Battle in Colombia over river-wrecking gold 'dragons'


Issued on: 01/04/2023

Miners search for gold using a dredger in Colombia's Nechi river on March 23, 2023 © Raul ARBOLEDA / AFP


El Bagre (Colombia) (AFP) – The giant skeletons of burnt and dismantled gold dredgers litter the rivers of northwest Colombia, where the government is waging a full-out war on illegal mining.

Nicknamed "dragons" by locals, the massive machines used to suck gold from riverbeds are blamed for destroying the environment and financing organized crime.

But their dismantling in a massive army operation has been met with hostility by communities who depend on mining for their daily survival.

Around El Bagre in the gold-rich Bajo Cauca region, a protest by miners that started early this month has been marked by acts of vandalism the government blamed on the Gulf Clan drug cartel for instigating.

But Luis Manuel Campo, 32, one of the miners, insisted to AFP that "we have nothing to do with criminal groups."

In Colombia's gold-rich Bajo Cauca region, poor communities are scouring gravelly river beds for gold with shovels, bulldozers and dredging machines © Raul ARBOLEDA / AFP

Campo co-owns a dredger with three other people.

"We are not hiding. We just want the persecution to stop," he said.

"We want to be formally recognized as miners so that we can work in peace, without stigma."

New gold rush

The names of the villages in this region such as Zaragoza and Caceres serve as a reminder of the Spanish colonizers who were already extracting gold in Bajo Cauca in the 17th century.

It became a bastion of rightwing paramilitary fighters in the 1990s, and is now a stronghold of the Gulf Clan, Colombia's most powerful cartel.

President Gustavo Petro this month called off a ceasefire with the Clan, accusing it of being behind attacks on civilians committed by protesting miners.

Criminal groups in Colombia make almost as much money from illegal mining as they do from trafficking cocaine, authorities say.

With a recent rise in gold prices, Bajo Cauca has been gripped by a new type of gold rush, with poor communities scouring the gravelly river beds with shovels, bulldozers and dredging machines.

"Apart from gold, there is nothing here," said Campo.

Locals say about 350 dredging machines are active in the region -- big and small -- on top of those operated legally by the Mineros Aluvial multinational.
'Profitable'

The illegal dredgers range from simple machines with makeshift conveyer belts to larger mechanical contraptions that require several divers to guide a massive vacuum pipe under the dark water.

Then there are the "dragons" -- three-storey, 20-meter (66-foot) long boats with massive engines.

There are about two dozen of these in the Bajo Cauca region.

One "dragon" costs about half a million dollars, their owners tell AFP.

"At the current (gold) price, it is profitable," said Alex Cossio, 41, who runs one of these monsters.

One "dragon" can extract up to two kilograms (4.4 pounds) of gold per day -- worth more than $50,000, according to a police official who did not want to be named.

An informal miner sells gold in Colombia's El Bagre municipality © Raul ARBOLEDA / AFP

AFP visited a number of these beasts, including one named "Native" that has been operational for only two months in a branch of the Nechi river.

"The (army) helicopters fly over us every day, we are afraid," said Cossio, who insisted there was no link to organized crime.

"Diesel, food, logistics... We buy everything in the neighborhood, a large number of families live from our activity," he added.

AFP observed at least six "dragons" lying mutilated and burnt by the riverside, some already being repaired by their owners.

There is no official data on how many dredgers have been destroyed.

"We tried to stop them, it was terrible," said Julia Tatis, who owns a small eatery, of a raid this month on three of the machines in Nueva Esperanza, a poor hamlet on the water's edge.

"The military just arrived saying we are the Gulf Clan. And they burned everything," added dredge owner Juan Manuel Carcamo.
Damage 'already done'

Campo insists the dredges are working river beds "that were already exploited by Mineros 40 years ago... The damage has already been done."

Lawyer Francisco Arrieta Franco is an advocate for the miners who he describes as victims.

"It is false to say the dredges belong to the Clan," he told AFP.

