots: PPE Is Keeping Women from the Trades

Sat, January 21, 2023

Leanne Hughf found her fit in construction, but nothing in construction fit her.

Her high-visibility vest hung off her shoulders. Empty nubs of fabric sat at the fingertips of oversized gloves. When she bought special no-grip shoes for paving asphalt, the smallest size didn’t fit her even when she wore two pairs of socks. “It’s like wearing clown shoes,” Hughf said.

British Columbia’s construction industry and the provincial government have spent years attempting to encourage more women to work in the sector, both as a push for equity and to fill a growing need for those skilled workers.

But virtually all of the personal protective equipment that keeps those workers safe is designed for men, something tradeswomen like Hughf say is both a safety risk and an example of the barriers women face in those male-dominated professions.

“All you want to do is do your job,” said Hughf, a heavy equipment operator who now works as a business representative for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 115. “But if you don’t have the proper tools to do your job, why would you want to continue doing it?”

A November report by the Canadian Standards Association found 92 per cent of about 500 women construction workers surveyed reported one or more problems with personal protective equipment.

Across the 3,000 women in various professions the CSA polled, only six per cent regularly wore PPE that was actually designed for women.

It’s not just a matter of comfort. Hughf has seen workers with baggy vests get dragged down a highway when a piece of fabric is snagged by a moving car. She’s had the tips of gloves caught in manhole lids and seen tradeswomen fumble with baggy coveralls while climbing ladders.

The CSA survey found almost four in 10 women in the trades had suffered an injury they believed was a direct or indirect result of their equipment. Nearly a fifth said they had considered leaving the profession altogether because of challenges finding appropriate gear.

Even when workers do find gear that fits, Hughf said, they often pay hundreds of dollars because their employers won’t provide it. In other cases, they improve what’s available, using safety pins or sewing needles to modify safety gear for a better fit.

“The issue is not that nothing exists. It’s that it’s not being made available widely” said Brynn Bourke, the executive director of the BC Building Trades.

The right fit

Jodi Huettner’s passion for PPE came, in part, out of a need to pee.

A decade ago, Huettner was working as an environmental engineer, a job that often brought her out to site assessments in the wilderness with teams that were entirely or predominately male.

She was especially aware of this when she had to go to the bathroom.

“My male counterparts could literally pee while sampling a well,” she said. But her gear — the coveralls, the tool belt — clearly were not made with her anatomy in mind. She often had to hitch a ride to the only bathroom at the worksite, which sometimes meant driving 20 minutes away.

That’s when Huettner began experimenting with “Frankenstein-ing” her gear, adding flaps and making adjustments so it worked for her body and her job. It was a service she would later offer to female colleagues.

Eventually, it became Helga Wear, a Vancouver company founded by Huettner specializing in women’s PPE — a product many major manufacturers simply don’t make.

Huettner said those larger companies often label smaller men’s products as being designed for women. But proper PPE is about more than just size: most women have different dimensions in the chest, shoulders head and hips that also affect the fit of the clothing, Huettner said. Their feet may also arch differently. That means the smaller versions of men’s clothing still create excess fabric and improper fits that can be uncomfortable, and even dangerous.

“It’s all for men, so what’s they’re saying is: women are nothing more than scaled-down versions of men, and we can get by with wearing the smaller sizes of men’s PPE, which is just completely not true,” Huettner said.

It is not a problem that solely affects women. Transgender and non-binary people, Hughf said, may have bodies that do not neatly align with the select range of sizes provided for cisgender men.

But the issue is deeply felt by women in the trades, in part because more and more are entering industries that are still dominated by men.

Last fall, the BC Construction Association reported that roughly 5.7 per cent of the more than 200,000 workers in the sector were women. That’s far from parity, but is 24 per cent higher than three years prior.

That increase has come after years of advocacy from industry, government and labour groups encouraging women to enter the trades.

A 2021 Labour Market Forecast predicts B.C. will have 85,000 new job openings in the skilled trades and more than 70,000 in the construction sector by 2031, most of them to replace retiring workers. The federal and provincial governments both offer financial incentives to women hoping to apprentice in the skilled trades, something unions have also supported.

But those professions are a long way from parity. A 2017 report into the experiences of women in the trades identified a range of systemic barriers keeping women out of the sector, ranging from gender-based discrimination and bullying to hiring practices. It also found the retention rates for female apprentices lagged behind the rates for men, even when the lower overall entry rate for the trades was taken into account: in 2013, for example, only 4.4 of registered apprentices in B.C. who completed their training were women.

