New Zealand passes law to ban conversion therapy


Feb. 15 (UPI) -- New Zealand lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelming passed legislation to ban the widely discredited practice of attempting to forcibly change the sexual orientation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals.

The legislation was passed by the New Zealand Parliament by a vote of 112-8 after it was introduced last year by the ruling New Zealand Labor Party of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

"It's a great day for our Rainbow communities, and a proud day for all New Zealand," the political party said in a statement.

"Conversion practices are based on the false idea that people are wrong or broken because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Such practices and ideas have no place in a modern, inclusive country like Aotearoa," it said, referring to New Zealand by its indigenous Maori name

The law creates two new criminal offenses, one to punish with up to three years imprisonment the practice of conversion therapy on anyone under the age of 18 and those with impaired decision-making abilities. And the other to punish its use on anyone, irrespective of age, where it results in serious harm with up to five years imprisonment.

Justice Minister Kris Faafoi said it was designed to allow for conversations about sexuality and gender and to not infringe upon religious beliefs or principles.

"The legislation also lays out what is not conversion practice and protects the right to express opinon, belief, religious belief or principle, which is not intended to change or suppress a person's sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression," he said in a statement. "This legislation is not looking to criminalize open and respectful conversations, which aim to facilitate help and support where someone is wrestling with their sexuality."

The law also paves the way for people to file complaints about conversion therapy to the national Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Review Tribunal for instances were prosecution cannot be pursued.

Kiri Allan, a Labour Party member of parliament, said she was subjected to conversion therapy when she was 16 years old.

She "desperately tired to 'pray the gay' away" in order to be accepted by her church, family and community, and it took her a long time to let go of the shame and trauma associated with that, she said.

"Tonight, our parliament will ensure this practice is banned in our country for good," she tweeted. "For our next generation of babies, I'm so incredibly relieved."

Faafoi said the bill was fashioned from public input as the Justice Select Committee received 107,000 public submissions on the matter, the most ever received on a single piece of New Zealand legislation.

According to the Global Equality Caucus, only seven nations have banned conversion therapy, including Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, France, Germany, Malta and now New Zealand, though several others have signaled their intention to do so.

On Monday, lawmakers in the Netherlands introduced a proposal to ban conversion therapy by criminalizing its practice with imprisonment of up to one year or a $25,500 fine.

‘Mopping the floor because he’s Black’: Taco Bell worker says he was fired for filming manager’s racist rant

John Wright
February 16, 2022

(TikTok/screen shot)

A Taco Bell employee says he was fired for filming his manager's racist rant about workers "mopping the floor because (they're) Black."

In the video, which went viral on TikTok, a manager at a Taco Bell in Lexington, Virginia, is shown saying, "(Employee’s name) is sweeping the floor because he is Black. (Another employee’s name) is mopping the floor because he is Black.”

According to a TikTok user who posted the video, the employee who filmed the manager had asked her, "Why do you always have me sweeping and mopping?"

The employee later told NBC Channel 10 that the manager, a white female, had fired him as a result of the incident.

“If my video wasn’t out there, if I didn’t have a video and it was just hearsay stuff, I don’t think nothing would have happened,” the employee, who asked to remain anonymous, told the station. “I think I still would have been out of a job, and they would still be working there, happily ever after.”

“She told me I could leave," the employee said of his manager. "I said ‘I’m not leaving until 11.’ That’s my usual time that my general manager put on there. She said, ‘Well I don’t need you.’ So we had words back and forth about me leaving, about me not coming in tomorrow, about how she didn’t need me.”

The employee also said he's received death threats over the video.

“I also had a threatening message from a number saying they were going to kill me and my kids," the employee said. "And they hoped I kept the ‘same energy’ when I was ‘holding my kids’ lifeless bodies.’”

According to Taco Bell's corporate office, the manager has since been fired.

“We take this seriously," the corporate office said. "Our franchisee who owns and operates this location immediately addressed the incident in line with their policies and has informed us that the person seen in the video is no longer working for them.”

The employee who filmed the manager's racist rant said he's reported the threats to police, and has since been offered his job back.

Watch the TikTok video and the station's report below.




Lexington Taco Bell employee fired after racist remark-filled TikTok video goes viral

www.youtube.com

Cod ‘supergenes’ reveal how they are evolving in response to overfishing
The Conversation
February 16, 2022


Cod (Travel Faery / Shutterstock)

Cod “supergenes” have shed light on how they respond to overfishing, and these supergenes could make them more resilient to other environmental changes. That’s according to a new study published by scientists in Norway. This could be good news, in that cod have genetic architecture in place that will permit them to respond to climate change – but for now this is rather speculative.

For those of us who study how fish species evolve under strong selective pressure from commercial fishing, cod has been a poster species. For instance scientists have previously found that cod in the north west Atlantic showed signs of reproducing at a smaller size or younger age before numbers collapsed.

The latest study examined the current and historical genome (the complete set of genetic instructions contained in an organism’s DNA) of cod. The scientists were particularly interested in areas of highly-conserved “supergenes” and what they can tell us about these ecologically critical but heavily exploited marine predators.