"It's complicated and expensive to operate a dredger. Criminals are more interested in extortion, which is everywhere in this region."

A miner sells gold in El Bagre, Colombia © Raul ARBOLEDA / AFP

Locals say the miners are subject to Gulf extortion rather than perpetrators of it.

In a gold shop in El Bagre, an employee warned of trouble if the government continues to "harass" the miners.

"We need these dredgers to work and to eat," shouted the employee, who did not want to be named. "They serve the whole community!"

Added a miner, also on condition of anonymity: "It is when you have an empty stomach that you are forced to do illegal things."

© 2023 AFP

Hidden tunnels, drowned dragons, and other subterranean secrets: Environmental politics of small-scale mining in Colombia

Author links open overlay panel

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2022.09.038Get rights and content

Under a Creative Commons license

open access

Highlights

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In the past decade, Colombian small-scale mining has become strongly criminalized.

•

To cope with state persecution, miners make use of their work environments.

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Technology, topography, and geology allow them to keep state agents at bay.

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Small-scale mining landscapes are therefore both extractive and political sites.

Abstract

In this article, I seek to make meaning of small-scale mining landscapes that are not only the object, but also the subject of politics. More specifically, I explore how in Colombia, the physical world of informalized small-scale miners (their technology, topography, and geology) mediates their relationship with the state bureaucracy. While drawing from ethnographic literature on “clandestine” and “natural” infrastructures, I maintain that tunnels, excavators, dredges, mountains, and forests are politically charged matter that enable miners not only to extract minerals, but also to keep such prohibited work hidden from state agents—or at least, to keep those agents at bay. Thus, unlike conventional analyses of small-scale mining, I invoke miners’ relationship with their work environment, not as one more argument of why they should or should not be included in political formations, but instead to contend that they already participate in politics, albeit often outside the formal channels of liberal democracy

Hidden tunnels, drowned dragons, and other subterranean secrets: Environmental politics of small-scale mining in Colombia - ScienceDirect

Migrant fire deaths result of US exporting ‘dirty work’

PRESSURE FROM THE NORTH: People expelled to Mexico from the US were subjected to violence, including kidnappings, sexual abuse and robbery, a rights group said

• AFP, MEXICO CITY
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The deaths of 39 detained migrants in a fire in Mexico on Monday are a reminder of the “dirty work” the country does for the US to stem migrant flows, experts said.

Many thousands of US-bound migrants are stranded in Mexico, struggling to survive in crime-ridden border towns without jobs or resources.

Shelters are overflowing, and many migrants live on the street, at the risk of tensions with local populations such as in Ciudad Juarez, the border city where the fire broke out in an immigration detention center on Monday.

Flowers, photographs and other items on Thursday form a shrine outside an immigration detention center in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where 39 migrants died in a fire on Monday.

Photo: AFP

All of which illustrates that the tragedy is the result of “the pressure cooker of US policies,” said Eunice Rendon, executive director of the Agenda Migrante advocacy group.

Mexico registered more than 388,000 irregular migrants between January and November last year, more than one-third more than in the same period of 2021, US government data showed.

US authorities in November last year apprehended 206,239 migrants at the border, more than at any time in the past two decades, the Pew Research Center said.

About one-third of the deportations were fast-tracked under a controversial rule known as Title 42 implemented by then-US president Donald Trump in 2020, ostensibly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last year, Mexican authorities “continued to collaborate with the USA in implementing US policies that undermine the right to asylum and the principle” of non-forced return of migrants to countries where they might be in danger, Amnesty International said in an annual report this week.

Mexican immigration agencies detained at least 281,149 people in “overcrowded” centers and deported at least 98,299 people, mostly from Central America, including thousands of unaccompanied children, the rights group said.

“People expelled to Mexico from the USA were subjected to multiple forms of violence, including kidnappings, sexual violence and robbery,” it added.

New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch said the incident in Ciudad Juarez demonstrated “the deadly consequences of the US outsourcing immigration deterrence to Mexico.”

