Human rights advocates seek more congressional oversight of military drone strikes

By Catherine Buchaniec, Medill News Service

Afghan residents and family members of the victims gather next to a damaged vehicle inside a house, day after a U.S. drone airstrike in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 30, 

File photo by Bashir Darwish/ UPI | License Photo

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- Amid recent reports of civilian deaths from military drone strikes, human rights groups urged the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday to increase congressional oversight of the Pentagon's drone program.

The committee examined the legal and moral costs of targeted killings and weighed the benefits of expanding accountability measures.

A New York Times investigation into airstrikes that killed civilians, as well as an independent study from the RAND Corporation, found that the Defense Department was neither organized nor had enough resources to sufficiently assess and respond to incidents in which U.S. forces caused civilian deaths.

Last month, Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the Pentagon to develop plans to reduce civilian casualties in U.S. strikes. He issued the directive several months after the Pentagon admitted that an August drone attack in Afghanistan killed 10 civilians, seven of them children.

RELATED Declassified footage shows U.S. drone strike that killed Afghan civilians

"Our country has failed to live up to its civilian protection obligations," said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU National Security Project, adding, "We can continue down the costly old path or we can invest in alternatives that actually keep us all safer."

Although some lawmakers appeared receptive to increasing accountability measures within the drone program, the hearing quickly became contentious as committee members balanced the need for counterterrorism activities while also minimizing civilian casualties.



"Greater transparency with drone strike data is a way for the public to gauge the true value of the drone program and understand the care with which these operations are conducted," said Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif. "Hiding this information moves us in the wrong direction."

RELATED Pentagon will not punish U.S. troops over Kabul strike that killed 10 civilians

But witnesses said inconsistencies between the Pentagon's data and information collected by third parties and the media mean transparency isn't enough.

Instead, the human rights groups encouraged lawmakers to look more broadly at Congress' constitutional role on matters of war.

Military power and authority have become too consolidated in the executive branch, according to Stephen Pomper, chief of policy for International Crisis Group and a former staff member of the National Security Council.

RELATED U.S. drone strike kills al-Qaida leader in Syria, CENTCOM says

"The best and probably only way to test the risks, weigh the costs and determine the proper scope of this in any conflict is to encourage" discussion among the various national security-related agencies and offices, Pomper said.

He also said it's time for Congress to increase its checks and balances on the executive branch by amending the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force and the 1973 War Powers Resolution.

While some Democrats on the committee appeared receptive to the prospect, Republicans instead focused on the benefits of drone strikes as part of the military's counterterrorism efforts.

"I can't believe we're talking about neutering the drone program at a time we need it most," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Nathan Sales, a former ambassador-at-large and coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department, noted that few military platforms are as "precise and discriminating" as drones.

"Other options can involve less precision, potentially resulting in greater risk of collateral damage and death," Sales said.

Ghana: University lecturers' strike cripples study

The ongoing strike has entered its fifth week and threatens to shut down public universities. As a result, thousands of local and international students have been left stranded.

    

College students in Ghana have missed out on classes for nearly five weeks now

Public universities in Ghana are on the verge of a shutdown in the coming weeks unless lecturers currently on strike for over four weeks return to work.

The lecturers, who are part of the national umbrella body called the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), downed their chalks on January 10, 2022, over poor working conditions.

The lecturers' union said the government had refused to implement a pay policy that pegs their basic salary and market premium at $2,084 (€1,824). A market premium payment is a salary bonus for a specific group of workers whose posts have been identified as "hard to fill."

This payment aims to prevent workers like university lecturers from abandoning their jobs for other sectors or even traveling abroad to teach elsewhere.

UTAG's leadership said that since December 2021, when its members migrated to Ghana's Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS), their basic premiums have decreased to $997.

There are fears that a prolonged lecturers' strike in Ghana could lead to campus shutdowns

Pushing for redress

One of the association's leaders, Dr. Felix Longi Yakubu Tonsuglo, told DW that the strike had become necessary to force the government to address what he called very poor  working conditions.  

"Our salaries have eroded. From 2013, we had an interim market premium of 114% of our basic (salary), which gave us a cedi equivalent of $2,084. But, as we speak now, that value has eroded to 52%," Tonsuglo said. "Right now, what a lecturer takes [home] is just a cedi equivalent of $900." 

Besides an increase in their salaries, the lecturers are also demanding a raise in book and research allowances. 

The ongoing strike could soon cross the 31-day mark, requiring managers to shut down their universities. But so far, there isn't any sign of a resolution.

When the lecturers started their strike, the country's National Labour Commission swiftly sued them, saying they could not continue industrial action while negotiating with the government, which is their employer. But the lecturers have rejected calls to end their strike. On February 4, a court asked the warring parties to resolve the impasse out of court.

Ghana's education minister, Yaw Osei Adutwum, told reporters that crucial decisions had been made since the court order. "As minister of education, I am a chief advocate and will do everything possible to ensure that this strike ends and their [lecturers'] demands are also considered. Further dialogue happens at the end of the strike," Adutwum said.

Vice-Chancellors Ghana — the umbrella body of managers of public universities — has said it hopes the lecturers and the government will soon reach an agreement to prevent the total closure of universities.

Dr. Felix Longi Yakubu, a lecturers' association leader, says the profession is underpaid

Empty lecture halls

"We are doing everything possible to ensure our lecturers get back to the lecture halls," Professor Okoe Amartey told reporters in Ghana's capital, Accra.

"We have been talking to our lecturers on the various campuses. We are coming to engage them further. We are appealing to them to return to the lecture halls while negotiation continues," Amartey said.

The government has for weeks failed to get the lecturers back to the classroom. However, in the face of the real prospect of all public colleges being locked down, Adutwum told journalists that his ministry was working hard to get the tutors back to work.

"Our students are waiting, and we will do everything possible to make sure that our lecturers go back to the classroom," the minister said.

President Nana Akufo-Addo's government says it is working hard to end the lecturers' strike

Growing students' frustration

While the government hopes the lecturers will call off their strike sooner than later, the impact on students is becoming severe. Thousands of local and international students have been stranded for weeks.

One international student from Cuba studying medicine at the University of Development Studies in northern Ghana told DW that the strike had affected her finances and frustrated her studies.

"You know we have a budget. Our parents send us money for one month, and when you are not going to school, it is like you are wasting the money," the 20-year-old student, who chose to remain anonymous, said. 

 "It is my first time seeing something like this. People are going on strike because of the money. It is my first time. It is new to me. In my country, we don't have this," she said.

But local students, who are more used to such strikes, are also stranded and hoping for a quick resolution.

Strikes are nothing new in Ghanaian public universities. The same Ghanaian lecturers went on strike last year for similar reasons. They called it off days later after a series of negotiations with the government, 

In search of a lasting solution

"We are calling on our lecturers, on the government and all stakeholders to come together and make sure our lecturers return to the classroom," Emmanuel Boakye Yiadom, president of the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS), told journalists.

"But before they return, they should be a lasting solution where the lecturers may not see the need or the sense of returning to the strike again," Yiadom added.

At least 15 public universities are currently affected by the ongoing strike by the lecturers.

It is not only in Ghana that lecturers are agitating for better working conditions. In Nigeria, the Academic Staff Union of Universities has also raised issues over poor working conditions. The university lecturers have threatened to embark on a nationwide strike to fight for their demands.