Supergenes are not extra individual genes as such. Rather they are combinations of genetic material that are more conserved through the generations. Often they are strongly coupled or linked and are responsible for a set of traits in an organism that are very important such as linking growth rates with reproduction capacity.



Freshly caught cod from the North Sea. Ingrid Maasik / shutterstock

The authors found three supergenes conserved in the cod off Norwegian shores. And the three supergenes were found in different relative abundance in two distinct cod populations: inshore and offshore. This reinforces what we know about cod in the north east Atlantic and is a good thing, since if the cod were all one breeding population they would be more vulnerable to overexploitation.

An interesting consequence of this research is that the scientists can combine their genomics approaches with knowledge from old stories and pictures, and records of fish bones and fishing equipment found at archeological sites, in order to reconstruct the likely population sizes of cod through history. Recent studies on several fish species have shown the true baseline of their abundance in seas around Europe is likely underappreciated. Indeed, this new analysis suggests the overexploitation of cod reduced their abundance many hundreds of years before modern commercial fishing began, and the signature of overexploitations is etched in their genome.




Cod in the north east Atlantic were in decline even before modern fishing.
Sodeland et al (2022) / PNAS, CC BY-SA

How human predators change their prey

Across lots of different species, it is now well recognised that populations are constantly changing, and this includes evolved changes to their body size, shape or traits like growth rate being observed in just a few generations with significant consequences for how population numbers fluctuate.

Scientists recently updated a large data set that now compiles more than 7,000 examples of contemporary changes to biological traits in wild populations. The researchers examined whether observed trait changes such as a shift in average body size were short term and reversible, or whether they were more permanent evolved responses to some change in the local environment such as increasing temperature or an introduced predator.

Their data clearly showed that the largest and fastest rates of trait change were associated with predation – for example when a predator picks off the slowest, smallest, largest or least camouflaged individuals in a wild population – leading to directional change to being smaller, larger, or faster. These rates of change were especially fast when that predator was human.

Theories of human caused harvest-induced evolution are now well established, and there are many good examples where selective harvest of fish and game species has caused long term change, for example by influencing behaviour, body shape or size and growth rates to sexual maturity. I have carried out laboratory based research which has demonstrated both the probability that harvest-induced evolution can occur, but also the likely impact such permanent genetic change can have on things like population size or resulting yields.

This field of study is not without controversy, but it is now generally accepted that we should take evolutionary selection pressure into account when we utilise wild animals and plants for resources. As new scientific approaches and opportunities to examine the genome of wild animals emerge, we may find more supergenes and the stories they can tell us of how organisms respond to the world they live in.

Tom Cameron, Senior Lecturer in Ecology, University of Essex

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Spanish port devastated by Canada shipwreck tragedy




At Marin town hall, they observed a minute's silence for the victims of the tragedy, Spain's worst fishing accident in nearly 40 years

 (AFP/MIGUEL RIOPA)

Diego URDANETA
Thu, February 17, 2022, 3:16 AM·3 min read

Flags at half-mast, black ribbons everywhere and families devastated by grief: the Spanish port town of Marin was left reeling after a deadly shipwreck left 21 sailors dead or missing at sea.

The fishing trawler which sank off eastern Canada early on Tuesday was based in this small port in Spain's northwestern Galicia region and several members of its 24-strong crew lived here.

"All our solidarity with the Villa de Pitanxo" reads a huge banner strung up along the main road, referring to the vessel which went down 250 nautical miles east of Newfoundland in Spain's worst fishing tragedy in nearly 40 years.

Onboard were 16 Spaniards, five Peruvians and three Ghanaians.

Only three survived, two Spaniards and a Ghanaian national.

Rescuers have only managed to recover nine bodies, leaving 12 missing, presumed drowned, with the Canadian authorities ending their rescue operation on Wednesday evening after an "exhaustive" 36-hour search in which they combed 900 nautical square miles.

The news caused further anguish for the families, who begged them to continue.

"We have to keep looking for the bodies, we can't leave 12 people stranded at sea!" said John Okutu, whose Ghanaian uncle Edemon Okutu is among the missing.

"If Canada can't keep on looking, the Spanish must go, that's what the families want," he told journalists in Marin.

Galician regional leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo also urged the authorities in Spain and Canada to resume the search, at least for another 24 hours.

"There are many missing bodies and they deserve a final effort," he told reporters.

Carolina, wife of Peruvian fisherman Jonathan Calderon, who is missing, says her children are 'devastated' (AFP/MIGUEL RIOPA)

- 'Children in shock' -

"My children are devastated," said Carolina, wife of Jonathan Calderon, a 39-year-old Peruvian fisherman who had been living and working on boats in Marin for more than a decade.

Speaking to AFP, she said it was very important "that they find all the bodies, more than anything else, because that's very important for the families".

Her husband, she said, "knew the sea well because he had worked in Uruguay, then in the Falkland Islands and had spent 12 years working on the Pitanxo".

