Nigerians in Edmonton show solidarity with youth in Africa protesting police brutality

© Courtesy: Jibs Abitoye Nigerians and supporters gather in Edmonton to protest police brutality and corruption in Nigeria.

Nigerians in Edmonton are showing their support for families and friends in Africa as Nigerian youth speak out against corruption, bribery and police brutality.

For years, young people have been protesting SARS, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad section of the Nigerian police, but this latest protest began nearly two weeks ago.

"If (youth) are dressed in a different way -- with tattoos or dreadlocks -- (the police) pick them up. And if there's no one to come pay bribes to release them, some of them get shot," explained Tope Akindele, the general secretary of the Nigerian Canadian Association of Edmonton.

"The next morning, their parents or their families come to pick up their corpse. Those are the reasons they went to protest."

The protests had been described as peaceful until Tuesday when the army was called in.

"Heavily armed people opened fire on their own people," explained Fort Saskatchewan resident Jibs Abitoye. "They were only demanding a better country, and it was a peaceful protest.

"Nobody was doing anything, all they were doing was holding the Nigerian flag and singing the national anthem."

Abitoye said she has experienced the police brutality firsthand, having been slapped by a SARS officer when they raided a party she was at in university.

READ MORE: Witnesses report Nigerian soldiers shooting protesters at anti-police brutality rallies

Tuesday's shooting happened in Lagos state, the largest commercial hub in Nigeria.

Amnesty International reports at least a dozen deaths and hundreds of injuries.


"Those lives that were lost? They can't be in vain. Something has to happen," Abitoye said.

Edmonton is home to around 5,000 Nigerians, according to the Nigerian Canadian Association, and they're appalled with what's happening. Many, including international student Toyosi Kuti, are concerned for their family's well-being.

"I'm scared, I'm terrified as to what could happen and the only thing I can do is pray," the University of Alberta student said.

Locals are joining the protesting youth in calling for Nigeria's president and other top government staff to resign.


"We need this revolution today. We need it now and it has to continue," explained doctor Kehinde Akenroye.

READ MORE: Anti-police protesters storm prison in Nigeria, freeing some 200 inmates

They say it's time for other countries to issue diplomatic sanctions against Nigerian officials.

"The government has promised us reform, they're going to overhaul the system, and nothing has happened. And so on this fifth occasion, Nigerians are like, 'OK, enough is enough,'" explained Chizoba Imoka-Ubochioma.

Locals hope that by holding candlelight vigils at Churchill Square each night at 6 p.m., they can pay tribute to those who have lost their lives at the hands of SARS.

They're also hosting a peaceful protest march with masks and social distancing measures on Saturday at noon in front of the Alberta legislature. From there, they plan to walk to Churchill Square to raise attention for the cause.

READ MORE: #ShutItAllDown: Demonstrators protesting against Nigerian police take to the streets

"We can't let our people down back home. We can't let them do this fight alone," Akindele said.

"I would expect to see my fellow Nigerians there, I would expect to see Africans there, I would expect to see Canadians there -- anyone who feels like this is not OK," Abitoye added.

"This is something the world needs to wake up to and stand against."

Trauma and fury as soldiers open fire in Nigeria, drawing global attention to weekslong protests

Segilola Arisekola and Adela Suliman 

Nigeria witnessed scenes of violence and chaos as protests calling for an end to police brutality continued overnight and into Wednesday, despite a 24-hour curfew and multiple eyewitness reports of soldiers opening fire on protesters.

© Provided by NBC News

Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu said Wednesday that one person had died at a hospital in Lagos, the country's financial capital, after a shooting in the upmarket suburb of Lekki on Tuesday, but did not confirm whether the victim was a protester.

"This is an isolated case. We are still investigating if he was a protester," he said on Twitter. Earlier he said 30 people were being treated for "mild to moderate" injuries. Of these, two were receiving intensive care and three had been discharged. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari appealed for calm in a statement Wednesday.

Protests in Lagos turned violent Tuesday night after a three-day, 24-hour curfew was announced and anti-riot forces deployed, with scores hospitalized after authorities moved to clamp down on protests in the Lekki area.

Human rights organization Amnesty International in Nigeria said in a statement it had "received credible but disturbing evidence of excessive use of force occasioning deaths of protesters at Lekki tollgate in Lagos."

Thousands of Nigerians in the oil-rich country have taken to the streets nationwide every day for nearly two weeks demanding the shutdown of a police unit, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), which they hold responsible for years of brutality, extortion and harassment in the west African country.

After growing public pressure, the government disbanded the unit on Oct. 11. But the protests have persisted with demonstrators calling for a raft of new law enforcement reforms. The hashtag #EndSARS has garnered global support online.

"It's been a peaceful protest, right from the beginning," said Eti-Inyene Godwin Akpan, 26, a local photojournalist who was at the protest at the tollgate before the Lekki bridge and witnessed events.

Akpan, who has been documenting the demonstrations for weeks, told NBC News most protesters were sitting on the ground, brandishing Nigerian flags and singing the national anthem by the tollgate near the bridge that connects the affluent area with the mainland of the city.

Around 3 p.m. Tuesday he said he saw bridge workers near the tollgate take down security cameras and switch-off street lighting, which raised his suspicions. Hours later, Akpan said Nigerian military in uniform arrived and within seconds began shooting at the crowd.

"They came down and they started shooting," he said. "It was very, very scary."

Akpan said many fled in panic while he ran to hide in his car, watching as officers destroyed phones and cameras belonging to protesters. He eventually escaped but said he saw at least "three dead bodies" as he was fleeing the scene, fearing he too could be shot.

"I'm kinda traumatized," he said.

Protest organizer, Akinbosola, 30, who declined to give his surname fearing his safety, told NBC News he was on the "front line at the Lekki protest" when things turned ugly and said it was "unbelieve" that the army had denied deaths at the scene in the face of "damning video evidence" posted online.

Unverified images posted to social media show chaotic scenes including gunfire, widespread property damage and fires.

"They came down and started firing directly at us at exactly 6:45p.m.," Akinbosola said. "Everybody was trying to run for cover."

He said protesters had been seated, to make it clear they were "not making trouble" and were expecting the police to likely move them along.

He said he feared dozens had been killed and added that gun shots could still be heard in the Lekki area on Wednesday morning.

Like Akpan, Akinbosola said he saw lights and security cameras removed ahead of the violence and said the affair seemed "perfectly planned" by authorities.

"I was very, very lucky to be alive, people were dying right beside me," he added.

© Pius Utomi Ekpei Image: A protester raises his fist and holds a placard during a demonstration to protest against police brutality at Magboro, Ogun State in southwest Nigeria (Pius Utomi Ekpei / AFP - Getty Images)

The Nigerian Army has denied any deaths and on Twitter dismissed as "fake news" the shootings, adding that no soldiers were at the scene on Tuesday night in Lekki.

The army and Lagos state government had not replied to requests for comment from NBC News at the time of publication.

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Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari appealed for "understanding and calm" in a statement on Wednesday, but did not directly address the shootings. He called on Nigerians to have patience as police reforms "gather pace."

He said least 13 states, including Lagos, had established "judicial panels" to provide redress to victims of police brutality, state-owned NTA Nigeria reported.

Babajide Sanwo-Olu said on Twitter: "As the Governor of our state, I recognize the buck stops at my table," adding that he would work to "get to the root of this unfortunate incident and stabilize all security operations to protect the lives of our residents."

He later said events had taken a turn and blamed "criminal elements" taking advantage of the orders given "not to resort to shooting as a rule of engagement."

© Benson Ibeabuchi Image: Protesters gather at the front of Alausa, the Lagos State Secretariat, while chanting a people united can never be defeated in Lagos (Benson Ibeabuchi / AFP - Getty Images)

Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden issued a statement on Tuesday calling on Nigerian President Buhari and the Nigerian military to "cease the violent crackdown on protesters in Nigeria, which has already resulted in several deaths."

