Sunday, June 23, 2024

'We are not trash': Horrors suffered by Canada's Indigenous women

Prince Rupert (Canada) (AFP) – A mountain of windswept garbage. Beneath it, bodies. For years, the remains discarded by a serial killer have languished in a landfill -- the latest chapter in a long history of violence against Canada's Indigenous women.


LONG READ

Issued on: 24/06/2024
Red dresses on crosses are displayed at the entrance of a makeshift camp near near the Prairie Green landfill in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where the families of Indigenous women believed slaughtered by a serial killer are keeping vigil 
© Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran were raped, killed, dismembered and thrown out with the trash in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Police believe their remains are buried deep inside the Prairie Green landfill.

The partial remains of another victim, Rebecca Contois, were found in two places -- a garbage bin in the city and in a separate landfill. The body of a fourth, unidentified woman in her 20s -- dubbed Buffalo Woman -- is still missing.

Their murderer, Jeremy Skibicki, now 37 and linked to white supremacists, confessed in 2022 and has been tried. A verdict is expected next month.

But their relatives have been unable to lay them to rest, as the excavations to find their remains have not yet begun.

Indigenous women are disproportionately targeted by violence in Canada, and often poorly protected by authorities accused of paying little attention to their plight.

Instead, they are thrown "into the trash," says Elle Harris, the 19-year-old daughter of Morgan Harris.

A member of the Long Plain nation, Elle is dressed in a traditional skirt, her hair twisted into a long braid.

She says her mother had a difficult life, spending years homeless after losing custody of her five children due to a drug addiction.

"My mom was taken just like that, just like nothing. And I wish I could see her one more time, to talk to her again," she tells AFP.

Elle Harris, whose mother Morgan is believed to have been killed by Jeremy Skibicki © Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

Instead, she and her family are keeping vigil near the Prairie Green landfill, where they have set up teepees, a sacred fire, red dresses and a banner demanding empathy: "What if it was your daughter?"

For months -- through the wind-blasted Winnipeg winter -- they have taken turns staying in the makeshift camp, seeking, says Elle, "to prove that we are something, we are not trash, we can't just be thrown into the garbage."

It has also formed part of their campaign to pressure authorities to excavate the site, which has remained in use since Skibicki's confession, with new truckloads of debris regularly arriving to be piled on top of what is already there.

The go-ahead for the digging was finally given at the end of 2023, shortly after Winnipeg elected Canada's first Indigenous provincial leader, Wab Kinew.

But the searchers must sift through tons of garbage and construction rubble, and such an operation involves considerable risks due to the presence of toxic materials such as asbestos, according to independent experts.

Ultimately, it could take years and cost tens of millions of dollars.
An aerial view of the Prairie Green landfill, where the remains of at least two of confessed serial killer Jeremy Skibick's victims are believed to be buried © Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

Morgan Harris' family has vowed to maintain their vigil until her remains are recovered.
'Devastating history'

Skibicki targeted Indigenous women he met in homeless shelters, prosecutors told his trial, which began in late April. A judge is expected to issue a verdict on July 11.

At the time of his arrest, the then-Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Marc Miller said the case was part of "a legacy of a devastating history" of Canada's treatment of Indigenous women "that has reverberations today."

"No one can stand in front of you with confidence to say that this won't happen again and I think that's kind of shameful," he said.
A banner at the Prairie Green landfill demands empathy
 © Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

Indigenous women are wildly overrepresented among the victims of femicide in Canada.

They represent about one-fifth of all the women killed in gender-related homicides in the country -- even though they are just five percent of the female population, according to official figures documenting an 11-year period up to 2021.

In that year in particular, the rate of gender-related homicide of Indigenous victims was more than triple that of such killings of girls and women overall, the report said.

"Canada is looked at as a country that upholds rights," said Hilda Anderson-Pyrz, an activist who has championed Indigenous women for years.

But when "we're being disposed of like garbage in landfills, that clearly says something is very wrong in this country."

In 2019, a national commission went so far as to describe the thousands of murders and disappearances of First Nations women over the years as a "genocide."

Isolated, marginalized, and heavily impacted by intergenerational trauma, they face disproportionate violence due to "state actions and inactions rooted in colonialism and colonial ideologies, built on the presumption of superiority," the commission concluded.

It is a conclusion shared by some of the families of Skibicki's victims.

The young children of Marcedes Myran do not understand why she is in a landfill, admits their great-grandmother Donna Bartlett, who is raising them in her small, cluttered house in an outlying neighborhood of Winnipeg.