Should this threat be carried out in Nigeria, it will be the second major strike in two years after the previous one lasted for nine months, leading to the loss of almost one full academic year.

French cave tells new story about Neanderthals, early humans

By FRANK JORDANS

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This undated photo provided by Ludovic Slimak shows scientists working at the entrance of the Mandrin cave, near Montelimar, southern France. Scientists have uncovered fossilized modern human remains and tools sandwiched between Neanderthal remains and tools in the stratigraphic record at a site in the Rhône Valley in France, suggesting occupation of the area alternated between Neanderthals and modern humans. (Ludovic Slimak via AP)


BERLIN (AP) — A hillside dwelling overlooking the picturesque Rhone Valley in southern France proved irresistible for our ancestors, attracting both Neanderthals and modern humans long before the latter were thought to have reached that part of Europe, a new study suggests.

In a paper published Wednesday by the journal Science Advances, researchers from Europe and the United States described finding fossilized homo sapiens remains and tools sandwiched between those of Neanderthals in the Mandrin Grotto, named after an 18th-century French folk hero.

“The findings provide archaeological evidence that these hominin cousins may have coexisted in the same region of Europe during the same time period,” the team said.

Using new techniques, the authors dated some of the human remains to about 54,000 years ago — almost 10,000 years earlier than previous finds in Europe, with one exception in Greece.

“This significantly deepens the known age of the colonization of Europe by modern humans,” said Michael Petraglia, an expert on prehistory at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

Petraglia, who was not involved in the study, said it had major implications for understanding the spread of modern humans and our interactions with the Neanderthals.

The researchers said they spent more than 30 years carefully sifting through layers of dirt inside the cave, which is 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of the French Mediterranean city of Marseille. They discovered hundreds of thousands of artifacts that they were able to attribute to either Neanderthals or modern humans. These included advanced stone tools known as “points” that were used by homo sapiens — our closest ancestors — to cut or scrape and as spear tips.

Similar tools from almost the exact same period have been found some 3,000 kilometers (nearly 1,900 miles) away, in present-day Lebanon, indicating that modern humans with a common culture may have traveled across the Mediterranean Sea, said Ludovic Slimak, one of the lead authors of the new study.

While the researchers found no evidence of cultural exchanges between the Neanderthals and modern humans who alternated in the cave, the rapid succession of occupants is in itself significant, they said. In one case, the cave changed hands in the space of about a year, said Slimak.

Katerina Harvati, a professor of paleoanthropology at the University of Tuebingen, Germany, who was not involved in the study, said the findings upend the idea that most of the European continent was the exclusive domain of Neanderthals until 45,000 years ago.

However homo sapiens’ first venture into the region wasn’t particularly successful, she noted.

“Mandrin modern humans seem to have only survived for a very brief period of time and were replaced again by Neanderthals for several millennia,” she said.

Slimak, an archaeologist at the University of Toulouse, said the findings at Mandrin suggest the Rhone River may have been a key link between the Mediterranean coast and continental Europe.

“We are dealing with one of the most important natural migration corridors of all the ancient world,” he said.

He and his colleagues expect to publish several further significant findings based on the mountain of data collected from the cave. Slimak said a steady supply of sand carried in by the local Mistral winds has helped preserve a rich trove of treasures that rivals other famous archaeological sites.

“Mandrin is like a kind of Neanderthalian Pompeii,” he said.

Study Places Homo Sapiens In Europe Earlier Than Thought

By Pierre CELERIER
02/09/22 

Homo sapiens ventured into Neanderthal territory in Europe much earlier than previously thought, according to an archaeological study published in Science magazine on Wednesday.

Up to now, archaeological discoveries had indicated that Neanderthals disappeared from the European continent about 40,000 years ago, shortly after the arrival of their "cousin" Homo sapiens, barely 5,000years earlier and there was no evidence of an encounter between these two groups.

The new discovery, by a team of archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists led by Ludovic Slimak of Toulouse University, pushes back the arrival of Homo sapiens in Western Europe to around 54,000 years ago.

Another remarkable finding of the research is that the two types of humans alternated in inhabiting the Mandrin cave in what is now the Rhone region of southern france.

The Mandrin site, first excavated in 1990, includes layer upon layer of archaeological remains dating back over 80,000 years.

"Mandrin is like a kind of neandertalian Pompeii, without catastrophic events, but with continuous filling of sands in the cave deposited progressively by a strong wind, the Mistral," Slimak told AFP.

His team uncoevered a layer, known as the "E layer", containing at least 1,500 cut flint points, more finely executed than the points and blades in the layers above and below.

Archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists led by Ludovic Slimak inside the Mandrin cave Photo: Handout via AFP / Ludovic Slimak

Very small in size, some of them less than a centimetre in length, these points "are standardised, to the nearest millimetre, something we haven't seen at all with Neanderthals," said Slimak, a specialist in Neanderthal societies.

These, he explained, were probably arrowheads, unknown in Europe at that time.

He attributes this production to a culture called Neronian, linked to several sites in the Rhone area.

In 2016, Slimak and his team visited the Peabody Museum in Harvard to compare their discoveries with a collection of carved fossils from the Ksar Akil site at the foot of Mount Lebanon, one of the major sites of the expansion of Homo sapiens to the east of the Mediterranean.

The similarity between the techniques used convinced Slimak that the findings at the Mandrin site were the first traces of Home Sapiens found in Europe.

A milk tooth found in the "E layer" confirmed his suspicions.

Some of the manmade fossils discovered in the cave which led to the archaeological findings Photo: Handout via AFP / Ludovic Slimak

In all researchers found nine teeth at the Mandrin cave site, belonging to six individuals.

These ancient teeth were entrusted to Clement Zanolli, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of Bordeaux.

Using microtomography, similar to medical scanning technology, the verdict was clear.

The milk tooth from the "E" layer" was the only modern human tooth found at the site.

That "fossil molar from a modern human child provides the earliest known evidence of modern humans in western Europe", the Natural History Museum in London said in a statement

The archaeological team then used a pioneering technique, fuliginochronology, which analyses layers of soot impregnating the walls of a cave and the traces of ancient fires.

The reachers demonstrated that "this Modern human population occupied this Rhone territory for some 40 years," said Slimak.

At some point, the two populations either co-existed in the cave or on the same territory, the researcher concluded.

He imagines that Neanderthals could have served as guides to Homo Sapiens to lead him to the best sources of flint available, some of which were located up to 90 kilometres (55 miles away.

"Nothing new under the sun... This is precisely what happened when Europeans began the colonization of the Americas or Australia," he noted.

"The findings from Mandrin are really exciting and are another piece in the puzzle of how and when modern humans arrived in Europe,? concludes Professor Chris Stringer, co-author of the study and a specialist in human evolution at the Natural History Museum in London.

"Understanding more about the overlap between modern humans and other hominins in Eurasia is vital to understanding more about their interactions, and how we became the last remaining human species," he added.

This overlap, which was evident in Mandrin, now places the Rhone region as a "major migration corridor (for Homo sapiens) enabling them to reach the Mediterranean and continental European areas", said Slimak, who promises more discoveries from the Mandrin site.


