Australia wants ‘eyes on Antarctica’ with funding boost

Agence France-Presse / February 22, 2022

An Adelie penguin stands atop a block of melting ice near the French station at Dumont díUrville in East Antarctica in this January 23, 2010 file photo. 

| PHOTO: REUTERS/Pauline Askin/Files

SYDNEY — Australia on Tuesday announced plans to boost its presence and surveillance operations on Antarctica, unveiling a US$575 million package designed to match China’s growing interest in the pole.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the ten-year funding plan would give Australia “eyes on Antarctica” — by increasing the country’s ability to survey and monitor the frozen tundra and surrounding waters using drones, helicopters and autonomous vehicles.

Australia has territorial claims on 42 percent of Antarctica, the largest of any nation, but has lacked the capability to reach far-flung corners of the continent.

There has been concern in Canberra that the void could be exploited by Beijing or Moscow, both of which are becoming more active on the continent.

Nearly half of Australia’s new funding will be spent on capabilities to move around inland areas, map Antarctica’s remote east from the air using drones and the purchase of four new medium lift helicopters.

There are also a handful of environmental projects in the announcement, including US$5 million for research into climate change’s impact on Antarctic ice sheets and supporting Pacific nations in monitoring rising sea levels.

Morrison refused to be drawn on his specific concerns about China’s growing interest in Antarctica beyond saying, “They don’t share the same objectives as Australia does.”

China has built two year-round stations on Antarctica and its spending on Antarctic programs has steadily increased.

But Beijing’s footprint is dwarfed by the United States, which maintains the largest presence in Antarctica with about 1,400 personnel staffing its three all-year stations in summers before the pandemic.

The influential Australian Strategic Policy Institute recently warned in a report that Antarctica has become a venue for “geopolitical competition” and recommended steps to uphold a ban on military and mining activities.

Evan Bloom, the report’s author and a Polar expert at the Woodrow Wilson Center, noted that while China and Russia are “heedless at times of calls to compromise” it was important for the US and Australia to “carefully manage relations with strategic competitors.”

He said when it comes to the management of Antarctica, co-operation remained vital.

“Excluding China from science cooperation has the danger of giving credence to those within the Chinese Government who wish to argue that the ATS [Antarctic Treaty System] doesn’t benefit it and doesn’t deserve a long-term commitment,” Bloom said.

Black Farmers Fear Foreclosure as Debt Relief Remains Frozen

UNDERCUT BY WHITE REPUBLICANS

Alan Rappeport
Mon, February 21, 2022

Brandon Smith, a cattle rancher, in Bastrop, Texas, Feb. 10, 2022.

 (Montinique Monroe/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON — For Brandon Smith, a fourth-generation cattle rancher from Texas, the $1.9 trillion stimulus package that President Joe Biden signed into law nearly a year ago was long-awaited relief.

Little did he know how much longer he would have to wait.

The legislation included $4 billion of debt forgiveness for Black and other “socially disadvantaged” farmers, a group that has endured decades of discrimination from banks and the federal government. Smith, a Black father of four who owes about $200,000 in outstanding loans on his ranch, quickly signed and returned documents to the Agriculture Department last year, formally accepting the debt relief. He then purchased more equipment for his ranch, believing that he had been given a financial lifeline.

Instead, Smith has fallen deeper into debt. Months after signing the paperwork he received a notice informing him that the federal government intended to “accelerate” foreclosure on his 46-acre property and cattle if he did not start making payments on the loans he believed had been forgiven.

“I trusted the government that we had a deal, and down here at the end of the day, the rug gets pulled out from under me,” said Smith, 43.

Black farmers across the nation have yet to see any of Biden’s promised relief. While the president has pledged to pursue policies to promote racial equity and correct decades of discrimination, legal issues have complicated that goal.

In May 2021, the Agriculture Department started sending letters to borrowers who were eligible to have their debt cleared, asking them to sign and return forms confirming their balances. The payments, which also are supposed to cover tax liabilities and fees associated with clearing the debt, were expected to come in phases beginning in June.

But the entire initiative has been stymied amid lawsuits from white farmers and groups representing them that questioned whether the government could offer debt relief based on race.

Courts in Wisconsin and Florida have issued preliminary injunctions against the initiative, siding with plaintiffs who argued that the debt relief amounted to discrimination and could therefore be illegal. A class-action lawsuit against the USDA is proceeding in Texas this year.

The Biden administration has not appealed the injunctions but a spokesperson for the Agriculture Department said it was continuing to defend the program in the courts as the cases move forward.

The legal limbo has created new and unexpected financial strains for Black farmers, many of whom have been unable to make investments in their businesses given ongoing uncertainty about their debt loads. It also poses a political problem for Biden, who was propelled to power by Black voters and now must make good on promises to improve their fortunes.