Marcedes was a kind, happy girl who loved to play jokes, the 66-year-old recalls.

Donna Bartlett now cares for her great-grandchildren alone after their mother, Marcedes Myran, became another of Skibicki's victims © Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

She laments authorities' reluctance to search the landfill.

"If (the women) were white, they would have done it right away," she says.
'Highway of Tears'

Further west, in British Columbia, is a stretch of road hundreds of miles long known as the "Highway of Tears" -- a stark monument, activists say, to the many ways Canada has failed Indigenous women.

Here, nature is spectacular -- the snow-capped mountains, the immense trees, the meandering Skeena River, waterfalls and abundant wildlife such as foxes, bears and eagles.

But on the side of the highway is an incongruous sight: red dresses nailed to posts symbolizing vanished women, faded photos of young girls with dazzling smiles, messages promising rewards for any clues to where they have gone.

A totem pole along the so-called "Highway of Tears" in British Columbia, where dozens of Indigenous women have gone missing since the 1960s © Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

Since the 1960s, as many as 50 women -- and a few men -- have vanished along this 450-mile (725-kilometer) highway linking Prince Rupert, on the Pacific Coast near Alaska, to Prince George.

All are believed to have been young and Indigenous. Many vanished while hitchhiking or walking home along Highway 16. No community in the region was spared.

Tamara Chipman, who was a member of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation, was heading to Prince Rupert to see friends when she was last seen hitchhiking on September 21, 2005. She was 22, the mother of a little boy.

Her aunt, Gladys Radek, described a feisty young woman who "loved fast boats and fishing and also life," in a region marked by social disintegration and drugs.

In these isolated and impoverished communities, connected only by this single highway flanked by deep forests, without proper telephone networks or public transportation, many young people are forced to hitchhike to get around.

They often encounter temporary workers who have come for jobs at local mines: mainly well-paid, single men.

A memorial marks the site where the remains of one missing woman, Alberta Williams, were found in 1989, on Highway 16, the "Highway of Tears" © Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

The case of Chipman, like the majority of disappearances on the route, has never been explained.
Neglected

When Lana Derrick went missing in the area 25 years ago, "we had some challenges in the beginning getting support from the RCMP to take the case seriously," says her cousin Wanda Good, referring to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

It is an observation made by many of the families -- that efforts to find women stigmatized as drug addicts, prostitutes or alcoholics can be middling at best.

In several cases the families say they have organized the first searches themselves -- both for their missing loved ones, and for any witnesses.


RCMP Constable Wayne Clary, shown here speaking in Surrey, British Columbia in May, says that with some of the activities that women engage in, "they make themselves available for men who prey on women" © Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

The head of the RCMP admitted to the national commission in 2018 that, for too many Indigenous families, "the RCMP was not the police service that it needed to be during this terrible time of your life."

Studies show a deep-rooted distrust between police and Indigenous people. It dates back to decades when police were used as the armed wing of Canadian governments, as they imposed a policy of forced assimilation on the country's First Peoples.

At the RCMP's British Columbia headquarters on the outskirts of Vancouver, Constable Wayne Clary, a veteran homicide investigator, tries to explain the tragedy of the Highway of Tears.

"The northern areas are very, very isolated. Some of the activities that these women engage in, and not just Indigenous, but other women, they make themselves available for men who prey on women," he says.

He rejects accusations of botched investigations, but acknowledges: "In the past, communication may not have been there."
'Never stop looking'

Clary is part of the E-Pana unit, created in 2005 -- more than 30 years after the disappearances began -- to "determine if a serial killer, or killers, is responsible."
Gladys Radek, advocate for missing Indigenous women, displays the images plastered across the van she drives to visit communities along the "Highway of Tears" © Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

Eighteen women are on the unit's list -- 13 homicides and five disappearances spanning from 1969 to 2006. No connection has been established between the cases so far.

The investigations remain open, but new homicides are not handled by the special unit. The last -- that of Chelsey Quaw, a 29-year-old Indigenous woman reported missing after leaving home from Saik'uz First Nation -- dates back to last November.

In recent years, there has been progress, notes Good: the police listen more to families, and new relay antennas have been installed for mobile communications on the road.

"We are moving forward, but at a very, very slow, snail's pace," she says.

But it is a collective tragedy which the country refuses to confront, believes Radek, 69.

Speaking slowly and gravely, her voice at times rising in anger, she describes how she began traveling the country "to tell the stories of all these women with broken destinies, to be the voice of these families, because they were silenced."

Her fight now takes her outside of Canada to conferences and demonstrations seeking to raise awareness of the women's plight.