"The United States must stand with Nigerians who are peacefully demonstrating for police reform and seeking an end to corruption in their democracy," Biden said.

Celebrities including Beyoncé and Rihanna, John Boyega and Nigerian soccer star Odion Jude Ighalo have shown their support for demonstrators.

The United Nations condemned the violence on Wednesday — Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, who is from Nigeria, added that the U.N. was "following the protests" and called on "security forces to exercise maximum restraint."

Nigeria unravels after alleged shooting of #EndSARS protesters

Amnesty International said it has received "credible but disturbing evidence" of security forces killing protesters who were demonstrating against police brutality in Nigeria's largest city.

© Benson Ibeabuchi/AFP via Getty Images A patrol car of the Lagos State Security drives through Nigerian protesters demonstrating in the streets of Alausa Ikeja on October 20, 2020, after the authorities declared an open-ended lock down in Lagos.

"While we continue to investigate the killings, Amnesty International wishes to remind the authorities that under international law, security forces may only resort to the use of lethal force when strictly unavoidable to protect against imminent threat of death or serious injury," the London-based human rights organization wrote on Twitter late Tuesday.

Lagos, the sprawling financial hub of Africa's most populous country, has been the center of weeks-long, nationwide protests over a now-disbanded, widely-criticized police unit, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), which has been accused of human rights abuses. The demonstrations have been largely peaceful, but tensions have spiraled in recent days and authorities have imposed an indefinite 24-hour curfew in Lagos and other parts of Nigeria.

The Lagos state commissioner for information, Gbenga Omotoso, said Tuesday that "there have been reports of shooting" at the Lekki toll gate, one of the main roads into Lagos's business district, following the announcement of the curfew. Hundreds of protesters have been gathering at the toll gate in Lekki, a wealthy suburb of Lagos.

"The State Government has ordered an investigation into the incident," Omotoso said in a statement posted on his Twitter account. "Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has advised the security agents not to arrest anyone on account of the curfew, which he urges residents to observe for the peaceful atmosphere we all cherish."

Video shown on Nigeria’s Channels Television appeared to capture the sound of live rounds being fired at the scene.

© Benson Ibeabuchi/AFP via Getty Images A patrol car of the Lagos State Security drives through Nigerian protesters demonstrating in the streets of Alausa Ikeja on October 20, 2020, after the authorities declared an open-ended lock down in Lagos.

Leaders of the protest movement, which uses the social media hashtag #EndSARS, claim the Nigerian government ordered the removal of surveillance cameras at the Lekki toll gate and for the lights to be shut off before directing security forces to open fire on protesters there Tuesday night.

The Nigerian Army has denied that any of its personnel were involved in the reported incident.

Lagos State Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu has condemned the alleged shooting, saying in a statement Wednesday that "there are no excuses." He has also warned that the growing protests have "degenerated into a monster that is threatening the well-being of our society."

“Lives and limbs have been lost as criminals and miscreants are now hiding under the umbrella of these protests to unleash mayhem on our state,” Sanwo-Olu said in another statement posted on his official Twitter account Tuesday.MORE: Nigerian Army appears to use Trump’s words to defend its killing of rock-throwing protesters

The governor said one person who was recently admitted to a Lagos hospital has died "due to blunt force trauma to the head."

"This is an isolated case. We are still investigating if he was a protester," Sanwo-Olu tweeted Wednesday.

There were more than a dozen others who remained hospitalized "with mild to moderate levels of injuries," he tweeted earlier

.

© Lagos State Government via Reuters Lagos State Goveror Babajide Sanwo-Olu visits injured people at a hospital in Lagos, in this handout picture obtained by Reuters on Oct. 21, 2020, in Nigeria.

The Lagos state government has ordered the indefinite closure of all public and private schools amid the unrest. Meanwhile, the U.S. Consulate General in Lagos remained shut Wednesday after closing its doors a day earlier due to the violence.

"Although most demonstrations are peaceful, some have become violent and have shut down major thoroughfares and bridges," the consulate said in a statement Tuesday. "We continue to urge all U.S. citizens to avoid areas around protests and demonstrations and to check local media for updates and traffic advisories."

Armed crowds attacked two correctional facilities in Edo state on Monday, freeing nearly 2,000 inmates, according to a statement from Mohammed Manga, spokesman for the Nigerian Ministry of Interior, which said the perpetrators were "protesters purportedly under the #EndSARS aegis." There have also been attacks on police stations in Lagos state, according to the governor.MORE: Why George Floyd's death reverberated in Africa

Gunshots were heard again in Lagos on Wednesday as some protesters continued to demonstrate despite the curfew. People set fire to a television news station and part of the Nigerian Ports Authority headquarters.

Nigeria's Inspector-General of Police Mohammed Adamu has ordered the nationwide deployment of anti-riot police and has advised the Nigerian Police Force to "exercise the full powers of the law to prevent any further attempt on lives and property of citizens," according to a statement

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© Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images Protesters chant and sing solidarity songs as they barricade barricade the Lagos-Ibadan expressway to protest against police brutality and the killing of protesters by the military, at Magboro, Ogun State, on Oct. 21, 2020.

Beyonce, John Boyega, Naomi Campbell and Rihanna are among the celebrities who have spoken out in support of Nigeria's #EndSARS movement and have called for an end to the violence. Rihanna posted a photo on her Instagram account, showing a protester holding up a blood-soaked Nigerian flag.

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who is the Democratic presidential nominee, issued a statement late Tuesday urging Nigeria's president and military "to cease the violent crackdown on protesters."

"The United States must stand with Nigerians who are peacefully demonstrating for police reform and seeking an end to corruption in their democracy," Biden said. "I encourage the government to engage in a good-faith dialogue with civil society to address these long-standing grievances and work together for a more just and inclusive Nigeria."

Last week, as protesters showed no signs of backing down, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari stepped in and dissolved SARS, which operated across the country -- often in plainclothes -- and has been accused of assault, extortion, extrajudicial killings, kidnapping, torture, unlawful detentions and robbery.

"The disbanding of SARS is only the first step in our commitment to extensive police reform in order to ensure that the primary duty of the police and other law enforcement agencies remains the protection of lives and livelihood of our people," Buhari, who is a retired general of the Nigerian Army, said in a statement on Oct. 12. "Meanwhile, it is important to recognize that the vast majority of men and women of the police force are hardworking and diligent in performing their duties. The few bad eggs should not be allowed to tarnish the image and reputation of the force."

ABC News' Conor Finnegan and Joseph Simonetti contributed to this report.

Edmonton hurries to open downtown shelter as Mustard Seed pitches southside site

© Travis McEwan/CBC People at Camp Pekiwewin in Rossdale, many there since July, are preparing to move to indoor shelter at the Edmonton Convention Centre downtown.

The City of Edmonton says it's moving as fast as possible to get the Edmonton Convention Centre ready to open as a 24/7 homeless shelter by the end of the month, while the Mustard Seed is pitching to operate a separate facility south of the river.

The city is working with social agencies to operate the downtown space to accommodate COVID-19 pandemic physical distancing requirements, spokesperson Matty Flores said Wednesday.

"While we fully expect the doors to be opened on Oct. 30, it will take time for the agencies to ramp up to the level of service that we are targeting," Flores said in an emailed statement.

The target is to provide 300 overnight beds and space to accommodate 400 people during the day, Flores noted.

The shelter will be funded by COVID-19 relief money from the federal and provincial governments.

At Camp Pekiwewin in Rossdale, people are gearing up to move out of the camp as the temperature continues to dip.

Shima Robinson, the media liaison for Camp Pekiwewin, said it's impossible to say how many campers will move up to the Edmonton Convention Centre space.

"I think there would be a fair number of people who would want to get in out of the cold," Robinson said. "That's a driving impetus."

She said many will be looking for a harm reduction space, addictions counselling and mental health support.

Robinson said they're still in talks with the city to figure out transportation and services that will be available.

