SOCIALISM FOR THE RICH
Tesla gets $330M tax deal for Nevada expansion, truck plant

Thu, March 2, 2023

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Tesla won more than $330 million in tax breaks from Nevada on Thursday for the company's commitment to a massive expansion of its sprawling vehicle battery facilities east of Reno, including construction of a new electric semi-truck factory.

Approval from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development came as Gov. Joe Lombardo cited the benefit of good-paying jobs and a nearly decade-long boost to the local economy around Tesla’s huge Gigafactory.

“Tesla has far exceeded every promise they made going back to 2014,” said Lombardo, a Republican who chairs the board made up of top state elected, education and business officials.

The deal is the latest to mark Northern Nevada as a focal point in the U.S. transition to green energy, as Democratic President Joe Biden's administration seeks to move away from gas-powered vehicles in the larger fight against climate change.

Lombardo took office in January and has proposed a two-year state budget of $11 billion. He tweeted a photo of himself Jan. 24 with Tesla CEO Elon Musk at the industrial park east of Reno-Sparks and called the pending agreement "an incredible investment in our state.” Musk also owns Twitter and the rocket company SpaceX.

However, the $330 million figure remained secret until Monday due to a nondisclosure agreement between Tesla and state officials.

That drew complaints from some lawmakers in the Democratic-controlled state Legislature about having only three days to review a 20-year tax abatement.

“There is little to no opportunity to explore how this deal may affect housing supply, public schools, public safety, and other vital government services in the region,” Sen. Dina Neal said in a statement. The Democrat from North Las Vegas is chair of the chamber's Revenue and Economic Development Committee. Neal did not immediately respond Thursday to messages seeking further comment.

Lombardo's statement said Tesla has spent $6.2 billion on its existing 5.4 million square foot (501,676-square-meter) Gigafactory, which the governor said provided 17,000 construction jobs and more than 11,000 “highly paid permanent jobs.”

Tesla projects it will make another $3.6 billion capital investment, creating 3,000 new jobs at an average hourly rate of $33.49 with health insurance for 91% of its employees.

The company plans to add 4 million square feet (371,612 square meters) of production space at two new factories at the Truckee-Reno Industrial Center, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Reno-Sparks along Interstate 80.

One plant will have capacity to produce batteries for 1.5 million light-duty vehicles a year, the company said. The other will have Tesla's first production line for electric combination trucks. Musk has said the goal is a battery range of 500 miles (805 kilometers) when pulling an 82,000-pound (37,000-kilogram) load.

Public support for the deal came from the White House and Mitch Landrieu, Biden’s infrastructure chief; from University of Nevada, Reno President Brian Sandoval, a Republican who as Nevada governor approved an initial $1.3 billion Tesla abatement deal in 2014; and a preschool at the factory site that said it will expand its hours to accommodate workers.

Three elected lawmakers in rural Storey County, where the Tesla factory is located, lauded the economic benefit to the region. But they said the county of just 4,100 permanent residents deserves more tax revenue to support infrastructure and services including police, fire and EMS.

Tom Burns, executive director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development, said in a statement that Tesla’s Gigafactory has propelled the state manufacturing industry and established lithium-ion batteries as the state’s eighth-largest export.

A Nevada-based recycling plant for electric vehicle batteries won a $2 billion green energy loan from the Biden administration in February.

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court refused to block construction of the largest lithium mine in the U.S., which is set to be dug in Northern Nevada, while the court considers claims by conservationists and tribes that the government illegally approved it in a rush to produce raw materials for electric vehicle batteries.

Ken Ritter, The Associated Press

Soccer-Canada women's team reach interim agreement over funding

Amy Tennery
Thu, March 2, 2023 


Soccer - U.S. versus Canada at SheBelieves Cup in Orlando

By Amy Tennery

(Reuters) -Canada Soccer and its women's national team players have reached an interim funding agreement for 2022, the sport's governing body said on Thursday.

The terms of the deal reflect that of the men's national team, Canada Soccer said, with per-game incentives and results-based compensation. A final collective bargaining agreement is still under negotiation.

The women's national team's last agreement with Canada Soccer expired in 2021.

"This is about respect, this is about dignity, and this is about equalising the competitive environment in a world that is fundamentally unequal," Canada Soccer's General Secretary Earl Cochrane said in a statement.

"We have been consistent and public about the need to have fairness and equal pay be pillars of any new agreements with our players, and we are delivering on that today."