Since 2019, the Mexican government has deployed more than 20,000 military personnel on its borders, under the threat of trade sanctions.

Mexico is “doing the dirty work” of the US, Rendon said.

However, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has attempted a “more humanist” policy toward migrants, such as granting asylum, she said.

Experts said the incident in Ciudad Juarez could be a turning point for Mexico to renegotiate the terms of immigration cooperation and demand more support from Washington.

Meanwhile, five people have been arrested regarding the fire.

The announcement came a day after the Mexican Attorney General’s office announced a homicide investigation into the incident, accusing the people in charge of the facility of doing nothing to evacuate the migrants.

They “have already been placed at the disposal of the judge,” said Sara Irene Herrerias, a Mexican prosecutor specializing in human rights.

The deceased were 18 Guatemalans, seven Salvadorans, seven Venezuelans, six Hondurans and one Colombian, Mexican Secretary of Security and Civilian Protection Rosa Icela Rodriguez said.

Migrants treated 'like criminals' in Mexican immigration centers

Jose Osorio with Yussel Gonzalez in Mexico City
Fri, March 31, 2023 


Luisa Jimenez thought she was visiting an office to regularize her stay in Mexico, but instead she found herself detained in an immigration center similar to the one where dozens of migrants perished in a fire.

"It's a holding cell, a detention center, like we're criminals," the Venezuelan migrant told AFP in Ciudad Juarez, where 39 people died and 27 were injured in the blaze that began on Monday.

Jimenez said the facility where she was held was in Tuxtla Gutierrez in the southern state of Chiapas.

She was taken there with the promise that she would be given a permit to remain in Mexico while seeking asylum in the United States.

Jimenez was actually notified that she had to leave the country, she added.

"It's a disgusting place," the 56-year-old woman said, describing conditions similar to those in Ciudad Juarez.

The tragedy there unfolded after a migrant lit a fire in apparent protest over deportations, according to authorities, who have accused immigration officials and guards of failing to even try to evacuate the migrants.

Arrest warrants have been issued against three officials, two private guards and a migrant who allegedly started the fire, as part of a homicide investigation.

Just a week earlier, Moises Chavez was held in the same cell, which he described as a smelly room where guards treat migrants with disdain.

"There are no fire extinguishers or smoke detectors, but there are cameras," the 41-year-old Nicaraguan told AFP.

It was the second time that Chavez had been taken to the National Institute of Migration facility, where the fire claimed the lives of 18 Guatemalans, seven Salvadorans, seven Venezuelans, six Hondurans and one Colombian.

- Harsh conditions -

Video surveillance footage appeared to show guards leaving the 68 detainees locked inside as flames spread and smoke filled the room.

Ostensibly, such facilities are service and accommodation centers for foreigners who cannot prove their legal stay in Mexico.

In reality "you're treated like a prisoner," said Yusleidy Garcia from Venezuela, who was detained in Ciudad Juarez, where women and men are held in separate places.

"It was cold at night. They take away all your belongings. In the cell where I was there were 150 people" of various nationalities, she said.

Such conditions are in sharp contrast with rules issued by the government in 2012 requiring adequate food, hygiene protocols and protection of people and property in the event of riots.

Migrants are not supposed to remain in temporary-stay centers like the one that caught fire for more than seven days.

Some are transferred to other immigration facilities -- where the stay must not exceed 15 days -- to resolve their situation and receive legal assistance, and may be deported.

- 'Not shelters' -

Mexican immigration last year detained at least 281,149 people in "overcrowded" centers and deported at least 98,299 people, including unaccompanied children, Amnesty International said this week in an annual human rights report.

Following Monday's fire, the rights group called for "an end to the practices that have caused untold damage, including torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, to thousands of migrants who have passed through these centers."

"These facilities are not 'shelters,' but detention centers, and people are not 'housed' there, but deprived of their freedom," Amnesty said, alluding to statements by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The United Nations office in Mexico noted that the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration -- an intergovernmentally negotiated agreement -- outlaws arbitrary detentions and calls for legal detentions to be as short as possible.

