"African Symphony": when classical music meets African legendary hits


Angelique Kidjo and Christian Reif during her African Symphony concert at Les Nuits de Fourvière in Lyon on June 19, 2024. -

Copyright © africanews

By Pascale Mahe Keingna
and Lauriane Vofo Kana - Damien Decrand

 Last updated: 2 hours ago

For the European premiere of her new concert African Symphony in Lyon south-eastern France, world renowned artist Angelique Kidjo tasked conductor Christian Reif with leading the Lyon National Orchestra and guiding music-lovers through a melodic journey across Africa.

The award-winning singer seeks to pay homage to exceptional talents from the continent who have gifted the world their music throughout generations.

"It's brilliant how Angelique makes her choices," the Bavaria born musician says.

The Beninese diva took on the challenge to celebrate African legends like Miriam Makeba, Fela Kuti and stars from the younger generation that includes Burna Boy, Rema, Nomcebo Zikode and Nomcebo Zikode with a classical orchestral twist.


Acclaimed arranger Derrick Hodge worked on the arrangements and Reif was in touch with him.

During the 90-minutes long performance, the "percussion section" and "the brass section" are those that shine the most, Reif said all smiles.

"It's fun to breach the gap and to collaborate western classical orchestra with more afro pop more pop that angelique writes and performs; so to make an orchestra sound groovy and sound really tight that is both the joy and the challenge."

READ MORE: South African opera singers shine at World opera competition

This is surprising element that many spectators were looking for.

"I am from Benin and Kidjo is an artist to whom I have listened to since I was a kid," a young man in the audience said.

"My parents used to play her music at home. I've been living in Lyon for a few years and when I heard she was going to perform here, I booked my ticket. The orchestra adds to the diversity I mean, the mix African sonorities to classical music. I'm sure the result will be very interesting, I'm sure the evening will be a great one."

Angelique Kidjo performed with other artists on Wednesday (Jun. 19).

She sang 'Folon' by Malian icon Salif Keita with French Israeli singer Yael Naim.

Cape Verde's Lura joined her to honour Cesária Évora. She also paid tribute to her late friend Manu Dibango when singing Soul Makossa with his son James BKS.

The 2,500 people attended the concert in a unique venue, the Roman theatre. Indeed, the archaeological site which is made up of two major monuments which are part of a UNESCO World Heritage site hosts every year the Les Nuits de Fourvière festival.

Treasure hunt turns deadly in Iran as two diggers suffocate in collapsed tunnel

2024-06-20 11:35
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Shafaq News/ Two people were killed and one was injured after they were trapped in a collapsed tunnel while digging for treasures in western Iran, police said on Thursday.

The incident occurred in a village near Kilan Gharb in Kermanshah province, where the three men were digging at a depth of about eight meters (26 feet), police deputy chief Colonel Allahyar Moradian said.

One of the men managed to escape the tunnel, but the other two died from exposure to gas, Moradian said.

Rescue teams were dispatched to the scene and recovered the bodies of the two deceased men. An investigation into the incident is underway.

Ontario.cawww.ontario.ca/page/excavation-hazards-construction-projects

Excavation hazards on construction projects | ontario.ca

Mar 11, 2022 ... Workers · wear appropriate personal protective equipment [ OHSA s. · use or operate equipment in a safe manner [ OHSA s. · report any defects ...

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The employer is accountable for and has a duty to organize occupational safety and health. The implementation of an OSH management system is one useful ap-.

Juneteenth offers a ‘window into the complexity’ of US history with slavery, says author


June 19 commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people in the US. But the legacy of African enslavement continues to reverberate in much of the world. Howard French, the author of “Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War,” speaks with host Marco Werman about the persistent damage in West Africa and beyond.

The World
June 20, 2024

By Joyce Hackel


A woman pays her respect at the National Slavery Monument, on Keti Koti, which means Chains Broken, after Mayor Femke Halsema apologized for the involvement of the city’s rulers in the slave trade during a nationally televised annual ceremony in Amsterdam, Netherlands, July 1, 2021.