A labour dispute between the governing body and its women's team had plunged the run-up to the Women's World Cup into turmoil less than 150 days before the quadrennial tournament kicked off.

The Olympic champions played last month's SheBelieves Cup under protest after facing the threat of legal action because of their plans to strike over pay equity concerns and budget.

They took the field wearing purple shirts that read "enough is enough" ahead of their opening match at the annual round-robin tournament, and earlier this week Canada Soccer President Nick Bontis announced his resignation.

(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York, editing by Ed Osmond & Shri Navaratnam)

Nurses march in Toronto to demand better wages, staffing, working conditions

Thu, March 2, 2023 

Members of the Ontario Nurses' Association are seen here holding a rally outside the Sheraton Centre Hotel in downtown Toronto on Thursday. (Evan Mitsui/CBC - image credit)

Hundreds of Ontario nurses rallied and marched in Toronto on Thursday to call for higher wages, increased hospital staffing, improve working conditions and a better contract.

Members of the Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA) took to the streets as mediation continues with the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) The nurses gathered at Sheraton Centre Hotel in downtown Toronto before they marched north on University Avenue, past what is known as Hospital Row, to the front lawn of Queen's Park.

"We need a better health-care system, better staffing, better wages. We can provide better care when we have better staffing. That's what we're fighting for,"said Janice Petina, a nurse for less than two years, who was at the Queen's Park protest.

The nurses' union started bargaining with the hospitals in late January and if no deal is reached through mediation, it will go to an arbitrator in early May. The ONA represents 68,000 registered nurses and 18,000 nursing student affiliates. The OHA represents 140 public hospitals.

This will be the first contract for the nurses since the passage in 2019 of a provincial wage-restraint law known as Bill 124, which capped pay increases for many Ontario public sector employees at one per cent a year. Discontent with the bill flared during the pandemic when many nurses overwhelmed by successive waves of the novel coronavirus in Ontario hospitals simply quit or moved away.

Evan Mitsui/CBC

In a news release, the ONA said the protesters "believe both employers and this government need to know that the future of patient care for Ontarians depends on long-overdue improvements to working conditions for those that care for them."

'We love our nurses,' Ford tells NDP

Inside Queen's Park, there was a feisty exchange between elected representatives about nursing.

NDP Leader Marit Stiles told Premier Doug Ford in question period his government is driving its nurses away.

"This room is filled today with nurses who are leaving this province at record levels. Nursing has become our greatest export from this province because this government fails to respect working people in this province," Stiles said.

Ford replied: "We love our nurses. We know the dedication. They go in day in and day out. We're going to continue hiring nurses. There's 30,000 nurses in our colleges and universities ready to serve. We're grateful and we think the world of our nurses."

NDP MPP Lisa Gretzky said if the Ontario government appreciated nurses, it would not have passed Bill 124 and wouldn't have filed a notice of appeal after an Ontario court found the bill unconstitutional late last year..

"Premier, if you actually loved and supported nurses, you wouldn't be fighting them in court over Bill 124. Will the premier finally support workers in this province?" she asked.

Alberta band chief angry over silence from Imperial Oil after oilsands tailings spill

Thu, March 2, 2023 



A northern Alberta Indigenous leader has accused Imperial Oil Ltd. of a nine-month coverup over a massive release of toxic oilsands tailings on land near where his band harvests food.

Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation said Thursday that Imperial executives had several chances to tell him in person about the leak after it was discovered in May. But he didn't learn about it until the province's energy regulator issued an environmental protection order on Feb. 6.

"During that nine-month period, ACFN had many meetings with them, including a sit-down, face-to-face between myself and the vice-president in November," Adam told reporters Thursday.

"Each meeting was an opportunity where they could have come clean, but they chose to hide the fact from us over and over again."

Imperial expressed regret over the communication.

"We recognize the communities’ concerns about delays in receiving additional information," said a Thursday statement from Jamie Long, Imperial's vice-president of mining.

"We have expressed to (Chief Adam) directly our regret that our communications did not meet the expectations of the (Athabasca Chipewyan) community," he said.

"We further committed to him that we are taking the necessary steps to improve our communications so this does not happen again in the future."

Shane Thompson, environment minister of the Northwest Territories, said the Alberta government broke an agreement with the territory by not telling it about the spill. The N.W.T. is downstream of the oilsands.