Other international standards advocate alternatives to arrest, the UN said.

Jimenez's detention lasted for two days, following a long and dangerous journey during which she said she slept next to the bodies of migrants who died in the Darien jungle between Colombia and Panama.

Outraged at being locked up when she was only trying to regularize her status, she recounted asking an immigration official: "Is it a crime to migrate?"

"She turned her back on me and left," Jimenez said.

jo-yug/axm/dr/bfm

In US, men unravel stereotypes -- by knitting


AFP
Fri, March 31, 2023




Knitting has surged in popularity once again in the United States in this age of pandemics and self-care.

But on a sunny March afternoon just outside the nation's capital, one club of enthusiasts sets itself apart: the 10 or so people clicking their needles are men.

DC Men Knit meets twice a month in the Washington area to knit or crochet scarves, hats and blankets. The goal? Relaxation, friendship and reclaiming a pastime historically enjoyed by men and women.

The group's coordinator Gene Throwe says he hopes to "provide a safe space for men to knit together and trade our skills with one another, to help each other out, because knitting has for quite a while been viewed as a female vocation."

The 51-year-old Throwe, an office manager for a national association of nursing schools, puts some finishing touches on a brown sweater with a subtle golden pattern that he's been making on and off for years.

Like many of his fellow knitters, Throwe grew up watching his grandmother work magic with her needles. That feeling of nostalgia turned to regret as he watched the hobby fall by the wayside, in favor of more modern pursuits.

One day, he realized he could do something to revive it.

"Why do I have to expect the women to do it -- I can do it too!" he recalled.

The members of DC Men Knit tend to spark a degree of fascination when they meet in public places -- but no hostility or discrimination.

"It's always some grandmotherly type person that... stares at us, like we just landed from Mars," Throwe says with a laugh.

"And then they'll just start asking us questions about what we're working on."

- 'Not just for grandmas' -

Historically, men have always been knitters, from those who ran lucrative medieval knitting guilds to the schoolboys in World War II Britain who made blankets for the troops.

For those who are passionate about the craft, the latest craze is nothing out of the ordinary.

In his shorts in near-freezing temperatures, and a fanny pack around his waist, Sam Barsky doesn't fit the mold of the usual social media influencer. But he has nearly 500,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok combined.

Barsky -- a self-styled "knitting artist" -- has won over fans with his freehand knitting and his unique sweater designs, which are inspired by landscapes and nature, monuments or works of art.

Niagara Falls, Stonehenge, the New York City skyline, penguins, robots, the Wizard of Oz: Barsky takes it all on and has sweaters not just for Christmas but for every occasion -- birthdays, Valentine's Day, Hanukkah, you name it.

He even has a sweater dedicated to... his sweaters, with about 30 of his creations knitted in miniature form. His work has been displayed at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore.

"Knitting is not just for grandmas. Knitting is for anyone of any age or gender who wants to do it, who enjoys doing it," he told AFP in an interview at Oregon Ridge Nature Center in Cockeysville, Maryland, north of Baltimore.

It was in the park that he kept knitting when the coronavirus pandemic brought travel to a screeching halt.

The park's trees, some of which were painted in 2017 by people who overcame drug and alcohol addiction, have been immortalized on one of Barsky's sweaters against a golden background.

- Pandemic side effects -

While Barsky is keen to travel once again, he says the pandemic was not all bad for him personally: his TikTok account, which he opened in September 2020, quickly attracted a bigger following than the Instagram account he'd been using for years.

Once people were free to meet up in person again, his knitting circles "got much, much larger crowds because lots of other people picked up knitting in that period of time," he said.

Like breadmaking or pottery, knitting and other sewing arts were revitalized during the first months of the pandemic as a way for penned-in Americans to combat their boredom and anxiety -- a scenario repeated around the world.

Even former first lady Michelle Obama has taken up the hobby, showing off the sweaters she made for president husband Barack in promotional appearances for her latest book.