The law was intended to help remedy years of discrimination that nonwhite farmers have endured, including land theft and the rejection of loan applications by banks and the federal government. The program designated aid to about 15,000 borrowers who receive loans directly from the federal government or have their bank loans guaranteed by the USDA. Those eligible included farmers and ranchers who have been subject to racial or ethnic prejudice, including those who are Black, Native American, Alaskan Native, Asian American, Pacific Islander or Hispanic.

After the initiative was rolled out last year, it met swift opposition.

Banks were unhappy that the loans would be repaid early, depriving them of interest payments. Groups of white farmers in Wisconsin, North Dakota, Oregon and Illinois sued the Agriculture Department, arguing that offering debt relief on the basis of skin color is discriminatory, suggesting that a successful Black farmer could have his debts cleared while a struggling white farm could go out of business. America First Legal, a group led by the former Trump administration official Stephen Miller, filed a lawsuit making a similar argument in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Last June, before the money started flowing, a federal judge in Florida blocked the program on the basis that it applied “strictly on racial grounds” irrespective of any other factor.

The delays have angered the Black farmers that the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress were trying to help. They argue that the law was poorly written and that the White House is not defending it forcefully enough in court out of fear that a legal defeat could undermine other policies that are predicated on race.

Those concerns became even more pronounced late last year when the government sent thousands of letters to minority farmers who were behind on their loan payments warning that they faced foreclosure. The letters were sent automatically to any borrowers who were past due on their loans, including about one-third of the 15,000 socially disadvantaged farmers who applied for the debt relief, according to the Agriculture Department.

Leonard Jackson, a cattle farmer in Muskogee, Oklahoma, received such a letter despite being told by the USDA that he did not need to make loan payments because his $235,000 in debt would be paid off by the government. The letter was jarring for Jackson, whose father, a wheat and soybean farmer, had his farm equipment foreclosed on by the government years earlier. The prospect of losing his 33 cows, house and trailer was unfathomable.

“They said that they were paying off everybody’s loans and not to make payments and then they sent this,” Jackson, 55, said.

The legal fight over the funds has stirred widespread confusion, with Black and other farmers stuck in the middle. This year, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives has fielded calls from minority farmers who said their financial problems have been compounded. It has become even harder for them to get access to credit now, they say, that the fate of the debt relief is unclear.

“It has definitely caused a very significant panic and a lot of distress among our members,” said Dãnia Davy, director of land retention and advocacy at the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund.

The Agriculture Department said that it was required by law to send the warnings but that the government had no intention of foreclosing on farms, citing a moratorium on such action that was put in place early last year because of the pandemic. After The New York Times inquired about the foreclosure letters, the USDA sent borrowers who had received notices another letter late last month telling them to disregard the foreclosure threat.

“We want borrowers to know the bottom line is, actions such as acceleration and foreclosure remain suspended for direct loan borrowers due to the pandemic,” said Kate Waters, a department spokesperson. “We remain under the moratorium, and we will continue to communicate with our borrowers so they understand their rights and understand their debt servicing options.”

The more than 2,000 minority farmers who receive private loans that are guaranteed by the USDA are not protected by the federal moratorium and could still face foreclosure. Once the moratorium ends, farmers will need to resume making their payments if the debt relief program or an alternative is not in place.

Some Black farmers argue that the Agriculture Department, led by Secretary Tom Vilsack, was too slow to disburse the debt relief and allowed critics time to mount a legal assault on the law.

The Biden administration has been left with few options but to let the legal process play out, which could take months or years. The White House had been hopeful that a new measure in Biden’s sweeping social policy and climate bill would ultimately provide the farmers the debt relief they have been expecting. But that bill has stalled in the Senate and is unlikely to pass in its current form.

“While we continue to defend in court the relief in the American Rescue Plan, getting the broader relief provision that the House passed signed into law remains the surest and quickest way to help farmers in economic distress across the nation, including thousands and thousands of farmers of color,” Gene Sperling, the White House’s pandemic relief czar, said in a statement.

For Black farmers, who have seen their ranks fall from more than 1 million to fewer than 40,000 in the past century amid industry consolidation and onerous loan terms, the disappointment is not surprising. John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association, said that rather than hearing about more government reports on racial equity, Black farmers want to see results.

“We need implementation, action and resources to farm,” Boyd said.

© 2022 The New York Times Company

GE Transportation announced plans for a hybrid locomotive in 2005; years later, it's finding a market


Jim Martin,
Erie Times News
Mon, February 21, 2022

More than 15 years have passed since General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt stepped to a microphone in Washington, D.C., to announce plans for a new hybrid locomotive to be built in Erie.

The announcement, which was covered by the national news media, was a big deal. The planned locomotive was to be a signature product of Ecomagination, the company's new environmentally focused initiative.