© Copyright AFP 2022. All rights reserved.

Climate hope as scientists in UK set fusion record
Agence France-Presse
February 09, 2022

Prince Charles visiting the control room at the Joint European Torus (JET) experiment near Oxford, where scientists say they have broken a record for nuclear fusion 

ADRIAN DENNIS POOL/AFP

Scientists in Britain announced Wednesday they had smashed a previous record for generating fusion energy, hailing it as a "milestone" on the path towards cheap, clean power and a cooler planet.

Nuclear fusion is the same process that the sun uses to generate heat. Proponents believe it could one day help address climate change by providing an abundant, safe and green source of energy.

A team at the Joint European Torus (JET) facility near Oxford in central England generated 59 megajoules of energy for five seconds during an experiment in December, more than doubling a 1997 record, the UK Atomic Energy Authority said.

That is about the power needed to power 35,000 homes for the same period of time, five seconds, said JET's head of operations Joe Milnes.


The results "are the clearest demonstration worldwide of the potential for fusion energy to deliver safe and sustainable low-carbon energy", the UKAEA said.

The donut-shaped machine used for the experiments is called a tokamak, and the JET site is the largest operational one in the world.

Inside, just 0.1 milligrammes each of deuterium and tritium -- both are isotopes of hydrogen, with deuterium also called heavy hydrogen -- is heated to temperatures 10 times hotter than the centre of the sun to create plasma.

This is held in place using magnets as it spins around, fuses and releases tremendous energy as heat.

Fusion is inherently safe in that it cannot start a run-away process.

Deuterium is freely available in seawater, while tritium can be harvested as a byproduct of nuclear fission.

Pound for pound (gram for gram) it releases nearly four million times more energy than burning coal, oil or gas, and the only waste product is helium.

Reagan-Gorbachev fusion

The results announced Wednesday demonstrated the ability to create fusion for five seconds, as longer than that would cause JET's copper wire magnets to overheat.

A larger and more advanced version of JET is currently being built in southern France, called ITER, where the Oxford data will prove vital when the site comes online, possibly as soon as 2025.

ITER will be equipped with superconductor electromagnets which will allow the process to continue for longer, hopefully longer than 300 seconds.

About 350 scientists from EU countries plus Britain, Switzerland and Ukraine -- and more from around the globe -- participate in JET experiments each year.

JET will soon pass the fusion baton to ITER, which is around 80 percent completed, said Milnes.

"If that's successful, as we now think it will be given the results we've had on JET, we can develop power plant designs in parallel... we're probably halfway there" to viable fusion, he said.

If all goes well at ITER, a prototype fusion power plant could be ready by 2050.

International cooperation on fusion energy has historically been close because, unlike the nuclear fission used in atomic power plants, the technology cannot be weaponized.

The France-based megaproject also involves China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US.

Tim Luce, head of science and operation at ITER, said the project emerged in the 1980s from talks on nuclear disarmament between US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

"And the one thing they did agree on was using fusion as a cooperation," he told AFP.

"Somehow fusion has had the scientific panache to bring together disparate governmental entities and actually choose to work together on it."

Despite dozens of tokamaks being built since they were first invented in Soviet Russia in the 1950s, none has yet managed to produce more energy than is put in.

Ian Fells, emeritus professor of energy conversion at the University of Newcastle, said Wednesday's result was a "landmark in fusion research".

"Now it is up to the engineers to translate this into carbon-free electricity and mitigate the problem of climate change," added Fells, who is not involved in the project.

© 2022 AFP

Experts hail big step forward in fusion technology in UK


Britain's Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, 2nd left, talks with Professor Ian Chapman, CEO of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, left, Nanna Heiberg, 2nd right, and Joseph Milnes, head of engineering design unit, right, alongside the MAST Upgrade chamber, during his visit to the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) at the Culham Science Centre in Abingdon, southern England, Thursday Oct. 18, 2018. Prince William officially marked the end of the construction of the MAST (Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak) Upgrade Fusion Experiment. Researchers at the Joint European Torus experiment near Oxford managed to produce a record amount of heat energy over a five-second period, which was the duration of the experiment, the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority announced on Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022. (Adrian Dennis/Pool via AP, File)


LONDON (AP) — European scientists have taken a significant step closer to mastering a technology that could allow them to one day harness nuclear fusion, providing a clean and almost limitless source of energy, British officials said Wednesday.

Researchers at the Joint European Torus experiment near Oxford managed to produce a record amount of heat energy over a five-second period, which was the duration of the experiment, the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority said.

The 59 megajoules of sustained fusion energy produced were more than double the previous record achieved in 1997.

The agency said the result was “the clearest demonstration worldwide of the potential for fusion energy to deliver safe and sustainable low-carbon energy.”

“If we can maintain fusion for five seconds, we can do it for five minutes and then five hours as we scale up our operations in future machines,” said Tony Donne, program manager for EUROfusion. “This is a big moment for every one of us and the entire fusion community.”

Ian Chapman, CEO of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority, said the results were a “huge step closer to conquering one of the biggest scientific and engineering challenges of them all.”

The facility, also known as JET, is home to the world’s largest and most powerful operational tokamak — a donut-shaped device that is considered one promising method for performing controlled fusion.

Scientists who were not involved in the project believed it was a significant result, but still a very long way from achieving commercial fusion power.

Researchers around the world have long been working on nuclear fusion technology, trying different approaches. The ultimate goal is to generate power the way the sun generates heat, by pressing hydrogen atoms so close to each other that they combine into helium, which releases torrents of energy.

Carolyn Kuranz at the University of Michigan called the development “very exciting” and a step toward achieving “ignition,” or when the fuel can continue to “burn” on its own and produce more energy than what’s needed to spark the initial reaction.

She said the results appeared “very promising” for ITER, a much larger experimental fusion facility in southern France that uses the same technology and is backed by many European countries, the United States, China, Japan, India, South Korea and Russia. It is expected to begin operation in 2026.

Riccardo Betti, a fusion expert at the University of Rochester, said the achievement lay mainly in sustaining the reaction at high performance levels for five seconds, significantly longer than previously achieved in a tokamak.

The amount of power gained was still well below the amount needed to perform the experiment, he added.

Ian Fells, an emeritus professor of energy conversion at the University of Newcastle, described the new record as a landmark in fusion research.

“Now it is up to the engineers to translate this into carbon-free electricity and mitigate the problem of climate change,” he said. “Ten to 20 years could see commercialization.”

Stephanie Diem of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said the technology used by JET to achieve the result, using magnets to control ultra-hot plasma, show that harnessing fusion — a process that occurs naturally in the stars — is physically feasible.

“The next milestone on the horizon for magnetic fusion is to demonstrate scientific breakeven, where the amount of energy produced from fusion reactions exceeds that going into the device,” she said.

Rival teams are racing to perfect other methods for controlling fusion and have also recently reported significant progress.

Scientists hope that fusion reactors might one day provide a source of emissions-free energy without any of the risks of conventional nuclear power.

___

Follow all AP stories on climate change at https://apnews.com/hub/climate.

Scientists make breakthrough with nuclear fusion record

European researchers have leaped closer to making nuclear fusion a practical energy source for humanity. It's the same power-generating process that makes stars, including our own sun, shine.