In the DC Men Knit group, each member found a purpose.

For Throwe, knitting is reclaiming an art form that "can be modern and useful."

Devlin Breckenridge, a 48-year-old video game aficionado, says he wanted to "do something a little more creative... instead of digitally killing something," and knitting fit the bill.

And for Michael Manning, a 58-year-old retired government worker, the soothing repetitiveness of knitting is "just very relaxing."

vgr/sst/tjj

Mixed reception to UK unveiling trans-Pacific trade pact membership

Joe JACKSON
Fri, March 31, 2023 


The UK's announcement that it will soon join 11 other countries in a major Asia-Pacific trade partnership -- the country's biggest post-Brexit trade deal to date -- earned a mixed reception on Friday.

Britain will be the first new member since the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) was created in 2018, and the first European country in the bloc.

The trade grouping will include more than 500 million people and account for 15 percent of global gross domestic product once the UK becomes its 12th member, according to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's office.

It said Britain's accession -- after 21 months of "intense negotiations" -- puts the country "at the heart of a dynamic group of economies" and is evidence of "seizing the opportunities of our new post-Brexit trade freedoms".

The development fulfils a key pledge of Brexit supporters that, outside the European Union, the UK can capitalise on joining other trade blocs with faster-growing economies than those closer to home.

But others have noted that such ventures will struggle to compensate for the economic damage sustained by leaving the EU, the world's largest trading bloc and collective economy.

"The impact on the UK economy from the UK joining the CPTPP will probably be fairly small," said Ashley Webb, of Capital Economics.

"Having said that, it may help to improve UK international relations and other countries' perceptions of the UK as a trading partner."

- 'Strategic' -

The CPTPP is the successor to a previous trans-Pacific trade pact that the United States withdrew from in 2017 under former President Donald Trump.

Its members include fellow Group of Seven members Canada and Japan, and historic UK allies Australia and New Zealand.

The remaining members are Chile, Mexico and Peru, along with Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam.

Despite rising geopolitical tensions, in particular with Canberra, China formally applied to join the bloc in 2021.

All existing members must reach a consensus for a new country to enter the CPTPP. London is set to formally join later this year following nearly two years of talks.

In Tokyo, Japanese government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno welcomed the expansion.

"The UK is a global strategic partner and also an important trading and investment partner," he told reporters.

Its accession "will have great meaning for forming a free and fair economic order", he added.

Matsuno said Japan would need to examine whether China and any other nations hoping to join can meet the required conditions, and would also consider the "strategic viewpoint" and Japanese public opinion.

In Britain, two hawkish former leaders of Sunak's ruling Conservatives said London should use its membership to block Beijing's bid.

"It's essential that any idea of Chinese accession is ruled out (and) I'd expect the British government to oppose any such proposal," former prime minister Liz Truss tweeted.

- 'Longer-term benefits' -

Since Britain quit the EU's single market in 2021, it has been trying to strike bilateral deals to boost its international trade -- and flagging economy.

It has so far inked agreements with far-flung allies including Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, and is in talks with India and Canada.

However, a prized pact with the United States remains stalled.

King's College London economist Jonathan Portes noted the CPTPP was not a "deep multilateral agreement" like its predecessor or the EU, so its impacts in lowering trade barriers would be "quite small".

"Joining CPTPP may have longer-term benefits, both economic... and geopolitical," he told AFP. "But of course you can't directly quantify those at this point."

Analysts estimate the eventual UK economic boost is £1.8 billion ($2.2 billion) -- a 0.08 percent annual GDP increase.

Meanwhile, the Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast Brexit will reduce long-term UK growth by about 4 percent.

Scotland's devolved government, which wants to join the EU as an independent country after leaving the UK, seized on the difference.

"It is clear that this agreement will not make up for the damaging impact of the UK leaving the EU and forfeiting access to the European single market," its trade minister Richard Lochhead said.