But the idea wasn't ready for prime time.

Related coverage: Wabtec wins major locomotive order; what will it mean for workers in Erie?

The battery technology available at the time couldn't generate enough power or last long enough to be an effective replacement for a diesel locomotive, said Alan Hamilton, a longtime engineer for GE Transportation who now serves as vice president of engineering for Wabtec, which bought the company in 2019.

In short, the idea of a hybrid freight locomotive did not move quickly into production.

All that has changed.

Orders are coming in

Just a year after testing in the California desert and Central Valley, the battery-electric FLXdrive locomotive, designed to form a hybrid train when paired with diesel locomotives, is being offered for sale.

And buyers are taking notice.

Related coverage: Manufacturing employment is down in Erie County, but opportunity abounds

Orders have been placed so far by two Australian mining companies and by Canadian National's Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad, which operates in western Pennsylvania and northeastern Ohio.

Hamilton said the company is in talks with several different customers and that he's hopeful more orders could be on the way.

Alan Hamilton, vice president of engineering for Wabtec, is shown in this 2017 file photo.

All about the battery

The 4,400-hp locomotive tested in California, powered by a battery pack that generated 2.4 megawatt-hours of power, did what it was designed to do, cutting emissions and reducing overall fuel consumption by 11%.

Newer models should improve on that performance. Updated battery packs now offer a capacity of 7 megawatt-hours, enough electricity to power more than 3,000 homes for a year, and enough to pull its share of a freight train.

All of that proved to be out of reach when GE Transportation's plans for a hybrid locomotive were first announced.

"From a practical standpoint, the battery wasn't up to the task for energy and reliability," Hamilton said.

Related coverage: Erie-built electric locomotive proved itself in the California desert; could it be headed to market soon?

Advances in lithium-ion batteries, led by the automotive industry, have changed the equation.

"We had this hypothesis that this (idea) was now ready for prime time, and over the course of the last couple of years we built that 1.0 version and had it tested in California," he said.

While Wabtec has been developing its own batteries, Hamilton said the biggest advances in battery technology are being made by automotive companies.

GM announced in 2021 that it had formed a partnership with Wabtec to commercialize GM's battery and hydrogen fuel cell systems for Wabtec locomotives.
Erie-based engineers made a difference

But better batteries aren't the only thing that made the development of the battery-electric locomotive possible.

Hamilton said the electric locomotive is backed by dozens of patents and the work of more than 400 Erie-based engineers who have had a hand in the project.

Developments over the years in AC traction technology and the Trip Optimizer, which uses computer modeling to increase fuel efficiency and reduce pollution, paved the way for the development of FLXdrive.

"It's all these investments over the decades that have led us to the point where we are today," Hamilton said. "It's not all new. It's something we have been thinking about for a very long time."

Similar technology also figures to be important to Wabtec in other applications.

New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority has placed a $233 million order for 25 hybrid shunter locomotives that will be powered by diesel-electric powerplants similar to the concept GE Transportation announced in 2005.

The locomotives are designed especially for usage in tunnels where exhaust emissions can be detrimental to both people and the machines.

"When it goes into a tunnel it will be in zero-emissions mode," Hamilton said.

Hamilton said that Wabtec is pleased by the early interest shown by companies interested in being the so-called first movers that are looking to adopt the new technology.

A statement from J.J. Ruest, CE of CN, hints at the level of interest among railroads.

“As part of our sustainability strategy to reduce freight transportation emissions through innovation, we plan to continue to lead the sector by deploying low and no carbon technologies,” he said. "As a mover of the economy, CN is committed to playing a key role in the transition to low-carbon economy.”

Hamilton, who was involved in the development of the top-selling Evolution locomotive, said the development of the FLXdrive might one day be measured on the same scale of significance.

"It's right up there with it," he said. "It's game-changing."

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Electric locomotive, designed and built in Erie, is drawing interest

NO ARRESTS

Cubans protest in Havana as Costa Rica tightens visa requirements




People take pictures using their mobile phones of a list with visa requirements for Cubans in front of the Costa Rica embassy, in Havana

Mon, February 21, 2022
By Nelson Gonzalez and Nelson Acosta

HAVANA (Reuters) - At least 200 Cubans protested near Costa Rica's embassy in Havana on Monday against tighter visa requirements for Cubans passing through the Central American nation on the way to Nicaragua.

Demand for Havana-San Jose flights has soared after Managua in November lifted visa requirements for Cuban nationals. Many flights include multiple connections in neighboring Latin American nations.

Costa Rica's decision last week to require that Cubans obtain a "transit visa" outraged many of the protesters.

"We are requesting a transit visa as citizens with the right to travel, and they are ... asking for requirements that no Cuban can comply with," said Redel Quevedo, who had traveled 600 km (372.82 miles) from Las Tunas, in eastern Cuba, to the embassy in Havana.