Peter Dejong/AP

The federal holiday of Juneteenth commemorates a milestone in the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States. It marks the end of legalized slavery in the US. But that history left a bitter legacy that persists both in the country and around the globe.

The World’s host Marco Werman spoke about the holiday with Howard French, who wrote about the global impact of slavery in his 2021 book, “Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War.”

French is also a former New York Times correspondent and currently a professor of journalism at Columbia University.

Cover of “Born in Blackness,” by Howard W. French, published Oct. 12, 2021.Courtesy of W. W. Norton & Company

Marco Werman: You write so eloquently, Howard, about how Africa’s histories are histories of erasures. As Americans celebrate emancipation, what do you think are some of the threads of this story that maybe have gotten lost?

Howard French: I think the first and most important thread is the very origin story of the West and of the modern world. And the thesis of my book is that this begins with Europe’s contact with Africa. It starts with the idea that there was this thing called the Age of Exploration and the Iberians, and in particular the Portuguese, were hellbent on reaching Asia.

 And it was Asia as a kind of monomania, and that Africa was nothing but a geographical obstacle in the way — a place of no inherent interest of its own, where Europe didn’t really learn anything, didn’t really gain in any way and had no importance historically speaking. 

And so, the book is a kind of sustained assault on that idea, which makes the case that the Europeans, the Iberians, not only didn’t rush onward to Asia, they dwelled for quite some time and with extraordinarily interesting results in Africa prior to their pursuit of wealth in Asia. That’s sort of the biggest erasure in history. 

And then, subsequently, Portugal is born as a major modern power because of the wealth, first in gold that it gets out of Africa, and then by founding the most important institution, economically speaking, of the Modern Age, which is chattel slavery. 

And this happens on the tiny island of Sao Tomé. And it changes everything, it changes the European diet, it gives rise to European democracy. Perversely enough, it makes the Western Hemisphere, the United States and all of the continents of North and South America, economically viable through the tragedy of slavery.

And it fosters the birth of this term we throw around very loosely without really thinking about what it means, and that is “the West.” The West was born with the catalyst of African labor.

That’s the really important point. I think the labor of enslaved people from Africa led to this age of modernity and massive national fortunes. So, we read in historical accounts of how the institution of slavery devastated societies in West Africa, how it ripped apart communities and threw local economies and agriculture into disarray. How do you see the impact of that disruption continuing today in West Africa?

I see it everywhere I look. You know, the modern world kind of comes together and gives birth to nation-states and borders and nationalities and flags and things like that. Europe was able to do that, in large part, on the basis of wealth extracted in resources and labor from Africa. But the extraction of those things from Africa impoverished the continent in lasting ways. Healthy young men and women of childbearing age were being extracted from West and Central Africa, over 100,000 people every year, sometimes 200,000 people a year, for a whole century.

Extraordinary.

And this has a very long tail.

In the modern day, in the wake of this human and economic plunder of Africa, there’s a global movement seeking reparations. There was even a summit, as you know, last year in Ghana, where the African Union and Caribbean nations came together to try and persuade European nations to pay for their “historical mass crimes.” Where does that movement stand today? Is it gaining traction?

I think about a month ago, Portugal, which was the largest slave-trading nation in history, came very close, it seemed, to issuing a formal apology from the government, recognizing, at least in principle, its obligation to pay some kind of reparations. At the very last minute, that came undone. This is kind of a Charlie Brown situation, where we walk right up to the precipice of action on reparations over and over and over again, and we never quite really get there.

A photo of the Dutch royal family’s Golden Carriage, at the Amsterdam Museum in Amsterdam, decorated with a painting that has drawn fire from critics who say it glorifies the Netherlands’ colonial past, including its role in the global slave trade, January 19, 2022.Peter Dejong/AP/File photo

We should point out, too, that the Catholic Church provided a crucial papal endorsement in the 15th century for the Portuguese to go to West Africa and conquer. What overtures has the Church made toward reparations of some sort?

The Catholic Church was, in the 16th century, one of the largest operators of chattel slave plantations in the New World. The Jesuits, in particular, operated immense plantations in Mexico using African chattel labor.