The city has not announced which agency will be in charge of operating the convention centre space.
Southside shelter

The Mustard Seed plans to open a shelter on the south-side Nov. 1, if the city approves a development permit, a city report says.

The organization has applied for a permit to run a 24/7 shelter until May 21 at a vacant building on 100th Street and 75th Avenue.

Dean Kurpjuweit, executive director of the Mustard Seed, said the proposed space would accommodate up to 120 people in the homeless community south of the river.

"Not everybody that's homeless is downtown," Kurpjuweit said in an interview Wednesday.

"It seems that most people appreciate the fact that you need to serve people where they're at," "And there's a lot of people on the southside that require some care."

Kurpjuweit said the site is logical because it's not in the middle of a residential area, it's close to their Neighbour Centre on 81st Avenue that provides day services and it's near a major bus route.

"There's lots of things that made it seem like it was the right location."

Part of the permit would allow them to add a temporary building for a 10-stall shower trailer. © Craig Ryan/CBC The Mustard Seed plans to turn the vacant space at 9935 75th Avenue into a winter pandemic shelter starting Nov. 1.

At a meeting Wednesday, the majority of city council accepted the proposal, which means city administration will continue to review the development permit application.

The Mustard Seed would run the building, owned by CESSCO Fabrication and Engineering Ltd., as a special event permit, because the operation as a shelter would be temporary.

No formal public engagement is done before administration approves a permit.

The nearest neighbourhood is Ritchie across 99th street.

Dallas Bartel, communications director with the Ritchie Community League, said the board hasn't discussed the proposal yet but he's optimistic that it will work.

"We understand the need for a development like this," Bartel said. "We hope it's a positive thing for the neighbourhood and the community."

Bartel acknowledged opening shelters in certain neighbourhoods has been a contentious issue throughout the city in the past.

"We do our best to get as much knowledge from the Mustard Seed or the city and we hope we can relay as much information and support to the residents and merchants."

Unlike the current 50-bed overnight space at the Trinity Lutheran Church off Whyte Avenue, the proposed space would be open 24/7.

"There's a place for them to be warm, to be cared for, to meet with housing workers and other people all day long," he said. "It's full wrap-around service."

How La Niña will bring changes to the world's weather patterns

Developing ocean-atmospheric phenomenon will influence our weather in the coming months


Ashley Nelis Thu 22 Oct 2020 

Streets in Jakarta covered with water as heavy rain hit the Indonesian capital. La Niña tends to cause extreme weather in the Indonesian archipelago. Photograph: Donal Husni/Zuma Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

There is a phenomenon developing in the Pacific Ocean that will be the cause of many weather events over the coming months. Its name: La Niña.

La Niña is an ocean-atmospheric coupled phenomenon occurring every few years where sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean are below normal. Stronger than normal trade winds across the central Pacific advect warmer sea surface temperatures into the far west Pacific towards Indonesia. This encourages strong upwelling of the typically colder waters along the west coast of South America, later extending into the central Pacific.

These changes in sea surface temperatures couple with the atmospheric circulation, bringing changes to weather patterns around the globe. La Niña often brings increased rainfall and tropical storms across Australia and a stronger than normal monsoon in south-east Asia. Additionally, it brings colder and snowier winters to Canada and drought to the southern states of the US.

The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, the most active on record, can also be attributed to the La Niña conditions in the Pacific. While La Niña does not directly impact weather conditions here in the UK, it does influence our jet stream and is often associated with more frequent episodes of colder weather during the late autumn and early winter.

Saudi women's summit accused of 'whitewashing' record on rights

The sister of a jailed Saudi activist has criticised a G20-linked women’s summit hosted by Riyadh this week as a disturbing attempt to whitewash the country’s dismal record on women’s rights.

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Reuters

Loujain al-Hathloul has been in prison for more than two years without trial after campaigning for an end to Saudi Arabia’s ban on women driving and its system of male guardianship, which effectively relegates women to the status of second-class citizens, requiring permission from male relatives for many life decisions.

The coordinator of the W20 summit which opened on Wednesday invited participants to “imagine a world where women’s equality is a reality”, yet Hathloul and other activists were deprived of their freedom because they fought for that dream inside Saudi Arabia, her sister, Lina, told the Guardian.
Related: We won’t stop until she's free, says sister of jailed Saudi activist

“[Summit attendees] legitimise a regime that silences all voices on human rights, including women’s voices,” Lina al-Hathloul said. “Women activists are behind bars, and the official charges they face are for their activism.”

“If women don’t speak out about what is happening in Saudi Arabia, then the situation won’t change.”

Saudi Arabia is hosting the summit of G20 leaders in November, and the women’s summit – which hosted speakers from international organisations including the United Nations and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development – is part of a string of linked events.

But the high-profile international gatherings have proved a lightning rod for controversy about the country’s record on human rights.

The mayors of major cities, including London, New York, Los Angeles and Paris, boycotted another major G20 linked event – the Urban 20 summit – last month, in protest at the plight of political prisoners in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, widely considered the country’s de facto ruler, has presented himself as a reforming moderniser.

Related: Jamal Khashoggi's fiancee sues Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman

In recent years he has dismantled restrictions on daily life, allowing women to drive, curtailing the powers of the religious police who patrolled women’s clothing and mixing of the sexes, and allowing cinemas to open after a decades-long ban.

Yet critics say reforms represent largely superficial changes to life in a country that is one of the world’s few remaining absolute monarchies, where total obedience to the royal family is still demanded.

In recent years Saudi authorities have sought to silence critics at home and around the world. Most notoriously, exiled journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by government officials in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

Hathloul was detained and released several times for her campaigns, before she was caught up in a wider crackdown against women’s rights activists in May 2018, just before the ban on female drivers was lifted.

“The only thing that has changed [in recent years] is Saudi Arabia’s image in the west,” said Lina al-Hathloul. “There is no place for reform at all. All the reformers are behind bars and my sister is one of them. What Saudi Arabia wants is to whitewash all the rights violations.”

The summit and its tagline – “If not now, when” – was attacked as an exercise in hypocrisy by other human rights campaigners.

Grant Liberty, a new human rights group specialising in civil liberties in Saudi Arabia, described the W20 as “ludicrous and offensive”, and warned that it risked turning the G20 into a “PR tool for Mohammed Bin Salman’s brutal regime,” and called for a boycott.

Human Rights Watch also called on women attending the W20 summit to speak up for the jailed campaigners, saying that while female activists were in jail, “talk of reform rings hollow”.

“The Saudi government’s use of women’s rights to divert attention from other serious abuses is well documented. Recent changes, including the right to drive and to travel without male guardian permission, might be significant, but do not hide the fact that some of the women who campaigned for these changes still languish behind bars,” the group said in a statement.

Hathloul was charged with destabilising national security and working with foreign entities against the state, but nearly two-and-a-half years after her detention she is still awaiting trial.

Her family say she has been tortured in prison, facing electric shocks, whipping, prolonged periods in solitary confinement and sexual harassment.

Earlier this year she went on a hunger strike to campaign against a ban on family visits and phone calls. Her parents were allowed to visit at the end of August, after she agreed to eat and found her thin but resolute, Lina said.

“It’s crazy how strong and resilient she is. After two-and-a-half years she doesn’t give up anything, she wants real justice. She still has strength to tell my parents everything, even though she knows could face backlash [from authorities] over that.”

Since then, however, the family have not been able to contact Loujain, and Lina said she wasn’t sure if her sister was aware of the W20 summit.

“I’m not sure how connected she is to the world, so I can’t comment on what she knows,” she said, adding that the long silence is very worrying for the family. “It’s always very stressful for us when she doesn’t call, because our only experience [of communications being cut] is when she is being tortured or on hunger strike.”

