'A really dark moment': Canadians react to Poilievre's comment on Trudeau's LGBTQ+ post

The Conservative Party leader said the prime minster was "demonizing concerned parents" following recent rallies across Canada.

Chris Stoodley
·Lifestyle and News Editor
Updated Fri, September 22, 2023

Canadians had a lot to say on social media after Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre claimed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was "demonizing" parents following recent rallies over LGBTQ+ school policies.

Trudeau took to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday with a strict message reminding people that transphobia, homophobia and biphobia have "no place" in Canada.

"We strongly condemn this hate and its manifestations, and we stand united in support of 2SLGBTQI+ Canadians across the country — you are valid and you are valued," the Liberal Party leader wrote.

But Poilievre responded with his own thoughts on Friday afternoon, condemning Trudeau for how he "always divides to distract from all he has broken" in a post that's been seen more than 1.5 million times.

"This time, he is demonizing concerned parents," Poilievre penned. "Parents should be the final authority on the values and lessons that are taught to children. Trudeau should butt out and let parents raise their kids."

Thousands of people participated in counter-protests across Canada on Sept. 20, after "1 Million March 4 Children" planned protests against so-called "gender ideology" being taught in schools. (The Canadian Press/Darren Calabrese)

Both comments come after thousands in cities like Ottawa, Halifax and Vancouver participated in protests and counter-protests regarding LGBTQ+ policies in Canadian schools.

This past summer, leaders in some Canadian provinces began announcing changes to school policies that would impact queer students, particularly those who are transgender or non-binary.

In June, New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs announced new changes to a protective policy for queer students. Those changes mean teachers in the province will not be required to use the preferred names or pronouns of transgender or non-binary students under the age of 16 without parental consent.

Saskatchewan Education Minister Dustin Duncan announced a similar policy change in August, where teachers must seek parental approval before a student under the age of 16 can change their names or pronouns.


Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has many Canadians divided after his recent comments on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's post following recent rallies over LGBTQ+ school policies. (Photo by Dave Chan/AFP via Getty Images)

According to an Ipsos poll released on Sept. 21, support for electing Poilievre as prime minister is rising amongst Canadians.

Four in ten people polled (40 per cent) view the Conservative Party leader as the best person to run the country. On the other hand, support for Trudeau remained stagnant at 31 per cent, while support for NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh slid to 22 per cent.

While some users on X were supportive of Poilievre's post on Friday, others called out the politician for his "unacceptable" remarks.

'An attack on their autonomy’ or safeguarding kids?: What happened at '1 Million March' and counter-protests across Canada

FEW HUNDRED PERSON MARCH MORE LIKE IT

LGBTQ2S+ advocates say the demonstrations are a violation of human rights, targeting queer and trans students

Imani Walker
·Writer
Updated Thu, September 21, 2023

Hundreds of demonstrators across Canada took to the streets to protest LGBTQ2S+ inclusive education in school curriculums and they were met with thousands of counter-protesters advocating for the rights of queer people.

Organized by “Hands Off Our Children” and Family Freedom, the “1 Million March 4 Children” is an active protest against the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) curriculums in Canadian schools. On their websites, the groups say the march will “safeguard children from gender ideology teachings, sexual indoctrination, exposure to explicit sexual content, ensuring that parental consent remains paramount.”

Yet, LGBTQ2S+ advocates say the demonstrations are a violation of human rights, targeting queer and trans students.

Why counter the ‘1 Million March for Children’ across Canada? Because these protests seek to import hateful ideas from abroad. Because these protests were never for ‘children.’ They’re instead an attack on their autonomy on the principle of the ‘child’s best interests.’ Because these protests seek to eliminate altogether the idea of ‘trans kids’, further dehumanizing this incredibly vulnerable community. Because trans and 2SLBGTQ+ people, just like everyone else, deserve safety and dignity.

Celeste Trianon, a Transfeminist jurist and activist

The Hands Off Our Children website describes itself as a movement that embraces principles of human dignity, freedom of thought, and religious freedoms. “Our mission includes safeguarding children’s rights, nurturing their growth in a safe environment, and promoting critical thinking through quality education.”

Yet, online, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network described Hands Off Our Children and Family Freedom as groups hiding behind the illusion that they are just trying to protect children.

“These protests are supported by a big tent of far-right and conspiratorial groups, including Christian Nationalists, conservative Muslims, COVID-19 conspiracy theorists, sovereign citizens, anti-public education activists, and more,” the Canadian Anti-Hate Network tweeted.

It’s a belief that the Elementary Teachers of Toronto and Toronto District School Board (TDSB) are echoing.

“We want to make it unequivocally clear that TDSB stands with our trans, Two-Spirit and non-binary students, staff and families, and we support everyone's human rights and expression of gender.

Harassment, discrimination and hate have no place in TDSB. In our schools, we do not tell students who they should be, but welcome them as they are,” the TDSB wrote in a statement.

Gender identity debated in schools across provinces

In recent weeks, gender-identity in schools has been a focus after Ontario’s Education Minister Stephen Lecce said he believes “parents must be fully involved” if their child chooses to use a different pronoun at school.

“Often there are health implications, and we have to respect the rights of parents and recognize that these can be life-changing decisions,” Lecce said at a press conference on Aug. 28th when he was outlining the changes students and parents can expect for the new school year.

I think parents want to be involved so that they can support their kids. And I think that’s a really important principle that we must uphold.