 The same was true in various other places, from what is today the Dominican Republic and Haiti, meaning Hispaniola, to Brazil, on and on and on. So, the Catholic Church didn’t just give an ideological or theological blessing to the enslavement of Africans, but it also directly profited under the most brutal of circumstances. 

The Catholic Church has, I think, condemned the evil of slavery and its language. But I don’t think that the Catholic Church has done anything like it has done, let’s say, with the sexual abuse of young people by priests, and saying that we actually have a fiduciary obligation.

As you think about the narrative of the enslavement of people and how it ended, how that story is told by the West and how it was experienced by Africans and African Americans, how do you think about Juneteenth, Howard? What reflections come to you on this day?

I have to be candid with you. As an African American, I did not grow up participating in Juneteenth. I’m delighted that Juneteenth has taken on the popularity that it seems to have belatedly acquired. I think it’s a wonderful window into the complexity of our history with regard to slavery. 

We imagine that slavery ends with the Northern victory in the Civil War and, of course, Juneteenth helps us understand that isn’t true. 

We should also understand, I think, that slavery doesn’t, in fact, end with Juneteenth.

 The struggle for African Americans to acquire true citizenship extends well into the recent past and, some would even say, into the present.

 I grew up in a society where discrimination against Black people was not simply a matter of custom or practice but was de jure, meaning it was the law. It was legally allowed. I witnessed this as a young man, as a child in the Virginia of my parents. And anyone my age and indeed people somewhat younger than me, all grew up with this in their faces. And so, the beauty of Juneteenth is to help complexify a little bit the stories that we tend to often iron out and simplify.

Juneteenth occurred a century and a half ago, but its wide observance as a holiday is recent. What do you think people need to do now to make it meaningful, rather than just another federal holiday?

I’m a photography buff. There’s a photography blog that I’ve read for many, many years — a little blog by a very smart, curious-minded guy. And he said something that jarred me. He was encouraging readers of the blog to acknowledge that it was Juneteenth and that this was a big deal for African Americans. 

But he said, this is an exclusive — I don’t think he meant malice by it — but this is an exclusively Black holiday, he used that phrase. I

 do not think that’s how we should understand Juneteenth. I think that Juneteenth should be understood, if it is to be worthwhile, as an American holiday and that it is a celebration, or it should be a celebration, of America’s complexity and a recognition of how America did not transit, as in a sort of one fell swoop from one state of enslavement of African Americans into another state of pristine freedom for African Americans. And that that’s really never how history works. You know, this is constant work, and the constant work is not the work of Black people. The constant work, if we are to be a nation, is the work of all Americans. And so, remembering this just as something for Black people is to devalue it.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. AP contributed to this report.

 

Climate change threatens the Hajj as over a thousand die from heat in Makkah


More than half of the victims were not registered, arriving via "irregular" channels. The highest number of deaths was reported among Egyptians, but fatalities include people from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Pakistan. In the future, global warming will likely make things worse.

Riyadh (AsiaNews) – More than the fears of the war in Gaza and the risks associated with the crowds in the holy places, cause of fatal accidents with heavy tolls in the past, the number one enemy for the faithful in Makkah during the Hajj this year (14-19 June) is the heat.

So far more than a thousand people have died, AFP reports, based on data provided by various countries. Last year’s death toll was around 240.

Saudi authorities have not yet released any official figure, but Egypt is said to have paid the highest price with 658 deaths from heat and heatstroke, but at least 630 were unregistered pilgrims not eligible to participate.

The religious event has also seen accidents and deaths in the past, as well as outbreaks of communicable diseases like SARS, bird flu, and meningitis.

Every year, tens of thousands of pilgrims try to perform the Hajj without registering or paying the official permit, which can be costly.

Saudi authorities moved out hundreds of thousands of unregistered pilgrims from Makkah earlier this month, but many appear to have eluded security checks, joining other pilgrims during the first rites last Friday.

Unregistered pilgrims are more vulnerable to heat and high temperatures because, without an official permit, they cannot access air-conditioned spaces provided by organisers for the more than 1.8 million authorised pilgrims, to cool off after hours of walking and praying outdoors.

“People were tired after being chased by security forces before Arafat day. They were exhausted,” one Arab diplomat said today, referring to the outdoor prayer that marked the culmination of the Hajj last Saturday.