"I'll never stop looking," she says.

© 2024 AFP

MBAPPE GETS MASK FOR BROKEN NOSE

Kylian Mbappe sports a mask in training on Sunday. Could the France captain play against Poland on Tuesday? 
© FRANCK FIFE / AFP
NATIONAL SECURITY AS PROTECTIONISM
US slaps sanctions on leaders of Russia software firm Kaspersky


AFP
June 21, 2024

The US Treasury Department slapped sanctions on 12 members of Kaspersky's senior leadership on Friday - Copyright AFP/File Daniel ROLAND

The United States unveiled sanctions Friday against 12 top leaders of the Russia-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, a day after banning the sale of its popular antivirus software on national security grounds.

The widespread sanctions target many of Kaspersky Lab’s most senior leaders, including its chief operating officer, while sparing the chief executive and the company itself, the Treasury Department said in a statement announcing the designation.

“Today’s action against the leadership of Kaspersky Lab underscores our commitment to ensure the integrity of our cyber domain and to protect our citizens against malicious cyber threats,” US Treasury under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence Brian Nelson said.

“The United States will take action where necessary to hold accountable those who would seek to facilitate or otherwise enable these activities,” he added.

In a separate statement, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the company was subject to the “jurisdiction, control, or direction of the Russian government, which could exploit the privileged access to obtain sensitive data.”

This poses “an unacceptable risk to US national security or the safety and security of U.S. persons,” he added.

The Treasury sanctions come a day after the Commerce Department announced it was banning the Moscow-headquartered cybersecurity firm from providing its popular antivirus products in the US.

That announcement came after a lengthy investigation which, the Commerce Department said, found that Kaspersky’s “continued operations in the United States presented a national security risk due to the Russian Government’s offensive cyber capabilities and capacity to influence or direct Kaspersky’s operations.”

Kaspersky, in a statement to AFP, vowed to “pursue all legally available options to preserve its current operations and relationships,” adding it “does not engage in activities which threaten US national security.”


Friday’s designation targeted many of the company’s most senior officials, including the company’s long-serving chief operating officer, Andrei Tikhonov, and its chief legal officer, Igor Chekhunov, the Treasury Department said.


Is the founder of the modern Olympics being cancelled?


AFP
June 20, 2024

Olympics founder Pierre de Coubertin (seated L) with members of the first International Olympic Committee which organised the 1896 Games in Athens -
 Copyright AFP Anthony WALLACE

Adam PLOWRIGHT

France likes to honour its late pioneers and visionaries, but the aristocratic Frenchman who founded the modern Olympics is proving to be a troublesome figure for organisers of the Paris 2024 Games.

Inspired by William Penny Brookes’ Wenlock Olympian Games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin almost singlehandedly created the Olympics by reviving the ancient Greek tradition of Games at the end of the 19th century.

Lauded for his devotion to using sport to promote peace and international cooperation, he is now classed in the 21st century as a sexist, a class snob and a supporter of colonialism.

“He created the movement, he had the idea, he laid the foundations,” Daphne Bolz, a sports historian at the University of Rouen, told AFP on the sidelines of a recent seminar in Paris.

“In this respect, he’s never completely forgotten. But he was a man of his time, not in line with the contemporary values of France and those promoted by today’s International Olympic Committee (IOC),” she added.

The question of how much prominence to give him as France hosts its first Olympics in 100 years next month — the last Paris Games in 1900 and 1924 were during de Coubertin’s time — has posed a dilemma.

“Paris is going to host its third Games and we know what we owe to the baron,” chief organiser Tony Estanguet told reporters in March when asked about him. “If we are here today it’s because of him.”

Yet de Coubertin is only very rarely name-checked by Paris organisers, nor does he feature prominently in any of the official narrative around the Games, which begin on July 26.

He has no major Paris stadium named after him, besides a municipal sports centre in the southwest of the capital that will be used as a training base.

A homage for him on Sunday at the Sorbonne University in Paris — marking a speech he gave there in June 23, 1894, to create the International Olympic Committee — is being snubbed by Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera.

Although IOC head Thomas Bach is expected, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said Wednesday that she too had “another event” that made it impossible for her to attend.

“Paris 2024 has not done much around Pierre de Coubertin, either to show appreciation or raise awareness,” his great-great niece, Diane de Navacelle, speaking on behalf of the family, told AFP in an interview.

– ‘Right place’? –

The treatment of de Coubertin comes at a time of a broad ideological struggle about how to remember major historical figures in the modern era who are tainted by their beliefs or actions, particularly in relation to colonialism.