The donut-shaped tokamak in Culham, England, where the plasma mix was heated to set the latest record

Scientists have announced on Wednesday fresh progress in the mission to make nuclear fusion a safe, practical and clean energy source, setting a record for the amount of nuclear fusion energy produced.

The experiment at the Joint European Torus (JET) facility near Oxford, England, set a record of generating 59 megajoules of sustained fusion energy in a five-second period — well over double the previous amount.
What is nuclear fusion?

The fusion process is a reverse of what happens in existing nuclear power plants — nuclear fission — where energy is released when large atoms are broken down into smaller ones.

Nuclear fusion comes from bashing together two small atomic nuclei at such high temperatures that they fuse — and release energy.

The nuclei would normally repel one another, so unimaginably high temperatures are needed to make them move quickly enough to actually collide.

It's the same basic process that sees hydrogen in the sun converted into helium, generating sunlight and making life on Earth possible.

Fusion offers the prospect of climate-friendly, abundant energy without pollution, radioactive waste.

OUR SUN — A GIGANTIC FIREBALL

Spectacular campfires

The probe took these excellent pictures of our sun from 77 million kilometers away. Small solar flares have never before been so clearly visible. As it gets closer to the sun, the Solar Orbiter will specifically investigate these eruptions. It will also research how solar storms — which can cause problems for us on Earth — emerge.

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What did the scientists do?

In the experiment, the scientists heated tiny amounts of deuterium and tritium — two forms of hydrogen gas — to temperatures 10 times hotter than the center of the sun.

The superheated plasma can't be held in a normal container, which would be destroyed by it. Instead, it's kept in place by powerful magnets inside a donut-shaped machine known as a tokamak.

There, as it spins around and fuses, the plasma releases enormous amounts of heat as nuclear material is converted into energy.

While that sounds slightly terrifying, the process is fundamentally safe in that — because it is so difficult to start and keep going — it cannot start a runaway process.

In terms of fuel, deuterium can be found in seawater, and tritium can be produced from lithium as a byproduct of the whole process.

Per kilogram of material used, the process releases nearly four million times more energy than burning fossil fuel, with unreactive helium the only waste product.

Why is the latest result important?

At present, generating the sort of temperatures needed for fusion means more energy needs to be put in than can ever be extracted.

The fact that so much more power has been generated this time around means scientists are measurably closer to making the process sustainable.

Ian Chapman, the head of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, described it as a landmark event that moves researchers "a huge step closer to conquering one of the biggest scientific and engineering challenges of them all."

"It is a reward for over 20 years of research and experiments with our partners from across Europe."

"It's clear we must make significant changes to address the effects of climate change, and fusion offers so much potential. We're building the knowledge and developing the new technology required to deliver a low-carbon, sustainable source of baseload energy that helps protect the planet for future generations. Our world needs fusion energy."
Where does it go from here?

Scientists say years of work are still needed, with the level of energy achieved so far only modest, but that the record shows they are headed in the right direction.

"The record, and more importantly the things we've learned about fusion under these conditions and how it fully confirms our predictions, show that we are on the right path to a future world of fusion energy," said Tony Donne, program director at the EUROfusion consortium of research institutes. "If we can maintain fusion for five seconds, we can do it for five minutes and then five hours as we scale up our operations in future machines."

A larger, more advanced version of JET is currently being built in southern France, called ITER, supported by seven members — China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the United States.

How are Gulf countries coming to terms with their history of slavery?

Despite having officially outlawed slavery, Arab states in the Gulf region have downplayed the legacy of repression and racism faced by minorities. But some countries are taking the first steps to address the past.


The legacy of historic slavery is only slowly being acknowledged by Gulf states

Modern slavery is still widespread in the Arab states of the Gulf region, where millions of migrant workers are forced to work under grueling conditions with little or no pay.

The"kafala" system, for example, a practice still common across much of the region's countries, allows employers to hire unskilled workers from places like Africa and South Asia. In return, workers give up their passports and the possibility to leave the country or change jobs without permission from their employers.

But the region's record of benefiting from forced labor isn't a recent development. Traditional slavery, where people were kidnapped and sold as slaves far from home, was still legal and practiced in large parts of the Gulf region as late as the 1970s.

Unlike modern slavery, which some Arab states like Qatar are slowly beginning to take steps to address, the legacy of historic slavery remains largely unacknowledged and somewhat of a taboo issue.

Dealing with racism on a daily basis

"We usually get along well, Backs, Arabs and Baluch, but as soon as a fight breaks out, appalling racial slurs are shouted out loud," said Yassar Khalaf, a 27-year-old Black sailor from Bahrain, who regularly travels to other port cities across the Gulf.

"It is very easy for people to disrespect us," said Maddah G., a Black man from Iraq who didn't want to give his full name. "People call us Abeed, [Arabic for slave — Editor's note]. It is so common that they don't even suspect it might be offensive," he told DW.

Historians estimate that between 800,000 to 1.2 million slaves were brought to the Gulf region in the 19th century

Born and raised in a Black community near the southern port of Basra, Maddah is one of roughly 1 million citizens of Black African descent living in the Gulf region. Most are descendants of enslaved people brought to the region in the 19th century.

However, "not all the Africans who lived in the region were brought here as slaves," said Hesham Al-Awadi, a history and political science professor at the American University of Kuwait. "Some of them arrived voluntarily for reasons such as pilgrimage or trade and then stayed permanently.

"Another part of the African population in the Gulf is the result of intermarriage of sailors with locals, marriage between two equals," he added.

Maddah G. doesn't know where exactly his ancestors came from, like many other Black people in the Gulf region. But "whether his grandparents were slaves or not is irrelevant," he said "at least for those who keep calling Black people Abeed in the 21st century."

Little-known part of Gulf history

Slave trafficking in the Gulf existed for centuries, but it wasn't very pervasive until the 1800s. Owning slaves was a sign of status, limited to a small group of wealthy elites, said historian Matthew S. Hopper in his 2015 book, "Slaves of One Master." Slaves weren't exclusively African and came from various places across the Middle East, the Caucasus and the Indian subcontinent, wrote Hopper.

This changed in the second half of the 19th century, when the booming global demand for the region's date fruit and natural pearls created the urgent need for a workforce. Arab traders began increasingly kidnapping people from northeastern parts of the African continentand selling them in slave markets in the Gulf.

Thousands of African slaves were forced to work as pearl divers in the waters of the Persian Gulf

Following the global recession of the 1930s, the pearl and date markets collapsed. Many slaves who worked in palm plantations or the pearl industry were freed by owners who could no longer afford to sustain them, according to Hopper.

But it took a few decades until all Arab states of the Gulf region officially banned owning and trading slaves. Iraq had already formally abolished slavery in the early 1920s, and countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia followed suit in 1952 and 1962, respectively. Oman, once one of the biggest slave markets in the region, was also one of the last. It outlawed the practice in 1970.

Taboo topic

But despite having officially banned traditional slavery for decades, Gulf societies have not yet reckoned with their past as slave traders.

Abdulrahman Alebrahim, an independent researcher in modern Gulf history, believes recent laws enacted under the pretense of national unity make it a topic that could fuel social divisions. That has made it difficult for scholars in to even research the issue. These laws include regulations on press, printing and publishing, enacted in Bahrain in 2002 and Kuwait in 2011.