As the leading cause of death, heat can trigger complications like high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems.

Malaysia, Pakistan, India, Jordan, Indonesia, Iran, Senegal, Tunisia, and Iraqi Kurdistan have all confirmed fatalities among their citizens.

Complicating things is the fact that this year, Hajj fell during the scorching Saudi summer.

Saudi Arabia’s national meteorological centre reported a high of 51.8 degrees Celsius earlier this week at the Grand Mosque in Makkah.

According to a Saudi study published last month, local temperatures are rising 0.4 degrees Celsius each decade with the future promising even more.

The Islamic calendar is lunar, so the pilgrimage moves back 10 days each year. Thus, while the Hajj is now moving toward winter, by the 2050s it will coincide with the peak of summer in Saudi Arabia. This could be "fatal" as Fahad Saeed, a climate scientist at Pakistan-based Climate Analytics, pointed out.

Heat-related deaths during the major pilgrimage to Makkah are nothing new and have been recorded since the 1400s.

A lack of acclimatisation to higher temperature, intense physical exertion, exposed spaces, and an older population makes pilgrims vulnerable.

More than 2,000 people suffered from heat stress last year, according to Saudi sources, and the situation will worsen as the planet warms up.

According to a 2021 study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, if the world warms by 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the risk of heatstroke for pilgrims participating in the Hajj will be five times greater.

The current deaths are thus a foretaste of things to come for tens of millions of Muslims who will undertake the pilgrimage in the coming decades.

“The hajj has been conducted in a certain way for more than 1,000 years now, and it's always been a hot climate," said Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, a scientific advisor at German institute Climate Analytics. “But ... the climate crisis is adding to the severity of the climate conditions."

Hence, some rites, Schleussner notes, like the climb to Mount Arafat have become "incredibly dangerous to human health.”

Niger reinstates prison sentences for journalists for defamation, insult

LESE MAJESTE BY ANY OTHER NAME

 

 On June 7, Niger’s head of state Abdourahamane Tchiani, seen here declaring himself the country's leader after a July 2023 coup, reintroduced prison sentences and fines for defamation and insult via electronic means of communication, news reports said. (Screenshot: YouTube/The Times and the Sunday Times)

June 20, 2024 


Dakar, June 20, 2024—Nigerien authorities must decriminalize defamation and ensure that the country’s cybercrime law does not unduly restrict the work of the media, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Thursday.

On June 7, Niger’s head of state Abdourahamane Tchiani, who overthrew the democratically elected president in July 2023, reintroduced prison sentences of one to three years and a fine of up to 5 million CFA francs (US$8,177) for defamation and insult via electronic means of communication, according to news reports.

A jail term of two to five years and a fine of up to 5 million CFA francs (US$8,177) were also set for the dissemination of “data likely to disturb public order or undermine human dignity,” even if such information is true, according to CPJ’s review of a copy of the law.

“The changes to Niger’s cybercrime law are a blow to the media community and a very disappointing step backwards for freedom of expression,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator, Muthoki Mumo, in Nairobi. “It is not too late to change course by reforming the law to ensure that it cannot be used to stifle journalism.”

Previously, the crimes of defamation and insult were punishable with fines of up to 10 million CFA francs (US$16,312), while dissemination of data likely to disturb public order carried a penalty of six months to three years’ imprisonment.

The government abolished criminal penalties for defamation and insult in 2022 to bring the 2019 cybercrime law into line with the 2010 press freedom law.

On June 12, Niger’s Minister of Justice and Human Rights Alio Daouda said in a statement that the 2022 amendments were made “despite the opposition of the large majority of Nigeriens.” He said that decriminalization of the offenses had led to a “proliferation of defamatory and insulting remarks on social networks and the dissemination of data likely to disturb public order or undermine human dignity” despite authorities’ calls for restraint.

“Firm instructions have been given to the public prosecutors to prosecute without weakness or complacency” anyone who commits these offenses, he said.

CPJ and other press freedom groups have raised concerns about journalists’ safety in the country since the 2023 military coup.