Across Western countries in recent years, left-wing student groups have torn down or defaced statues of individuals linked to slavery in a movement denounced as “cancel culture” by critics.

In France, this has been symbolised by the struggle over a statue outside the national parliament of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a 17th-century statesman who helped write legal guidance for slave owners in the French West Indies.

De Coubertin held fairly typical views for a man of his class and era, namely a belief in the superiority of white men and Western civilisation.

The Games were conceived for wealthy, upper-class amateurs, while the prospect of women competing was “uninteresting” and “unaesthetic”, he wrote.

He also heaped praise on the infamous Nazi-organised games of 1936, which were instrumentalised by Adolf Hitler.

“How do you expect me to repudiate these celebrations?” he wrote.

But he did not attend in person and was no longer head of the IOC at the time, his family contends.

“What delighted him was to see a country make such an exceptional investment for the first time to host the Olympics,” de Navacelle said.

Paris Mayor Hidalgo said this week that she had no interest in “starting a fight to tear down the image of Pierre de Coubertin”.

“We need to add to history, explain history, complete history, including the shadowy areas of some people,” she urged on Wednesday.

For Bolz, organisers have probably got the balance right.

“He doesn’t represent the things we want to promote nowadays, that’s why he’s a bit withdrawn,” she said. “In the end, he’s in the right place. He’s present, but without being glorified.”

Nobel committee condemns jail term for Iranian laureate Mohammadi

AFP
June 20, 2024


An undated photo of Narges Mohammadi provided by the foundation that bears her name - Copyright POOL/AFP NHAC NGUYEN

The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Thursday criticised an Iranian court’s decision to slap an additional one-year jail term on imprisoned 2023 Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi.

Jorgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, called it “a flagrant violation of human rights and a travesty of justice”.

Mohammadi, 52, has been jailed since November 2021 over several past convictions relating to her campaigns against the obligatory hijab for women and capital punishment in Iran.

Her lawyer, Mostafa Nili, said on X on Tuesday: “Mohammadi was sentenced to one year in prison for propaganda against the system.”

The Nobel Committee said it “strongly condemns the harsh and unjust sentencing”.

Nili said the sentence was in response to calls to boycott parliamentary elections, letters to Swedish and Norwegian lawmakers, and comments made about journalist and student Dina Ghalibaf.

Rights groups said Ghalibaf was taken into custody after accusing security forces on social media of putting her in handcuffs and sexually assaulting her during a previous arrest at a metro station.

Ghalibaf has since been released.

The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan Online website said on April 22 that Ghalibaf “had not been raped” and that she was being prosecuted for making a “false statement”.

Mohammadi refused to attend a trial hearing in Tehran earlier this month, and in March shared an audio message from prison in which she decried a “full-scale war against women” in the Islamic republic.

She was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize in October “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all”.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Colombia sex tourism boom lures MALE foreigners seeking underage girls

MACHO MISOGYNIST FEMICIDE


AFP
June 20, 2024

A woman walks in Lleras park in Medellin -- the city expects a record number of visitors this year - Copyright AFP/File STR

At night, sex workers take up their positions in the Colombian city of Medellin, where a tourism boom has led to a rise in prostitution that is dragging in underage girls.

Once synonymous with lawlessness, the birthplace of Pablo Escobar has become a trendy hotspot for tourists and digital nomads drawn to its mountainous landscapes and vibrant nightlife.

However, a seedy and dangerous underbelly remains, with child prostitutes on offer and a string of tourists drugged and murdered by their matches on dating apps.

“Women drive tourism here in Medellin because men come to Colombia to look for women and to get high,” a sex worker who gave her name only as Milena and said she was in her thirties, told AFP.

Milena said she earns between $150 and $300 per night, the equivalent of the minimum monthly wage in Colombia.

Prostitution is legal in Colombia but several high-profile cases of children being exploited by foreigners have put the local government on guard against sex tourism.

Pedophiles are “taking advantage to come here and have sex” with children, said Jazmin Santa, a member of an independent organization fighting against the sexual exploitation of minors.

Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez declared the city had hit “rock bottom” after an American citizen, 36, was found by police with two girls, aged 12 and 13, in his luxury hotel room in late March.

He was released and returned to the United States, sparking outrage in Colombia.

Gutierrez temporarily suspended prostitution in the touristy heart of the city, El Poblado, and vowed to tackle the gangs involved in pimping out children.

But sex workers can still be seen openly negotiating with tourists in the area.