"This lack of transparency and information sharing from our Alberta partners is not an isolated incident, which increases our frustration in this matter," he said in a release.

"This failure comes at a time when the Alberta government is asking for trust and co-operation from the N.W.T. as they work towards regulations to allow the release of treated oilsands tailings effluent into the environment."

Thompson said he has asked for a meeting with his Alberta counterpart Sonya Savage to ensure the agreement between the two jurisdictions is upheld.

Imperial employees first reported seepage was escaping from a tailings pond and making its way to the surface in May. The company confirmed the seepage was tailings wastewater that made its way through a fill layer.

The unknown quantity of wastewater exceeds federal and provincial guidelines for iron, arsenic, sulphates and hydrocarbons that could include kerosene, creosote and diesel. The seepage has continued.

In addition, 5.3 million litres of water escaped from a catchment meant to capture escaped tailings. That makes it, on its own, one of the largest spills in Alberta history.

The tailings leaked onto muskeg and forest as well as a small lake and tributaries of the Firebag and Muskeg rivers.

No public notification was made of the two releases until the Alberta Energy Regulator issued the environmental protection order. By then, says Adam, his people had been harvesting, sharing and eating food harvested from adjacent lands for months.

"We have land users in the area that hunt and fish animals that could have been exposed to these deadly toxins. We have been eating them for months unaware of the potential danger."

Imperial has said there have been no impacts on water or wildlife as a result of the releases.

"It's going to be hard for me to believe anything that comes out of the representatives of Imperial or from the (regulator)," said Adam.

Band members have photographed moose tracks going through the affected area. People have been told not to consume wildlife from the area, and the community of Fort Chipewyan has diverted its water source from the Athabasca River to a reservoir.

The regulator ordered Imperial to provide plans on how it would stop the releases and prevent future ones by Feb. 28. Imperial was also ordered to provide a monitoring and remediation plan as well as a public communications plan.

A spokeswoman for the regulator said Imperial has met those requirements.

In a statement, the regulator said notifying affected people about releases isn't its job.

"It is the licensee’s responsibility to report fluid releases to affected or potentially affected parties as soon as they become aware of the release," it said.

An investigation has been launched, it said.

In a statement, Long said Imperial values its relationships with local communities.

"We recognize there are concerns about recent issues at our Kearl oilsands operations related to the release of industrial wastewater. We regret these incidents and are making every effort to learn from them and prevent them from happening again."

Imperial has installed extra monitoring and pumping wells to try and control the seepage. Trees and topsoil in the area have been stripped. It said further water catchment areas will be built.

Enforcement officers from Environment and Climate Change Canada have been on-site.

The risk of a tailings leak was pointed out in the mine's original environmental assessment. The Joint Panel Review that assessed Kearl noted the “tailings pond was sited in an area that had very permeable deposits."

Evidence that oilsands tailings have been seeping into groundwater from at least some of the mines in the area dates back to at least 2009, confirmed by at least two scientific studies

"How many more tailings leaks are taking place right now?" Allan asked.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 2, 2023.

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

AB / BC

Installing solar power a viable option

Thu, March 2, 2023 

With steep energy cost increases and an increased awareness of the affects of climate change, homeowners around the world are looking for alternatives to power their homes more efficiently.

In Peace River’s back yard is a company that offers the opportunity to explore solar power and becoming a part of a cooperative that promises to help extend the solar generation opportunities in the entire region.

Peace Energy a Renewable Energy Cooperative (PEC) executive director Donald Pettit says although based in Dawson Creek, BC, the company once had a satellite office in Peace River, AB (hoping to re-establish it in the near future) and they service the entire Peace River bioregion in Northeastern British Columbia and Northwestern Alberta.

“We are an incorporated for-profit cooperative,” he explains. “Our cooperative values (one person one vote, people before profit, a strong environmental ethic) are incorporated into everything we do. Very different from a regular corporation where profit is absolutely everything.”

PEC is currently working on one of Western Canada’s first cooperatively owned solar farms called the Peace River Energy Project. Its members will have an opportunity to invest in the project for a return on their investment.

“There is a lot of interest in investing in our Peace River Energy Project (PREP),” says Pettit. “We now have about 640 members, and want to add more before the share offering to our members to finance and build PREP,” he adds. “The more members we have, the more capital we can raise to build more renewable energy projects.”