Stephen Lecce, Minister of Education, Ontario

This came shortly after Saskatchewan's education minister said that teachers must start seeking parental consent when children under 16 want to change their names or pronouns – which was protested by LGBTQ2S+ students.

“Parental rights are not absolute. They exist because parents have a statutory duty of care towards their children, and must act in their best interests. They do not own their kids!” wrote activist Trianon online.

“Denying your child the right to a complete education, and forcibly controlling their identity at their expense, will do nothing but hurt them for life,” Trianon continued in a statement posted on Instagram.

In New Brunswick, more than 400 protesters marched, waving signs saying, “Let kids be kids” and “Parents’ rights matter.” They’re protesting the province’s Policy 713 which was first introduced in August 2020 and outlines minimum requirements for a safe environment for LGBTQ2S+ students.

Recent changes to the policy by New Brunswick’s Progressive Conservative government means it’s no longer mandatory for teachers to use the preferred pronouns or names of transgender or non-binary students under the age of 16. The teacher would have to get parental consent and any student refusing parental involvement would be referred to the school psychologist or social worker to develop a plan to inform their parents.

As more videos and images emerge of the high-tension faceoffs happening across the country, legal experts are weighing in, publicly reminding protesters and school boards that the law trumps all.

“Educational institutions must comply with the legal standards set by provincial and federal laws, including the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms where applicable. Our concern is that educational institutions, including but not limited to Ontario’s public schools, continue to meet their obligations under Ontario’s human rights code to ensure they are discrimination free environments. Ontario school boards are required to comply with existing laws that protect the human rights of all students, including queer and trans students. This requires ensuring safe and equitable spaces free from discrimination,” wrote Alex Battick, principal lawyer at Battick Legal Advisory.

His firm specializes in serving a diverse client base including students, families, employees, unions and organizations providing education services in Ontario.

As the protesters peter out and the picket signs slowly come down, it’s clear that all eyes will be glued to the Ministry of Education and school boards in the following weeks.

Some school boards, including the TDSB and Durham District School Board are showing their support by raising Pride flags all week.

Thousands protest 'gender ideology' in Canada, Trudeau condemns 'transphobia, homophobia, and biphobia'

Chris Pandolfo

FAUX NEWS
Thu, September 21, 2023 

Thousands of demonstrators gathered in cities across Canada on Wednesday as a conservative movement against "gender ideology" in schools was confronted by pro-LGBTQ+ protesters.

The nationwide peaceful protests, organized under the banner "1 Million March for Children," stretched from Vancouver to Ottawa. A website that promoted the protest said its mission was to advocate "for the elimination of the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) curriculum, pronouns, gender ideology and mixed bathrooms in schools."

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the marches, posting on X, "Transphobia, homophobia, and biphobia have no place in this country. We strongly condemn this hate and its manifestations, and we stand united in support of 2SLGBTQI+ Canadians across the country -- you are valid and you are valued."

At demonstrations in many cities, people held signs declaring, "Leave our Kids Alone!" and "Stop Gender Ideology," while counterprotesters declared "Protect Trans Kids."

Hundreds of people attend the 1 Million March for Children rally organized by the parents group Hands off Our Kids at Queens Park in Toronto, Canada on Sept. 20, 2023. Thousands of people gathered for a nationwide protest against teaching policies on gender identity in schools.

"Trans people – they exist in society, and they deserve inclusion, just like everyone else," activist Celeste Trianon told Canadian outlet CTV News. Trianon led a counter demonstration in Montreal, where police reportedly placed themselves between the competing demonstrations outside the offices of Premier Francois Legault.

"We need to talk to people, teach them the right vocabulary, the proper words, at an age-appropriate time, in order to explain that inclusion is a good thing. We need to make sure that their trans and queer peers at school feel welcome," Trianon said.


A counterprotester holds a sign during the 1 Million March for Children in Toronto on Sept. 20, 2023.

Nathan McMillan, a protester in Toronto, told CBC News he was demonstrating to "support children and the importance to maintain their innocence," expressing his concern that gender-identity content is not age-appropriate for young school children.

"There's a lot of political rhetoric going on right now about what's happening in our schools," he said. "I think it's important that we keep kids out of these important discussions that really are between parents and their children. Teachers and institutions, unions, big money, they shouldn't be having these types of conversations with kids in such an overt fashion."


A protester carries a sign that reads, "Stop Gender Ideology" at Queens Park in Toronto on Sept. 20, 2023.

The debate in Canada mirrors controversies in the United States between school boards and parents over content permitted in the classroom.

Viral confrontations at U.S. school board meetings have shown angry parents objecting to pro-LGBTQ+ content available in schools that they say is not age-appropriate or too graphic to be shown to children. A nationwide movement to get parents more involved in their children's education has prompted Republican governors to enact various forms of "parental rights" legislation.

The most controversial of these efforts was a law signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, derided by critics as the "Don't Say Gay" bill, which banned classroom instruction on "sexual orientation" or "gender identity" in kindergarten through third grade.

Opponents of the conservative movement say "right wing extremists" are hiding a bigoted and discriminatory agenda behind the "parental rights" slogan that will harm LGBTQ+ youth. Critics have accused parental rights groups like Moms for Liberty of endorsing censorship, pointing to school boards that have removed books from shelves after parents expressed their concerns.

The protests in Canada proceeded mostly peacefully, though Ottawa police said five people were arrested on Wednesday. "Three arrests were made for public incitement of hatred, one for assault, and one for obstructing police," police said.