– Child sexual exploitation –

At least a dozen foreigners have been arrested in Medellin this year for suspected sexual exploitation of children, according to the police.

The age of consent in Colombia is 14, but paying a minor for sex is illegal.

Santa’s organization recorded 714 child victims of sexual exploitation between 2020 and 2022, based on police data.

In April, local media published the alleged chats of a Colombian-American citizen who had negotiated with a sex trafficker to rape a minor of “10 or 11 years” in exchange for $150 and an iPhone XS.

He was arrested at the airport in Miami before taking a flight to Medellin.

The suspect “had entered Colombia 45 times since 2022. These abuses against our children have been occurring with great intensity for years,” said the mayor, Gutierrez.

According to city hall, the number of visitors to Medellin has increased sevenfold in less than a decade, with 1.5 million coming to the city last year, half of them foreigners.

The city expects a record number of visitors this year.

“Most tourists don’t come looking for sex… of course we have some. As long as they do it legally, we in the city can’t do anything,” Medellin’s Tourism Secretary Jose Gonzalez told AFP.

He said the city wants to focus on “health tourism, sports tourism and digital nomads.”

– ‘Scare away’ demand –


In March, Gutierrez proposed regulating short-term rentals on sites like Airbnb after apartments were used to host parties with underage girls. He has since signed an agreement with the platform to exchange information on guests suspected of criminal behavior.

The mayor’s office presents the restriction on prostitution in some areas as a bid to “scare away” demand for sexual services.

But the president of the region’s sex worker union, Valery Ramirez, said the ban was “punitive and unconstitutional.”

As the debate rages, normal tourists have tried to keep to themselves.

Carl Manz, a 33-year-old American visiting Medellin for an amateur football tournament, is not unaware of the prostitution that abounds just a few blocks from where he is staying.

“If that is the culture here, I respect it. But I try to mind my own business,” he said.

Drones: new terror tool for Colombian guerrillas


AFP
June 20, 2024

Dissidents of the now disbanded FARC guerrilla group continue fighting for territory and trafficking routes - Copyright AFP/File STR


David SALAZAR

Colombia’s leftist guerrillas are increasingly relying on drones to drop explosives on rivals, sowing terror in rural areas and leaving the military scrambling.

As dissident groups of the now-disbanded FARC guerrilla army continue fighting over territory and trafficking routes, the low-frequency hum of a drone has become a signal for villagers to take cover.

The Colombian military has recently distributed videos of the rebels using unmanned aircraft to attack soldiers and civilians alike — with at least 17 attacks registered in the last six weeks in conflict-torn departments such as Cauca.

Unlike the sophisticated payloads mounted on drones by soldiers in Ukraine, for example, the guerrillas mainly use homemade explosives or fireworks.

So far their rudimentary flying bombs have claimed no lives.

But in the Cauca capital of Popayan, the mayor’s office has banned drone flights after a June 7 attack with explosives on a police station.

Less than a week ago, a girl was injured by an explosive device dropped near a hospital in the town of Suarez, while three soldiers were recently injured in two drone attacks in the town of Argelia.

The armed forces of the South American country battling to extract itself from a six-decade civil war announced Tuesday they were themselves acquiring drones aimed at “containing these terrorist actions.”

– Rudimentary, but effective –

In its military campaign to seize power, the FARC spent millions of dollars on black market weaponry — machine guns, grenades and mines.

Today, the Central General Staff (EMC) and Segunda Marquetalia — two splinter groups that refused to disarm when the FARC signed a peace deal in 2016 — are increasingly relying on commercially available drones that cost less than $1,000 apiece.

“It may be rudimentary technology, but it’s effective,” security expert Luis Armas told AFP.

AFP obtained transcripts from an official source of intercepted phone calls between EMC members discussing plans for drone strikes.

In one, the rebels mull “neighborhoods where the oligarchy lives” in Bogota. Police in the Colombian capital this week announced they had acquired a “Dronebuster 3” to jam drone communications.

A guerrilla commander told AFP that obtaining drones was a priority for the insurgents.

“If the enemy is preparing itself… with drones, then of course we have to keep up,” he said in a voice message from the country’s southwest.


The Cauca department’s security secretary Miller Hurtado told Colombian outlet W Radio there was a race among armed groups to show “that they are better armed, that they have better technology.”

But with the drones lacking precision targeting methods, explosives risk landing on unintended civilian locations such as schools.

Jorge Restrepo, a researcher at the Conflict Analysis Resource Center, said a massive uptake in drone use “would mean a huge jump in military capacity” for guerrilla fighters.