However, the National Farmers Union was among those to applaud the deal, saying it "could provide some good opportunities to get more fantastic British food on plates overseas".

burs-jj/ea

25 years since Northern Ireland Good Friday peace Accords

 BY EDITORIAL BUREAU

 

 March 31, 2023

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Northern Ireland will celebrate the 25th anniversary of peace accords. That largely ended three decades of devastating sectarian conflict in the coming month. Amid mounting political tensions and security concerns.

Good Friday peace Accords

Following marathon talks involving governments in London, Dublin, and Washington. Northern Ireland nationalist and pro-UK unionist leaders struck an unlikely peace agreement on April 10, 1998 – Easter Good Friday.

However, as the province approaches the quarter-century mark of peace. The atmosphere is one of pragmatic reflection rather than celebration.

“The great hopes of ’98 were definitely not met,” Duncan Morrow, professor of politics and conflict resolution at Ulster University in Belfast, told AFP.

“On the other hand, very few people argue that life was better before the agreement than it is now.”

The peace accords’ power-sharing institutions have been paralyzed for more than a year. Due to bitter disagreements over post-Brexit commerce that show no signs of abating.

Following an assassination attempt on a police officer by dissident republicans in February. Northern Ireland’s terror danger rating was raised to “severe” this week.

In the coming weeks, Belfast will host a number of events featuring current and past international heads of state and government to mark the formal end of the conflict that killed 3,500 people.

‘There is always a procedure.’

In March, US President Joe Biden accepted British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s offer to participate in anniversary events.

During his trip, the US president is scheduled to visit both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

From April 17 to 21, Queen’s University Belfast will host a three-day conference hosted by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Whose husband, former US President Bill Clinton, played a key part in securing the peace deal as US president from 1993 to 2001.

The events will centre on Northern Ireland’s change over the last quarter-century.

Northern Ireland paramilitaries were disarmed, and its militarised border was dismantled. And British forces left in the years following the agreement’s signing.

Brexit complications

The pro-UK Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has been boycotting Northern Ireland’s devolved government. For over 13 months in protest of post-Brexit trading regulations, effectively crippling the assembly and its executive.

Over the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol, sporadic violence has erupted in unionist areas in the years since the UK’s exit from the European Union.

They are concerned that it will push the province away from the UK and increase the likelihood of a united Ireland, an aim of pro-Irish nationalists.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who also contributed to the agreement. Stated earlier this month that Brexit was “a difficult circle to square” when it came to Northern Ireland and urged movement towards restoring power-sharing.

The DUP has so far rejected the Windsor Framework. A renegotiation of sections of the protocol by the EU and UK targeted primarily at alleviating unionist concerns.

According to polling conducted for The Belfast Telegraph newspaper in January. A majority of unionists would vote against the Good Friday Agreement in a modern re-run of the 1998 election that ratified the agreement.

Last month’s attempted murder of police officer John Caldwell. Who was shot multiple times as he exited a sports complex with his son, drawing widespread condemnation from Northern Ireland’s political leaders?

However, the Omagh attack, claimed by republican dissidents. It has acted as a stark reminder of the type of violence that was once prevalent throughout the province.

One in 10 people in France an immigrant, says national statistics agency

France's national statistics agency INSEE said that France stood well within the European average for immigration, behind Germany and Spain.

Le Monde with AFP

Published on March 30, 2023, 

A tenth of people living in France in 2021 were born foreigners, national statistics agency INSEE said on Thursday, March 30, in its first study on immigration in a decade.

Almost seven million people, or 10.3% of all people in France that year were immigrants, meaning "born a foreigner in a foreign country," it said. In comparison, 6.5% of French residents hailed from abroad in 1968, it added.

More than a third of immigrants in France in 2021 had acquired French citizenship, it said.

Immigration rose in France in 2022, driven by labor needs and foreign students

Immigrants and their descendants had largely blended into society, many having children born in France, the study showed. By the third generation, nine out of ten only had one or two grandparents who had immigrated to France.