This April, Idrissa Soumana Maïga, editor of the privately owned L’Enquêteur newspaper, was arrested and remains behind bars on charges of undermining national defense. If convicted, he could face between five and 10 years in prison.

Several Nigerien journalists were imprisoned or fined over their reporting prior to decriminalization in 2022.

CPJ’s calls to the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights to request comment went unanswered.More On:

 Turkey’s proposal to kill stray dogs sparks outrage

June 20, 2024

By Dorian Jones

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's call for the culling of street dogs is provoking outrage that analysts say is crossing political lines across the country. As Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, the proposal is resurrecting dark memories of Turkey’s past.

Farm labourer dies in Italy after arm severed by machine

GLOBAL LACK OF H&S FOR FARM LABOURERS


By Laura Gozzi, BBC News
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Migrants labourers work in fields south of Rome (file pic)


An Indian farm labourer in Italy has died after he was allegedly left on the side of the road following an accident in which his arm was severed and his legs crushed.

Satnam Singh was injured by heavy machinery while working in a vegetable field in Lazio, near Rome, on Monday.

According to Italian media, Mr Singh’s employer, Antonello Lovato, loaded him and his wife into a van and left them by the side of the road near their home.

The severed arm was placed in a fruit box.

Medical help did not reach Mr Singh until an hour and a half later. He was airlifted to a hospital in Rome but died on Wednesday.

Mr Lovato is now under investigation for criminal negligence and manslaughter.

Mr Lovato's father told Italian media: "My son had told [Mr Singh] not to go near the machinery, but he didn't listen."

Italy’s Minister of Labour, Marina Calderone, said death of Mr Singh had been an “act of barbarity”.

Mr Singh, who was in his early 30s, had reportedly been living and working in Italy as an undocumented migrant for around two years.

The Indian embassy in Italy said it was “deeply saddened by the unfortunate demise of an Indian national” and added it was “actively liaising with local authorities.”

The Flai CGIL trade union has called for a strike of agricultural workers on Saturday to protest the death of Mr Singh. Maurizio Landini, the union's secretary general, said: "We are faced with a situation of real slavery. The death of a worker - an undocumented worker - is of unprecedented gravity."

The area Mr Singh worked in is home to large agricultural farms and a substantial Punjabi and Sikh population, many of whom work as farmhands.

Undocumented labourers across Italy are often subject to a system known as “caporalato” – a gangmaster system which sees middlemen illegally hire labourers who are then forced to work for very low salaries. Even workers with regular papers are often paid well below the legal wage.

Almost a quarter of the agricultural workforce in Italy in 2018 was employed under this method, according to a study by the Italian National Institute of Statistics. The practice also affects workers in the service industry and building sectors.

The exploitation of farmhands – Italian and migrant - in Italy is a well-known issue.

Thousands of people work in fields, vineyards and greenhouses dotted across the country, often without contracts and in highly dangerous conditions.

Workers often have to pay their employers for the cost of transportation to and from remote fields. Many live in isolated shacks or shanty towns and typically have no access to schools or medical care.

The practice of caporalato was outlawed in 2016 following the death of an Italian woman who died of a heart attack after working 12-hour shifts picking and sorting grapes, for which she was paid €27 (£23) a day.

However, the exploitation of agricultural workers has proven difficult to eliminate entirely.

In 2018, 16 agricultural workers were killed in two separate road crashes in the region of Puglia.

In both cases, lorries carrying tomatoes collided with vans carrying the labourers home after their day's work. The deaths led African migrant labourers to go on strike to protest poor working conditions .

And earlier this month, two people were arrested in Puglia for caporalato after they were found to have recruited, underpaid and exploited several dozen workers.

MUTUAL AID

Monkeys got along better after hurricane - study

By Maddie Molloy, BBC Climate & Science
Dr Lauren Brent
As a result of hurricane impacts, macaque monkeys are getting along better with other monkeys in their social groups

Macaque monkeys got on better with others in their social groups after a devastating hurricane, according to researchers.

Researchers studied the impacts of a hurricane on a population of Rhesus macaques on an island off Puerto Rico.