Former FARC rebels march on Colombian capital to demand protection

Former left-wing FARC guerrillas began a 10-day march in Colombia on Wednesday to protest the murder of 234 ex-rebels who laid down their arms under the historic 2016 peace accord that ended a half century of conflict

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© JUAN BARRETO FARC ex-commanders Pastor Alape (right), Rodrigo Londono and Carlos Antonio Lozada, are pictured in 2019 at the head office of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace

The so-called "pilgrimage" occurred as indigenous people, teachers, students and unions also took to the streets across the country as part of a national strike to demand government action and protest against violence inflicted on indigenous people.

The 200-kilometer (125-mile) march began in Mesetas in the south of the country and is due to arrive in the capital Bogota on November 1.

It was organized following the death of two former combatants who were gunned down on October 16 near Mesetas. According to FARC, that brought the number of murdered ex-combatants to 234 since the peace deal.

Many of the former rebels have become victims rather than perpetrators as other left-wing groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug traffickers vie for ascendancy.

"We're calling for the country's attention to... reject the acts of violence from all sides, including the state," Pastor Alape, a former FARC commander and current political leader, told AFP.

Most of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) members disarmed under the 2016 agreement and joined a communist political party that uses the same acronym.

"We're looking for a dialogue with President (Ivan) Duque to see if his government is able to guarantee the lives of Colombians or if he's going to maintain his party's tone of inciting war," Alape said.

Right-wing Duque came to power in 2018 after running a campaign in which he vowed to modify the peace agreement made by his predecessor Juan Manuel Santos, which he considered too lenient on former rebels accused of atrocities.

However, Congress rejected his initiative.

Meanwhile thousands of demonstrators throughout the country continued protests that began last week with a march on Bogota to demand an end to violence against indigenous people.

"The people's mobilization signifies hope for us, it signifies resistance and it signifies the rebellion that invites us to rise up against the national government," said activist Francia Marquez in Bogota.

Indigenous people have been demanding a face-to-face meeting with Duque since October 10 but since it never occurred, they marched on Bogota, arriving on Sunday.

They are angry at the lack of security in many areas where they live that have been overrun by violent armed groups fighting over the lucrative drug trade.

Colombia is the world's largest producer of cocaine, much of it destined for the United States.

Despite the 2016 peace deal, security has not improved and according to the independent Indepaz watchdog, there have been 68 massacres in indigenous areas in 2020.

jss/vel/ll/bc/bfm

Trump ties Fauci to Biden — to Biden's delight

The Democrat’s campaign seemed gleeful to be linked with someone who has continually rated as one of the most trusted voices on Covid-19.


Anthony Fauci speaks about the coronavirus as President Donald Trump listens in the White House. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo

By NICK NIEDZWIADEK
10/19/2020 

President Donald Trump and Joe Biden agree on one thing: The Democratic nominee trusts Anthony Fauci.

Trump ridiculed Biden during a campaign rally on Monday afternoon in Prescott, Ariz., for saying he would heed the advice of scientific experts to combat the coronavirus even if it required ratcheting down certain economic activity.

“You know, Biden wants to lock it down,” Trump said. “He wants to listen to Dr. Fauci. He wants to listen to Dr. Fauci.”

“…yes,” Biden’s Twitter account quipped in response to the president’s line.

The Biden campaign seemed gleeful to be linked with Fauci, who has continually rated as one of the most trusted voices in the country on Covid-19, according to numerous public opinion polls.

Trump had beaten up on Fauci throughout the day Monday after the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases — and a leading member of the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force — painted an unflattering portrait of the president on CBS’ “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired Sunday evening.

In it, Fauci said that Trump is reluctant to wear facial coverings in public because “he “equates wearing a mask with weakness,” and that going without one makes a statement.

“Like, ‘We’re strong. We don’t need a mask.’ That kind of thing,” Fauci said.

A week ago, Fauci balked at his inclusion in a Trump campaign ad, which he said was done “without my permission” and included comments that were “taken out of context.” That disavowal also swiftly drew the president’s ire.

During the recent interview, Fauci also said that the White House had at times prevented him from making some media appearances and otherwise placed a “restriction” on the flow of certain information.

The president and his aides pushed back on those assertions, saying that the “60 Minutes” appearance itself was evidence that Fauci was not being muzzled.

“Dr. Fauci has been on an incredible amount of TV,” White House communications director Alyssa Farah said on Fox News on Monday. “It’s hard to turn on the TV and not see him. And we’re certainly not trying to stifle him sharing important information with the public.”

But Trump also said on Monday that “people are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots,” during a call with campaign staff that the media was allowed to listen in on.

The president also needled Fauci on Twitter, saying he “should stop wearing” his signature Washington Nationals-themed face masks and referencing his flubbed ceremonial first pitch earlier this year on Major League Baseball’s Opening Day.

Trump picked up that thread again during his Arizona rally, saying Fauci is “a wonderful guy.”

“He just happens to have a very bad arm,” Trump said before pivoting back to remarking about the stakes of the November election.

White House looks at cutting Covid funds, newborn screenings in ‘anarchist’ cities

Documents show funding for a host of health programs is at risk under the president’s order targeting liberal strongholds.

By BRIANNA EHLEY and RACHEL ROUBEIN

10/20/2020 

The White House is considering slashing millions of dollars for coronavirus relief, HIV treatment, screenings for newborns and other programs in Democratic-led cities that President Donald Trump has deemed “anarchist jurisdictions,” according to documents obtained by POLITICO.

New York, Portland, Ore., Washington, D.C., and Seattle could lose funding for a wide swath of programs that serve their poorest, sickest residents after the president moved last month to restrict funding, escalating his political battle against liberal cities he’s sought to use as a campaign foil.

The Department of Health and Human Services has identified federal grants covering those services, which are among the nearly 200 health programs that could be in line for cuts as part of a sweeping government-wide directive the administration is advancing during the final weeks of the presidential campaign and amid an intensifying pandemic Trump has downplayed.

Trump in a Sept. 2 order called on federal agencies to curtail funding to jurisdictions that “disempower” police departments and promote “lawlessness.” The memo argued that the cities haven’t done enough to quash riots stemming from this summer’s protests over systemic racism and police violence.

The HHS list offers the most detailed picture yet of the administration’s efforts to quickly comply with the Trump directive and the potentially large cuts facing these cities even as the pandemic strains local budgets. It isn’t immediately clear what criteria the budget office will use to evaluate the grants — or how or when cuts may be made.

But while the White House pores over existing funds, at least one department has already moved to implement Trump’s directive for new funding. The Department of Transportation earlier this month said Trump’s “anarchy” memo would factor into the department’s review of applications for a new $10 million grant program supporting Covid-19 safety measures.

"My Administration will do everything in its power to prevent weak mayors and lawless cities from taking Federal dollars while they let anarchists harm people, burn buildings, and ruin lives and businesses,” Trump tweeted shortly after releasing the Sept. 2 defunding memo.

Almost three weeks later, Attorney General Bill Barr labeled New York City, Portland and Seattle as “anarchist jurisdictions.” The White House budget office also instructed departments to also scrutinize funding for Washington, D.C.

The HHS list, which was sent Friday to the White House budget office, represents the 1,500-plus funding awards that have gone to the four cities since 2018. Each federal department also faced a Friday deadline to submit their own lists to the Office of Management and Budget, which will make the final decisions about funding.

HHS compiled the list with input from at least 12 agencies it oversees. The list includes 185 programs that touch on everything from Trump’s own initiative to end HIV transmission by the end of the decade to the opioid crisis and research into lung diseases. The list also includes funding for other programs, like $423,000 for universal hearing screenings for newborns in the District of Columbia, housing for people in addiction recovery in Seattle, and services providing nutrition and mental health counseling to elderly New Yorkers.

A spokesperson for HHS declined to comment. OMB declined to comment on the details of the review while pointing to two agency memos issued last month.

The White House budget office has previously said the administration will use the data to determine whether to bar cities from being eligible for new federal cash. A senior administration official did not rule out the possibility that cities could lose their existing funds.