“The armed forces are not prepared” for this new “terrorism” tool, he told AFP.

Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez has acknowledged that the military’s drone-fighting capabilities are “insufficient.”

AU CONTRAIRE 

Op-Ed: Just Stop Oil – Not stopping oil, annoying Greens, and making anti-oil look bad

STONEHENGE IS SACRED


By Paul Wallis
DIGITAL JOURNAL
June 20, 2024

NOTICE THE CHEMTRAILS (AKA CONTRAILS) IN THE SKY


Just Stop Oil has been making all the wrong noises too often. Attacking Stonehenge was an incredibly bad and very ugly move, guaranteed to infuriate Greens. It comes on top of other useless vandalism attacks and some of the worst publicity any supposedly Green movement could want.

If you check out the lengthy list of irritating news about Just Stop Oil, there’s not much to like. Just Stop Oil started in 2021, and since then has achieved remarkably little.

The group acts like the 1970s “radicals”, creating impossibly hostile scenarios for dialog with any government, oil company or stakeholders. It has started an argument nobody can win.

Oil is a problem. The oil sector is too backward, stupid, and insular to realize it can repurpose all of its products away from fuels. The sector doesn’t even need to tweak distribution or anything else. All it needs to do is, just make other, non-polluting products. Apparently, that’s too difficult.

You can’t stop billions of oil dollars with cheap stupid and counterproductive publicity stunts. You can’t stop it with self-righteousness. You’re not offering alternative solutions; you’re just making a racket.

Just Stop Oil is effectively creating sympathy for the oil sector simply because of its extremely offensive and idiotic targeting of inoffensive subjects. No Green is ever going to agree with this ultra-dumb vandalism.

The targeting of these so-called protests is also highly questionable. What is supposed to be achieved by attacking the Rugby World Cup? That audience isn’t famous for its Green sympathies. Nor is Wimbledon.

When did Van Gogh’s Sunflowers poison the world? How did Stonehenge become responsible for a brain-dead energy sector? How did Les Miserables contribute to global warming?

No direct Just Stop Oil protests against actual oil companies seem to happen. There’s not an atom of orange paint on a Chevron, Exxon, or BP property, or anything else. Why?

This looks far more like a brazen right-wing negative publicity campaign than any kind of legit climate protest group. They have achieved precisely nothing. They will continue to achieve nothing if they continue with this worthless attention-getting charade.

An extremely old McCarthyist tactic is to discredit opposition groups by joining them and carrying out destructive actions in their names. The Black Bloc, which used to show up at environmental protests, would “help” protect the Amazon by burning people’s cars. That, of course, antagonized just about everyone and got far more publicity than the protest or the issues. It also discredited the real protesters.

The net effect of this absurdly over-the-top conspicuous “extremism”, of course, is hyper-polarization. One of the easiest anti-environmental tricks is to simply paint environmentalists as whackos. The actual issue, which is just cleaning up a toxic world, gets lost in the negative imagery.

That’s been going on for 50 years at least. It’s also one of the reasons so little has been done about the plague of environmental disasters. Governments and companies feel safe not “giving in” to supposed nutcases.

I think it’s fair to say that no real Greens want any part of Just Stop Oil.

I certainly don’t. They’re ridiculous.

Goodbye Just Stop Oil, and back to Central Casting with you.
\
EU chief’s texts for Covid vaccines under court scrutiny


By AFP
June 21, 2024

Von der Leyen is seeking a second term as president of the European Commission - Copyright GETTY IMAGES/AFP ALEX WONG
Matthieu DEMEESTERE

A Belgian court on Friday heard a lawsuit accusing European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen of secretly negotiating Covid vaccine purchases via text message and arguing she should be barred from a second term.

The case centres on allegations that von der Leyen, at the height of the pandemic, exchanged messages with Pfizer boss Albert Bourla to help arrange the EU’s mammoth vaccine purchases.

The EU’s ombudsman in January 2022 declared that the commission had been guilty of “maladministration” for failing to identify any such text messages, not making them public — and claiming that, if they existed, they should not come under its public transparency rules for documents.

The case was brought by a Belgian former lobbyist to the European Parliament, Frederic Baldan. He alleges “destruction of public documents” and argues that von der Leyen both overstepped her role and violated the commission’s code of conduct.

Through his lawyer, he urged the court to force von der Leyen’s European People’s Party (EPP) to withdraw its support for her to get a second, five-year term running the commission.

The EPP did not have a lawyer in court representing it. Contacted by AFP, the political group refused to comment.