Temperatures are often around 40C so shade is a precious resource for macaques, since tree cover is still far below pre-hurricane levels.

Macaques, who are known for being aggressive and competitive, have become more tolerant of one another to get access to scarce shade.

"It's extremely hot, it's not just uncomfortable, but actually dangerous for one's health if you don't manage to lower your body temperature," said Dr Camille Testard, a neuroscience research fellow at Harvard.

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In 2017 Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, killing more than 3,000 people and destroying 63% of the vegetation on Cayo Santiago.

The island is also known as Monkey Island and is home to the macaques studied by the researchers.

The study, which was led by the universities of Pennsylvania and Exeter and published in the journal Science, found that storm damage changed the evolutionary benefits of sharing shade and tolerating others.

"We expected that after the disaster in a more competitive landscape with less shade resources, you would have perhaps more aggression. But actually, that's really not what we found. We found the opposite pattern," said Dr Testard.

Using data collected before and after the hurricane, the researchers examined the strength and number of social ties among macaques.

Whether it's food or shade, macaques aren't known for being very good at sharing resources.

Due to the increased tolerance, more macaques were able to access scarce shade, which is crucial to their survival.

"There's still competition within your groups the way it was before, but the rules of the game have changed since then. What really seems to be important, are the risks of not living, heat, stress and getting access to shade," said Professor Lauren Brent, from the University of Exeter.

Researchers found that the macaques' increased tolerance spilled over into other aspects of their daily lives.

Macaques that had been sharing shade were also spending time together in the mornings, before the heat forced them to seek shade.

In effect, the hurricane changed the rules of the game in the monkeys’ society.

Biden administration old growth forest proposal doesn’t ban logging, but still angers industry


 Climbing assistant Lawrence Schultz ascends the Three Sisters sequoia tree during an Archangel Ancient Tree Archive expedition to plant sequoia seedlings on Oct. 26, 2021, in Sequoia Crest, Calif. The Biden administration on Thursday, June 20, 2024 advanced its proposal to protect old growth trees that are increasingly threatened by insects, disease and wildfires as climate change worsens. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)Read More

In this Aug. 24, 2020 photo, fire burns in the hollow of an old-growth redwood tree in Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Calif. The Biden administration is advancing its plan to restrict logging within old growth forests that are increasingly threatened by climate change, with an environmental review of the proposal expected to be publicized Friday. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)

BY MATTHEW BROWN
June 20, 2024

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Biden administration is advancing its plan to restrict logging within old growth forests that are increasingly threatened by climate change, with exceptions that include cutting trees to make forests less susceptible to wildfires, according to a U.S. government analysis obtained by The Associated Press.

The analysis — expected to be published Friday — shows that officials intend to reject a blanket prohibition on old growth logging that’s long been sought by some environmentalists. Officials concluded that such a sweeping ban would make it harder to thin forests to better protect communities against wildfires that have grown more severe as the planet warms.

“To ensure the longevity of old growth forests, we’re going to have to take proactive management to protect against wildfire and insects and disease,” Forest Service Deputy Chief Chris French told AP in an interview. Without some thinning allowed on these forests, he said there is a risk of losing more trees.
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The exceptions under which logging would be allowed are unlikely to placate timber industry representatives and Republicans in Congress. They’ve pushed back against any new restrictions. French asserted the impacts on timber companies would be minimal.

“There’s so little timber sales that occur right now in old growth...that the overall effects are very small,” French said.

The proposed changes mark a shift within an agency that historically promoted logging. They’re expected to be finalized before President Joe Biden’s first term ends in January and come after the Democrat issued a 2022 executive order that directed the U.S. Department of Agriculture to identify old growth forests across the nation and devise ways to conserve them.

That order touched off a flurry of disagreement over what fits under the definition of old growth and how those trees should be managed.

Old-growth forests, such as the storied giant sequoia stands of northern California, have layer upon layer of undisturbed trees and vegetation. There’s wide consensus on the importance of preserving them — both symbolically as marvels of nature, and more practically because their trunks and branches store large amounts of carbon that can be released when forests burn, adding to climate change.