"[These laws] have significantly prevented people — local historians, in particular – from discussing sensitive issues which are considered socially taboo," he told DW. "Even when this topic is addressed academically and within the framework of social justice and equity, it is strongly frowned upon."

While pointing out that the history of slavery in general terms is not a very sensitive issue, researchers could face difficulty once they begin to go into details and talk about the ongoing impact of slavery. In Kuwait for example, "mentioning the names of freed slaves' families and their descendants is punishable by law," said Alebrahim.

In Al-Awadi's view, cultural reservations are a more important obstacle. Black people and other ethnic minorities in the Gulf countries still refrain from highlighting their ethnic and cultural heritages in an attempt to fit in, and instead put the emphasis on their nationality, he noted.

Liwa, a traditional dance of African origin, is now considered a part of the Gulf's regional cultural heritage

"It has something to do with the way we explain our national identities here in the Gulf… We mainly emphasize homogeneity between our people, on the things we have in common," he told DW. "We do not celebrate our heterogeneity in our daily discourse."

Maddah G. cannot imagine that anyone in his community would be willing to talk about their African origins and the fact that many Africans were brought here as slaves. "As long as no one is ashamed of their slave-owner grandparents, you cannot expect Black Arabs to be comfortable with their own past," he said.

Slow change is underway

However, some corners of the Gulf region are taking the first steps to recognizing the legacy of slavery.

Qatar opened Bin Jelmood House, the first museum to focus on slavery in the Arab world, in Doha in 2015. The museum explicitly speaks about Qatar's role in a lucrative slave trade and highlights the ordeals of its victims: men forced to risk their lives pearl diving in Gulf waters and people brought by force from Africa to work on oil rigs after World War II.

"Development has been so fast in Qatar, we wanted to look at how things changed, how Qatar was affected by slavery and how slaves were integrated into society," Hafiz Abdullah, the museum manager, told the Reuters news agency at the time.

The museum explicitly links the slave trading of the past to human trafficking and bonded labor today. "The story of slavery did not end in 1952," said Abdullah. "People need to focus on human exploitation today and how we can change that."

"On social media, people have been increasingly addressing slavery in the Gulf and its social and ethnic roots with specific reference to local Black populations," said Alebrahim. "[And] in recent years, the academia sphere and the new generation of Gulf academics have had more interest in slavery history."

Another step to recognition came last year, when Al-Awadi published "" one of the first Arabic publications on the topic.

"For years, when narrating the Gulf history, we have focused on the urban people, famous people, rich people, rulers and elites," said Al-Awadi. "[This has come] at the expense of sometimes silencing, skipping, overlooking, ignoring, marginalizing women, the poor, slaves, people who had no voice.

"This book could be the beginning of a new culture," he added.

SEE

Story of the Barbary corsairs,

by Lane-Poole, Stanley, 1854-1931; Kelley, J. D. Jerrold (James Douglas Jerrold), 1847-1922

Our navy and the Barbary corsairs

by Allen, Gardner Weld, 1856-1944

The Barbary corsairs : warfare in the Mediterranean, 1480-1580

by Heers, Jacques

Publication date 2003

Language English

271 pages : 

The Barbary Corsairs first appeared to terrorize shipping in the 16th century. These Muslim pirates sailed out of the ports of North Africa and, acting as officers of the sprawling Ottoman Empire, plundered the trading routes of the Mediterranean and sowed horror in the hearts of Christians everywhere. The most famous and powerful were the Barbarossa brothers, sons of a renegade Christian. The true founders of the Algiers regency, they initially preyed on fishing vessels or defenseless merchantmen before growing bolder and embarking upon more brazen expeditions - attacking fortified ports and cities; raiding and kidnapping inhabitants of the African coast; and hunting ships from the Christian nations. In this book, the author follows the extraordinary exploits of the brothers, and those of other corsairs and profiteers, set against the turbulent backdrop of trade, commerce and conflict throughout the Mediterranean during the 14th - 16th centuries

AMERIKA POST ROE

El Salvador woman freed after 10 years in prison for abortion


A woman in El Salvador -- where protestors seen here in September 28, 2020 rallied for the legalization of abortion -- was freed from prison Wednesday February 9, 2022, after 10 years behind bars for having an abortion (AFP/Yuri CORTEZ) (Yuri CORTEZ)

Wed, February 9, 2022

An El Salvadorian woman was freed from prison Wednesday, after the remaining 20 years of her 30-year sentence for having an abortion were commuted.

"We celebrate Elsy's release from prison after 10 years behind bars," said Morena Herrera, president of the Citizens Association for the Decriminalization of Abortion (ACDATEE), in a statement.

"Her wrongful conviction of 30 years for aggravated homicide is over."

According to ACDATEE, Elsy -- who has been identified only by her first name to preserve her anonymity -- suffered an "obstetric emergency" on June 15, 2011, after which she was taken into custody.

"The judicial process was marred by irregularities, it did not respect her procedural rights, it did not respect the presumption of innocence and she was immediately detained," the association added.

Elsy is the fifth woman imprisoned for abortion in El Salvador to be freed since December.

Since 1998, abortion under any circumstance has been outlawed in El Salvador, even in cases where there is a danger for the health of the mother or child.

While maximum prison sentences for abortion are eight years, charges are usually filed for "aggravated homicide," which carry sentences of up to 50 years.

The director of the Women's Equality Center, Paula Avila-Guillen, called on El Salvador President Nayib Bukele "to liberate all the other innocent women" currently behind bars under similar circumstances.

ob/mav/roc/des/mlm

WHILE THE COUNTRY IS NOMINALLY CATHOLIC THESE ANTI WOMEN LAWS WERE INTRODUCED BY POLITICIANS ALIGNED TO AMERICAN PROTEST EVANGELICALS NEO COLONIALIST OUTREACH PROGRAMS 

'What the hell is that?' Fox News' Geraldo buries Tomi Lahren for defending 'thuggish' trucker protests

Brad Reed
February 09, 2022

Fox News' Geraldo Rivera on Wednesday called out Tomi Lahren for supporting the "Freedom Convoy" in Canada that is disrupting life for residents in the city of Ottawa.

During a discussion about the anti-vaccine protests taking place in Canada, Rivera accused Lahren of whitewashing their behavior.

"Their behavior has been nothing short of thuggish in Ottawa," he said. "They kept people in the neighborhood awake all night revving their engines, blowing their horns. They've deprived Ottawa of business, of tens of millions of dollars, now they're blockading the international bridges."

Rivera concluded by telling Lahren that "to give these guys the mantle of freedom fighters is appallingly naïve."

Lahren responded by comparing the truckers to America's founders and said that Rivera would have called George Washington and Thomas Jefferson "thugs" and "degenerates" were he alive during the Revolutionary War.

Rivera, however, was not having it, and he was offended that Lahren would compare people carrying swastikas and Confederate flags to America's founders.

"What the hell is that about?" he asked incredulously. "They have been very destructive! 40 percent of Canada's trade goes over the bridge they have blocked!"

Watch the video below.