“I hear from women who say that they need to feel brave to go into work,” said Karen Dearlove, the executive director of the BC Centre for Women in the Trades. “They need to have a thick skin. And I tell them, that shouldn’t be in your job description.”

That 2017 report also mentioned PPE, which for many women is a physical reminder of the systemic barriers they face in the trades.

“No one wants to work where they feel like they’re not part of the thing at the onset when they put the safety gear on,” said Dave Baspaly, president of the Council of Construction Associations. He said more and more employers are willing to pay the extra cost to offer that gear. Construction giant EllisDon recently launched a campaign to offer safety vests to women and other workers “whose frame and body type are not best served by traditional vest offerings.”

But most companies aren’t there yet.

In theory, existing B.C. regulations already require companies to provide PPE that fits correctly. WorkSafeBC issued a new guideline on its rules last year, acknowledging protective clothing has traditionally been made for men and stating employers have an obligation to make sure PPE fits properly. But those rules aren’t necessarily being enforced.

In theory, B.C.’s government could change regulations or laws to explicitly require that employers provide PPE that fits women and people of other gender identities.

But Baspaly doesn’t think that would work, either, because multinational construction PPE manufacturers often don’t make gear for women because of how small the market is. Even if B.C. made it mandatory, Baspaly said, its population alone is too small to sway company decisions on that level. That’s left the market to “boutique” and small-scale manufacturers like Helga Wear.

“The manufacturers are looking at large market penetration in big urban centres,” Baspaly argued. “When we move and if everyone else moves, they consider it, but they don’t necessarily move with us.”

Then there’s the Canadian Standards Association, who set industry benchmarks for equipment like PPE across the country. That group did commission a survey into PPE for women and said in a November press release that it “has started to assess its existing portfolio of PPE standards to determine opportunities for improvement as it relates to women.” But changes resulting from that will likely take time, Hughf said.

The result is a waiting game. Governments haven’t forcefully regulated it, because manufacturers don’t make it. Manufacturers don’t make it because businesses aren’t asking for it. And businesses aren’t asking for it, in some cases, because they don’t have to.

That’s not to say things aren’t changing. Hughf recently negotiated a collective agreement for some International Union of Operating Engineers members with an explicit clause that the employer must provide properly fitting PPE for people of all genders.

And Helga Wear, Huettner’s company, has seen a swell of business. Originally, Huettner said, many in the industry dismissed her idea, saying the status quo of using men’s PPE was fine. She was doing “the Craigslist Hustle,” working a series of odd jobs to finance her business. Her home base was a shipping container on Mitchell Island, beneath the Knight Street bridge.

But she’s attracted a growing stream of business and admirers. Helga Wear turned a profit for the first time last year. She has now moved to office space on Frances Street in East Vancouver that she shares with another business and Leeloo, a Maltese toy poodle named for the character from The Fifth Element.

In some ways, Huettner said, the problem with PPE is a broader symptom of design standards that often take mens’ bodies as the “default” without consideration of how the same product may not work for other people.

Her hope is that her little boutique firm can be part of turning that story around, one vest at a time.

“I’m going to keep talking to anyone who will listen to me about exactly this,” she said.

Zak Vescera, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Tyee

The Construction Disaster that Changed BC

Sat, January 21, 2023 

Mike Davis’s last outing with his dad was a bike ride to the worksite where his father was helping to build a massive office building.

They had bought the bikes at an RCMP auction and fixed them up like new. They rode the 10-speeds from Burnaby down Kingsway, zipped through back streets and found themselves at the shell of the Bentall IV, a 35-storey building that Donald Davis was helping build as a carpenter.

To Donald’s chagrin, the site was locked up for the weekend. He’d wanted his son to see it. They headed home, stopping briefly to buy a snack at a convenience store with the spare change they had in their pockets.

Soon after, Donald Davis went to Bentall IV and never came back.

He and three other carpenters — Brian Stevenson, Gunther Couvreux and Yrjo Mitrunen — fell to their deaths from 100 metres when the platform that held them collapsed on Jan. 7, 1981. Donald was 34. Mike was only 13.

“My dad would come home from work, put down his lunchbox and play basketball with me in the driveway. It seemed he was the loudest one on the sides at my soccer games,” Mike Davis said at a memorial this month. “And one day, he just didn’t come home.”

The Bentall tragedy inspired a slew of changes, revolutionizing occupational health and safety in construction. Government officials and families gather every year at a small nearby plaque to commemorate the lives lost and reaffirm their commitment to health and safety regulations.

But many labour advocates say there is still much work to be done. About 30 British Columbians who work in construction die every year, a figure that union leaders say is unacceptably high.