The owners of a volcano are denying responsibility for visitors' safety after 22 deaths

SO MUCH FOR THE LIBERTARIAN THEORY 

OF PRIVATE PROPERY 

Joshua Zitser
Fri, September 22, 2023 

DigitalGlobe via Getty Images satellite image of Whakaari, White Island, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand.DigitalGlobe via Getty Images via Getty Images

• The landowners of a volcano that erupted in 2019 are denying responsibility for visitors' safety.

• White Island/Whakaari volcano in New Zealand exploded on December 9, 2019, killing 22 people.

• The landowners' lawyers argued that the company had no control over day-to-day activities on the island.

The landowners of a volcano that erupted in 2019, killing 22 people and injuring 25 others, have rejected arguments from workplace safety regulators that they bear legal responsibility for visitors' safety.

Their closing argument on Thursday, which marked the end of a nearly two-month trial, was the first time the island's owners had advanced a defense against the charges, according to The Guardian.

White Island/Whakaari, 30 miles off the coast of New Zealand, exploded on December 9, 2019.

Of the 22 people who died that day, 17 of them were Australians, many of whom were cruise ship passengers, The Guardian reported.

The trial included accounts from survivors who testified that they were unaware of the risks when they visited the crater of Whakaari.

In the aftermath of the disaster, the New Zealand government agency WorkSafe charged several entities for health and safety breaches relating to the eruption, including tourism firms, science agencies, and the island's owners, according to The Guardian.

Six organizations admitted to the accounts against them before the trial's conclusion, with charges dismissed against five other firms or people, the newspaper reported.

The remaining defendant was Whakaari Management Limited (WML), which owns the land that encompasses the volcano and which grants licenses to tourism operators on the island.

The trial saw debate over whether WML should be considered an active manager with legal responsibilities for the safety of businesses operating on the land, and whether the company had taken actions that fulfilled its obligations.

The prosecution argued that the owners of WML earned substantial profits from the licenses and therefore had legal obligations under the law toward the tourists whose "fees funded its business," per The Guardian.

WML is jointly owned by three brothers — Andrew, James, and Peter Buttle. Individual charges against them were dismissed last month.

Lawyers for the company said it was set up solely to manage the licensing of businesses, adding that it had no presence on the island and no active control of the day-to-day activities on the land, The Guardian reported.

"Whakaari is not a business, it's an island," James Cairney, a lawyer for WML, said.

"Was it hazardous? Yes. WML doesn't shy away from that," he added, according to The Guardian. "Granting rights of access to an active volcano is really just … the landowner granting rights of access to hazardous natural land, which occurs all over New Zealand all the time."

He cautioned against the idea that "a single, private company" should be responsible for determining the societal risk associated with an activity, according to The Guardian.

Cairney and Kristy McDonald, the prosecutor, did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.

New Zealand's workplace health and safety laws, which were updated in 2015, shift responsibility to those "conducting a business or undertaking," who are required to be proactive in addressing risks.

A verdict in the case is due to be reached by the end of next month.

Philippines issues health warning as capital hit by smog, volcanic gas


Updated Fri, September 22, 2023

By Adrian Portugal

BATANGAS (Reuters) -A small but restive volcano near the Philippine capital Manila spewed above average sulfur dioxide and volcanic smog on Friday, prompting authorities to close schools in dozens of cities and towns and to urge people to stay indoors.

The state volcanology and seismology institute said it observed upwelling of hot volcanic fluids in the Taal volcano's crater lake, resulting in the emission of volcanic gases. Heavy pollution also shrouded buildings in the capital region in haze.

The alert remained at level 1 on a five-level scale, denoting a "slight increase in volcanic earthquake, and steam or gas activity".

Located in a scenic lake in Batangas province near Manila, the 311-metre (1,020-foot) Taal is among the most active of 24 volcanoes in the Philippines.

Kennard Kaagbay, a tricycle driver in the province, has complained of throat irritation from the volcanic smog.

"It's bad for me to inhale the air because I have asthma. Our passengers don't go out as well because of the (smog), so we don’t get much passengers recently," Kaagbay said.

In January 2020, Taal volcano spewed a column of ash and steam as high as 15 km (9.32 miles), forcing more than 100,000 people to evacuate and dozens of flight cancellations as heavy ash fell as far away as Manila.

Randy Dela Paz, operations section chief of the civil defence's southern Manila office, told DWPM radio they received reports of respiratory illnesses in the province due to intoxication from the volcanic smog.

Volcanic smog, or vog, consists of fine droplets containing volcanic gases, such as sulfur, that can irritate the eyes, throat and respiratory tract.

Classes were suspended in several cities in the capital region and in dozens of towns and cities in Cavite, Laguna, and Batangas provinces.

The aviation authority on Friday told pilots to avoid flying close to the volcano's summit.

The Philippines is in the Pacific "Ring of Fire", where volcanic activity and earthquakes are common.

(Reporting by Adrian Portugal and Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Michael Perry and Sharon Singleton)

Scientists have created a hidden ‘thermal cloak’ that can dramatically cool down our cars — here’s how it works

Wes Stenzel
Thu, September 21, 2023 

Researchers have developed a “thermal cloak” that may substantially increase the efficiency of electric vehicles — and could have even bigger applications in the future as well.

Researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University created the “Janus thermal cloak,” which uses photon recycling and radiative cooling to maintain temperatures in batteries while conserving energy, according to Energy Live News.