The Brussels judge hearing the case said a ruling would be issued before next Thursday. That is when EU leaders are to gather for a summit expected to nominate von der Leyen to a new mandate, following the European elections earlier this month.

– Secret messages –

Baldan, who since 2023 has brought the lawsuit before several Belgian courts and the EU court, says von der Leyen conducted the Pfizer vaccine purchase “by SMS, in secret” without approval from EU member states.

While the EU ombudsman’s finding carried no penalty for the commission, the EU prosecutor’s office in October 2022 launched a probe into how von der Leyen and the EU set about procuring the Covid vaccines.

Baldan has a case related to the matter that will be heard in December by another Belgian court, in Liege, in which he contests the ability of the EU prosecutor’s office to effectively investigate.

The alleged exchange of text messages between von der Leyen and Bourla was revealed by the New York Times in 2021. The US newspaper last year sued the commission for failing to release the messages.

The EU acted swiftly after the Covid pandemic struck in 2020 to secure vaccines for member countries to buy for their citizens and residents, with the commission tapping Pfizer as the main supplier.

Many aspects of the vaccine procurement have been kept confidential.

The commission, by late 2021, had signed 71 billion euros ($76 billion) worth of contracts for the joint procurement of 4.6 billion doses, according to the European Court of Auditors.

“The heart of the process were the preliminary negotiations that took place before a tender invitation was sent out,” the official auditor said in a 2022 report.
French left vows new taxes as snap election draws near

AFP
June 21, 2024

The New Popular Front (NPF) plans to tax wealth and windfall profits - Copyright AFP/File Daniel ROLAND

Tom BARFIELD

Left-wing parties in France on Friday pledged to raise 30 billion euros a year from taxing businesses and the rich if they win a majority at snap parliamentary polls, drawing ire from centrists and business leaders.

The promises to fund new welfare handouts come as the left tries to catch up to the lead of the far-right National Rally (RN) in the polls — both of them well ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s camp.

Socialists, Greens, Communists and hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) would “immediately reinstate a wealth tax with a climate component” to bring in “15 billion euros” ($16 billion) if they enter government, Socialist senator Alexandre Ouizille told journalists in Paris.

A tax on businesses’ windfall profits would bring in a further 15 billion euros, the New Popular Front (NPF) alliance predicts.

They plan to spend the cash on reversing Macron’s hugely unpopular increase to the official retirement age as well as increasing housing and unemployment benefit payments and public sector salaries.

Olivier Blanchard, former chief economist of the IMF, called the NPF’s plans “essentially confiscatory in nature,” in a message on Twitter.

“It is hard to see how this will not lead entrepreneurs to move en masse their operations elsewhere,” he added.

In a sign of weakening confidence, yields on France’s debt have soared since the president called the snap election after a European poll drubbing, as investors react to lavish spending plans from both the left and the RN.

France’s public finances are already under strain, with an outstanding debt pile of around 110 percent of GDP — over three trillion euros — and an enduring government deficit that on Wednesday earned it a rebuke from the European Commission.

Bond markets are showing “the direct consequences of totally senseless and irresponsible economic and financial plans” from both left and far right, Macron’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Friday.

He vowed to bring France’s deficit back to the notional EU limit of three percent by 2027, from over five percent this year.

The RN has for its part vowed to face down Brussels over the party’s plans to reduce VAT on fuel — forbidden under EU rules aimed at limiting greenhouse emissions.

– ‘Electioneering anti-Semitism’ –

Ministers led by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal have hammered their message that they are the sole bulwark against two “extremes” on left and right.

“Today there are three blocs, two of them extremes who feed off each other, because they are fuelled by divisions between French people, by stigmatising some French people,” Attal said in Marseille on Friday.

The RN’s core messages revolve around opposition to Islam and immigration, with its manifesto pledging to “stop the migrant flood”.

But allegations of anti-Semitism have resounded loudest this week, intensified after the rape of a 12-year-old girl by two teenagers allegedly motivated by hatred of Jews.

Some figures in LFI, the largest party in the left alliance, have been accused of anti-Semitism over their reactions to Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.

“There is no equivalence between the contextual, populist and electioneering anti-Semitism used by some members of LFI and the founding, historical and essential anti-Semitism of the RN,” which was co-founded by a former Waffen-SS member, lawyer Arie Alimi and historian Vincent Lemire wrote in an op-ed for Le Monde daily.

While “it cannot be contested that there is a resurgence in anti-Semitism from the left,” they insisted that “the NPF is the only electorally credible alternative to avoid an openly xenophobic party taking control of our institutions.”