Underlining the urgency of the issue are wildfires that killed thousands of giant sequoias in recent years. The towering giants are concentrated in about 70 groves scattered along the western side of the Sierra Nevada range.

Most old growth forests across the U.S. were lost to logging as the nation developed over the past few centuries. Yet pockets of ancient trees remain, scattered across the U.S. including in California, the Pacific Northwest and areas of the Rocky Mountains. Larger expanses of old growth survive in Alaska, such as within the Tongass National Forest.

Old growth timber harvests in the Tongass were limited in 2021 to small commercial sales. Those would no longer occur under the administration’s proposal.

The new analysis follows a separate report on threats to old growth forests that was finalized last week. It concluded wildfire, insects and disease have been the main killers of old growth trees since 2000, accounting for almost 1,400 square miles losses (3,600 square kilometers).

By contrast, logging on federal lands cut down about about 14 square miles of old growth (36 square kilometers). That figure has been seized on by timber industry representatives who argue further restrictions aren’t needed.

“A binding restriction on timber harvest is not where their priority ought to be,” said Bill Imbergamo with the Federal Forest Resource Coalition, an industry group. He added that exceptions by federal officials to allow some logging could be challenged in court, which could tie up even small logging projects that are focused on reducing wildfire risks.

Environmentalists have urged the administration to go even further as they seek to stop logging projects on federal lands in Oregon, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho and other states.

Jamie Williams, president of The Wilderness Society, said the proposal was “a step in the right direction.”

“But it must go further to protect and restore resilient old-growth forests in a way that meets the challenges of the changing climate,” he added.

The Forest Service inventory identified about 39,000 square miles (100,000 square kilometers) of old growth across the U.S. and 100,000 square miles (275,000 square kilometers) of mature forests that have not yet reached old growth status.

Environmentalists lobbied unsuccessfully for logging restrictions to be extended to those mature forests.

Under former President Donald Trump, federal officials sought to open up millions of acres of West Coast forests to potential logging. Federal wildlife officials reversed the move in 2021 after determining political appointees under Trump relied on faulty science to justify drastically shrinking areas of forest that are considered crucial habitats for the imperiled northern spotted owl.

Assisted-Suicide Activists Sue Catholic Hospital in Canada

'ACTIVISTS' ARE  'FAMILY MEMBERS'

NR ARE YANKEE CLOSET CATHOLIC CONSERVATIVES

(Darwin Brandis/Getty Images)

By THOMAS MCKENNA
NATIONAL REVIEW
June 20, 2024

Pro-euthanasia activists and the family of a patient killed by assisted suicide sued a Catholic health organization on Monday for refusing to provide the lethal procedure.

When a 34-year-old cancer patient at St. Paul’s Hospital requested assisted suicide last year, the Catholic hospital in Vancouver transferred her to another health facility that provided it. But her parents say the transfer violated their daughter’s rights under the Canadian constitution, and are suing Providence Health Care — the Catholic health organization that runs St. Paul’s — and the British Columbia Health Minister

The plaintiffs argue that all palliative care centers must provide in-house access to assisted suicide, regardless of religious beliefs. National Review first reported the details of the suit in February.

Activist group Dying with Dignity Canada is also a plaintiff in the suit and helped assemble a legal team. Daphne Gilbert, vice chairwoman of Dying with Dignity Canada, said in a February interview that she hopes the case will “pave the way for ending the ability of religion to dictate health care.”

The challenge is a “test case,” said Gilbert, for compelling religious medical institutions to provide abortions and “gender-affirming care,” in addition to assisted suicide.

“Religious institutions would either have to decide to get out of the business of offering medical care, and it could be taken over by the province,” Gilbert said, “or these institutions would have to align their care with the Constitution, even if it opposes their values.”

The suit argues religious health centers that do not provide MAID violate a patient’s “freedom of conscience and religion” and “right to life, liberty, and security” guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Since patients under the Catholic hospital’s care are entitled to “freedom from religion,” the suit claims, Providence’s religious beliefs cannot dictate its health-care practices.

Jyothi Jayaraman, a palliative care doctor who left Providence, is also suing the health organization for preventing her from performing euthanasia. The lawsuit argues the policies of Providence and the B.C. government infringe on a clinician’s ability to “discharge their professional obligations and to practice medicine free from religious coercion and in a manner consistent with their own conscience.”