Temperature regulation ordinarily involves active systems that utilize considerable energy to maintain temperatures, but the cloak instead acts passively, which minimizes its consumption of energy and increases its efficiency.

The JTC proved to be able to cool EV batteries as much as 8 degrees Celsius and also showed the ability to warm the batteries as much as 6.8 degrees Celsius, according to Energy Live News.

The thermal cloak is durable, lightweight, and scalable, according to captioned images on Energy Live News.

The scientists who developed the JTC, Cui Kehang and Qiao Huaxu, named it after the Roman god Janus because its two-pronged functionality reflects the two-faced nature of the deity, according to Optics & Photonics News.

Additionally, the JTC has demonstrated usefulness in heating and cooling entire vehicles, not just the batteries, according to Optics & Photonics News.

It’s possible that the cloak may even have applications for regulating temperatures in buildings, according to Optics & Photonics News.

That last point could have significant environmental benefits, as air conditioning emits as much as 1,950 million tons of carbon dioxide every year — about 3.9% of all dangerous heat-trapping emissions, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The JTC could help regulate temperatures without using nearly as much electricity. National Renewable Energy Laboratory reported that cooling and heating represented half of buildings’ energy usage worldwide. The International Energy Agency says about 20% of the amount of energy used in buildings on the planet are used by AC or fans to stay cool.

TURTLE ISLAND

A grandmother seeks justice for Native Americans after thousands of unsolved deaths, disappearances

 

MATTHEW BROWN
Updated Thu, September 21, 2023 

HARDIN, Mont. (AP) — Yolanda Fraser is back near a ragged chain-link fence, blinking through tears as she tidies up flowers and ribbons and a pinwheel twirls in the breeze at a makeshift roadside memorial in a small Montana town.

This is where the badly decomposed body of her granddaughter Kaysera Stops Pretty Places was found a few days after the 18-year-old went missing from a Native American reservation border town.

Four years later, there are still no answers about how the Native American teenager died. No named suspects. No arrests.

Fraser’s grief is a common tale among Native Americans whose loved ones went missing, and she's turned her fight for justice into a leading role with other families working to highlight missing and slain Indigenous peoples' cases across the U.S. Despite some early success from a new U.S. government program aimed at the problem, most cases remain unsolved and federal officials have closed more than 300 potential cases due to jurisdictional conflicts and other issues

As she told her granddaughter’s story, Fraser pushed past tears and began listing other names among the thousands of disappearances and violent deaths of Native Americans and Alaska Natives.

“My nephew Victor, my nephew Dane Fisher, my close relative Christy Rose Woodenthigh — and it just goes on and on,” Fraser said. “It just became obvious that there’s a pattern to all of it. There’s a line between these Native lives and other lives. ... But our voice is getting louder. People are listening.”

U.S. officials share frustration over the unsolved cases, which critics say reflects racial injustice, particularly when compared to the media frenzy that erupts when a white woman goes missing.

“The patchwork of jurisdictions makes it so hard to get started on these investigations. And when you lose time, your chances of solving these cases goes down,” said Assistant Secretary of Interior Bryan Newland. “It’s frustrating for everybody."

Federal law enforcement has jurisdiction over most Native American reservations, which often don’t have their own police force yet experience people going missing at several times the rate of the rest of the nation. That’s set against a backdrop of historical injustices that include massacres of Native Americans by U.S. troops, forced assimilation of Native children in abusive boarding schools and the removal of many tribes from their traditional lands.

Members of several victims' families joined Fraser recently to dedicate a billboard honoring victims along Interstate 90 just outside the town of Hardin where Stops Pretty Places died. The billboard lists four dozen missing and slain people and other victims on the Northern Cheyenne and Crow reservations in southeastern Montana.

As the names were recited over a loudspeaker some relatives of victims cried as they leaned into one another.

“When we're divided we're not strong at all, but when we're together we're powerful,” said Blossom Old Bull, whose son was killed in a car crash at 17 while being pursued by police whom the family blames for his death.

With backing from nonprofit groups and her family, Fraser hopes to erect similar billboards near reservations across the U.S. She wants to highlight the names behind crime statistics and for local officials to be confronted with the victims within their community.

Stops Pretty Places died in Big Horn County, just outside the Crow Indian Reservation and about 55 miles (89 kilometers) from Muddy Creek, the Northern Cheyenne Reservation community where Fraser largely raised her. She'd been missing for several days when her body was found at the edge of a fenced-in yard next to a busy road, one door down from where she'd last been seen with some friends.

For years, the family's pleas for an outside investigation went unanswered. This spring they learned county authorities had finally agreed to federal assistance. Agents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Missing and Murdered Unit are now reexamining the case.

The unit was formed in 2021 by U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland amid rising criticism over the mishandling of crimes involving Native Americans. Its agents have received 845 case referrals, primarily from victims' families, including 117 that were solved and 372 still under review or being investigated.

More than 350 were closed with no resolution, often because of jurisdictional issues that prevent federal agents from working off-reservation without an invitation from local authorities.

The Missing and Murdered Unit has only 15 agents, with plans to more than double that figure, officials said. Its caseload covers a small fraction of an estimated 4,200 unsolved cases nationwide among American Indians and Alaska Natives, with the victims ranging in age from toddlers to the elderly. Indigenous people account for 3.5% of missing persons in the U.S. — more than three times the percentage in the overall population, according to federal data.