Migration had contributed to the country's diverse makeup, the statistics agency's Sylvie Le Minez said. "A third of France's population has a link to immigration over three generations," she said.

While immigrants half a century ago largely hailed from southern Europe, in 2021 many had come from North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, Le Minez said.

 France, a land of immigration since the 19th century

More than 12% of immigrants that year were born in Algeria, another 12% in Morocco, and 4% from Tunisia, the study said.

More than 8% hailed from Portugal, 4% from Italy, more than 3% from Turkey and some 3% from Spain, it added. A little more than half of all immigrants were women.

Most had flocked to large cities including the capital, where up to a fifth of the population hailed from abroad. Le Minez said that despite an increase in immigration in recent years, France stood well within the European average, behind Germany and Spain.

Le Monde with AFP

Cambodia should halt 'forced evictions' at Angkor Wat: Amnesty

AFP

Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 10:54 PM MDT

Rights group Amnesty International on Friday urged Cambodia to immediately stop the ongoing "mass forced evictions" of 10,000 families from the Angkor Wat temple complex.

The Cambodian government late last year ramped up the relocation of families living within the sprawling UNESCO world heritage site to a new community being built on former rice paddies 25 kilometres (15 miles) away.

Authorities say they are acting to protect the ruins by moving squatters whose informal settlements are damaging the local environment by producing rubbish and overusing water resources.

The government says people are moving voluntarily but Amnesty said its research found that villagers faced "implicit threats if they did not move".

It said those affected were not properly consulted or given enough notice.

"These are forced evictions in disguise and on a mass scale. People were pressured to volunteer and made to feel fearful of reprisals if they refused to leave or challenged the evictions," Ming Yu Hah, Amnesty's deputy regional director for campaigns, said in a statement.

"The Cambodian authorities should immediately halt this harmful eviction drive that seriously risks impoverishing thousands of families," Ming Yu Hah added.

The ruined Angkor Wat temples, half-swallowed by the jungle, are the country's top tourist attraction.

Families being moved are given a 20-by-30-metre plot of land, $350 cash, 30 pieces of tin roofing material and access to a welfare card -- but they have to build their own houses.

Long Kosal, a spokesman for the Apsara National Authority, which manages the archaeological park, refused to comment on Amnesty's statement.

Prime Minister Hun Sen -- who has ruled the kingdom with an iron fist for nearly four decades -- has warned that Angkor Wat will be withdrawn from the world heritage list if villagers were not relocated away.

UNESCO guidelines say relocations should be carried out with the consent of the population concerned, and that local communities should be the primary beneficiaries of tourism from heritage sites.

Thai firefighters battle huge forest blaze that spread across two mountains
 
By Kocha Olarn and Helen Regan, CNN
Fri March 31, 2023

A forest fire rages in Nakhon Nayok province, northeast of Bangkok, on March 30, 2023.Krit Phromsakla Na Sakolnakorn/Thai News Pix/AFP/Getty Images
Bangkok, ThailandCNN —

Firefighters in central Thailand have spent days battling a wildfire that has engulfed two mountains and part of a forest park.

The fire started at the Khao Chaplu mountain in Nakhon Nayok province, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Bangkok.

Authorities said the blaze ignited during a lightning storm on Tuesday and strong winds whipped up the fire so it quickly spread across the mountain.

On Wednesday, the fire reignited and spread to neighboring Khao Laem mountain, according to Thailand’s Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation.

Video from Nakhon Nayok shows a huge blaze covering the mountain at night, the fire glowing red in the dark and smoke billowing in plumes.

By Thursday, the blaze had spread to Khao Nang Dam, a forest park, as disaster teams and the army fought to extinguish the flames.

The disaster prevention department said in a Facebook post Thursday that three helicopters were dispatched to extinguish the fire, dropping more than 150,000 liters of water over the blaze.

A helicopter drops water over a forest fire hotspot on Khao Laem mountain in Nakhon Nayok province, northeast of Bangkok on March 30.Panumas Sanguanwong/Thai News Pix/AFP/Getty Images

Areas near the fire were declared disaster zones and firebreaks built to stop it spreading into residential areas, the Thai Prime Minister’s office said in a statement Thursday.