Carolina, who is from Chiclayo, a city in northern Peru, said the last time she spoke to him was Monday and he didn't mention anything about bad weather.

At her side, Carolina's mother is in tears as she talks about the impact on the couple's 16-year-old son and daughter, 10.

"My grandson is in shock, he thinks his Dad is coming home but my granddaughter seems to have accepted it because she says: 'Daddy's dead'," she sobs.

The family of Edemon Okutu, a Ghanaian crew member who was on board the sunken Spanish fishing trawler, have called for the search to be resumed (AFP/MIGUEL RIOPA)

- 'Uncertainty part of our DNA' -

With very little news about the fate of their loved ones, several families were gathered at the headquarters of Manuel Nores, the firm that owned the Villa de Pitanxo.

The firm was only letting in immediate family members who were being supported by therapists from the Red Cross, an AFP correspondent said.

Opposite the port, where several buildings were draped with large black mourning banners, the flags on Marin's town hall had all been lowered to half-mast.

On Wednesday evening, the town of 24,000 residents, which sits on a river that flows into the Atlantic Ocean, observed a minute's silence for the victims.

"As people of the sea, we know what it is to live with uncertainty, it is part of our DNA, just like saltwater, fishing and the seafaring culture," a town hall statement said.

"We can hardly imagine the sense of shock, the immense sorrow and the pain that the families of the Villa de Pitanxo are experiencing. We just aren't able," it added.

The pain felt in Marin is etched in the face of Maria Dolores Polo, a 52-year-old legal adviser as she walks past the port in the pouring rain.

"I feel a huge sense of sorrow because these people went out to sea like that and haven't been able to come home," she told AFP.

"Let's just see if they manage to recover the bodies," she said.

du-hmw/cb

Spain mourns worst fishing tragedy in 38 years after sinking of Villa de Pitanxo


The Galicia-based trawler sank off Newfoundland with just three known survivors from the crew of 24

The Villa de Pitanxo sank off the coast of Newfoundland, eastern Canada, on Tuesday. Photograph: Spanish Ministry for Agriculture, Fishery and Food/AP

AFP in Madrid
Wed 16 Feb 2022

Spain was in mourning for its worst fishing tragedy in almost 40 years, as rescuers warned on Wednesday that it was unlikely they would find any more survivors from a ship that sank in rough seas off Newfoundland.

Search teams have so far confirmed 10 dead and rescued three survivors from a life raft, and the search continues for 11 others who remain unaccounted for.

“Once again the people of the sea have been hit very hard,” said Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the president of Spain’s north-western Galicia region, where the boat was based.

“Galicia is a big family and when a family is struck by a tragic event, it unites in grief to seek comfort,” he said, announcing three days of mourning for the victims.

In Madrid, lawmakers observed a minute of silence in parliament for the dead and the missing from the trawler, which went down about 250 nautical miles (463 km) east of Newfoundland, leaving just three confirmed survivors.

Of the 24 crew members, 16 were Spanish, five were Peruvian, and three were Ghanaian.

Luis Planas, Spain’s agriculture and fisheries minister, described the loss of the trawler as “the biggest tragedy in the fishing sector in the last 38 years” – a reference to the sinking of the Islamar III, a sardine boat, off the Canary Islands in July 1984, with the loss of 26 lives.

“This is a job which not only is very hard but is also very dangerous,” he added.

Planas said eight vessels, among them Spanish and Portuguese fishing boats, had joined the search for survivors from the Villa de Pitanxo, after the 50-metre (164-ft) fishing vessel sent out a distress signal at 4.24am GMT on Tuesday.

By Wednesday morning, hopes of finding the 11 missing crew members were fading. “Although we still hope to find survivors alive, it is now unlikely that other survivors will be found,” Nicolas Plourde-Fleury, of Canada’s Department of National Defence in Halifax, Nova Scotia, told AFP, adding that the search continued.

“We are talking about a rescue … in extremely difficult sea conditions, with water temperatures that mean as soon as a person falls in they won’t last long,” said Feijóo.

Writing on Twitter, Spain’s sea rescue service said rescuers were battling very rough seas with “6-7 metre high waves” that were “complicating the search operation and making visibility difficult”.

It was not immediately clear what had caused the boat to founder. Planas said it was operating in a fishing ground “of immense value but which also has very significant climatological problems”.

Among the survivors were the ship’s captain, Juan Padín Costas, and his nephew, Eduardo Rial Padín, whose mother expressed her relief in remarks to Spain’s public television. “I am relieved because he is alive, thank God, but sad because that can’t be said for many of his colleagues,” said Gloria Padín Costas.

So far, there has been no information publicly released about the victims or those still missing at sea.

“Although we may not be able to find survivors, it is very important for the families to collect the bodies,” Javier Touza, the head of the shipowners cooperative in the north-western Spanish city of Vigo, told TV station Antena 3.