"All Cubans are giving everything to be able to make the trip," Quevedo said in an interview as he waited under the hot Caribbean sun for a response from Costa Rican authorities.

Applicants for a Costa Rica transit visa must provide criminal records spanning 10 years and prove "economic solvency," according to requirements posted outside the embassy in Havana, though it was not immediately clear what proof was required.

"We are going to be in Costa Rica for seven or eight hours," said Oliet Dominguez, of Havana, who said his flight to Nicaragua involved connections in Panama, Costa Rica and El Salvador. "I think that this is an act of xenophobia against us."

Costa Rica's embassy in Cuba did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Costa Rican authorities have previously said the decision to require the transit visa was aimed at assuring "orderly and dignified migration."

All the Cubans interviewed by Reuters at the embassy on Monday said they were traveling to Nicaragua to shop or for tourism.

Air ticket prices to the Central American nation have more than tripled to as much as $3,500 in the three months since Nicaragua lifted the visa requirement for Cubans, according to posts on classified service Revolico and several of those interviewed by Reuters at the embassy. That is several times the average annual salary in Cuba.

Cuba's economy has been battered by mounting U.S. sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting widespread shortages of food and medicine and the largest anti-government protests since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution.

The economic crisis has also spurred a growing wave of Cuban migrants seeking to enter the United States, according to U.S. immigration statistics.

Cuba says it advocates legal, orderly and safe migration, and has blamed U.S. policy for encouraging Cubans to risk their lives to leave the island.

Washington has discouraged Cubans from attempting to migrate to the United States.

(Reporting by Nelson Acosta and Nelson Gonzalez; Writing by Dave Sherwood; Editing by Richard Chang)

HUBRIS
Harvard economist and former Obama adviser says Russia is 'basically a big gas station' and is otherwise 'incredibly unimportant' in the global economy

Matthew Loh
Mon, February 21, 2022

Russia's President Vladimir Putin signed decrees to recognize independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk. Moscow ordered troops into these areas on Monday, escalating the prospect of outright war between Russia and Ukraine.

Alexei Nikolsky/TASS via Getty Images


Harvard economist Jason Furman said Russia's economy is 'unimportant' except for its gas resources, The New York Times reported.


His comments come as the US and Europe prepare heavy sanctions on Russia if it invades Ukraine.


But there are concerns that their plans to punish Moscow will penalize the rest of the world too.

Russia's economy is "incredibly unimportant in the global economy except for oil and gas," Jason Furman, Harvard economist and ex-adviser to former President Barack Obama, told The New York Times.

"It's basically a big gas station," he said.

His comments come as the West prepares heavy sanctions on Russia if it invades Ukraine. While they have the potential to throw the entire Russian economy into chaos, these measures could also reverberate to further damage the US, Europe, and the rest of the world as they battle inflation and rising energy prices — a ripple effect that the West hopes to mitigate.


On Monday, Moscow declared the independence of two breakaway regions of Ukraine and sent troops there — escalating the prospect of a major war. President Joe Biden has already ordered sanctions on the separatist regions — Donetsk and Luhansk — prohibiting US citizens from engaging in any exports, imports, or new investments in these areas.

Despite Russia's size and wealth in raw materials, its economy is more on-par with Brazil than with nations like Germany, France, and the UK, according to the latest nominal GDP data from the World Bank. According to the World Bank, its economy is weaker than Italy's and South Korea's, two nations with less than half of Russia's population.

But as Furman notes, Russia's oil and gas exports are significant to the world.

The European Union imports around 80% of the natural gases it uses, according to the US Energy Information Administration, and Russia accounts for 41% of the natural gas imports and 27% of the oil imports in the continent, per Eurostat.

Compounded with energy prices in the EU surging in price from 20 euros to 180 euros a megawatt-hour over the last year, the disappearance of those gas and oil imports could spell disaster for the region and the interconnected global economy. Meanwhile, in the US, gas prices have hit a seven-year high, climbing to around $3.50 per gallon, while inflation burgeons at its highest rate in 40 years, at 7.5%.

On the other hand, Ukraine has also been a major supplier of grain to other regions, sending 40% of its wheat and corn exports to the Middle East and Africa, The Times reported.

In response to a potential food crisis in those regions, US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said on Saturday that American farmers would increase production and "step in and help our partners," the Associated Press reported.

Ukraine accounts for 12% of the entire world's grain exports, and is estimated to provide 16% of global corn exports this year, the AP reported. Vilsack told the outlet he believed that American consumers would largely be unaffected, but Europeans would face "a different story."

"You have to look at the backdrop against which this is coming," Gregory Daco, chief economist for consulting firm EY-Parthenon, told The Times. "There is high inflation, strained supply chains and uncertainty about what central banks are going to do and how insistent price rises are."