Violent crimes reported against Native Americans more than tripled between 2010 and 2020, the Congressional Research Service reported in July, adding that improved reporting could have contributed to the increase.

“All these cases, they're really different but it all has to do with the same thing — the lack of law enforcement on reservations. the jurisdictional problems,” said Melissa Lonebear, a member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council.

Adding to the challenges is the lack of reliable data on crime in Native communities. That's beginning to change. In New Mexico, the FBI has compiled a database of about 200 missing Native Americans. And a first-of-its-kind report released in Alaska last month listed 280 missing Alaska Natives and American Indians.

Requests for federal intervention have poured into the Missing and Murdered Unit in recent months as President Joe Biden's administration held a series of field hearings to solicit testimony about the crisis from tribal members, families of victims and survivors.

People travelled hundreds of miles including from Washington state and South Dakota to attend the hearing in Billings, Montana, where they erected oversized photos of victims at the back of a convention center ballroom. They told the commission of loved ones who had been shot in the back, killed in their own home or gone missing and never seen again.

Grace Bulltail, a member of the commission and one of Stops Pretty Places' aunts, said it’s hard for many native families to step forward.

“When we’re speaking, we know that they don’t care. We know they’re just waiting for us to stop talking. They’ve heard it before,” Bulltail said, adding this is why some families remain silent. “But when there is such an injustice and disregard for our lives, we have to speak out.”

The hearing also acted as a networking event, providing families the opportunity to trade tips on pushing investigations forward and bringing more attention to this crisis. Fraser traces the rise of her own advocacy to the brutal 2015 killing of Hannah Harris, whose partially clothed body was found on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation rodeo grounds near the town of Lame Deer days after she disappeared.

Tribal members said the search for Harris was botched by authorities, allowing her body to become so decomposed it prevented prosecutors from pursuing murder charges against one of the suspects in the case. Harris' birthday, May 5, was later designated by Congress as the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls, which has since been expanded to include all missing and murdered Indigenous peoples.

When Stops Pretty Places died, Fraser reached out to Harris’ mother – Fraser’s cousin -- for guidance. As the case dragged on their extended family began organizing rallies, letter-writing campaigns and other actions to spur further investigations.

“We’re not going to stop. They get tired of us sometimes, but that’s OK,” Fraser said. “We want to make noise.”

Missing Murdered Indigenous

A memorial to Kaysera Stops Pretty Places where her body was found in 2019 on Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023, in Hardin, Mont. 

(AP Photo/Mike Clark)

ILLEGAL OCCUPATION & DETENTION
India frees Kashmir separatist leader after four years

KASHMIR IS INDIA'S GAZA

AFP
Fri, September 22, 2023 

Influential Kashmir separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was released after four years of house arrest (TAUSEEF MUSTAFA)

The Indian government freed Kashmir's chief Muslim cleric and influential separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Friday after more than four years of house arrest.

The 50-year-old was detained along with other political leaders and thousands of residents when the government cancelled the Muslim-majority region's constitutional semi-autonomy and imposed federal rule in 2019.

A months-long internet shutdown followed as India bolstered its armed forces in the region to contain protests.

Most detainees were subsequently released, but the Mirwaiz remained unable to leave his residence, down the street from his Jamia Masjid mosque in Srinagar.

Thousands of worshippers gathered to see him lead Friday prayers for the first time in 218 weeks, with women showering him with sweets and religious slogans resounding around the 14th-century building.

Last week, a court asked authorities to explain his continued detention and he told the crowd that police informed him Thursday that officials had decided to release him.

"This period of my house arrest and separation from my people has been the most painful for me since my father's death," he said, breaking down.

The mosque has historically been a centre of separatist politics and anti-India protests.

"God willing, you might think our spirit is low. No, our spirit is high," the Mirwaiz said, calling the constitutional changes by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government "unacceptable".

Modi "said about Ukraine that this is not the time for war. He is right," he added. "Disputes and disagreements should be resolved by talks rather than using power or unilateralism."

He called for the release of "numerous political prisoners".

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, with both countries claiming the Himalayan territory in full and fighting two wars over it.

A violent insurgency beginning in 1989 killed tens of thousands of people, including Indian troops, militants and civilians.

New Delhi accuses Islamabad of supporting the rebels, which Pakistan denies.

Heavy security, including counter-insurgency police and commandos, were deployed around the mosque on Friday.

"Our beloved and our king of hope has returned to this mosque after so long," regular worshipper Bashir Ahmed told AFP after the prayers.

"How can I not be weeping with joy?"

Since the imposition of direct rule, authorities have curbed media freedoms and public protests.

Moves aimed at bringing "peace and prosperity" to the region also allowed Indians from elsewhere to buy land and claim government jobs in the territory, a policy denounced by critics as "settler colonialism".

Armed clashes between Indian soldiers and rebels demanding independence for Kashmir or its merger with Pakistan have significantly reduced.

But this month saw an uptick in violence leaving at least 14 dead, including eight security personnel.

pzb/slb/lb

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

VANITY, VANITY ALL IS VANITY
Trump stopped wearing medical masks during COVID because they smeared his bronzer, White House aide says in book

Brian Niemietz, New York Daily News
Fri, September 22, 2023 

Win McNamee/TNS/TNS

A former White House aide claims Donald Trump stopped wearing medical masks during the COVID-19 pandemic because they messed up his signature makeup.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a senior assistant to former chief of staff Mark Meadows, writes in her memoir “Enough” that the former president once selected a white mask to wear during a May 2020 visit to the Honeywell mask production facility. However, according to an excerpt from the book published by The Guardian, Hutchinson subtly suggested he not wear that particular mask.