“I think the lessons that we learned have been forgotten,” said Lee Loftus, an insulator and former president of the BC Building Trades. “These are lessons that will be learned again tomorrow, and that’s a shame.”

The day of the fall

Loftus remembers when the platform collapsed. In 1981, he was a young journeyperson working as an insulator in downtown Vancouver. He had worked on Bentall IV just weeks earlier.

Within 30 minutes of the accident, Loftus had gotten word; within 45 minutes, workers from across construction sites downtown had rushed to the scene.

“That’s just what you do. We were all at a loss,” Loftus said. He remembers chaos: ambulances and firetrucks everywhere. “We just stood there dumbfounded, trying to figure out what the hell? What happened?”

That was the question families had, too. They lobbied aggressively for a coroner’s inquest into the death. Over an eight-day hearing the next month, that inquest found a series of problems plaguing the site: designs were approved without minimum testing, adjustments were made to equipment without the green light from engineers and there were effectively no written safety policies.

And then there was the platform — a “flying” or “slip” form meant to allow workers to pour concrete on each floor as the building rose. “Panel E,” as it was called, had modifications that made it atypical.

The result of the coroner’s inquest was a joint union/employer inquiry into the state of B.C.’s construction industry and a blitz of activity from what was then called the Workers Compensation Branch to get construction companies to comply with existing rules.

“Employers were not talking about occupational health and safety. They weren’t doing safety education. There were some issues with compliance and safety structures,” Loftus said.

Overnight, he said, things changed. Suddenly safety committees were a regular feature at worksites. There were new rules around scaffolding and meetings about known hazards.

Leading that charge were members of the families, who testified at the coroner’s inquest and led a push to commemorate the tragedy at a plaque that now sites near the Burrard SkyTrain station — a request Vancouver’s Park Board had originally rejected.

The ripple effect

Every year, government officials and union leaders gather on the anniversary of the Bentall tragedy to remember the lives lost. The families, though, do this every day.

“I’ve always believed that my grief was like the ocean,” Davis said. “There’s a lot of it, and sometimes the tide is out and it’s not close enough to touch me. Then there’s other times the waves will get you, and you don’t know when they’re going to come. It’s random as you walk along the beach. And there’s days you’re hit with huge waves.”

In the immediate aftermath of his father’s death, Davis was in shock. Then the grief set in. It comes and goes, he says. When his oldest son turned 13, it hit him hard.

“I didn’t know what a father-son relationship looked like after that age. And me being the father, I didn’t know what the future held,” Davis said.

He found ways to use his grief. At one point, he worked as a chef, and parlayed that into a job with BC Ferries. He joined the union there and became a member of the local safety committee.

“It struck a nerve. It struck a chord. Later I realized I was putting some of my pain I had been carrying for years and putting it to some positive purpose,” Davis said.

The legacy of Bentall IV is one of hard lessons and policy change.

But few in the labour movement believe worker protections in construction are strong enough today, and many feel they’ve been slipping back.

“We have big changes, and some of those changes have been enduring. But we have also drifted back into complacency,” BC Building Trades executive director Brynn Bourke said.

Bourke says many of the recommendations made by the inquiry — like monthly construction site inspections and automatic penalties when orders are disregarded — are still things unions are calling for today.

Since the Bentall disaster, Bourke says 1,441 construction workers in B.C. have died. The fact that roughly 30 construction workers die in B.C. every year makes the industry one of the province’s most dangerous, Bourke says.

Loftus attended this year’s memorial at Discovery Park, near where Bentall IV still stands. Wearing a hardhat and safety vest, he laid a white rose atop the plaque. Like many, he comes here every year, not because the work is done but because he knows it isn’t.

“It reminds me of something we need to try to get back to. It reminds me there is more loss of life in front of us if we don’t,” Loftus said.

Zak Vescera, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Tyee

Greece expanding border wall, calls for EU help on migration

"TEAR DOWN THAT WALL" RONALD REGAN 1984

"TEAR DOWN THAT WALL, MOFO" JEFFERSON AIRPLANE 1969

Sat, January 21, 2023

FERES, Greece (AP) — Greece prevented around 260,000 migrants from entering illegally in 2022 and arrested 1,500 traffickers, an official said Saturday.

Citizens’ Protection Minister Takis Theodorikakos was speaking to ambassadors from other European Union countries plus Switzerland and the United Kingdom as he guided them to a still expanding border wall in the country’s northeast.

Theodorikakos emphasized to the 28 envoys that Greece’s border is also the EU’s external border.