China Turns To Indonesia For Coal Following Fallout With Australia

Editor OilPrice.com
Mon, February 21, 2022

China and Australia appear to have finally moved away from each other. The relationship turned frosty after China imposed an “unofficial ban” on Australian coal imports back in November 2019. At the time, many speculated that China would suffer more. But steel prices have held steadier as well.

The dispute started sometime in 2019 after China delayed Australian coal shipments. Other factors including Covid made things worse. China hardened its stance after the Australian government called for an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID-19. In what is being interpreted as “retaliation”, China blocked imports of Australian products like copper and coal. Last year, China imported 54.7 million tons of coking coal, down by 24.6% from 2020.

Australia found new outlets for coking coal

Meanwhile, new reports from Australia, including from one of its largest coal-making provinces, Queensland, indicates Australia has found other export markets. China, too, has stepped up domestic production of coal to try and meet the shortfall. However, analysts say those efforts have not been particularly successful. China lifted restrictions on coal mining enforced by the country’s national production plan. This helped to shore up the deficit in coal demand and supply. The country’s promised increase in reliance on alternate sources of fuel and increased energy efficiency has also helped fill the gap.

Indonesia to the rescue

The lifting of export controls of coal from Indonesia may come as good news for China. China remains one of the largest importers of Indonesian coal, importing as much as 123 million tons of it last year.

Before the unofficial ban on Aussie exports had kicked in, Australian coal had accounted for almost half of China’s coal imports. The Australian import ban affected many sectors in China where coal played a prominent role, including in steel making.

China crude steel production falls

During the second half of 2021, much of China experienced power blackouts as it struggled with supplies. Also, for the first time in six years, the country’s crude steel production fell. China said production drops came as a result of reducing the sector’s carbon emissions. In addition, numbers dropped due to high international coal prices.

Meanwhile, as China explored other avenues to fill the supply gap, Australia has managed quite well.

According to news reports, Queensland’s overall exports rebounded by 26.3%, or $16.5 billion, to $79.2 billion in 2021, according to a report released a few days ago.

Coal exports from Queensland increased by about 36% in 2021. India, South Korea, and Japan have picked up the windfall of Australian coal following China’s ban. Many Australian coal companies said they would not go back to China. And China does not need to go back to Australia. When Indonesia implemented an export ban on coal and subsequently partially lifted the ban, that provided more options for China.

Unlike the 2021 China steel price rollercoaster ride, experts have expressed confidence in more stability. Markets may not see much volatility in steel prices as China’s crude steel output could increase in the first half of 2022 and then decline during the second half. China’s 2022 steel production levels should remain similar to 2021.

Higher demand and lower inventory levels market suggest higher prices for the medium-term according to analysts. Conversely, China filled its energy supply gap in 2021 through increased demand for imports of thermal and met coal.

By AG Metal Miner

Storm helps Poland hit wind energy record: 30% of power




Wind turbines stand on a field in Budy Mszczonowskie, southern Poland, on , Monday, Feb. 21, 2022. Poland's power system operator says that the deadly high winds last week generated a record level of energy and covered some 30 percent of demand in the country where most of the energy comes from coal., Monday, Feb. 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)Less

MONIKA SCISLOWSKA
Mon, February 21, 2022, 

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Deadly high winds that struck Northern Europe last week generated a record level of wind energy for Poland, covering some 30% of the demand in a country where most of its electricity comes from coal, Poland's power distribution operator said Monday.

On Wednesday evening when gale-force winds hit “we registered a record level of power generation from wind farms of some 6,700 megawatts,” Maciej Wapinski of the Polish Power System, PSE, told The Associated Press.

The demand at that time in Poland, an European Union nation of 38 million, was nearly 24,000 megawatts, meaning that "wind farms covered almost 30% of the demand,” Wapinski said in an email.

PSE ensures the distribution of electric energy across Poland.

Janusz Gajowiecki, head of the Polish Wind Energy Association, says on average, wind farms supply some 10% of Poland's annual energy demand and stressed that the potential can be much higher.

But as the storm intensified over the weekend, destroying power lines and causing some turbines to switch off automatically for safety reasons, power levels from wind farms fell to about half of the record level, Wapinski said.

Renewable power accounts for 25% of Poland's energy mix and is rising, especially in the wind and solar energy sectors. As a result, the role of black and brown coal is diminishing slightly but still accounts for 65% of Poland's energy generation. Another 6% comes from gas, chiefly from Russia.

Wind farms represent 42% of Poland's renewable energy and another 45% comes from solar panels.

In the gas sector, Poland has been taking steps to reduce its dependence on Russian imports. Its Baltic Sea LNG port, where shipments come from Qatar and the U.S., is being expanded, and a pipeline is being built to bring in gas from Norway.