“I pointed at the straps of the N95 I was holding,” she writes. “When he looked at the straps of his mask, he saw they were covered in bronzer.”

“Why did no one else tell me that?” he reportedly snapped. “I’m not wearing this thing.”


Hutchinson laments that reporters never knew “the depth of his vanity had caused him to reject masks,” which led Trump loyalists to eschew keeping their own faces covered during the pandemic that killed more than a million Americans.

However, Trump did on occasion don a mask. He was first seen in one during a July 2020 visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to visit service members, where the then-president said masks were fine in the “appropriate locations.”

That same month, Trump boasted he once wore a face covering that made him look like the Lone Ranger, whose mask didn’t cover the cowboy’s mouth or nose.

Black immigrants face more discrimination in the U.S. The source is sometimes surprising

Tyrone Beason

LOS ANGELES TIMES
Thu, September 21, 2023 

Winsome Pendergrass, a native Jamaican, makes her home in Brownsville, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn.

 (Brittainy Newman / For The Times)

LONG READ

Winsome Pendergrass watches as her fellow Black New Yorkers take selfies in front of Brooklyn’s Central Library. Rap lyrics penned by hometown hero Jay-Z cover the Art Deco facade to promote an artistic exhibit dedicated to the hip hop mogul.

But Pendergrass feels more drawn to the weekend farmers market she frequents across the street, where tables loaded with fresh produce transport her back to her homeland 2,500 miles south in Jamaica.

She picks up a yam, also a staple in Black American kitchens, and expounds on its use in African cooking. She holds a bright-green okra spear and explains how her older Jamaican relatives, like countless Black elders in the U.S., were unfazed by the nutrient-rich vegetable’s slimy texture.

Pendergrass finds reminders of her homeland in the people and produce at a Brooklyn farmers market. (Brittainy Newman / For The Times)

She marvels at the way enslaved Africans — her ancestors and the forebears of most Black Americans — sustained themselves by transforming the worst cuts of meat into flavorful meals.


Black people — be they in Jamaica or the U.S. — carry inside them this capacity for perseverance over adversity and scarcity, she says.

And yet, it feels to her as though some Black Americans look down on Black newcomers and resent them for taking opportunities they fought long and hard to get.

“You know, the people who tell me to go back to my country the most is Black people — not white people,” Pendergrass says with a sigh.

Read more: In an increasingly pessimistic era, immigrants espouse a hallmark American trait — optimism

Her experience reflects a widespread reality among Black immigrants whose ranks have swelled from just over 2 million in 2000 to nearly 5 million today, or about one-tenth of the nation’s Black population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. These newcomers, who’ve settled mostly in East Coast cities such as New York, Newark, Washington and Miami, are expected to double in number by 2060.

Pendergrass, 64, who migrated to the U.S. two decades ago and became a naturalized citizen in 2011, is a part of that surge. She participated in a nationwide survey of immigrants conducted by The Times in partnership with KFF, formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation, that provides unprecedented insight into the 1 in 6 American adults who were born in other countries.

Winsome Pendergrass admires artwork on the subway in Brooklyn. She says that in addition to the racism Black people face in the U.S., Caribbean and Sub-Saharan African immigrants often face open scorn from American-born Black people. (Brittainy Newman / For The Times)

Those from Africa or the Caribbean experience a double burden of discrimination in the U.S., both as immigrants and as Black residents in a country with a long history of racism, according to the first-of-its-kind survey.

Black immigrants, for example, are more likely to report experiencing workplace discrimination and unfair treatment by the police.

And while a third of immigrants overall say they’ve been told to “go back where they came from,” that figure jumps to nearly half for Black immigrants.

Pendergrass says those words are especially aggravating when they’re spoken by citizens from her own race.

“There’s this great divide: ‘Oh, you’re from the islands,’” Pendergrass says.

During two separate focus groups this summer with immigrants from the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa, several said they too have been dismayed to find that Black Americans treat them more harshly. As a result, they avoid associating with that community.

Pendergrass takes special offense to the hostile attitude, because when she’s not working as a private nursing assistant for seniors, she often demonstrates and lobbies public officials for affordable housing and tenants’ rights in largely low-income Black and brown neighborhoods.

“I’m fighting for all Black people,” she says.

REIFICATION

She flashes back to an incident that happened on a crowded city bus when President Trump was in office.

A Black man refused to make space for her when she tried to sit, and the two exchanged words.

Winsome Pendergrass migrated to the U.S. two decades ago, becoming a citizen in 2011. Since 2000, the number of Black immigrants in the U.S. has grown by some 3 million, accounting for about 1 in 10 of the nation's Black population. (Brittainy Newman / For The Times)

A Black woman who was listening chimed in.

“I guess she picked up on my accent,” Pendergrass says. “The next thing that she said was, ‘I can’t wait till Trump runs them back home. Let them go back to their country.’”

“I said, ‘Are you addressing me?’ and she says, ‘Yes … Trump’s going to run you out.’”

The irony of the passenger’s insult was too rich, given Trump’s racism and his record of publicly disrespecting Black women.

“I said to her: ‘You better pray I’m here to defend you when Trump tries to run you to the land of no return.’”