“The task (of protecting the border) needs the support ... of European public opinion, the European Union itself and its constituent members individually,” Theodorikakos said. “It is our steadfast position that member states of first reception cannot be (the migrants’) only European destinations.

"There must be solidarity among member-states and a fair sharing of duties...close coordination is a must,” he said.

The Greek minister’s sentiments were echoed by Cypriot Ambassador Kyriakos Kenevezos, who spoke of the “need for understanding” from countries that don't have external EU borders.

U.K. Ambassador Matthew Lodge said that “our priority is to protect the human life and dignity endangered by the criminal trafficking networks ... even though we are no longer an EU member, we are closely cooperating,”

Greece’s five-meter (16-foot) steel wall facing neighboring Turkey to the east across the Evros River — called Meric in Turkey — currently extends more than 27 kilometers (17 miles) and, according to Greek authorities, helps cover another 10 kilometers (six miles). Greece is currently expanding the wall, adding a 35-kilometer (22-mile) stretch with the ultimate goal of extending it to cover most of the 192-kilometer (120-mile) border.

Greece has repeatedly accused Turkey of weaponizing the plight of migrants by encouraging them to cross the border to discomfit Greece and the rest of the EU — effectively cooperating with traffickers. Turkey accuses Greece of violent pushbacks that endanger the lives of migrants.

Turkey, whom the Cypriot ambassador called “the elephant in the room” in Saturday’s meeting, also has its own migrants' problem — hosting about 5 million of them. EU leaders are worried that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could encourage a mass exodus to the EU, where most of the migrants and refugees want to end up, preferably at one of the more prosperous bloc members.

The EU’s border protection agency, Frontex, will add another 400 border guards in Greece — 250 of them in February — to the existing 1,800-member force, Theodorikakos said.

___

Demetris Nellas contributed to this report from Athens.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of global migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

Costas Kantouris, The Associated Press

https://greattransition.org/images/Hardt-Empire-Multitude.pdf

Empire and Multitude: Shaping Our Century - Great Transition Initiative 

Political theorist Michael Hardt, co-author with Antonio Negri of a series of influential volumes, including Empire and the recent Assembly, ...

 Opposing farmer protests in Berlin mark International Green Week 

By Euronews  with EBU  •  Updated: 21/01/2023 - 

'No future without farmers' reads the slogan at a Berlin farmer protest on Saturday.   -   Copyright  AP Photo

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German farmers have taken advantage of International Green Week to hold a protest in the capital Berlin on Saturday. 

Riding 55 tractors, farmers said they wanted to get rid of what they call a "restrictive" environmental regulation. The rally was organised by the We're Fed Up movement. 

At the same time, thousands held a protest calling for more sustainable farming.

They want to see fair producer prices, more organic farming and more arable land for growing human food instead of fodder for livestock.

Many carried banners and signs, others large balloons bearing slogans such as "Protect insects" and "Agribusiness Kills!"

Venezuela frees former spy chief who defied Nicolás Maduro

Sat, January 21, 2023

MIAMI (AP) — Venezuela's government has released a former spy chief for the late president, Hugo Chávez, and who spent nearly five years in prison for spearheading a movement of disgruntled loyalists that defied the rule of the leftist firebrand's handpicked succesor, Nicolás Maduro.

Miguel Rodríguez Torres departed his homeland on Saturday to live in exile in Spain, according to someone close to Rodríguez Torres who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the release hadn't yet been announced by the Maduro government. He was accompanied by former Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who had been working behind the scenes to secure Rodríguez Torres' freedom, according to the person.

Rodríguez Torres is a former army major general with deep ties inside Venezuela's military, which is the traditional arbiter of the country's political disputes. He cut his teeth as revolutionary stalwart by partaking in a failed 1992 coup led by Chávez, who was a tank commander at the time.

But he ran afoul of Maduro, by questioning the socialist leader's stubborn adherence to rigid foreign exchange controls blamed for soaring inflation and a cratering currency.

Never embraced by Maduro's traditionally conservative opponents, who despised him for leading a crackdown on anti-government protests in 2014 while serving as interior minister, Rodríguez Torres nonetheless galvanized a small if combative movement of onetime loyalists.

Maduro, who, unlike Chávez, never served in the military, immediately viewed him as a threat. In March 2018, he was hauled away by agents from the Bolivarian intelligence service he once commanded while delivering a speech at a hotel ballroom in which he called for free and fair elections.

Later, he was charged with multiple crimes, including treason and leading a barracks rebellion. But he never admitted his guilt and spent most of the past five years at a military prison in Caracas.