During the recent storms, four people were reported killed in Poland and at least nine were injured, as high winds felled trees and tore off roofs.

__

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

The transatlantic network connecting France's 'Freedom Convoy' to Canada





Mon, February 21, 2022
By Layli Foroudi

PARIS (Reuters) - Canadian Alexis Cossette-Trudel, who is suspended from Facebook and Twitter for promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory, had a message he wanted to send from Canada to France.

The "Freedom convoy" protests against COVID-19 vaccine mandates that were starting to block transport links in Canada were striking a blow for freedom and French people should take note, he said in Quebec-accented French.

"The freedom convoy is a festive and exemplary movement," Cossette-Trudel said in a videocast on France Soir, a COVID-sceptic French online media outlet on Feb. 7.

Five days later, a French "Freedom convoy" - with some people waving Canadian flags - defied a police ban to enter the French capital and snarled traffic around the Arc de Triomphe. The police deployed tear gas and made more than 50 arrests.

Reuters has found some of the loudest online voices coordinating France's convoy have direct links with Cossette-Trudel and other Canadians, revealing a network of connections between "anti-vaxx" and right-wing groups in the two countries.

To be sure, the Freedom Convoy in France sprang mainly out of homegrown movements, including the "Yellow Vests" whose protests began in 2018, and the people identified in public as its leaders had no direct ties to their peers in Canada.

But the connections identified by Reuters between French and Canadian anti-vaxxers helped to translate the messages and protest tactics circulating among North American anti-vaxxers for French audiences.

It is a connection that, according to some researchers, could move the needle in April's French presidential election, when anti-vaxxers are likely to be active.

Canadian YouTubers and bloggers, especially those from French-speaking Quebec, are natural intermediaries between North America and France, said Benjamin Tainturier, a researcher with MédiaLab at Sciences Po university in Paris.

"They have French channels [where] they say 'Look what is happening in the U.S.', because they are close to the territory, they speak English as a second mother tongue and they know the Youtuber eco-system."

Cossett-Trudel told Reuters half of his viewership comes from France.

He operates in large part via Radio Quebec, a Francophone platform whose main editorial priority is opposing COVID-19 related restrictions and the vaccine, which he sees as part of "a power grab by the establishment".

Suspended from mainstream social media, he now broadcasts via other platforms such as VKontakte, Odyssee, and Gettr favoured by people like Cossette-Trudel who have been removed from YouTube. Across the three platforms he has a total of more than 100,000 followers.

"LOVE FROM FRANCE"

Historic ties between the two countries led some French people to donate to the Canadian trucker cause.

One fundraiser on the Christian platform GiveSendGo received $8,501 from 130 French people between Feb. 5 and Feb. 10, according to Distributed Denial of Secrets, a website that handles leaked data and said it received hacked donor data.

One donor wrote: "Much love from France, and sorry we sent you the Trudeau family centuries ago." Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked rarely used emergency powers to end the protesters' three-week occupation of Ottawa over the weekend.

Cossette-Trudel says he speaks regularly with Richard Boutry, one of the organisers of the French convoy whom he described as "a friend".

Boutry, a Christian who believes that those in government are "disciples of satan", has appeared on Radio Quebec and has hosted Cossette-Trudel on his own alternative media outlet, La Minute de Ricardo.

Cossette-Trudel has participated in events organised by a Canadian non-profit called the Foundation for the Defence of the Rights and Freedoms of the People (FDDLP).

French anti-vaxx rising stars sit on its board of experts: anaesthetist Louis Fouché and geneticist Alexandra Henrion-Caude, as well as infectious disease professor Christian Peronne and epidemiologist Laurent Toubiana.

The foundation has raised C$1.2 million and the second biggest outlay after lawyer fees is payment to its nine experts, said FDDLP president Stephane Blaise.

Of the four French experts, some are paid and some volunteer, he said, without giving details. Henrion-Caude denied receiving any money and said she had not financed any campaigns. The other experts did not respond when contacted for comment by Reuters.

"A lot of Europeans follow us," said Blaise. "It is a beautiful collaboration."

Analysis of social media activity around the last French presidential election, in 2017, showed that North American and French online activists coordinated on the forum popular with the far-right, 4chan, to swing votes in favour of far-right challenger Marine Le Pen.

In the run-up to the French "Freedom convoy," Twitter accounts calling for or interacting with the protest were mainly connected to anti-vaxxer presidential candidate Florian Phillipot, followed by far-right presidential contender Eric Zemmour, according to data analysis by France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).

CNRS research director David Chavalarias said the mobilisation - online and off - was a warm-up for the election. "It's going to become more important and more coordinated," he said.