Families of the crew were desperately awaiting news about their loved ones. “We just want to know if he is dead or alive,” Carlos Ordóñez told La Voz de Galicia newspaper, referring to his nephew William Arévalo Pérez. “We already know what happens when you fall into waters like those around Newfoundland. Survival is a matter of minutes.”

The survivors were found on a life raft by a Spanish fishing boat five hours after the Villa de Pitanxo sent out a distress call. Suffering from hypothermia, they were airlifted to safety by a Canadian helicopter.

“No one is emotionally prepared to receive such shocking news,” said Feijóo, vowing “to honour those who lost their lives at sea”.

1. Grand Banks - The Canadian Encyclopedia

   https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/grand-banks

   • Grand Banks
   • The Fishery
   • Oil Fields

   

   The water over the banks is mainly supplied by the southward-flowing cold LABRADOR CURRENT. This current splits as it approaches the Grand Banks, with one branch moving south along the coast of Newfoundland through Avalon Channel to St Pierre Bank. The major branch circulates clockwise around the Gran…

   See more on thecanadianencyclopedia.ca

2. Grand Banks of Newfoundland - Wikipedia

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Banks_of_Newfoundland

   • Overview
   • Significance
   • History
   • Geological research
   • Climate change
   • Culture
   • See also
   • External links

   

   The Grand Banks of Newfoundland are a series of underwater plateaus south-east of the island of Newfoundland on the North American continental shelf. The Grand Banks are one of the world's richest fishing grounds, supporting Atlantic cod, swordfish, haddock and capelin, as well as shellfish, seabirds and sea mammals.

"GREAT REPLACEMENT"
Far-right French candidate makes taboo term his mantra


AP , Thursday 17 Feb 2022

Two words, taboo for many in France because they evoke a conspiracy theory embraced by white supremacists, have been haunting the French presidential campaign.

Far-right presidential candidate Eric Zemmour delivers a speech at a campaign rally, Feb. 5, 2022 in Lille, northern France. AP

``Great replacement'' rolls off the tongue of presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, an outsider with views to the right of the far-right who has made the term the underpinning of his campaign. But when mainstream conservative presidential candidate Valerie Pecresse pronounced them at her first major rally last weekend, politicians and pundits screamed foul, saying she had crossed a red line.

The ''great replacement'' is the false claim that the native populations of France and other Western countries are being overrun by non-white immigrants _ notably Muslims _ who are allegedly supplanting, and one day will erase, Christian civilization and its values. The claim, popularized by a French author, has inspired deadly attacks in recent years from New Zealand to El Paso, Texas.

Critics said Pecresse was normalizing a dangerous falsehood that immigration figures in France do not corroborate.

Pecresse later denied she was venturing into Zemmour's far-right territory, contending that her brief remark was misconstrued. Still, the flap focused attention on Zemmour's campaign mantra and underscored the threat he represents to mainstream conservatives.

``If I'm a candidate in the presidential election, it is firstly and above all to stop the `great replacement' and to fight immigration,'' Zemmour _ whose upstart party is named Reconquest _ told France 2 TV.

Numerous polls place Zemmour fourth among a bevy of candidates for France's April 10 presidential vote behind poll leader President Emmanuel Macron _ who has yet to formally declare his candidacy _ and slightly behind far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and Pecresse. A presidential runoff will be held among the top two candidates on April 24 if no one wins outright.

Zemmour, 63, a controversial talk show pundit before entering the presidential race, has been convicted multiple times of inciting racist or religious hatred.

He has, for instance, drawn ire for falsely stating that Marshall Philippe Petain, who headed France's collaborationist World War II Vichy government, saved Jews from deportation to Nazi death camps. Under Petain's regime, some 76,000 French Jews were sent to camps; very few survived.

The ``great replacement'' theory was formulated in 2011 by Renaud Camus, a writer and social media fan. But the notion dates back to writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, according to Jean-Yves Camus, a French expert on the far right who is not related to Renaud.

Both Renaud Camus and Zemmour base their unfounded claims that Muslims are already supplanting native French on visual indicators like Islamic headscarves. Yet less than 10% of France's population is Muslim.

``Every day when I go to work, I say, `Hey, this is France,' said Jean-Yves Camus, the far-right expert. ``When Zemmour goes out from his flat ... he says, `Wow, this is not France anymore.'''

Polls suggest that between Le Pen and Zemmour, the far-right has gained traction in France since the 2017 presidential race, when the centrist Macron beat Le Pen in a landslide in the presidential runoff. Together, the two far-right candidates represent 30% of potential French voters, the polls show, compared to up to 25% for Macron.

One reason for the ground gained by far-right ideology is France's ``difficulty adjusting to a multicultural society,'' Jean-Yves Camus said.

In France, where the melting pot is based on assimilation and officials are banned from counting people by origin, ``we are supposed to be equal but only if we are identical,`` he said.

``There is certainly some kind of mainstreaming of many issues that were only fringe topics, let's say 10 or 15 years ago,'' Jean-Yves Camus said. ``It's not only about the great replacement ... (it's) anything that has to do with immigration, and French identity, and the roots of the French nation.''