___

Follow Goodman on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APJoshGoodman

Joshua Goodman, The Associated Press

Public transit users concerned proposed TTC service cuts will increase safety risks


Sat, January 21, 2023 



TORONTO — Adrian Ruiz returned to his birthplace of Toronto five years ago after growing up in Mexico, but after an older woman was fatally assaulted near his home by a downtown subway station on Friday, he's considering moving.

"It's not the Toronto that I grew up in. I'm very worried about my wife and my kids walking at night, riding the TTC," he said.

"I hate driving, but now riding the TTC ... it's very, very dangerous. I think the city is going down the drain."

Other public transit users are speaking out against proposed Toronto Transit Commission service cuts that they say could further put riders' safety at risk at a time when violent incidents on subways and streetcars are on the rise.

The TTC recently proposed its 2023 operating budget with changes to address a $366 million budget shortfall, which includes a 10 cent fare hike and running 9 per cent less service this year compared to levels in place before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Subways will run at 6-minutes or better service levels and as low as 10-minute-or-better service levels in some cases, based on demand. The proposed budget says schedules and routes will be adjusted based on ridership demand at the busiest portions, directions and hours of service.

It also says streetcar service will be reduced to 87 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, bus service will run at 94 per cent and rapid transit service will fall to 75 per cent.

Shelagh Pizey-Allen is the executive director of TTCriders, an advocacy organization made up of volunteer transit users in Toronto which has been fighting the planned service cuts and fare hike. Riders waiting up to 10 minutes for a subway car could be "a recipe for less safety," she said.

"Safety is top of mind for some transit users right now, but less service makes use less safe because there's fewer people taking the TTC if they can't rely on it," said Pizey-Allen.

The TTC's 2023 operating budget and its proposed service cuts were being discussed among the city's budget committee amid a string of violent incidents on Toronto's public transit system in recent months.

Police said last week they were investigating after a group of up to 10 girls allegedly assaulted several people at five downtown subway stations randomly on Dec. 17 between 10 p.m. and midnight.

Last month, police laid several charges against a woman after six people were allegedly assaulted in a spree of random attacks on Dec. 19 on a streetcar, subway platforms and trains. Five were allegedly struck with a glass bottle.

Earlier in December, a woman was stabbed to death and another was wounded in a random attack on a subway train. Police have charged a man with first-degree murder and attempted murder.

And just this week, Toronto police said they were looking for a suspect after an alleged hate-motivated assault at a downtown subway station on Wednesday. Police alleged a man struck a person wearing a religious head covering. On Friday, police received reports that a man tried to push someone onto the tracks at a separate station downtown.

TTC spokesman Stuart Green said the transit agency's leadership is in ongoing meetings with Toronto Mayor John Tory, police and union representatives to discuss safety issues on transit.

"We also know that there are bigger societal and systemic issues at play when it comes to the root causes of these incidents that require a multi-pronged response," said Green.

"We welcome being part of a broader discussion with all community and government stakeholders about what can be done to improve safety and security on the TTC."

Part of the TTC's proposed operating budget includes hiring 50 new special constable positions "to increase safety and security," a $4.4 million investment Pizey-Allen said is ill-considered.

"Adding a few special constables is not only the wrong approach, it's going to harm Black and Indigenous transit users. They've been grossly misrepresented in enforcement interactions," she said.

"It will make some transit users less safe and it doesn't tackle the root causes of safety issues on public transit."

Speaking on behalf of TTCriders, Toronto Metropolitan University student and daily transit user August Pantitlán Puranauth told Toronto's budget committee this week they were scared by the prospect of waiting for transit for long time periods at night.

"If we had more service, that means it's a reduced chance of people being in situations where they feel uncomfortable," said Puranauth

They noted the service cuts are of particular concern for women on transit and echoed fears that Black and Indigenous riders would be targeted by fare policing and special constables.

"We need to be an inclusive city and a safe city, and that's a city where transit is not overpoliced."

Shauna Brail, an associate professor at the University of Toronto's Institute for Management and Innovation, says there is a lot of research that suggests more policing will not improve the underlying conditions that can lead to violence on transit.

"It looks like a stopgap measure, but it isn't what you need for long-term prosperity for communities and for individuals," said Brail.

"Investments in communities, in public services, in affordable housing and other kinds of investments are far better at addressing some of the challenges that we're seeing in terms of violence spilling over to transit.

Tory will present the TTC's operating budget by the beginning of February for consideration at a special city council meeting on Feb. 14.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 21, 2023.

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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

Tyler Griffin, The Canadian Press