PREP will be a half megawatt (half MW) solar farm that will feed power into the grid near Peace River. Pettit says the anticipated cost of the project will be $10 million, and will feature roughly 12,000 solar panels on 37 acres of rural pasture land. Their innovative plan will also include agricultural activities at the solar farm, which he suggests could include sheep to keep vegetation down, beekeeping and other interesting endeavours.

“We were leaders and originators of the 102 MW Bear Mountain Wind Park project, B.C.’s first commercial wind facility,” says Pettit. “We worked on that for six years and continue to receive income from it.”

He explains they also led the development of British Columbia’s first educational facility dedicated to clean energy tech called Energy House at the Dawson Creek campus of Northern Lights College. “We have become one of Western Canada’s most qualified solar designers, providers and installers,” he says.

“We created B.C.’s largest municipal solar project in Hudson’s Hope, a 1.4-MW of solar on nine municipal facilities.”

PEC is also currently working with multiple municipalities in the Smoky River Region to design arrays that could come to fruition if large grant application funding is successful.

As an incentive for homeowners, the federal government currently has the Canada Greener Homes Grant that will give consumers up to $5,000 towards a home solar power system.

“Solar equipment comes with excellent 12-to-25-year warranties,” Pettit says. “The investment you make in solar will give you a four to eight per cent return on your solar investment from money saved on your electrical bills, better than most investments. It protects you from grid power rate hikes for decades to come and it increases the resale value of our home.”

Pettit says solar energy also helps fight climate change because it produces no pollution during the operation.

“Soon they will be made entirely with renewable energy, at which point their carbon footprint will be near zero,” he explains. “They benefit consumers who invest in solar for their home or business or farm. Costs have come down dramatically over the last decade, while reliability, warranties and quality have improved,” he adds.

Pettit says solar panels are quick and easy to install, produce and distribute and have very little maintenance compared to the money they save on electrical bills. He says the simple payback with Greener Homes Grant is 10-12 years.

“Money saved is better than money earned because it is non-taxable,” he says. “And the solar increases the value of your home, while paying for itself and saving you money every day.”

Many homeowners are also seeking information or installation of solar panels to offset their electric vehicle charging. Pettit says they have completed many installations at homes in Dawson Creek, Fort St. John, and Peace River, many of those homeowners have included extra panels to charge their electric vehicle. Pettit says this eliminates the vehicle fuel costs forever.

The team at PEC include Pettit, solar designer Greg Dueck, office administrator Tammy Lawrence, solar installer Ron Moch, board president Joanne Dueck, and an elected board of members.

The business nestled in the beautiful winding arms of the Peace River is set to help people learn about, discover, and embrace solar power generation.

For additional information about available homeowner installation grants, becoming a member of PEC or for additional information about solar or wind energy, visit www.peaceenergy.ca.

Emily Plihal Local Journalism Initiative Reporter - South Peace News - southpeacenews.com

Emily Plihal, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, South Peace News

AOC boasts she was right after Amazon ceases building HQ2 in Washington DC

GUSTAF KILANDER   THE INDEPENDENT March 3, 2023

New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez subtly noted that she was right about her stance on Amazon after they paused construction on their second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC.

She retweeted a post by lawyer Max Kennerly saying that “Amazon wanted $3.5 billion in benefits from NY to build this thing they’ve stopped building. @AOC was right”.

He included a number of headlines from early 2019 outlining the progressive Democrat’s opposition to the second headquarters being built in New York.

The news of the delay was first reported by Bloomberg.

The boss of Amazon real estate John Schoettler said in a statement that the company is delaying the beginning of the construction of PenPlace – the second part of the Virginia campus. The initial phase called Metropolitan Park is set to open in June and house 8,000 members of staff.

As revenue slows and the economy appears less than ideal for the company, CEO Andy Jassy has attempted to limit expenses, CNBC notes. Amazon recently revealed its largest layoffs ever – 18,000 members of staff.

“We’re always evaluating space plans to make sure they fit our business needs and to create a great experience for employees, and since Met Park will have space to accommodate more than 14,000 employees, we’ve decided to shift the groundbreaking of PenPlace (the second phase of HQ2) out a bit,” Mr Schoettler said in a statement, according to CNBC. “Our second headquarters has always been a multi-year project, and we remain committed to Arlington, Virginia, and the greater Capital Region.”