“As the data comes in, OMB will collect it and make a decision,” said the official, who requested anonymity. The review is in the preliminary stages, and the official said the administration will make decisions about each grant individually.

“We need to review the information with agencies before we know,” according to the official. “Grant programs all have different authorities so it’s going to be case by case.”

According to OMB’s own guidelines, just a small fraction of the grants flagged by HHS may be protected from cuts. A Sept. 21 memo from OMB Director Russ Vought instructed agencies to assess whether grants supported law enforcement activities, indicating those would be less vulnerable to elimination. “[S]uch programs and activities, when properly designed and implemented, can help prevent the deterioration of municipalities into lawless zones,” Vought wrote.

HHS identified that just six of the 185 grant programs directly or indirectly have a connection to law enforcement, including some public health measures, hospital emergency preparedness and child support enforcement.

Programs that don’t meet the law enforcement exception include a two-year $4.6 million grant to D.C.’s Department of Health Care Finance that funds addiction treatment and recovery services through next September. Another includes $850,000 through 2025 to King County, which includes Seattle, to support the HIV initiative Trump announced at his State of the Union address last year.

A $1.8 million grant for Oregon’s Multnomah County, which includes Portland, and a $880,000 grant to King County, both to help community and migrant health centers care for Covid-19 patients, are also under review.

Public health advocates and city officials panned the administration's review, warning that the consequences of pulling funding from these cities — especially during the pandemic — could be dire.

“The bottom line is there's no extra money lying around, and this is not a time to be playing politics with people’s health,” said Chrissie Juliano, executive director of the Big Cities Health Coalition, a national group that represents health departments in major U.S. cities — including the four targeted by Trump.

Officials from New York City and Seattle — as well as the United States Conference of Mayors — have already threatened legal action if the administration moves to block funds.

“This is nothing more than political retribution,” said Laura Feyer, a spokesperson for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Caitlin Emma contributed to this report.

How the pandemic is forging a new consensus on globalization

The relentless march of globalization for the past three decades met a new reality in 2020.

 A new season of POLITICO’s Global Translations podcast explores the disruption.


Gantry cranes work over a container ship May 11 at Global Container Terminals in Elizabeth, N.J. | Mark Lennihan/AP Photo

By LUIZA CH. SAVAGE

10/21/2020 

The coronavirus crisis did what President Donald Trump’s protectionist trade wars could not for years. It did what anti-globalization advocates could not for decades.

The pandemic threw a harsh spotlight on the shortcomings of globalization, one so intense that it set off an urgent search for new approaches across the political spectrum — from Washington to Brussels to Beijing.

As recently as a year ago, the political effort to reshape global commerce was still unfolding under familiar political slogans that focused on the interests of exporters and workers: Trump called for a “better deal” with China while congressional Democrats demanded “fair trade” along with strengthened environmental and labor protections in trade agreements.

The coronavirus pandemic abruptly shifted the terms of the debate to one that is more visceral and practical to everyone who buys things.

From the White House and Congress to boardrooms and business schools, the debate is no longer whether the relentless march of globalization over the last three decades has led to an outcome that is “fair” or a “good deal” — but whether it has become simply too risky and unreliable to tolerate.

As countries around the world confronted abrupt shortages of everything from personal protective equipment and medicine to laptop computers for schoolchildren, the pandemic put on naked display just how dependent the world had become on imports for basic goods, particularly from China. No longer the stuff of economic texts, disruption to global supply chains became a matter of life and death.

The old debates about lowering prices by maximizing efficiency when the world is running smoothly — versus the vulnerability to shortages if far-flung suppliers are unable, or unwilling — to supply our needs, took on new fire.

The extent to which “vulnerability” has replaced efficiency as the key concern shaping the thinking of policymakers, business leaders and economists emerged in interviews for the new season of POLITICO’s Global Translations podcast series, which launches Wednesday.

“What Covid did was sort of focus people like a laser on this,” Tom Duesterberg, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former assistant secretary for international economic policy at the Commerce Department under President George H. W. Bush, said on the podcast.

“At one point in time, 70 percent of the ports of entry around the world for shipping were affected by Covid. You couldn’t put stuff on a ship and get it going to where it needed to go. … Most countries, at one point during the height of the crisis, cut off supplies of critical materials, medicines, personal protective equipment and the like,” he said.

The notion that global supply chains have proven “highly vulnerable” and must be made “more resilient” — including by bringing production back to domestic soil — has become a key refrain rising from the crisis, spurring congressional hearings and campaign promises.

If pandemics are becoming more common and climate change is creating more frequent disruptions of other types — hurricanes, floods, and forest fires — “resiliency” is now becoming as much a concern for global supply chains as it has become for levees and building codes in flood- and fire-prone areas.

We didn’t get here overnight or by accident. A broad recognition has emerged that the vulnerability arose from companies chasing efficiency — the lowest price from a country that made a policy decision to build itself into a factory for the world. (“The China price, it was called in the 1990s. Everybody had to get the China price,” Duesterberg said.)

At the same time, advances in logistics and transportation allowed products to be sourced, assembled and transported half a world away. Meanwhile, businesses adopted a closely choreographed “just-in-time” approach to manufacturing and delivery that did away with inventories as another cost to be cut.

“We teach our students to basically to optimize supply chains — to drive cost efficiency in supply chains. And over the years, global companies — a lot of companies — have perfected this art. They know how to do this. Well, guess what? It has also made supply chains highly vulnerable,” said Adegoke Oke, an associate professor of supply chain management at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business.

Oke, who got his first taste of supply chain vulnerability working as an engineer in Nigerian oil fields, compared supply chains to a game of tug of war: If one player falls down, everyone else on his or her team is likely to topple, too. “The weak link actually determines the strength of the chain,” he said, describing Chinese factory closures at the start of the pandemic as “the big guy [who] drops and brings everyone down with them.”

The pandemic has led Oke to overhaul his lesson plan to include resiliency in addition to efficiency. “How to do that will probably be one of my key focuses in my classes moving forward, how to be resilient,” he said.

While talk of supply chain resiliency may sound more like MBA-speak than a bumper-sticker slogan, it has major political implications. Across the ideological spectrum and around the world, policymakers are scrambling for ways to bring production back home and to diversify away from a single source. Such moves can involve everything from incentives and loan guarantees to more direct forms of subsidies and direct government procurement. In other words, it envisions a major course correction from the push for “free trade” and letting the invisible hand of unregulated market forces decide what is produced where.

In her first speech as the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Kamala Harris vowed to “bring back critical supply chains so the future is made in America.” The Trump administration has already started to use tools such as the Defense Production Act to do just that.

President Donald Trump tours a Honeywell International plant that manufactures personal protective equipment on May 5 in Phoenix, Ariz. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo

Vaccine supply chains, of course, are top of mind, but they are not the only area of concern. Among the areas drawing energetic political attention are the scarce natural resources needed to produce batteries for cell phones and electric vehicles — a stage on which, once again, China plays an outsized role. (Upcoming podcast episodes explore these areas, as well the policy options and tools that governments are embracing and envisioning.)

But what about big guy on the rope? With China’s trading partners feeling vulnerable, how is the conversation playing out inside Beijing? Chinese leaders are meeting later this month to hammer out their next five-year plan for China’s development.

One focus of the new plan: bringing more high-tech production to China, and lessening reliance on U.S. suppliers in particular.

EDUCATION
New teachers union boss  LEADER fighting Trump, school reopening battles

Becky Pringle steps into the role amid deep divisions nationwide about race and reopening schools.


Becky Pringle, who became president of the National Education Association in September, speaks at a human rights rally during NEA’s Conference on Racial and Social Justice in Houston in 2019. | NEA


By NICOLE GAUDIANO

10/21/2020 04:30 AM EDT

Becky Pringle was among the many Black mothers in the mid-1990s having “that conversation” with her teenage son about getting stopped by police: what to say, where to keep his hands, how to stand up for his rights.