He also cites an amorphous fear of Muslims, viewed by some as ``the enemy from within,'' due to several terrorist attacks carried out by French Muslim citizens. That is devastating for the nation's Muslim population, estimated at 5 million, which is overwhelmingly peaceful but often unfairly stigmatized.

The head of the Paris mosque urged Muslim citizens to vote, asking them to ``sanction the apostles of racism and those who look down on French of the Muslim faith.''

Without naming names, mosque head Chems-Eddine Hafiz denounced the far-right in a commentary in the Le Monde newspaper, saying their ``extremist speech'' must be disavowed just like Islamist extremists.

Le Pen, once best known for her anti-immigration portrayals of a France with minarets dotting the countryside where church steeples once stood, has softened her image to broaden her voter base. She has not pronounced the words that are Zemmour's mantra. But she stressed in a TV show Wednesday on LCI that she is not abandoning far-right fundamentals, saying that as president she would ban the headscarf, ``the Islamist uniform,'' in the streets.

Several well known figures in her National Rally party have complained about her softened image, saying that Le Pen has gone off message, and defected to Zemmour's camp. The wait is on to see whether Le Pen's popular niece, Marion Marechal _ who has suggested she won't support her aunt _ joins Zemmour.

Among Zemmour's gets was a phone conversation Monday evening with former U.S. President Donald Trump. Zemmour, who reportedly requested the chat, told reporters the two discussed the ``destiny and perspectives'' of the United States and France, which he claimed are both ``in the torment of a war of civilizations.''

Le Pen was philosophical. She had hoped, but failed, to meet with Trump during her 2017 campaign.

``I hope that Donald Trump is doing well,'' she told reporters in Villers-Cotterets, where she was promoting the French language against an Anglo-Saxon ``invasion.''

Related
French far-right hope Zemmour attacks welfare handouts

A year after Trump purge, 'alt-tech' offers far-right refuge

Far-right presidential contender convicted for hate speech

'Afar has been raided': Suffering stalks Ethiopia's forgotten front

AFP , Thursday 17 Feb 2022

The shell crashed through Aicha Nur's flimsy hut just as she was serving a lunch of bread and milk to her nine-year-old son Tahir.

Internally displaced people, members of the Afar militia, seat in a school where they are sheltered in the village of Afdera, 225 kms of Semera, Ethiopia, on February 15, 2022. AFP\\\\LinkedIn

His slim body quickly became engulfed in flames.

Related

 US demands Ethiopia 'immediately' free detainees after lifting emergency

 'Extreme lack of food' for many in Ethiopia's Tigray: UN

She grabbed Tahir and another son before fleeing on foot to safety, dodging an artillery assault allegedly carried out by Tigrayan rebels on her village in northern Ethiopia's Afar region.

They managed to escape, but Aicha's six other children remain unaccounted for.

She worries she has lost them forever to what has quietly emerged as the most active front in Ethiopia's grinding war.

More than 15 months since the first shots rang out, foreign envoys are talking up paths to peace for Ethiopia and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed publicly refers to the conflict in the past tense.

But Afar is enduring its roughest period yet, sparked by a fresh rebel offensive that has yielded massive destruction and displacement, according to officials and residents.

Across the arid, punishingly hot region, shell-shocked survivors await food handouts at schools that have been transformed into makeshift displacement sites.

Afar's only referral hospital is stretched well beyond its bed capacity, with doctors running low on anaesthesia amid a seemingly endless influx of civilians with fractured limbs.

All the while, patients wonder aloud why no one seems to be paying attention, complaining that "their voices haven't been heard", said hospital CEO Hussein Aden.

"We've been dying for a long time now, but nobody has listened to us," Aicha told AFP as she propped Tahir up on his hospital bed, fanning away flies from his burned and blistered face.

Outgunned

The war erupted in Ethiopia's northernmost Tigray region in November 2020, but Afar did not see combat until July 2021 when the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) rebel group expanded its operations.

Late last year, fighting intensified in Afar before Abiy, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, deployed to the region as part of a counter-offensive that ultimately pushed the rebels back into Tigray.

Those bouts of hostilities pale in comparison to what Afar residents say has unfolded in recent weeks: unremitting attacks involving many more Tigrayan fighters and much heavier weapons, including tanks and automated cannons.

Afar forces, armed with Kalashnikov rifles and lacking military backing, have been thoroughly outgunned.

"You can't defeat mortars with a Kalashnikov," said Ibrahim Abdala, a militia fighter who was shot in the chest in Afar's Kuneba district this month.

'Not even a rug to sleep on'

Afar civilians fleeing the latest attacks describe harrowing, days-long journeys on foot towards towns that are more secure but woefully ill-equipped to feed and shelter them.

Regional government documents seen by AFP indicate 294,000 people were displaced in January, and a regional spokesman said the number is now up to 350,000 since the start of the year.

It's unclear when or even if they will be able to return home, with Afar's western border reportedly occupied by the TPLF.