The progressive think tank Data For Progress wrote in January 2020 that “after stern objections from prominent officials like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Amazon decided not to develop an HQ location in New York”.

“Nevertheless, the company recently announced it would bring 1,500 jobs to New York—despite no offer of a tax break,” they added.

The think tank noted that “high-profile proponents of the original Amazon deal, including New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, initially pushed back against Ocasio-Cortez’s criticisms of the tax incentives”.

“This is a big money-maker for us, costs us nothing, nada, niente,” Mr Cuomo said at the time, according to the New York Post.

Mr De Blasio agreed with Chuck Todd of NBC’s Meet the Press that the tax incentives didn’t represent “money you had over here, and it was going over there. This is money that didn’t exist.”

Data For Progress said that “the argument that the city would not literally pay cash to Amazon is superficial and semantic”.

The think tank added that taxpayers in New York “would be subsidizing Amazon’s activities in the city by surrendering $3 billion in would-be tax revenue,” adding that there were “enormous hidden costs associated with Amazon’s residence”.

Hostages taken by anti-oil firm protesters in Colombia are freed

Reuters

Colombia's Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez speaks with a police officer who, along with other police officers, were detained by rural and indigenous communities, according to authorities, who are demanding that the oil company Emerald Energy build roads in San Vicente del Caguan, Colombia March 3, 2023. Colombian Ministry of Defense/Handout via REUTERS

BOGOTA, March 3 (Reuters) - A group of 88 police officers and employees of oil firm Emerald Energy taken hostage in Colombia amid a deadly protest against the company have been freed, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Friday.

On Thursday, a police officer and a civilian were killed during the violent protest in Caqueta province. Rural and indigenous protesters also took 79 police officers and nine Emerald employees hostage, blocked access to an oil field, and set a fire to demand the company fix roads in the area, authorities said.

The two deaths were caused by gunfire, Interior Minster Alfonso Prada said earlier on Friday, adding that while the protests were led by rural farmers, armed groups also operate nearby.

Petro confirmed the hostages had been freed Friday, calling on investigators to find those responsible for the deaths.

Emerald Energy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Protests and blockades are common in Colombia near oil and mining projects, with many local residents demanding improved infrastructure or other benefits to the area.

Latest Update

79 police officers taken hostage after oil base attack in Colombia

President Gustavo Petro orders defense minister to head to region and condemns kidnappings

Laura Gamba |03.03.2023



BOGOTA, Colombia

Seventy nine police officers have been held by farmers and Indigenous peoples in San Vicente del Caguan, in the Caqueta Department of Colombia, where the Emerald Energy oil company operates.

The group of farmers are protesting the destruction of the roads by the company's tank cars that transport the fuel and have been demanding for several weeks the paving of 42 kilometers of the road that connects San Vicente del Caguan with Las Delicias.

On Thursday morning, the police arrived at the scene after violent protesters set a fire and tried to take over the company's facilities. The confrontations left a policeman and a civilian killed. Nine oilfield workers were also captured alongside the police officers.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Twitter that the Minister of Defense Ivan Velasquez will be in San Vicente del Caguan on Friday.

“The unilateral release of the policemen and the protection of their integrity is paramount for the government,” he said.

Petro called on the attorney general to investigate the killings and the Red Cross to attend to those being held hostage.

Videos show the hostages spending the night on a community room floor. The murder of the policeman by the members of rural and Indigenous communities has prompted a response from the police chief, General Henry Sanabria.

"It is disconcerting the savage manner in which they ended the life of Deputy Superintendent Ricardo Arley Monroy Prieto, when he was protecting people frightened by the onslaught of a pack that favored chaos over dialogue," Sanabria wrote on Twitter.

Audios have been released in which a uniformed man desperately asked an army commander for a helicopter to take out the wounded police officer and help them repel the attack.

"What's going on? Some support. Two hours holding out, my general. Two hours, my general. I have a seriously wounded comrade, my general," pleaded the policeman. "There are no human rights for us, what are we waiting for, for them to finish us all off?”

The Mayor of San Vicente del Caguan, Julian Perdomo, has made urgent appeals to the government to retake control of the area. He said that it is "regrettable that 90% of the company's infrastructure was destroyed and, in addition to being set on fire, it was also looted. With these acts, almost 500 people were left without work".​​​​​​​

Protesters in Colombia clash with oil company and take hostages

A civilian and police officer have died in violent demonstrations calling for Emerald Energy to invest in rural communities.