Pringle had seen how Black school-age males were disproportionately subjected to suspensions or expulsions while teaching science at Susquehanna Township Middle School in a suburb of Harrisburg, Pa. As her son prepared to get his driver’s license, she knew she had to talk to him “so that he could come home safely,” she said.

“Much of the country is just now paying attention to George Floyd and so many others,” she said during an interview. “But as a Black mother, I've always been paying attention. This is not new. This has been happening forever.”

As newly elected president of the 3-million-member National Education Association, the nation’s largest union, Pringle, 65, is now the highest-ranking Black female labor leader in the country. Only two other Black women have held the job before her, in the late 1960s and 1980s. Personal experience drives her work leading a national rebellion against President Donald Trump’s education policies and systems, which she says continue to marginalize students of color.

Pringle stepped into her role in September amid deep divisions nationwide about whether to reopen schools, pitting teachers afraid of returning to the classroom against the Trump administration and some governors and local officials calling for in-person classes. The crisis has led to budget cuts that have cost some teachers their jobs, has robbed others of their lives and has shined a spotlight on educational inequities across the country.

Pringle said a second Trump term wouldn’t stop the union’s work in states that are supportive of public education or its fight, for example, for the inclusion of ethnic studies in schools. And the union will keep pushing aggressively for safety and equity in schools during the pandemic through strikes, protests and sickouts — or by backing lawsuits, as it has in Florida, Iowa and Georgia, she said.

If Trump wins and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos continues in her role, Pringle said, “we will lift up all of the things that they are doing to destroy public education, to dismantle it, to hurt our educators’ rights to organize and have a voice to advocate at work for our students and for their community.”

DeVos, who has been pushing for reopening schools for in-person classes, took her own swipe at teachers unions at a recent forum, saying they are focused on “protecting adult positions, adult power” rather than “doing what’s right for students.”

The union, perhaps unsurprisingly, endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, whose wife, Jill, is a career educator and an NEA member. Pringle has said that Biden will listen to scientists and doctors when making public health decisions and educators and parents on how to support students during the pandemic.

The labor group is running a massive member campaign for Biden with digital organizing, phone banking, texting, virtual rallies and car caravans, said Kim A. Anderson, NEA’s executive director. More than 225,000 members are participating in 2020 election activities so far, almost doubling their numbers from 2016.

Pringle “reminds us every day that we need a new president and we need a pro-public-education United States Senate,” Anderson said.

She has also been speaking out against the Trump administration. Last month, Pringle called for the resignation of DeVos and HHS Secretary Alex Azar over reports of political meddling in school reopening guidance. She is also fighting the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

Pringle argues that students’ rights, which have been “dismantled” under DeVos — such as protections for transgender students — are at stake, along with collective bargaining rights and health care.

The disdain is apparently mutual. Responding to Pringle, Education Department spokesperson Angela Morabito stated: “What dismantles students’ rights is denying them the opportunity to effectively learn this school year and instead playing politics. Those are the policies of the union bosses.”

Conservatives question whether teachers unions are exploiting this moment with demands for reopening schools that are unrelated to ensuring safety during the pandemic. During the summer, a coalition including some local unions laid out demands such as police-free schools, a cancellation of rents and mortgages and moratoriums on both new charter programs and standardized testing.

Contracts that give teachers more flexibility or allow remote work are “defensible,” but provisions that sharply reduce the expected workday seem “much harder to justify,” said Rick Hess, director of Education Policy Studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “I’ve got to ask, are these contracts really about protecting staff or are there other demands ... for the convenience or preferences of members?” he asked.

But Pringle argued that local unions are seeking the safe and equitable reopening of schools. “I've seen no instances where they have gone too far,” she said. “Is it too far … to demand that all students have digital tools to learn remotely or in person? Is that going too far? Is it going too far to have class sizes at a level that allows individual attention?”

Pringle’s tenure begins during a national moment of reckoning on racial justice, which is the very reason she became involved in unions.

Becky Pringle, who became president of the National Education Association in September, speaks at a “Red for Ed” rally in Oakland, Calif., in 2018. | NEA

Lily Eskelsen García, who headed the union before Pringle, said her successor “changed the conversation” within NEA around racial justice issues in education and led that work as the union's vice president.

“As we talked about, ‘How do we get test scores up?’ And she’d say, ‘Shut up about the test scores. Why don't these kids have the resources, the staff, the class size?’” Eskelsen García recalled.

As president, Pringle said her mission is to “lead a movement to reclaim public education as a common good.” She wants to transform the system into one that is racially and socially just and equitable, ensuring teachers and students have the resources they need. The union is offering training on virtual learning but also on practices that focus on conflict resolution and improving school climate and culture so that students — particularly those of color — can feel safe and valued, she said.

Children are seeing and participating in protests for racial justice, and many expect schools to step up and work with them, Pringle said. “We're looking at ourselves first, and we're saying: ‘What do we need to do to build our racial justice muscle?’”

Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, said Pringle “walked in the door with a level of empathy that's needed, while at the exact same time she's respected among her peers, both in rural and urban school districts.”

Eskelsen García said she and Pringle grew close during times that had “nothing to do with running a board meeting.” The two women cried together over losing husbands. And both have had similar experiences as parents of gay children. Eskelsen García’s son was interviewed on television when he and his husband were among the first gay couples to marry in Utah, and Pringle’s daughter and her wife were the first Black lesbian couple to appear on TLC’s “Say Yes to the Dress.”

Eskelsen García mentioned at the end of her term that she wanted a mariachi band at some point when the pandemic ends. Pringle made it happen, even with the crisis in full swing, surprising Eskelsen García and her second husband with the band playing in Pringle’s garage as it rained.

“One by one, her neighbors came out with their umbrellas,” Eskelsen García said. “We all danced, 6 feet apart, with umbrellas.

“You have to love this woman, because she is all business right until the minute that she’s not, and then it is all love and friendship,” she said.

Pringle’s all-business side was what caught the attention early on of Kelly Berry, who served as president of the Susquehanna Township Education Association in the 1980s. She remembers Pringle, back then, pushing for fewer students in her son’s kindergarten class during a school board meeting with her new boss, the superintendent. Pringle was a new teacher at the middle school after teaching for a short period in Philadelphia. Berry said she was both concerned and “in awe” of Pringle “because she was not mincing any words.”

After that meeting, Berry told Pringle she had a “big mouth” — in a good way — and then recruited her.

Becky Pringle, who became president of the National Education Association in September, speaks to delegates at NEA’s Representative Assembly, the union’s governing body, in Minneapolis in 2018. | NEA

“We needed people who were going to speak truth to power, which she has been doing her whole life,” Berry said.

Racial justice issues also have been a part of Pringle’s life, even before she could understand them as a child growing up in Philadelphia.

She recalled how her class at Kinsey Elementary School “overnight was almost all Black” in the 1960s, when desegregation orders finally took effect in the city, spurring white flight.

Pringle qualified for admission to Philadelphia High School for Girls, a college preparatory school, “and even there, I felt I experienced the racism of a system that did not see my potential. And my dad had to fight for me to major in math and science,” she said.

Pringle’s great grandfather was enslaved, a fact that influenced her father, Haywood Board, who taught high school history and made sure his students — and daughters — knew what the Civil War was “actually” about, as well as the Reconstruction period, the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights movement.

Despite his own career, Pringle’s father was initially “really disappointed” by her aspirations to become a teacher. It was a traditional career for a Black woman, she said, and he wanted her to be a scientist. “He already saw the lack of respect that he, as a teacher, was experiencing, and he wanted more for me,” she said.

But when she was elected secretary-treasurer of the NEA in 2008, he told her he had been wrong. “You have a chance to actually lead an organization that can make a difference in the lives of every student,” he told her.

“And I will never forget those words,” she said. “And I get up every day ... thinking about my dad and that responsibility.”