"All the schools, clinics, hospitals that were constructed in this space of time are now gone on the western border. The whole lot," said Valerie Browning, an aid worker who has lived in Afar for more than three decades.

"Afar has been raided, vandalised, and there is not that much left."

Her claims could not be independently verified.

On a recent afternoon, scores of women and children sat in a sweltering dried-out riverbed, clustered under shade provided by acacia trees and sharing food handouts as boys struggled to play football using a plastic water bottle.

"You see the truth with your own eyes. We have been evicted from our homes and are eating biscuits," said Mohammad Adem Endrisi, a 32-year-old schoolteacher from Kuneba.

"There are pregnant women among us... There is not even a rug to sleep on here."

'Path of destruction'

Aid workers are also worried about sky-high malnutrition rates in Tigray.

The UN says recent fighting has made it impossible for humanitarian convoys to enter Tigray via the Afar capital Semera -- currently the only functioning overland route.

The TPLF has defended its push into Afar, saying it was provoked by attacks on its positions within Tigray and claiming it "does not have a plan to remain in Afar for long."

It also points out that Tigray has been under what the UN terms a "de facto humanitarian blockade" since long before the latest clashes erupted in Afar, while maintaining that its fighters have never prevented aid trucks from passing.

But that argument does not resonate with Afar residents.

"The TPLF has chosen the path of destruction, not the path of peace," said Ahmed Nuro, a local official in the border town of Abala.

"They will never stop firing."

NATO NATION BUILDING
Libyan town awaits justice over family militia's reign of terror

"The state has still done nothing."

For years a brutal family clan that kept caged lions to sow fear killed hundreds of people in the Libyan town of Tarhuna, then dumped their bodies in mass graves - Mahmud Turkia

by Hamza Mekouar

February 17, 2022 — Tarhuna (Libya) (AFP)

For years, a family clan that kept lions to sow terror in the Libyan town of Tarhuna tortured and killed hundreds of people, then dumped their bodies in mass graves.

Now, the six Kani brothers and their militiamen are gone, either dead or in hiding, but the survivors in this western town are still waiting for justice.

Eleven years after the toppling of dictator Moamer Kadhafi plunged the North African country into chaos, they have been left to mourn their loved ones, 260 of whom have been discovered in row upon row of graves.

Today, 60-year-old Ghazla Ali Ounis sits outside her house, surrounded by her orphaned grandchildren whose parents were killed by the Kani family.

"The people who killed my brothers and my sons, I want to catch them alive," said the grieving woman who lost 11 male relatives to the militia.

The Kani brothers and their gunmen first seized the town in 2015 and set about systematically silencing rivals. Lions they kept were rumoured to be fed on the flesh of their enemies.
Image

Libyans point at a poster depicting members of the al-Kani family who commanded a militia that terrorised the people of Tarhuna, during a funeral procession for 12 victims, on March 26, 2021

For a time, the group called the "Kaniyat" sided with militias based in the capital Tripoli, 80 kilometres (50 miles) away.

But when eastern-based military strongman Khalifa Haftar in 2019 launched an assault to seize the capital, the clan switched sides and offered him Tarhuna as a rear base.

When Haftar's forces were routed a year later, the Kani brothers disappeared -- some are believed killed, others to be in hiding.

The town then began the search for the mass graves, desperate to find signs of the many disappeared.

In December 2019, armed men in khaki uniforms had dragged away four of Ounis's sons and seven of her brothers.

"They ambushed them in their sleep and took them away by force," she said. "I never saw them again."

All were tortured to death, she said.

- 'Long-haired criminals' -

Relatives of Tarhuna victims mourn during a January 22, 2020 prayer ceremony in Martyrs' Square in Tripoli before their burial

Her nephew, Walid al-Romani, remembers when his father was abducted by "long-haired criminals".

"They encircled the house, beat him up and took him away," the 15-year-old said.

"I heard one of them say 'mission accomplished' into a walkie-talkie before they disappeared.

"Where's the justice system, the state, punishment?" he asked.

Behind him, old car engines belonging to his father, who was a mechanic, rusted amid piles of scrap metal.

Tarhuna residents say they feel an aching sense of injustice, and pain over being abandoned by a state that has provided no compensation and only arrested very few of the killers.

Three of the brothers, including leader Mohamed Al-Kani, have been killed, but the other three remain at large, residents say.
Image

Mourners pray over the bodies found in Tarhuna mass graves in the once militia-controlled town, in Tripoli on January 22, 2020

They are rumoured to be hiding out in the eastern city of Benghazi or further afield in Egypt or Jordan, people in Tarhuna say.

Despite arrest warrants issued by Tripoli prosecutors, "there have been no arrests, and the killers are on the run," said Ounis.

She said she had tried to meet Libya's unity Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah to discuss the issue, but that "he didn't want to receive me".

- 'Lots of horrors' -

On the edge of Tarhuna, men armed with spades chip away at the hard ochre earth as they search for more bodies in a suspected mass grave.