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How can someone who can also trace her ancestry back to the twin horrors of slavery and white supremacy see Pendergrass as an adversary?

“I’m not here to take anything away from an African American — I love my African American brothers and sisters,” she says.

The mandate for the descendants of enslaved Africans to show common cause with each other has been sown into the Jamaican psyche, Pendergrass says.

Even so, some in Jamaica believe Black Americans have lost touch with this shared heritage as they’ve fought to achieve racial progress.

“They disown they people, but what a day when I and I people come together — start to hold each other,” reggae legend Burning Spear sings in “Greetings,” his 1982 musical plea to Black America. “What a feedback the wicked get.”

Walking past stately apartment blocks near the library, Pendergrass points out that a Jamaican — activist Marcus Garvey — helped foster Pan-Africanism and Black pride in the early 20th century among migrants in Harlem who had escaped the racial violence of the South.

A colorful illustration of a quote about slavery in the U.S., the Caribbean and beyond and why Black people should unite.

"We know the whole story of slavery that everybody is trying to deny," Pendergrass says, nodding to the political rift in the U.S. over the teaching of Black history. "This [country's foundation] is built on their backs, and the backs of their parents and the parents before them and the parents before them.

"It happened to us here in this country and in the Caribbean and other parts of the world," she says.

"This should make us come together.”

Pendergrass first visited America in 1999 through a U.S. government program for Jamaican agricultural and hospitality workers.

A trained pastry chef, she was given a job cooking on the 5 a.m. shift and unloading supplies at a Bob’s Big Boy restaurant in Petoskey, Mich., earning $4.75 an hour. Pendergrass said yes when she was asked to work for the restaurant chain again the following year.


Winsome Pendergrass, seen at home in her Brooklyn apartment, shared her candid observations as a Black immigrant with a Times reporter and in a focus group. Pendergrass lugs her farmers market haul to her apartment in Brooklyn. Pendergrass cooks pumpkin chicken feet soup and other old recipes from her homeland. Brittainy Newman / For The TimesMore

The work was grueling. And Pendergrass recalls white residents hurling the N-word and throwing beer bottles at her and her Jamaican co-workers as they walked home.

But nothing could dim her enthusiasm to someday build a new life in a land that seemed to overflow with possibilities. She eventually got married and settled in New York.

The U.S., with its rugged individualism and hard-edged capitalism, outwardly bore little resemblance to her homeland of dreadlocked Rastafarian visionaries and righteous reggae singers.

Jamaica may be a vacation paradise, but if you happen to be from there, it’s hard to get ahead, she says. Poverty, crime, lagging healthcare services, the indifference of powerful nations that extract natural resources while doing little for everyday people — many factors have spurred her compatriots to flee the island.

Born in Jamaica’s capital, Kingston, Pendergrass grew up around her mother’s side of the family in the hilly Tangle River district of St. James Parish, 15 miles above Montego Bay’s turquoise waters and plush resorts.

The area was once a refuge for escaped slaves known as maroons who fought fiercely against their British captors. Everybody knew how to corner a chicken before slaughtering it and boil shredded coconut to make oil, Pendergrass says. Neighbors split what little they had with those in need.

That agrarian spirit of self-reliance mixed with egalitarianism still emanates from Pendergrass.

“I’m country,” she says, slipping into her people’s sing-song patois.

“If somebody came with a goat right now,” she jokes, “I’d milk the goat at the drop of a hat!”

Flipping through handed-down copies of Ebony and Jet magazines as a youth, she fawned over glamour shots of Black hit-makers such as Diana Ross and Smokey Robinson, all the while daydreaming about living in their country.

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Pendergrass says there are times when she still feels like an outsider looking in at Black America.

To compensate, she holds tight to what gives her comfort — the culture of the tropics.

She goes to the farmers market not just to buy vegetables and specialties like wild fowl. The familiar lilt in the voices of her favorite Afro-Caribbean sidewalk vendors rings like music in her ears.

She converses with a designer from Suriname, in South America, who’s selling handmade shirts and dresses in tribal African prints, and with a fellow Jamaican she knows as Sister Tracey, who offers spices and herbal remedies.

Winsome Pendergrass has planted a patch of land outside her Brooklyn apartment with reminders of her old home in the Tangle River district of Jamaica's St. James Parish. (Brittainy Newman / For The Times)

Pendergrass sometimes helps a friend sell food at the annual West Indian Day carnival and parade as colorful floats and dancers wind through Brooklyn.

On a stroll through shady Prospect Park, next to the market, she spots a Black man doing aerobics to Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop (Till You Get Enough).” He looks as excited as Pendergrass to see other Black people in this mostly white neighborhood.

“I’m from Trinidad!” he says, between rhythmic knee lifts, to Pendergrass and me, a Black American reporter.

“One love!”

Pendergrass bursts with laughter over her fellow islander’s giddy call for solidarity.

It’s not just immigrants in New York’s thriving communities from the Caribbean and Africa who celebrate her idea that “we are one Black people.”

Black American civil rights leaders, entertainers, artists and educators in the 1960s and ’70s saw hope for racial uplift in the liberation of nations such as Jamaica, Ghana and Kenya from white colonial rule. Today, more and more descendants of enslaved Africans are using DNA testing to trace their roots to their ancestral homelands.

As Pendergrass makes her way back to where she lives in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood to rest on a 95-degree day, a block party gears up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant district a few miles away. Kids race through the spray of a fire hydrant and families barbecue on their front stoops. Revelers dance and sweat on the asphalt to Black house music mixed with African and Afro-Latino rhythms.