(Reporting by Layli Foroudi; Additional reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and Anna Mehler Paperny in Toronto; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Canada truckers say protest is start of bigger movement: ‘I don’t believe this is the end’

Via AP news wire
Sun, February 20, 2022

The streets around the Canadian Parliament are quiet now. The Ottawa protesters who vowed never to give up are largely gone, chased away by police in riot gear. The relentless blare of truckers' horns has gone silent.

But the trucker protest, which grew until it closed a handful of Canada-US border posts and shut down key parts of the capital city for weeks, could echo for years in Canadian politics and perhaps south of the border.

The protest, which was first aimed at a Covid-19 vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers but also encompassed fury over the range of Covid-19 restrictions and hatred of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, reflected the spread of disinformation in Canada and simmering populist and right-wing anger.

“I think we've started something here,” said Mark Suitor, a 33-year-old protester from Hamilton, Ontario, speaking as police retook control of the streets around Parliament. Protesters had essentially occupied those streets for more than three weeks, embarrassing Trudeau and energising Canada's far right. Suitor believes the protests will divide the country, something he welcomes.

“This is going to be a very big division in our country,” he said. “I don't believe this is the end.”

While most analysts doubt the protests will mark a historic watershed in Canadian politics, it has shaken both of Canada's two major parties.

“The protest has given both the Liberals and the Conservatives a black eye,” said Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor at the University of Toronto. Trudeau's Liberals look bad for allowing protesters to foments weeks of chaos in the capital city, he said, while the Conservatives look bad for championing protesters, many of them from the farthest fringes of the right.

The conservatives “have to be careful not to alienate more moderate voters, who are generally not sympathetic to the protesters or right-wing populism more generally,” said Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal.

The self-styled Freedom Convoy shook Canada's reputation for civility, inspired convoys in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands and interrupted trade, causing economic damage on both sides of the border. Hundreds of trucks eventually occupied the streets around Parliament, a display that was part protest and part carnival.

Authorities moved quickly to reopen the border posts, but police in Ottawa did little but issue warnings until the past couple days, even as hundreds and sometimes thousands of protesters clogged the streets of the city and besieged Parliament Hill.

Truckers ignored warnings that they were risking arrest and could have their rigs seized and bank accounts frozen under the new emergency powers invoked by Trudeau. The truckers, parked on the streets in and around Parliament, blared their horns in defiance of a court injunction against honking, issued after residents said the constant noise was making the neighbourhood unlivable.

“It's high time that these illegal and dangerous activities stop,” Trudeau declared in Parliament a few days ago, speaking just a few hundred meters from the protests.

On Friday, authorities launched the largest police operation in Canadian history, arresting a string of Ottawa protesters and increasing that pressure on Saturday until the streets in front of Parliament were clear. Eventually, police arrested at least 191 people and towed away 79 vehicles. Many protesters retreated as the pressure increased.

The Ottawa protests — the movement's last major stronghold — appeared to be largely over by Sunday. Fencing and police checkpoints remained.

“The number of unlawful protesters has dramatically declined in the last 24 hours,” Ottawa interim Police Chief Steve Bell said.

Authorities also said 206 bank accounts had been frozen under the power granted by federal emergencies act.

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said progress has been made but the end of the blockades might not be over. He said that targeted measures in the emergencies act allowed police to designate a wide swath of Ottawa's downtown core to become a no-go zone and that tool alone has been extremely effective.

“For the first time in three weeks the streets are calm, they are quiet and they are clear. That all followed the invocation of the emergencies act,” Mendicino said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We will not use it for a single minute longer than we have to.”

Mendicino said the financial accounts of those who refused to leave will remain frozen while the act is in force but added that it is up to police to decide whose accounts get frozen. The powers are already in effect but Parliament is expected to ratify the action Monday.

As it did in the United States, Covid-19 quickly became a political issue in Canada.

Coronavirus health restrictions became a political cudgel for Canada's far right, which accused Trudeau of authoritarianism. But while the restrictions clearly benefitted the far-right People's Party of Canada, things are more complicated in the Conservative Party.

Only recently have some Conservative leaders fully embraced the pushback against vaccine mandates and coronavirus restrictions.

Even so, the protests may open the door to the sort of populism that former President Donald Trump used to vault himself into the White House.

Pierre Poilievre, who is running to become the next leader of the Conservative party, has cheered on the protesters, gambling that voters will back him. But it remains unclear whether that will get him to the top of the party, or whether it would help or hurt him if there is a showdown between him and Trudeau or the next Liberal party leader.

“Poilievre is clearly playing by the populist playbook right now,” said Beland. “If he becomes Conservative leader, the party might effectively shift towards Trump-style populism. However, it's unclear whether enough Canadians support this vision to make it appealing beyond the party's base.”

The protests have been cheered on in the US by Fox News personalities and conservatives like Trump. Millions of dollars in donations have flowed across the border to the protesters.