Colombia’s human rights ombudsman meets with police and demonstrators in San Vicente del Caguan, Colombia, on March 2 [Colombian Ombudsman Office/Reuters]

By Christina Noriega
Published On 3 Mar 20233 Mar 2023

Caracas, Venezuela – Colombia’s Defence Minister Ivan Velasquez and the commander of its armed forces, Helder Giraldo, have landed in Caqueta province to seek the release of dozens of police officers and oilfield workers taken hostage during deadly protests.

At least 79 police officers and nine oilfield workers have been held since Thursday, as protesters demand that the oil company Emerald Energy invest in surrounding rural communities.

KEEP READING

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Following gang truce, Colombia city becomes experiment in peace

list 2 of 3

Colombia backtracks on ceasefire announcement with ELN rebels

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Colombian police seize weapons in ‘important blow’ to armed group

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An officer and civilian died in confrontations between riot police and protesters, as demonstrators took control of the oil company’s offices. Police sources indicate that the civilian was shot to death, while the officer suffered a stab wound.

“The homicide of Subintendant Ricardo Arley Monroy, who was mercilessly killed when he was defenceless in the power of his captors, deserves general repudiation,” Velasquez tweeted late on Thursday, referring to the police officer killed. “Nothing, nothing justifies this act.”

Other cabinet ministers are expected to join Velasquez and Giraldo on Friday in San Vicente del Caguan, a town in southern Colombia where much of the violence is centred. They include Minister of the Interior Alfonso Prada and Minister of Transportation Guillermo Reyes.

Colombian Defence Minister Ivan Velasquez has travelled to San Vicente del Caguan to address demonstrations by rural residents [File: Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters]

On Friday, the office of Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, announced that six oilfield workers remained in the protesters’ custody, down from the nine reported earlier in the week. There was no update on the number of police officers held, however.

“It’s important that farmers free the police that they have in their custody,” Velasquez tweeted.

Petro echoed calls for the hostages’ release. “I insist on the unilateral release of the police officers,” he posted on Twitter. “The protection of their integrity is essential for the government.”

Twenty-two protesters have also been injured, according to a local farming association involved in the demonstrations.

Police told the news agency Reuters that dissidents from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a disbanded rebel group, could be involved in the violence. In 2016, the FARC signed a peace deal that some members rejected, in favour of continued armed action.

But Alexander Ospina, a spokesperson for the communities involved in the protests, told Al Jazeera he had seen no indication of involvement from FARC dissidents. He said such rumours seemed intended to delegitimise the rural communities’ fight.

Protesters have called for Emerald Energy to help fix roads and invest in local institutions, including schools. As part of the unrest, members of local communities have blocked access to one of the company’s oilfields.

President Gustavo Petro has called for the hostages to be released as tensions between an oil company and rural communities ramp up [File: Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters]

Ospina said demonstrators are waiting for the arrival of government officials to begin talks. They hope to reach a deal with the government over what they consider Emerald Energy’s obligation to build infrastructure for local communities and provide compensation for environmental damage.

“To de-escalate the situation, we need to sign agreements with the government that correspond to our reality,” Ospina said. “If the oil companies don’t want to invest in our communities, then the government should remove the oil companies from our lands.”

But Prada, Colombia’s Interior minister, has announced that the government will only fully enter negotiations with the protesters once the hostages are freed.

“We have said that an absolutely insurmountable requirement to sit down to talk with a large body of the national government in relation to the social issues of the community is naturally the immediate release of our members of the National Police and six workers,” Prada said.

About 4,000 farmers, representing more than 150 farming and Indigenous communities, are present for the protests, Ospina said.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

Earthquakes Caused $5.1 Bln in Damage in Syria, World Bank Estimates

Friday, 3 March, 2023

A displaced Syrian woman living in war-damaged buildings, are pictured in Syria's opposition-held northern city of Raqqa on March 1, 2023, amid fears that the already fragile dwellings will not withstand an earthquake.(AFP)

Asharq Al-Awsat

The deadly earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria last month caused about $5.1 billion in direct physical damage in Syria, the World Bank said on Friday, furthering destruction in a country already devastated by years of civil war.

The current value of damaged and destroyed buildings and infrastructure is estimated at some 10% of Syria's gross domestic product, the bank said in a statement after releasing what it described as a broad but preliminary damage estimate.