Residents are still holding funerals for loved ones extracted from newly-discovered graves.
Image

Hundreds of bodies have been recovered in Tarhuna

So far, 260 bodies have been recovered.

Ahmed Ferrara, head of operations at Libya's authority for the disappeared, said his department was "seriously lacking resources".

Libya expert Jalel Harchaoui said civilians in the North African country had experienced "lots of horrors" between 2014 and 2019.

"Most of the perpetrators are still free today, even sometimes taking part in political life as if they were innocent," he said.

Meanwhile Ashraf Jaballah, 35, is impatiently waiting for justice.

In December 2019, he was attending a funeral when Kani fighters attacked him and his relatives.

"We tried to resist but there were so many of them," he said.

A picture from March 26, 2021 shows the damaged and abandoned villa complex used by the Libyan family who commanded the militia that traumatised the town of Tarhuna

Ten of his relatives were taken away to an unknown location.

All would later be identified in mass graves.

He says that when the grave was discovered, the shock put him in hospital.

"They burned down our houses, stole our belongings," said Jaballah.

 

"The state has still done nothing."

ECOCIDE

World funds own destruction with $1.8 tn subsidies: study


A study found that subsidies totalling two percent of global gross domestic product fund the "global destruction of nature" 

(AFP/JOSH EDELSON) 

Thu, February 17, 2022

The world must by 2030 slash $1.8 trillion in annual subsidies that destroy the environment, in order to "finance a net-zero global economy", according to a study Thursday from business groups including one founded by tycoon Richard Branson.

The report, estimating the value of damaging state subsidies, was commissioned by Branson's nonprofit initiative The B Team and global coalition Business for Nature, which comprises academic, corporate and environmental organisations.

The vast subsidies, totalling two percent of global gross domestic product, fund the "global destruction of nature" and governments worldwide must act, the two organisations said in a statement.

The study "finds the fossil fuel, agriculture and water industries receive more than 80 percent of all environmentally harmful subsidies per year", the organisations concluded.

And they called upon governments to "redirect, repurpose or eliminate" those subsidies by 2030 to help "finance a net-zero global economy".

At least 20 nations were subsidising the price of gasoline or petrol, sparking higher emissions of carbon and other dangerous air pollutants, the research suggested.

Beef and soy production were also stimulated by "significant" subsidy flows that are a cause of tropical rainforest loss in Brazil, the report found.

European policies on biofuel blending biofuels with motor fuel meanwhile ramped up pressure for new cropland, often at the expense of tropical biodiversity hotspots, the study added.

And illegal logging, often via corruption and favouritism over lumbering concessions, contributed to climate change, deforestation and ecosystem destruction.

"Nature is declining at an alarming rate, and we have never lived on a planet with so little biodiversity," said Christiana Figueres, head of The B Team's climate group.

"At least $1.8 trillion is funding the destruction of nature and changing our climate, while creating huge risks for the very businesses who are receiving the subsidies."

Governments across the world pay an estimated $640 billion in support to the fossil fuel industry, contributing to climate change, air and water pollution and land subsidence, the study found.

Agriculture receives some $520 billion in subsidies that contribute towards soil erosion, water pollution, deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and loss of biodiversity and natural habitats, it claimed.

And another $350 billion in subsidies for the water industry is said to help fund water pollution and risk ocean and waterway ecosystems.

Figueres said that "harmful subsidies must be redirected towards protecting the climate and nature, rather than financing our own extinction".

The study was published one month before the next phase of the UN biodiversity summit COP15 in Geneva.

The research was based on data from the International Energy Agency watchdog and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which is a club of industrialised economies that includes wealthy G20 members.

ode-rfj/spm

Provincial fossil fuel subsidies stand in the way of federal phase out goal

Canada’s four main fossil fuel-producing provinces shelled out $4 billion in subsidies for the industry from April 2020 to the end of last year, a new report reveals.

That is nearly nine times more than insured damages caused by flooding in British Columbia last November — the province’s most costly severe weather event to date, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

These provincial subsidies will undermine Canada’s climate goals if they continue to prolong oil and gas production, despite the federal government’s commitment to end fossil fuel subsidies by 2023, the report states.

Historically, combined provincial subsidies are “as high or higher than federal ones,” said Vanessa Corkal, author of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (ISSD) report. The message, she said, is clear: “We need provinces to take action on this issue.”

The report looked at fossil fuel subsidies in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador between April 2020 and December 2021 and found Alberta and B.C. led in subsidies with nearly $2 billion and $1.3 billion, respectively. Saskatchewan shelled out over $600 million and Newfoundland and Labrador clocked $177 million.

“It's difficult to see a way forward without actual collaboration between provinces, and ideally also with the federal government, to figure out how to collectively phase out some of these subsidies,” said Corkal.

Some provinces may think phasing out certain subsidies is a risky economic move if other provinces plan to keep them in place, but these subsidies keep funds from important social and environmental programs and hinder economic diversification, according to the report.

B.C. is one of the only provinces taking action, said Corkal.