'What the hell is that?' Fox News' Geraldo buries Tomi Lahren for defending 'thuggish' truckers

www.youtube.com

WATCH: Kayleigh McEnany visibly stunned as Ari Fleischer stomps on Canada's anti-vax 'Freedom Convoy'

David Edwards
February 09, 2022

Fox News/screen grab

Fox News conservative contributor Ari Fleischer left network hosts without a response on Wednesday after he revealed his opposition to a Canadian "Freedom Convoy" protest that was purportedly started by truckers who oppose vaccine mandates.

Throughout the week, Fox News has provided favorable coverage of the protest despite polls that show most Ottawa residents want the demonstrators to go home.

"The facts are important," Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany told Fleischer. "These guys were essential workers, they couldn't have a supply shortage, they're driving their trucks across the border then all the sudden on Jan. 15 there's this new Orwellian restriction put in place and they're looking around, saying, did the science change? Why Jan. 15 do we suddenly -- we're no longer essential?"

Fleischer expressed sympathy for the truckers but said that he disagreed with their tactics.

"I have a different take on this," he revealed. "I've been caught in enough New York City traffic snarls where I couldn't move for two hours because Occupy Wall Street took over all the streets in New York City -- many of the streets in New York City in certain areas."

"You don't have the right no matter how good your cause is to do that to your fellow citizens," the pundit continued. "I do not support blocking traffic, interfering with the mobility of other people, which includes their getting health care, their carrying out the things they need in life to be on time for."

He added: "And so I oppose it whether it's Occupy Wall Street or a group I'm sympathetic toward. Good goals but bad tactics. I think you alienate more people by doing this."

Fleischer admitted that the protest is "kind of fun to watch on TV."

"But these tactics backfire and I don't like them being done by anybody," he remarked. "Stay off the streets. Don't shut down the rights of other people to go where they need to go."

McEnany had no response for Fleischer. Instead, she moved on to a question attacking Ottawa police for tactics used against right-wing protesters.

Watch the video below from Fox News.

 Whose freedom is the ‘freedom convoy’ fighting for? Not everyone’s

The Conversation
February 06, 2022

Truckers and supporters on foot arrive at Parliament Hill in Canadian capital Ottawa on January 29, 2022 to protest government vaccination mandates(AFP)

The so-called “freedom convoy” has captured worldwide attention as a minority of truckers and their supporters have asserted their right to assemble and oppose COVID-19 protocols imposed by the federal, provincial and territorial governments. No problem there.

The problem lies in what’s not being said or acknowledged.

The one-word rallying cry — freedom — is the activist mantra. Who could be against freedom? But let’s take stock of the freedom that some have exercised during the ongoing rally:
Descending upon a soup kitchen, intimidating staff and demanding to be fed — all without masks.
Desecrating war memorials that pay tribute to those who fought for the very freedoms the convoy supporters enjoy.
Defecating in public, including on the property of people whose home displays a Pride flag.
Overrunning malls and shops that have forced many to shut down, thereby denying the shop owners’ and employees freedom to earn a living.
Shutting down schools in the wake of rallies, denying parents the freedom to go to work and children their freedom to go to school.
Uttering racist and threatening comments, making many people in Ottawa’s downtown feel generally unsafe.

In the tantrum for so-called freedom, the majority of participants have not denounced or condemned these reprehensible, well-documented behaviours which, notably, have gone mostly without consequence.

It’s worth noting that a freedom they’re demanding — the right to refuse COVID-19 vaccinations without curtailing their livelihood — poses immense risk not only to themselves but to everyone else, while also draining the health-care system and denying treatments for others.

Whose freedom?

But what might “freedom” mean to other Canadians?

Ask Indigenous people about freedom. Ask them about centuries of abuse and genocide at the hands of colonists. Ask them about the legacies of residential school horrors and abuse. Ask them about the devastation of the ‘60s scoop and continued government control over child welfare.

Ask Indigenous people about the ongoing subtle and overt racism they face from Canadians every day. Where is their freedom from bigotry and prejudice that continues to flourish?


A person walks towards Parliament Hill for a rally against COVID-19 restrictions.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

Ask Muslim Canadians about their freedom from ignorance and discrimination in the form of Islamophobia expressed in verbal and physical assault and even mass murder.

Ask Asian Canadians about intolerance and racism from other Canadians who blame them for COVID-19. Where is their freedom from the sheer stupidity of others?

Ask women and girls who continue to face sexism, sexual harassment, sexual assault and sexual exploitation at the hands of men. What about their freedom from gender-based violence?

Ask trans people who regularly have to deal with transphobia. Ask people who are immigrants, disabled, poor, overweight, speak a language other than English. Ask any of the usual targets of social prejudice, ignorance, discrimination and hate about how their freedoms are constantly trampled on by other Canadians.

Not everyone’s freedom

Freedom is important, but many Canadians aren’t being considered by the “freedom convoy.”

I have been conducting research on social exclusion and prejudice since 1996. It is my job to listen to people tell their stories in the classes that I teach. I listen carefully to the experiences of exclusion, ridicule and discrimination marginalized people face in a country that is supposedly equal for all. Maybe the “freedom convoy” should likewise listen carefully.

I also know about freedom first-hand. As a queer Canadian, I can attest to how homophobia raises its ugly head any time, anywhere. We don’t have the freedom to be ourselves the way many straight, cisgender people take for granted.

When I hear people at the rally passionately advocate for their freedom, but not others, I can’t help but see ignorance. Fortunately, education is a remedy for ignorance.

This scene from Seinfeld humorously captures the tension between individualism and the consideration of others.

The human rights struggles over the decades that continue to play out in Canada are about freedom. That is what Canada’s human rights history and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights make clear — as do research hubs such as the Centre for Human Rights Research.

What this “freedom convoy” is really about is self-interest. It is a petulant demand for participants to be able to do whatever they want, whenever they want, regardless of anyone else. Freedom is limited to what they can see in the mirror.

Instead of a self-serving, diesel-stinking, neighbourhood-clogging mob that is having such an adverse effect on the freedom of others, they should consider going home and learning about Canada from the perspectives of others.

At home, no masks are required.


Gerald Walton, Professor in Education of Gender, Sexuality and Identity, Lakehead University

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

UPDATES

COVID-19 truck blockade in Canada shuts down Ford plant

By ROB GILLIES and TOM KRISHER

1 of 4

A small line of semi-trailer trucks line up along northbound I-75 in Detroit as the Ambassador Bridge entrance is blocked off for travel to Canada on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022. Canadian lawmakers are expressing increasing worry about the economic effects of disruptive COVID-19 demonstrations. They spoke Tuesday after the busiest border crossing between the U.S. and Canada became partially blocked by truckers protesting vaccine mandates and other coronavirus restrictions. The Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, carries 25 percent of trade between the two countries.

 (Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press via AP)


TORONTO (AP) — A blockade of the bridge between Canada and Detroit by protesters demanding an end to Canada’s COVID-19 restrictions forced the shutdown Wednesday of a Ford plant and began to have broader implications for the North American auto industry.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, stood firm against an easing of Canada’s COVID-19 restrictions in the face of mounting pressure during recent weeks by protests against the restrictions and against Trudeau himself.

The protest by people mostly in pickup trucks entered its third day at the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. Traffic was prevented from entering Canada, while U.S.-bound traffic was still moving.

The bridge carries 25% of all trade between the two countries, and Canadian authorities expressed increasing worry about the economic effects.