Damaged buildings include cultural heritage sites in historic areas of Syria, it said.

"These losses compound years of destruction, suffering and hardship the people of Syria have been enduring over the past years," said Jean-Christophe Carret, World Bank country director for the Middle East.

"The disaster will cause a decline in economic activity that will further weigh on Syria's growth prospects," Carret added.

The Feb. 6 earthquakes struck a swathe of northwest Syria, a region partitioned by the 11-year-long war, including opposition-held territory at the Turkish border and government areas controlled by President Bashar al-Assad.

The province of Aleppo, which was a major front line in the war, suffered an estimated 45% of total damages from the quakes, the bank said. Some 37% of the damage was in Idlib province, with 11% in the coastal Latakia province, the bank added.

Reflecting a degree of uncertainty around the preliminary assessment, estimates for total direct damages range between $2.7 billion and $7.9 billion, the bank said. Its assessment does not cover broader economic impacts and losses for the Syrian economy, it said.

The bank said in a Feb. 27 report that the earthquakes caused $34.2 billion in direct physical damage in Türkiye, where at least 45,000 people have died due to the quakes. The death toll in Syria is over 5,900, authorities say.

 

Israel: Attacks By Settlers On West Bank Result In Death Of 65 Palestinians In First Two Months Of 2023

 March 4, 2023 

By Peoples Dispatch / Globetrotter News Service

Hundreds of Israeli settlers attacked different towns and villages near the West Bank city of Nablus on February 26. At least one Palestinian—identified as 37-year-old Sameh Aqtash—was killed, and more than 100 were injured, according to WAFA. Around 65 Palestinians, including 13 children, have been killed in 2023 by Israeli forces in the first two months of 2023 alone in the areas of occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The settlers also attacked and burned dozens of Palestinian houses and vehicles across the region. Palestinians claimed that the settlers unleashed their violence under the protection of the Israeli occupation forces. They also claimed that the Israeli forces prevented medical aid from reaching those who needed it.

Nablus and nearby Jenin in the occupied West Bank have been the focal points of Israeli violence in the last few months. On February 22, Israeli occupation forces killed at least 11 Palestinians and injured more than 100 in Nablus in a daytime raid.

Following the attacks, Israeli forces imposed a siege around Nablus, restricting the movement of Palestinians, stated WAFA. The siege of Nablus was intensified when Israeli occupation forces increased deployment, claiming that they were attempting to apprehend the gunman who allegedly opened fire and killed two Israeli settlers in Huwara, just south of Nablus, in late February.

IDF soldiers and Israeli settlers. File Photo by ISM Palestine, Wikimedia Commons.

Source: This article was provided by the Peoples Dispatch / Globetrotter News Service

With West Bank in turmoil, new generation of Palestinian militants emerge


By —Isabel Debre, Associated Press

Mar 3, 2023

JABA, West Bank (AP) — The stuttering blasts of M-16s shattered the quiet in a West Bank village, surrounded by barley fields and olive groves. Young Palestinian men in Jaba once wanted to farm, residents say, but now, more and more want to fight.

Last week, dozens of them, wearing balaclavas and brandishing rifles with photos of their dead comrades plastered on the clips, burst into a school playground — showcasing Jaba’s new militant group and paying tribute to its founder and another gunman who were killed in an Israeli military raid last month.

“I’d hate to make my parents cry,” said 28-year-old Yousef Hosni Hammour, a close friend of Ezzeddin Hamamrah, the group’s late founder. “But I’m ready to die a martyr.”

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Similar scenes are playing out across the West Bank. From the northern Jenin refugee camp to the southern city of Hebron, small groups of disillusioned young Palestinians are taking up guns against Israel’s open-ended occupation, defying Palestinian political leaders whom they scorn as collaborators with Israel.

With fluid and overlapping affiliations, these groups have no clear ideology and operate independently of traditional chains of command — even if they receive support from established militant groups. Fighters from Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other organizations attended last week’s ceremony in Jaba.

In near-daily arrest raids over the past year, Israel has sought to crush the fledgling militias, leading to a surge of deaths and unrest unseen in nearly two decades.

While Israel maintains the escalated raids are meant to prevent future attacks, Palestinians say the intensified violence has helped radicalize men too young to remember the brutal Israeli crackdown on the second Palestinian uprising two decades ago, which served as a deterrent to older Palestinians.