Sharon Jackman, a Black American who made a special trip from New Jersey to attend, twirls, struts, leaps and two-steps to the beat.

“There are no words in the dictionary,” she says, that can adequately capture the power of this musical fusion, or the unifying messages in the songs’ lyrics. Jackman, who has many West Indian friends, came dressed in what she called her cultural attire — a tropics-inspired white blouse with ruffled lace sleeves, white pants and a Panama hat over a yellow head wrap.

Yet when told that many African and West Indian immigrants feel alienated from Black America, she nods with recognition.

“For whatever reason, we tend to separate ourselves,” says Jackman, 57.

The detachment is all the more difficult to reconcile because many Black people from the U.S. also struggle with being “the other,” she says.

“Unfortunately, being born in this country, we lose something as far as heritage, connection and spirituality,” Jackman says.

She’s troubled that this angst sometimes manifests as resentment against foreign-born Black people, when for her, their ethnic pride is an inspiration.

In Brownsville, Pendergrass has conjured up a Tangle River oasis in the grassy area inside the gate of her three-story apartment complex. She grows peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers, along with leafy callaloo — similar to collard greens in Black Southern cuisine. Sunflowers bob in the morning breeze.

She stoops to pluck weeds around delicate yellow flowers.

“In Jamaica, we call it 10 o’clock,” she says of the flower, with a grin. “It blooms brightly, wildly, at 10 o’clock — and then it dies.”

Wearing a shirt that says “House Every One,” her long twists of salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a ponytail, Pendergrass is all smiles.

Now divorced, she lives in a modest apartment with an adult daughter, as well as a granddaughter who relocated to the U.S. after Pendergrass’ eldest child died of kidney failure in Jamaica. There’s a living room with a dining nook, small kitchen and three small bedrooms.

Winsome Pendergrass and granddaughter Aliyah Folkes share a dinner made from oxtail. Pendergrass notes that enslaved Africans — her ancestors and those of most Black Americans — could make flavorful meals from the worst cuts of meat. (Brittainy Newman / For The Times)

Pendergrass sits on a stool next to her 20-year-old granddaughter, Aliyah Folkes, and lays her head on her shoulder. She’s grateful to the U.S. for issuing Folkes a green card last year, allowing her to work and go to school.

Pendergrass’ personal goal is like that of many immigrants — to buy property and own a stake in her adopted country.

“With all of the problems ... in Jamaica, it made America seem like heaven,” she says.

She discovered that the socioeconomic distress doesn’t necessarily end at the U.S. border. Pendergrass says most of the residents on her street are also from the islands, and many live paycheck to paycheck.

Half of the Black immigrants in The Times/KFF survey said they had problems covering basic necessities, more than immigrants of other races, and they were significantly more likely to say they work in jobs for which they are overqualified.

Gang violence is also a worry, Pendergrass says.

Metro trains rumble overhead as she gives a tour of her neighborhood. A handful of Black children take refuge from the heat in a public pool a few blocks away. A young Black athlete practices his soccer kick on a nearby playing field.

Pendergrass explains how white flight in the 1960s and ’70s resulted in the stark racial segregation that makes the neighborhood feel like an island in its own right — populated almost entirely by Black people.

She stops next to a high-rise public-housing complex and watches as residents receive groceries from a food-giveaway van. She fears that the new apartments cropping up among the mom-and-pop businesses, corner liquor shops and storefront churches could force out families that have few other housing options.

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Back at home, Pendergrass lunches on spicy goat curry from one of the neighborhood’s Jamaican restaurants. She’s brightened up the living room with potted plants that catch the sunlight pouring through a window.

The apartment is where she rejuvenates her spirit.

In Tangle River, life revolved around church. In Brooklyn, she prefers to practice her faith privately at home.

She lies on her bed, stretches out her arms and prays — sometimes at 3 or 4 in the morning, when it seems as though no one is awake but her and God.

Those solitary prayer vigils keep her grounded, because even though she’s grown accustomed to being told she’s not welcome, navigating her status as both a Black woman and an immigrant can still leave her feeling adrift.

Pendergrass relates a more positive experience that gave her a fleeting taste of what an embrace from Black America might feel like.

Pendergrass admires the jewelry for sale at an outdoor market in Brooklyn. (Brittainy Newman / For The Times)

It happened during a visit years ago to the Old Slave Market Museum in Charleston, S.C. — once a major arrival port for slaves.

“Something came over me,” Pendergrass says. “I was hearing sounds. I was transported.”

Nearby, an elderly member of South Carolina’s Gullah Geechee people — descendants of Africans who were forced to labor on plantations along the Atlantic Coast — was busy weaving a traditional hat out of sweetgrass.

The woman’s gaze was so piercing, it sent goosebumps up Pendergrass’ arms.

“We started talking, and I’m watching her hands,” Pendergrass says. “The same craftiness of the people in Jamaica who make the broad hats from thatch. It was the same pattern. ... She says, ‘They’re glad to see you, girl — they’re glad to know you’re here.’”

Pendergrass suddenly realized who the woman was talking about: The ghosts of the Africans who had been imprisoned and auctioned on the site where the museum stands.

“Spirit knows spirit,” the woman said.

“Oh my God, is this what heaven is going to be like?” Pendergrass recalls thinking. “Everybody is going to see me and recognize me — and know that I’m a part of the clan?”

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