Ford said late Wednesday that parts shortages forced it to shut down its engine plant in Windsor and to run an assembly plant in Oakville, Ontario, on a reduced schedule.

“This interruption on the Detroit-Windsor bridge hurts customers, auto workers, suppliers, communities and companies on both sides of the border,” Ford said in a statement. “We hope this situation is resolved quickly because it could have widespread impact on all automakers in the U.S. and Canada.”

Shortages due to the blockade also forced General Motors to cancel the second shift of the day at its midsize-SUV factory near Lansing, Michigan. Spokesman Dan Flores said it was expected to restart Thursday and no additional impact was expected for the time being.

Later Wednesday, Toyota spokesman Scott Vazin said the company will not be able to manufacture anything at three Canadian plants for the rest of this week due to parts shortages. A statement attributed the problem to supply chain, weather and pandemic-related challenges, but the shutdowns came just days after the blockade began Monday.

“Our teams are working diligently to minimize the impact on production,” the company said, adding that it doesn’t expect any layoffs at this time.

Stellantis, formerly Fiat Chrysler, reported normal operations, though the company had to cut shifts short the previous day at its Windsor minivan plant.

“We are watching this very closely,″ White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said earlier of the bridge blockade.

“The blockade poses a risk to supply chains for the auto industry because the bridge is a key conduit for motor vehicles, components and parts, and delays risk disrupting auto production.”

A growing number of Canadian provinces have moved to lift some of their precautions as the omicron surge levels off, but Trudeau defended the measures the federal government is responsible for, including the one that has angered many truck drivers: a rule that took effect Jan. 15 requiring truckers entering Canada to be fully vaccinated.

“The reality is that vaccine mandates, and the fact that Canadians stepped up to get vaccinated to almost 90%, ensured that this pandemic didn’t hit as hard here in Canada as elsewhere in the world,” Trudeau said in Parliament.

About 90% of truckers in Canada are vaccinated, and trucker associations and many big-rig operators have denounced the protests. The U.S. has the same vaccination rule for truckers entering the country, so it would make little difference if Trudeau lifted the restriction.

Protesters have also been blocking the border crossing at Coutts, Alberta, for a week and a half, with about 50 trucks remaining there Wednesday. And more than 400 trucks have paralyzed downtown Ottawa, Canada’s capital, in a protest that began late last month.

While protesters have been calling for Trudeau’s removal, most of the restrictive measures around the country have been put in place by provincial governments. Those include requirements that people show proof-of-vaccination “passports” to enter restaurants, gyms, movie theaters and sporting events.

Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia announced plans this week to roll back some or all of their precautions. Alberta, Canada’s most conservative province, dropped its vaccine passport immediately and plans to get rid of mask requirements at the end of the month.

Alberta opposition leader Rachel Notley accused the province’s premier, Jason Kenney, of allowing an “illegal blockade to dictate public health measures.”

Despite Alberta’s plans to scrap its measures, the protest there continued.

“We’ve got guys here — they’ve lost everything due to these mandates, and they’re not giving up, and they’re willing to stand their ground and keep going until this is done,” said protester John Vanreeuwyk, a feedlot operator from Coaldale, Alberta.

“Until Trudeau moves,” he said, “we don’t move.”

As for the Ambassador Bridge blockade, Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said police had not removed people for fear of inflaming the situation. But he added: “We’re not going to let this happen for a prolonged period of time.”

The demonstration involved 50 to 74 vehicles and about 100 protesters, police said. Some of the protesters say they are willing to die for their cause, according to the mayor.

“I’ll be brutally honest: You are trying to have a rational conversation, and not everyone on the ground is a rational actor,” Dilkens said. “Police are doing what is right by taking a moderate approach, trying to sensibly work through this situation where everyone can walk away, nobody gets hurt, and the bridge can open.”

To avoid the blockade and get into Canada, truckers in the Detroit area had to drive 70 miles north to Port Huron, Michigan, and cross the Blue Water Bridge, where there was a 4½-hour delay leaving the U.S.

At a news conference in Ottawa that excluded mainstream news organizations, Benjamin Dichter, one of the protest organizers, said: “I think the government and the media are drastically underestimating the resolve and patience of truckers.”

“Drop the mandates. Drop the passports,” he said.

The “freedom truck convoy” has been promoted by Fox News personalities and attracted support from many U.S. Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, who called Trudeau a “far left lunatic” who has “destroyed Canada with insane Covid mandates.”

Pandemic restrictions have been far stricter in Canada than in the U.S., but Canadians have largely supported them. Canada’s COVID-19 death rate is one-third that of the U.S.

Interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen said in Parliament that countries around the world are removing restrictions and noted that Canadian provinces are, too. She accused Trudeau of wanting to live in a “permanent pandemic.”

Ontario, Canada’s largest province with almost 40% of the country’s population, is sticking to what it calls a “very cautious” stance toward the pandemic, and the deputy premier said it has no plans to drop vaccine passports or mask requirements.

______

Krisher contributed from Detroit.

Ottawa blockade forces factory shutdowns as Trudeau slams ‘unacceptable’ tactics

© Lars Hagberd, Reuters

Ford and Toyota on Wednesday both said they were halting some production as anti-coronavirus mandate protesters blocked U.S-Canada border crossings that have prompted warnings from Washington and Ottawa of economic damage.

Many pandemic-weary Western countries will soon mark two years of restrictions as copycat protests spread to Australia, New Zealand and France now the highly infectious Omicron variant begins to ease in some places


Horn-blaring protests have being causing gridlock in the capital Ottawa since late January and from Monday night, truckers shut inbound Canada traffic at the Ambassador Bridge, a supply route for Detroit’s carmakers and agricultural products.

A number of carmakers have now been affected by the disruption near Detroit, the historic heart of the U.S. automotive sector, but there were other factors too such as severe weather and a shortage of semi-conductor chips.

Toyota, the top U.S. seller, said it is not expected to produce vehicles at its Ontario sites for the rest of the week, output has been halted at a Ford engine plant and Chrysler-maker Stellantis has also been disrupted.

Another border crossing, in Alberta province, has been closed in both directions since late on Tuesday.

More than two-thirds of the C$650 billion ($511 billion) in goods traded annually between Canada and the United States is transported by road.

Starting as a “Freedom Convoy” occupying downtown Ottawa opposing a vaccinate-or-quarantine mandate for cross-border truckers mirrored by the U.S. government, protesters have also aired grievances about a carbon tax and other legislation.

“I think it’s important for everyone in Canada and the United States to understand what the impact of this blockage is – potential impact – on workers, on the supply chain, and that is where we’re most focused,” White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said on Wednesday.

“We’re also looking to track potential disruptions to U.S. agricultural exports from Michigan into Canada.”

Washington is working with authorities across the border to reroute traffic to the Blue Water Bridge, which links Port Huron in Michigan with Sarnia in Ontario, amid worries protests could turn violent, she told reporters.

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem called for a swift resolution.

“If there were to be prolonged blockages at key entry points into Canada that could start to have a measurable impact on economic activity,” he said.

“We’ve already got a strained global supply chain. We don’t need this.”
Protests spread

The protests were disrupting jobs too and “must end before further damage occurs,” Canada’s Emergency Preparedness Minister, Bill Blair, told reporters.