This new generation has grown up uniquely stymied, in a territory riven by infighting and fragmented by barriers and checkpoints.

More than 60 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since the start of 2023, after Israel’s most right-wing government in history took office. About half were militants killed in fighting with Israel, according to an Associated Press tally, though the dead have also included stone-throwers and bystanders uninvolved in violence.

At least 15 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks in that time, including two Israelis shot Sunday in the town of Hawara, just south of Jaba. In response, Israeli settlers torched dozens of buildings — a rampage that also left one Palestinian dead.

“It’s like the new government released the hands of soldiers and settlers, said now they can do whatever they want,” said Jamal Khalili, a member of Jaba’s local council.

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At the recent memorial service, children with black militant bands on their foreheads gathered around the gunmen, eager for a glimpse of their heroes.

“The outcome is what you see here,” Khalili added.

Last week, an Israeli military raid in the northern city of Nablus sparked a shootout with Palestinian militants that killed 10 people. The raid targeted the most prominent of the emerging armed groups, the Lion’s Den.

Israeli security officials claim the military has crippled the Nablus-based Lion’s Den over the past few months, killing or arresting most of its key members. But they acknowledge its gunmen, who roam the Old City of Nablus and pump out slick Telegram videos with a carefully honed message of heroic resistance, now inspire new attacks across the territory.

“The Lion’s Den is beginning to become an idea that we see all around,” said an Israeli military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an intelligence assessment. Instead of hurling stones or firebombs, militants now mainly open fire, he said, using M-16s often smuggled from Jordan or stolen from Israeli military bases.

The official said the army was monitoring the Jaba group and others in the northern cities of Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarem. But he acknowledged the army has difficulty gathering intelligence on the small, loosely organized militant groups.

The Palestinian self-rule government administers parts of the West Bank, and works closely with the Israeli military against its domestic rivals, particularly the militant Hamas group, which runs the Gaza Strip.

With young Palestinians increasingly viewing the Palestinian Authority as an arm of the Israeli security forces rather than the foundation for a future state, Palestinian security forces are loathe to intervene against the budding militias. Palestinian forces now rarely venture into militant strongholds like the Old City of Nablus and the Jenin refugee camp, according to residents and the Israeli military.

Jaba militants said the Palestinian security forces have not cracked down on them. Residents said the group, founded last September, has rapidly grown to some 40-to-50 militants.

Hammour described Palestinian leaders as corrupt and out of touch with regular Palestinians. But, he said, “Our goals are much bigger than creating problems with the Palestinian Authority.”

With the popularity of the PA plummeting, experts say it cannot risk inflaming tensions by arresting widely admired fighters.

The PA “is experiencing a crisis of legitimacy,” said Tahani Mustafa, Palestinian analyst at the International Crisis Group. “There’s a huge disconnect between elites at the top and the groups on the ground.”

Palestinian officials acknowledge their grip is slipping.

“We fear any of our actions against (these groups) will create a reaction in the street,” said a Palestinian intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

With the Israeli military stepping up raids, the West Bank’s power structure faltering and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government expanding settlements on occupied land, frustrated Palestinians say they are not in pursuit of any Islamist or political agenda — they simply want to defend their towns and resist Israel’s 55-year-old occupation.

For 28-year-old Mohammed Alawneh, whose two brothers were killed in confrontations with Israeli forces, two decades apart, the Jaba group is a “reaction.” He said he could support peace if it meant the end of the occupation and the formation of a single state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. For now, he said, it’s clear Israel doesn’t want peace.

Hamamrah, the Jaba group’s late commander, threw stones at the Israeli army as a teen and later joined an armed offshoot of Fatah, the party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, according to his mother, Lamia. After 10 agonizing months in Israeli prison, he became religious and withdrawn. He spoke of taking revenge.

After his death, Lamia discovered he had helped form the Jaba group and that Islamic Jihad had supplied them with weapons, including the gun Hamamrah fired at Israeli troops on Jan. 14.

The army chased him into Jaba, killing Hamamrah along with another gunman, Amjad Khleleyah. Their crushed and bloodstained car now sits in the center of Jaba like a macabre monument.

At his funeral, Lamia said Hamamrah’s friends urged her to show pride in a son who became a fighter and inspired the whole village.

But Lamia wept and wept. Her 14-year-old daughter, Malak, now wants die a martyr, too.

“I’m just a mother who lost her son,” she said. “I want this all to stop.”