Canada is “five to seven years ahead” of the United States on these issues, said ​​Andrew Bennett, program director for faith communities at Cardus, a Canadian think tank.

“And I don’t mean in a positive direction — a very negative direction,” Bennett said.

The St. Paul’s patient denied access to assisted suicide, 34-year-old Samantha O’Neill, gained public attention last June. When O’Neill, who had been diagnosed with stage-four cancer, opted for a medically assisted death, St. Paul’s hospital could prepare her for the procedure but could not administer the drugs that would ultimately kill her. O’Neill’s parents said the transfer, which took a couple of hours, caused their daughter unnecessary pain and robbed them of their final moments with her.

In response to public pressure fueled by O’Neill’s transfer, the B.C. government in November appropriated land from the hospital, according to an Archdiocese of Vancouver publication, and announced it would build an assisted-suicide center adjacent to St. Paul’s Hospital. The new building will allow patients to more easily be transferred out of Providence’s care to receive MAID.


Gilbert is concerned that the deal does not go far enough, since the transfer of the patient could still be painful and separate them from their families, and since other facilities under Providence’s management would still not be required to provide MAID.

The constitutional challenge cites the Canadian Charter’s fundamental freedom of conscience and religion and argues that patients have a “conscience right” to choose euthanasia. St. Paul’s, she said, must provide MAID on-site.

“My argument would be that there is no freedom of religion for an institution,” Gilbert said. “Bricks and mortar don’t have conscience and religious beliefs. People within them might — and those people need to be respected and accommodated — but the four walls of the building are publicly funded health-care institutions.”

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association takes a similar view. Harini Sivalingam, director of equality programs, said she would not comment on the developing lawsuit against St. Paul’s but said the CCLA believes religious hospitals “shouldn’t be granted an exemption from providing MAID.”

“All publicly funded hospitals, which includes anything religious, should not be able to deny equitable health services,” said Sivalingam in February, “whether that’s access to abortion, gender-affirming care, or providing end-of-life services such as MAID.”


The day after Providence and the British Columbia government struck the deal, on November 29, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement saying they “unanimously and unequivocally oppose the performance of either euthanasia or assisted suicide within health organizations with a Catholic identity.”

Assisted suicide was illegal in Canada until 2015, when the Supreme Court found the nationwide prohibition unconstitutional. In response, the Parliament passed the Medical Assistance in Dying Act, which legalized assisted suicide in certain circumstances.

Patients could receive MAID if their death was “reasonably foreseeable” and their illness “grievous and irremediable.” A 2021 amendment removed the “reasonably foreseeable” requirement.


Brian Bird, a lecturer at the University of British Columbia’s Peter A. Allard School of Law, claims the high court’s treatment of religious liberty has been on the wrong track. The St. Paul’s case, he said, could be “an opportunity to correct course.”

“It seems to me that what reconciliation could look like is allowing a health-care institution like St. Paul’s or other healthcare institutions to provide 99.5 percent of legal health-care services, but for conscientious or ethical or religious reasons, not provide certain procedures,” Bird said. “It’s quite a heavy-handed argument to say they must provide everything.”

Canada’s supreme court has been unfriendly to religious-liberty claims in recent years. A 2018 ruling by the supreme court denied accreditation to a law school proposed by Trinity Western University, a private university that adheres to Christian teachings on traditional marriage. Despite the university’s academic achievements and contributions, the court ruled that the school’s faith-based community standards could potentially harm the dignity of LGBT students.

Providence is “reviewing the court filing in order to determine next steps,” a spokesperson told NR in a Tuesday email statement.

“As Providence is a Catholic Health Care provider, MAiD is not available at our facilities,” the statement read. “Consistent with British Columbia’s regulations, Providence works to ensure patient requests for MAiD are addressed in a timely and safe manner and that patients requesting the service are brought to a health-care organization that provides it.”

Since its legalization, deaths from MAID have risen from 1,018 in 2016 to 13,241 in 2022, accounting for 4 percent of all deaths in Canada.