Meanwhile, fire trucks and fire-fighting equipment were brought in on standby at the foot of the mountains in case the fire spread to nearby villages, the disaster prevention department said.

By 9 a.m. local time on Friday, the wildfire had subsided, according to the Prime Minister’s office.

“There have been no pockets of fire spotted. The smoke has continued billowing out from two to three spots at Ta Baek Mountain,” the statement said.

However, it warned that strong winds could reignite the fire.

Though authorities believe a lightning storm started the blaze, “the true cause of the incident will be investigated,” the Prime Minister’s office said.

Symbiotic yeast helps longicorn beetles eat wood

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NAGOYA UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: LONGICORN BEETLES USE A SYMBIOTIC YEAST TO HELP THEM FEED ON WOOD view more 

CREDIT: MAKO KISHIGAMI

Even for insects, wood is a tough food source as it contains hard substances such as cellulose. To help make wood more palatable, some wood-feeding insects are assisted by symbiotic microorganisms that break down the components of wood into an edible form. A group from Nagoya University in Japan has isolated a symbiotic yeast from adults, larvae, and eggs of the Japanese longicorn beetle and identified specialized organs that store the yeast, allowing the beetles to break down the unpalatable components of wood. Their findings were published in PLOS ONE. 

“I have been fascinated with longicorn beetles since childhood because there are more than 900 species in Japan and they just look cool,” said Dr. Wataru Toki, a lecturer at Nagoya University. “When I visited forests as a boy, I wanted to see new longicorn beetles that I had never seen before. As a researcher, I am interested in how they eat wood, because after all humans cannot eat wood. I found several studies that suggested microorganisms could be the key.” 

Wood is an important part of the life cycle of the longicorn beetle. After visiting flowers to collect pollen, the female Japanese flower longicorn beetle lays eggs on dead and rotting wood. Within a month, the larvae hatch and burrow into the wood. They feed and pupate before hatching into adults. Understanding how the larvae survive by eating wood is important because they help decompose dead wood, contributing to the cycling of nutrients in the forest. 

A research group led by Ms. Mako Kishigami (she/her), a former master's student; Mr. Fumiaki Matsuoka (he/him), a current master's student; and Dr. Wataru Toki (he/him), a lecturer at the Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, in collaboration with the National Institute of Genetics and the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, studied longicorn beetles in their larval and adult stages. They discovered that the beetles have special organs that allow them to use a symbiotic yeast called Scheffersomyces insectosa. They also found that the yeast breaks down components of the wood, turning it into a food source. 

The yeast was isolated from the membranous tubular pouch in the egg-laying tube of adult females and larvae, particularly in an area near the gut that contains cyst-like tissues, called mycetomes. When the yeast was tested in culture experiments to see if it could break down wood components, the researchers found that it broke down xylose and other wood components that the insects could not break down on their own. 

“These results suggest that yeast is passed from mother to offspring through egg-laying, and that it plays an important role in the growth of wood-eating offspring,” said Toki. “The mother places the yeast onto the surface of the egg during oviposition (the process of laying eggs). The hatching larvae then acquire the yeast by feeding on the eggshell. The offspring grow up storing the yeast in their mycetome, and when they become adults, they take the yeast into their mycetangia (a special organ for storing the yeast) and transport it to the next spawning site.”  

“Wood-feeding insects are abundant in forests, but only a handful of them are known to be associated with any specific microorganism. This study is the first to identify a symbiotic relationship with yeast for the Japanese flower longicorn beetle, the most familiar insect in Japanese forests,” said Toki. “Other uses of the yeast are also possible. If the yeast produces antibiotics, this may protect the beetle from pathogenic microbes.” 

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0282351 

ARTICLE TITLE

Yeast associated with flower longicorn beetle Leptura ochraceofasciata (Cerambycidae: Lepturinae), with implication for its function in symbiosis