For the first time in nearly 30 years, B.C. is reviewing its oil and gas royalty system. The review’s findings will be released this spring, and it presents a “critical opportunity” to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, said the report.

A recent public survey found 77 per cent of respondents think B.C.’s oil and gas royalty program is outdated and needs to be reformed. The highest-ticket item is the Deep-Well Royalty Credit Program, which was designed in 2003 to incentivize fracking and cost the province $421 million in the 2021 fiscal year.

If fossil fuel subsidies aren’t eliminated, “provinces are going to face increasing economic hardship,” said Corkal.

Newfoundland and Labrador’s fossil fuel sector already operates with “unsustainably high costs” and oil production has been in decline since 2007, the report noted. Despite these realities, the provincial government is betting on fossil fuels as a long-term economic plan and aims to more than double oil and gas production by 2030, according to its 2018 action plan.

“It's pretty clear that doubling down on fossil fuels as an economic strategy doesn't make sense for two reasons,” said Corkal. “One, because we know we need to transition and reduce emissions, but also because in the long run, there's a huge risk of stranded assets and of these industries not being successful.”

The International Energy Agency has made clear if we want to limit warming to 1.5 C, there is no room for fossil fuel expansion. The agency recommended a “massive” push for clean electricity and a “relentless” focus on energy efficiency to curb power use — both of which offer opportunities to restructure oil economies.

Despite Canada’s pledge to “build back better” from COVID-19, these four provinces rushed to increase fossil fuel subsidies in 2020 and 2021 instead of pivoting to be competitive in a low-carbon global economy, the report states.

From the start of the pandemic in early 2020 to December 2021, the Energy Policy Tracker found Canadian governments committed over $34 billion to supporting fossil energy. In response to COVID-19, the Alberta provincial government introduced a three-year property tax exemption for new wells and pipelines that will cost already cash-strapped municipalities more than $290 million in 2021 alone, according to estimates by the Rural Municipalities of Alberta.

Corkal said there is a risk governments will continue to double down on fossil fuels. Alberta’s $1.5-billion investment in the now-dead Keystone XL pipeline is a prime example of the poor economic and political choice to bet on fossil fuels when the world’s fate depends on phasing them out.

“It's really going to be incumbent on citizens to hold governments to account to ask them to spend money in ways that will put the long-term economic interests of their citizens up front,” said Corkal.

Alberta is also heavily subsidizing the development of carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) to the tune of $408 million from 2021 to 2024. Corkal says funding CCUS is not an effective use of tax dollars because it is expensive and not yet proven at scale.

It’s also important for provinces to provide clear funding information in their budgets, and the report notes Saskatchewan “has particularly low transparency on fossil fuel production subsidies.”

Since 2018, Saskatchewan has introduced five new royalty programs that incentivize fossil fuel production, but there are no financial estimates for these programs in budget documents, which makes it hard to determine the province’s forgone revenue from the programs.

“Residents of Saskatchewan deserve to know how much government funding is going into that industry and whether or not … it's going to pay back for citizens,” said Corkal.

Along with increased transparency, the report recommends provinces stop creating new fossil fuel subsidies and reform and phase out existing ones by 2023.

The federal government’s goal to phase out fossil fuel subsidies by 2023 is “inherently incomplete” without action from provinces, so provincial governments must align their efforts with federal targets and “align their economies with net-zero ambition,” the report says.

Natasha Bulowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada's National Observer

The insurgency threat in the Sahel region

2022-02-17 

Belgium gives DR Congo inventory of looted artefacts


DR Congo's prime minister, Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde, receives the inventory of looted artefacts from Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, centre. At right is the Belgian state secretary for scientific policy, Thomas Dermine

 (AFP/JASPER JACOBS) 

Thu, February 17, 2022, 7:21 AM·1 min read

Belgium on Thursday gave the DR Congo an inventory of tens of thousands of art objects from the former Belgian Congo held in its colonial era museum, the latest step in the restitution of looted artefacts.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo handed the catalogue to his Congolese counterpart Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde at a ceremony in the museum on the outskirts of Brussels held on the sidelines of an EU-Africa summit.

From the inventory, Kinshasa will be allowed to lodge, as early as this year, requests for restitution which will be examined by a Belgian-Congolese team of researchers soon to be in place, officials said.

Sama Lukonde hailed "a historic moment".

"It is not only a transfer of objects but also of knowledge and experience necessary for the conservation of these elements," he said.

The Royal Museum for Central Africa, opened in 1898 as a legacy of Belgian King Leopold II who administered the Congo as his personal property from 1885, contains one of the world's largest collections of looted African artefacts.

The inventory covers some 84,000 objects -- including sculptures, masks, utensils and musical instruments -- that arrived in Belgium up to 1960, the year of the country's independence. The stock represents about 70 percent of the museum's collection.

De Croo urged Belgians to "not be afraid to look our past in the face".

He recalled that in 2020 King Philippe had expressed "regret" for acts of violence and cruelty during the colonial period in Congo.

mad/arp/rmb/ri