The left’s electoral programme includes a condemnation of Hamas’s attack on Israel and a plan to address racism and anti-Semitism.

– Rush for proxy votes –



As voters rush to prepare for the June 30 and July 7 polls, over a million have already registered to vote by proxy in the election falling at the start of the summer holiday period.

The number stood at over 1,055,000 by June 20, the interior ministry said, already outstripping the number seen at the parliamentary election in June 2022 election when people had more notice and were more likely to be at home.

Some eyes were also already on the Paris Olympic Games starting in late July, which Macron has not shied away from using to call on voters to choose stability.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Friday that he would not continue in his post to oversee security at the Games if Macron’s camp loses the election, “even for just a few extra weeks”.

Nevertheless, “the Olympic Games have been well prepared for, everyone knows and appreciates that,” he added.

burs-tgb/as/rlp





French feminists march against far right with days before vote

By AFP
June 23, 2024

Feminist demonstrators marched against the far right in Paris - Copyright AFP Eyad BABA

Thousands of people turned out in France on Sunday for feminist demonstrations against the far right, which is expected to come out on top in June 30 snap elections, as parties sought to shore up support with days to go.

With the far-right National Rally (RN) polling at around 35 percent, “we have to remind people that they’re the ones who talked about ‘comfort abortions’, who are always attacking family planning services,” said Morgane Legras, a nuclear engineer and feminist activist taking part in the thousands-strong march in Paris.

Protesters wearing violet marched from the Place de la Republique square in central Paris to Place de la Nation in the east, bearing signs with messages such as “Push back the far right, not our rights”.

Other rallies took place in around 50 other cities such as Toulouse.

France’s two-round election system makes it difficult to predict which party could ultimately claim a majority in the lower house of parliament, handing them the prime minister’s post which is second in power to President Emmanuel Macron.

Since Macron dissolved parliament after a European Parliament election battering, his centrists are badly lagging the RN as well as a reforged left-wing alliance called the New Popular Front (NFP) in surveys of voting intentions.

The RN has garnered unprecedented levels of support after a decades-long “de-demonisation” push to distance its image from its roots, including a co-founder who was a member of the Nazi Waffen-SS paramilitary.

But the core of its message remains hostility to immigration, Islam and the European Union.

Senior RN lawmaker Sebastien Chenu gestured towards Muslim and Jewish voters Sunday by vowing not to ban the ritual slaughter of livestock to produce halal or kosher meat.

“Everyone will be able to keep eating kosher meat if they want,” Chenu told Jewish broadcaster Radio J.

He added that a historic far-right policy of barring the kippa in public spaces — in the footsteps of an existing law forbidding the full-body burka worn by some Muslim women — was not top of the RN’s agenda, saying its priority was to fight “the Islamist threat”.

– ‘Do better ‘-

In Macron’s camp, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal acknowledged that the European Parliament result — where they scored just 14 percent — was “a message to us that we have to do better with our methods, with our governance” of the country.

If his party defies the odds to come top in the legislative polls, he vowed “change”, including a turn to “seeking out coalitions with the French public, with civil society” in an interview with broadcaster RTL.

Macron’s alliance would open up to “all who want to come, from the conservative right to the social-democratic left”, Macron’s former prime minister Edouard Philippe told broadcaster France 3.

Attal also hammered the centrists’ mantra about the threats from “extremes” on the left and right, saying both promised a “tax bludgeoning… a shredder for the middle classes”.

The RN especially is “not ready to govern… it’s a party of opposition, not a party of government”, Attal said.

In a sign of the disquiet abroad over Macron’s snap poll gamble, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told public broadcaster ARD on Sunday that he was “concerned about the elections in France”, though “it’s up to the French people to decide”.

– ‘Shut up’ –

The left-wing NFP alliance continued to show strains Sunday, after parties hastily re-knitted ties sundered over differing responses to Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and the ongoing retaliation by Israeli forces in Gaza.

Divisions are particularly stark over whether their candidate for prime minister should be Jean-Luc Melenchon, head of France Unbowed (LFI) — the largest party in the grouping, some of whose members have been accused of anti-Semitism.

Melenchon should “shut up”, former Socialist president Francois Hollande said Sunday, as “people reject him more strongly” than the RN’s leaders Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella.

“Do we want the left to win, or do we want to be stoking conflict?” he said.

Melenchon said on Saturday that he aimed “to govern the country”.

“I will never give up the honour of being a target” for attacks, Melenchon told a rally in the southern city of Montpellier on Sunday.

burs/tgb/