Ford suspended engine output in Windsor while its Oakville factory near Toronto is operating with a reduced schedule, as it warned the Ambassador Bridge closure “could have widespread impact on all automakers in the U.S. and Canada.”

Chrysler-maker Stellantis has also faced a shortage of parts at its assembly plant in Windsor, Ontario, where it had to end shifts early on Tuesday, but was able to resume production on Wednesday.

Protesters say they are peaceful, but some Ottawa residents have said they were attacked and harassed. In Toronto, streets were being blocked.

“Blockades, illegal demonstrations are unacceptable, and are negatively impacting businesses and manufacturers,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “We must do everything to bring them to an end.”

“We continue to know that science and public health rules and guidance is the best way to this pandemic is the way we’re going to get to the other side,” Trudeau said in the House of Commons.

The issue has caused a sharp split between the ruling Liberals and the opposition Conservatives, many of whom have expressed open support for the protesters in Ottawa and accuse Trudeau of using the mandates issue for political purposes.

In the United States, prosecutors in Missouri and Texas will probe crowd funding service GoFundMe over the decision to take down a page for a campaign in support of the drivers after some Republicans vowed to investigate.

Downtown Ottawa residents criticized police for their initially permissive attitude toward the blockade, but authorities began trying to take back control Sunday night with the seizure of thousands of liters of fuel and the removal of an oil tanker truck.

Police have asked for reinforcements – both officers and people with legal expertise in insurance and licensing – suggesting intentions to pursue enforcement through commercial vehicle licenses.

But as the authorities attempt to quell demonstrations in one area, they pop up elsewhere.

“Even as we have made some headway in Ottawa, we’ve seen an illegal blockade emerge in Windsor,” said Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino.

(France 24 with REUTERS, AFP)

Bank of Canada warns protesters blocking border may further hurt supply chain

The Bank of Canada warned Wednesday, protesters continuing to block the Ambassador Bridge between Michigan and Ontario over COVID-19 restrictions, could further negatively impact existing supply chain shortages. File Photo by Steve Fecht/EPA-EFE

Feb. 9 (UPI) -- The Bank of Canada said Wednesday that protesters continuing to block a U.S.-Canada border crossing will only add to existing supply chain woes.

"If there were to be prolonged blockages at key entry points into Canada that could start to have a measurable impact on economic activity in Canada," Bank of Canada of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said during a Wednesday afternoon news conference, following a speech.

"We've already got a strained global supply chain. We don't need this. Most truckers are trying to get goods in and out of Canada," Macklem said.

American officials concurred, pointing to the possible impact to both the automotive and agricultural industries should the traffic disruption continue.

"I think it's important for everyone in Canada and the United States to understand what the impact of this blockage is -- potential impact on workers, on the supply chain. And that is where we are most focused," White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters during a briefing Wednesday afternoon.

"We are also monitoring very closely and engaged with auto companies on what the impacts could be of auto parts, which is what -- what would come from Canada and the impact on the United States. We're also looking -- tracking potential disruptions to U.S. agricultural exports from Michigan into Canada," Psaki said.

Protesters calling for an end to COVID-19 restrictions have blocked traffic headed into Canada across the Ambassador Bridge since Monday.

The bridge between Port Huron, Mich. and Ontario, is the busiest international crossing in North America by volume.

Alternate border crossings have seen long wait times for commercial traffic.

RELATEDProtesters block U.S.-Canada Ambassador Bridge

Industry groups in Canada have also voiced their concerns over the closure.

"Canada's economy is being threatened as thousands of trucks and millions of dollars in cross-border trade that typically go through these entry points every day is being disrupte," reads a letter signed by more than a dozen different logistics and transportation associations.

"Our borders are essential trade arteries that feed businesses and Canadians with essential goods, food, medicine, and critical industrial components that fuel our economy and support our critical infrastructure," the letter said.

In Canada's sedate capital, some are fed up with noisy vaccine protests
Agence France-Presse
February 09, 2022

A protester walks in front of parked trucks as demonstrators continue to protest the vaccine mandates implemented by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on February 8, 2022 in Ottawa, Canada

 Dave Chan AFP

Canada's capital is sometimes ribbed as being so quiet it's dull. But not these days, as truckers and others frustrated over Covid-19 restrictions clog the city center, revving engines in a non-stop blast of anger.

Ottawa residents say they do not recognize their own city. And while some understand the protesters' gripes, they think that after nearly two weeks of chaos and gridlock, enough is enough.

The so-called Freedom Convoy began in January in western Canada -- launched in anger at requirements that truckers either be vaccinated or test and isolate when crossing the US-Canadian border.

But the movement has morphed into a broader protest against Covid-related restrictions and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government, and put a spotlight on pandemic curbs around the world.
Hundreds of big-rig trucks are now paralyzing the streets of downtown Ottawa, with the mayor calling the situation out of control and declaring a state of emergency.

"People told me, 'You will see, Ottawa is a dormitory town compared to Montreal or Toronto,'" said Cedric Boyer, a 48-year-old Frenchman who has lived in the capital for two years, smiling at how Ottawa has been turned upside down by the protests and drawn attention from around the world.
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Copycat protests have popped up as far away as New Zealand. Calls have gone out on social media for similar rallies in Europe and the United States.

In Ottawa, some people are using those media platforms to make a plea: "Make Ottawa boring again," playing on the Make America Great Again mantra of former US president Donald Trump, who has expressed support for the truckers.

"In a democracy, everyone has the right to have a different opinion and the right to express it," Boyer said. "But where that starts poses a bit of a problem. It is when the freedom of some infringes on that of others."

Boyer said he felt badly in particular for people who cannot work because of the protests. In the downtown area, many stores and restaurants that had just been allowed to reopen after Covid-related closures are shut down again because of the truckers.

Lisa Van Buren, 55, said there is a lot of frustration among Canadians these days.

"I think there is a real anger, we shouldn't underestimate that anger," she told AFP.

- 'Vocal minority' -

In a letter to Trudeau, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson complained about "an aggressive and hateful occupation of our neighborhoods."

"People are living in fear and are terrified -- they've now been subjected to the non-stop honking of large trucks for nine days which is tantamount to psychological warfare," he added.

Since a court ordered that incessant honking to stop, the truckers have turned instead to revving the engines of their big-rigs.

Local people are also suing the protest organizers for the chaos caused by the demonstration, and are seeking Can$10 million ($7.9 million) in damages.

"They may say that they have the support of many people, but I feel that's the vocal minority that's taking a lot of our patience away," said Patrick Lai, a 30-year-old doctor out on a walk, carrying a pair of ice skates.

"I get where they're coming from, but as someone who works in health care, I just feel like when they say, 'I've done the research,' it's not the kind of research that I'm talking about," Lai said of the protest's complaints about Covid restrictions.

"I don't tell you how to drive your truck. Don't tell me as a health care worker how to do my job."

He said he was concerned about a blockage that started Monday of the Ambassador Bridge linking Ontario province and the US state of Michigan, which is a key trade route.

"I may have supported them at the beginning, but it's gone on enough," said Cheryl Murphy, a 74-year-old retiree who lives in downtown Ottawa.


"If Trudeau had come to talk to them at the very beginning, maybe a lot of this stuff would not have happened," said Murphy.

© 2022 AFP