Europe’s green ambitions run into an old foe: Farmers

The farm industry lobby and leading agri powerhouses like Italy are thwarting the EU’s promises of a Green Deal.

Big agricultural countries and the agri-industry lobby are now pushing back hard against the EU's green ambitions | Damien Meyer/AFP via Getty Images
Politico Pro ARTICLE

BY ARTHUR NESLEN AND EDDY WAX
October 20, 2020 

Europe is promising the earth on green reforms but this week's political battles over the Common Agricultural Policy are heading toward mucky compromises that could turn back the clock on the EU's environmental pledges.

Both EU ministers and members of the European Parliament have this week thrashed out deals over the EU's lavish €48 billion-per-year farm subsidies scheme, but Europe's ecological ambitions are being watered down on both fronts as agri-powerhouses like Italy and Poland push back hard against a wholesale rethink of industrial farming.

After a fresh crop of EU commissioners made the European Green Deal their flagship policy, there were hopes that politicians would make sure the new CAP slotted into the ambitions of making Europe climate neutral by 2050.

But after years of protracted talks during which climate change sparked global school strikes and street movements, big agricultural countries and the agri-industry lobby are now pushing back hard.

Even the European Commission, which largely declined to update its 2018 proposal in light of the Green Deal, has found itself in damage control mode, trying to prevent its blueprint from being emptied of environmental ambition.

Over the past two days, EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski delivered warnings to both politicians and parliamentarians. On Monday, he told EU ministers in Luxembourg that he was “concerned about some of the proposals on the table as they will not allow us to reach our objectives."

In the European Parliament, ecologically minded lawmakers are also on the back foot, having been ambushed by seasoned agri politicians who cut their teeth on previous CAP reforms.

Green and some Socialist MEPs reacted with horror when the leadership of the three main parties used a special parliamentary maneuver to railroad through a compromise deal on Tuesday. Senior Green MEP Bas Eickhout described that move as “killing the Green Deal [and] also killing any decent democratic procedure on a proposal affecting one third of the EU’s budget."

Tuesday's parliamentary votes lays the path for Parliament to finalize its position this week. The countries, Commission and MEPs will have to square their positions in a final deal with each other, although nobody expects those rounds of haggling to inject an 11th-hour note of environmentalism.

On Tuesday night, ministers were finding it harder to find a common position in Council and German Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner complained that binding ecological rules were a chief bone of contention. But they got a deal in the early hours of Wednesday morning. “This was the most important session of the decade, the most important agri and fish Council," Klöckner said in a press conference at just before 5 a.m.
Loopholes on the land use

One of the main debates hinges on so-called eco-schemes. The big idea is that a meaningful chunk of EU funds should be ring fenced for green projects in agroecology, agroforestry or carbon farming. These projects are supposed to be compulsory for EU countries but voluntary for farmers to join.

Denmark’s Agriculture Minister Mogens Jensen, told POLITICO that while an “ambitious ring-fencing” of funds for the Commission's shiny new eco-schemes program was crucial to the Green Deal's success, “I am afraid that the outcome will not be as ambitious as I would hope for.”

Germany proposed a ring-fence of "at least 20 percent" of the direct payments budget for eco-schemes, but hearts sank among reformers when the big loopholes started to emerge. Some degree of compromise is likely as Italian Minister Teresa Bellanova has argued point-blank against the concept of green ring-fencing, saying such a move should only be attempted "following a robust analysis of the real needs."

The political consensus gathering momentum is that the schemes will not run during the CAP’s transitional first two years of 2021 and 2022.

There are also workarounds on the cash. Funds not successfully deployed in eco-schemes at the end of the next two years — 2023 and 2024 — may be poured back into non-green, old-school farming projects.

And from 2024 to 2027, there's yet another compromise emerging based around the two pillars of the CAP. The lion's share of the CAP lies with the direct payments (pillar 1) budget, but there is also a smaller pot of rural development cash (pillar 2). The loophole would be that countries could argue that if they spent more than 30 percent of their rural development funds on green projects, then this should count toward their 20 percent target on eco-schemes in pillar 1. That reduces the scale of ambition in the core pillar 1 projects.
Creative accounting

Greenpeace EU’s Marco Contiero said: “This reform will end up re-doing exactly what the past reform did as if there was no consensus about [its] dire failures.”

Agriculture is widely linked to declines in the population of EU pollinators and birds, as a result of intensive agricultural practices which destroy wildlife habitats and sources of food and shelter.

The last CAP was supposed to earmark €66 billion for protecting biodiversity but an EU auditors report found that not only that it had “little positive impact” but that its tracking mechanisms could not even be relied upon to measure the loss.

The Commission’s solution for this cycle of CAP spending was that countries set aside nature-friendly havens on 10 percent of Europe's agricultural area. Instead, the countries as represented in the Council have proposed maintaining the current threshold of 5 percent of arable farmland, which is a smaller area.

And this could be reduced even more to 3 percent, if another 2 percent of farmland were given over to nitrogen-fixing but productive crops such as alfalfa, sweet peas and winged beans. Alan Matthews, professor emeritus of Trinity College Dublin, dubbed it a “two fingers” salute to the Green Deal. 

Parliamentary package

If anything, the loopholes in a parliamentary compromise crafted by the European Peoples Party, Renew Europe and the Socialists and Democrats in Parliament are even more significant.

The parliamentary package mandates that 60 percent of farm subsidies be spent on non-environmental goals — such as basic income support. And funding for eco-schemes is only allowed if it meets “economic objectives” tied to farmers’ incomes.

Parliament's proposal does pitch an eco-schemes ring-fence at 30 percent and it sets the environmental spending target in pillar 2 at 35 percent. Of this though, it says that a whopping 40 percent must be spent on "areas of natural constraint."

These are also contentious. They cover farming in mountainous, remote or marginal land areas that might otherwise deteriorate. But environmental academics say there is no empirical justification for considering them as climate-friendly. In fact the effectiveness of the rural development pillar’s green earmark has been “weakened by the inclusion of payments to areas of natural constraint,” according to a Commission study.

“It would mean a step backwards compared to nowadays,” warned the Commission's farm chief Wojciechowski in a Parliamentary debate.

Contiero complained that conditioning payments on it for the next seven years “will destroy the credibility of the CAP.”

Environmentalists argue that the Parliamentary compromise deal also allows the continued draining of peatlands and removes a ban on plowing and converting permanent grassland in protected sites.

After Tuesday's vote, the Parliament nonetheless looks set to adopt the compromise deal fully over the course of the week, despite the reservations of S&D rebels like Kathleen Van Brempt who called on "everyone who has a heart for the Green Deal" to vote it down.

The sense that the CAP's farming politics are no longer immune from public environmental scrutiny was all the more apparent when activist Greta Thunberg waded into the fray on Tuesday and tweeted: "Neither council nor parliament appear to care about the climate and biodiversity crises as they strip away conditions for farm subsidies and push for greenwashing loopholes.”

QAnon goes European

Populists, protesters, conspiracy theorists: How Europe is embracing America’s latest import.

Illustration by Lisa Sheehan for POLITICO
Politico Pro ARTICLE

BY MARK SCOTT
October 22, 2020 

LONDON — QAnon has crossed the Atlantic — and it’s found fertile ground within protest groups, populists and conspiracy theorists across Europe.

In France, the Yellow Jacket movement has embraced the American movement. In Italy, backers hail from the anti-vaccine community. In Britain, adherents draw from Brexit followers.

At first glance it’s not a natural fit. The U.S. conspiracy theory — now with millions of acolytes worldwide — alleges a vast deception to undermine U.S. President Donald Trump. It blends anti-government, anti-lockdown and anti-Semitic rhetoric with unfounded beliefs about a vast pedophile ring run by the global elite. Its followers adhere to a quasi-religious belief that a great savior — aided by “Q,” an anonymous government insider from whom QAnon gets its name — will protect followers from the dark forces behind the conspiracy.

And yet, a review by POLITCO of tens of thousands of social media posts and online discussions across six languages discovered QAnon’s language and ideas are increasingly making their way into existing online communities and protest movements across the Continent.

The main reason why: the coronavirus crisis.

“If you feel like you’re losing control of your life, you’re more likely to believe in these conspiracy theories,” said Jonathan Bright, a senior researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute. “The coronavirus supercharged things. People are spending even more time online, so have more time to come across anti-vaccine and other conspiracy content.”
‘Deep state’

In the U.S., discussion about QAnon has broken into the political mainstream. When Trump was asked to disavow the group at a recent town hall event, he first said he knew “nothing about QAnon” but then added: “I do know that they are very much against pedophilia, and I agree with that.”

YouTube and Facebook have also acted to remove some QAnon content, though the conspiracy theory remains at large online.

In Europe, the movement has so far remained mostly confined to the fringes, where some groups openly embrace QAnon, often splicing American phrases like “deep state” together with longstanding domestic bugbears like the use of vaccines to protect children against disease. Others borrow heavily from QAnon’s ideas — accusing Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, for example, of being a puppet of the global elite — to push attacks against their country’s governments.

Even more groups view QAnon and its anti-establishment message as evidence that the COVID-19 crisis is overstated and national lockdown measures are undemocratic.

“Wake up, it’s not about the virus, the Great Reset is coming!” a British Facebook group with ties to the QAnon movement that has more than 17,000 followers posted on October 14. The post made a false connection between an event promoted by Prince Charles on sustainable business and the conspiracy theory’s belief that an overhaul of the global order is imminent.

Groups from the left and right have all found aspects of QAnon appealing. The conspiracy theory attacks a wide variety of opponents and offers multiple narratives from which to choose, according to misinformation experts who have tracked QAnon’s growth.

These analysts warn that the theory has become particularly appealing to the vocal minority in Europe that opposes European government efforts to tackle the coronavirus. Several anti-lockdown protests — with a heavy dose of QAnon rhetoric — have taken place recently as officials from London to Lisbon try to push back the wave of new coronavirus cases.

“Overt QAnon messaging is often far-fetched for the average person to understand,” said Anna-Sophie Harling, managing director for Europe at NewsGuard, a social media analytics firm that tracks misinformation. “But it’s not difficult for someone who’s lost his job and hasn’t been affected by the coronavirus to come across these ideas online and jump to the conclusion that something is going on.”
The birth of QAnon

For a conspiracy theory that’s gaining ground in Europe, QAnon remains fundamentally American.

Its roots date back to late 2017 when an anonymous social media user — using the name Q — published several cryptic messages on 4Chan, a platform often used by fringe conspiracy theorists and online extremists.

Those posts, known as Q-drops, quickly spiraled into a belief that Trump was fighting a war against a so-called deep state of government insiders, global elites and pedophiles bent on overthrowing his administration. Followers eagerly hunt the web for QAnon clues, dissecting the latest updates in rambling message board conversations, Facebook posts and YouTube videos.

QAnon has embraced fast-changing global events to fit its narrative, and has become so mainstream that more than 20 candidates in next month’s U.S. election are vocal followers of the movement.

When Robert Mueller published his report on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, QAnon believers saw it, instead, as an investigation into pedophiles within the U.S. government. They also co-opted the so-called Pizzagate theory — debunked claims that several high-profile Democratic lawmakers were part of a human-trafficking and child sex ring. Similar debunked claims have also surfaced in Brazil, Italy and France.

“QAnon is about fighting against global elites,” said Tristan Mendes, an associate lecturer at the University of Paris who has tracked the movement’s growth in France. “When it lost its American attachment when it went global, it adapted to the natural context in all the countries where it landed.”

‘Arch enemy’ Merkel

In Europe, links to this fringe conspiracy started small — but have snowballed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In late 2018, a number of Facebook groups, encrypted-messaging groups and websites, mostly within far-right communities in the United Kingdom and Germany, sprouted up, often parroting U.S. theories about a global conspiracy to undermine Trump’s presidency.

These European groups still remain far smaller than their U.S. counterparts, and their supporters, collectively, number in the hundreds of thousands versus the millions across the Atlantic, according to a recent analysis by Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think tank that tracks online extremism.

But the recent pandemic has provided ample room for growth.

In Germany, home to the largest QAnon community outside the English-speaking world, far-right groups — already well-trained in digital tactics — were some of the first to embrace QAnon.

“Ever since the refugee crisis, in the conspiracy and far-right sphere, Merkel is the arch enemy,” said Jakob Guhl, a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue who monitors extremist movements in Germany. “Trump is seen as the liberator from the Merkel regime.”

Yet the group’s appeal extends far beyond extremist fringe groups.

On Qlobal-Change, a German-language YouTube channel which was shut down by Google on October 15, more than 100,000 followers — a fourfold increase in less than a year — could watch dubbed versions of Trump’s campaign speeches. The comments section married far-right, anti-Semitic tirades with attacks on Merkel and her government’s response to COVID-19.

In multiple German channels — many with tens of thousands of members — on Telegram, the encrypted-messaging service, anti-vaccine viral memes are posted alongside conspiracy theories alleging that Microsoft founder Bill Gates created the global pandemic for his own economic gain. Others criticize NATO as an American-led deep-state conspiracy, while hailing Trump as the savior of the German people.
Anti-vax

Similar groups have sprung up across Europe, blending American-style QAnon language with existing conspiracy theories and anti-government rhetoric, according to POLITICO’s analysis.

In France, Qactus.fr, a local website, has jumped to the 314st-most popular site in the country, based on social media engagement across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest, compared with ranking outside the country’s top 1,000 sites in July, according to NewsGuard.

It heaps praise on Trump’s handling of COVID-19 and promotes conspiracy theories about local politics. Its Facebook page was deleted when the social networking giant banned QAnon content on Oct. 6. But people still regularly add the website’s posts to other groups, including those supportive of the Yellow Jacket movement, according to POLITICO’S review of social media.

The French anti-vaccine community — with a well-organized online presence that is becoming increasingly vocal about the country’s lockdown measures — has also borrowed heavily from QAnon themes. Dedicated Facebook groups promote Didier Raoult, the French doctor who championed the use of hydroxychloroquine, a widely discredited treatment for COVID-19, as an anti-lockdown warrior against French President Emmanuel Macron.

As social media giants have clamped down on QAnon, the online groups have adapted.

In the United Kingdom, groups with names like “Citizens Unite UK #wakeup” — often with tens of thousands of followers — use the conspiracy theory’s ideas without overtly mentioning QAnon. Frequent references to the global elite, alleged pedophile rings and the government limiting people’s freedoms pepper conversations that call on people to fight alleged attacks on their rights.

In the Netherlands, social media accounts that align themselves with Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-right politician, have similarly borrowed heavily from the U.S. movement as the country enters a partial COVID-19 lockdown.

“Doing nothing is no longer an option,” one posted recently on a Dutch Facebook page with more than 10,000 followers. “The more people protest, the more people join, the stronger we get.”

After POLITICO contacted Facebook for comment about the QAnon-linked social media content, the company removed a British account and Dutch page for breaching its community guidelines.

Despite its digital roots, QAnon has extended its reach into the real world, with attendees at protests against anti-coronavirus measures and supportive of conspiracy theories spreading its talking points across Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere.

On a recent bus trip in France taking protesters to a march in Lyon against 5G — telecoms technology that some believe, incorrectly, spreads COVID-19 — a conversation between two middle-aged women jumped effortlessly between anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and those championed by QAnon.

Neither mentioned the U.S. movement by name. But one woman, who declined to give her name, told the other that she had first disliked Trump, only to change her mind after a friend had shown her YouTube videos and social media posts about the U.S. president’s secret fight against pedophiles worldwide.

“That’s why they [the media and political elites] hate him so much,” the woman said.

Elisa Braun contributed reporting from Châlon-sur-Saône.