About 44 percent of the nearly $10 million in contributions to support the protesters originated from US donors, according to an Associated Press analysis of leaked donor files. Prominent Republican politicians have praised the protesters.

But experts say the US support of the Canadian protesters is really aimed at energising conservative politics in the US, where midterm elections are looming.

Meanwhile, though the situation in Ottawa appeared to be ending, there were new signs the protests had not died out entirely.

The Canadian border agency warned late Saturday afternoon that operations at a key truck crossing from western Canada into the United States had been slowed by protesters, advising travellers to find a different route.

FREEDOM IS A RUSTY CAMPER

Canada lawmakers extend emergency powers for truck protests
By ROB GILLIES

1 of 4

A camper is towed away by authorities clearing a trucker protest that was aimed at COVID-19 measures, in Ottawa, on Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022. 

(Cole Burston/The Canadian Press via AP)


TORONTO (AP) — Canadian lawmakers voted Monday night to extend the emergency powers that police can invoke to quell any potential restart of blockades by those opposed to COVID-19 restrictions.

Lawmakers in the House of Commons voted 185 to 151 to affirm the powers.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said earlier that the powers were still needed despite police ending the occupation of the nation’s capital by truckers over the weekend and police ending border blockades before that.

Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair said the protesters were going for the “lifeblood of this nation, which is trade with the United States.”

Trudeau noted there were some truckers just outside Ottawa who might be planning further blockades or occupations. His public safety minister said there was an attempt to block a border crossing in British Columbia over the weekend.

The emergencies act allows authorities to declare certain areas as no-go zones. It also allows police to freeze truckers’ personal and corporate bank accounts and compel tow truck companies to haul away vehicles.

The trucker protest grew until it closed a handful of Canada-U.S. border posts and shut down key parts of the capital for more than three weeks. But all border blockades have now ended and the streets around the Canadian Parliament are quiet.

Ottawa protesters who vowed never to give up are largely gone, chased away by police in riot gear in what was the biggest police operation in the nation’s history.

“The situation is still fragile, the state of emergency is still there,” Trudeau said before the vote.

Opposition New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh’s party supported it, ensuring Trudeau had enough votes. Singh said they know there are protesters waiting in the surrounding areas of Ottawa and in the capital itself.

“They need to be cleared out,” said Singh, who also noted there have been convoys that have been intercepted.

“This is an attack on our democracy. This is a group of folks who are very clearly connected to the extreme right wing, The organizers clearly have a goal in mind to undermine democracy. That’s something we can’t allow to continue.”

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said those who had their bank accounts frozen were “influencers in the illegal protest in Ottawa, and owners and/or drivers of vehicles who did not want to leave the area.”

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said earlier anyone affected has an easy way to have their accounts unfrozen: “Stop being a part of the blockade,” she said.

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said allowing police to designate Ottawa’s downtown a no-go zone has been particularly effective. About 100 police checkpoints remain. “We saw calm, peace and quiet,” Mendicino said.

The trucker protests grew until it closed a handful of Canada-U.S. border posts and shut down key parts of the capital city for more than three weeks.

“While we always will defend people’s right to opinion, expression and assembly there are limits to rights when they begin to impact so severely on the rights of others and we saw that here in Ottawa,” said Blair, the emergency preparedness minister. “We also watched with growing concern as part of this protest group starting targeting critical infrastructure when they went to the border at Windsor.”

But all border blockades have now ended and the streets around the Canadian Parliament are quiet.

The protests, which were first aimed at a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers but also encompassed fury over the range of COVID-19 restrictions and hatred of Trudeau, reflected the spread of disinformation in Canada and simmering populist and right-wing anger.

The self-styled Freedom Convoy shook Canada’s reputation for civility, inspired convoys in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands and interrupted trade, causing economic damage on both sides of the border. Hundreds of trucks eventually occupied the streets around Parliament, a display that was part protest and part carnival.

For almost a week the busiest U.S.-Canada border crossing, the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, was blocked. The crossing sees more than 25% of the trade between the two countries.

Authorities moved to reopen the border posts, but police in Ottawa did little but issue warnings until Friday, even as hundreds and sometimes thousands of protesters clogged the streets of the city and besieged Parliament Hill.

On Friday, authorities launched the largest police operation in Canadian history, arresting a string of Ottawa protesters and increasing that pressure on Saturday until the streets in front of Parliament were clear. Eventually, police arrested at least 191 people and towed away 79 vehicles. Many protesters retreated as the pressure increased.

Trudeau said people in Ottawa were harassed for weeks and said billions of dollars in trade were stalled by the border blockades, putting people’s jobs at risk.

The protests have been cheered on in the U.S. by Fox News personalities and conservatives like former U.S. President Donald Trump. Millions of dollars in donations have flowed across the border to the protesters.

“A flood of misinformation and disinformation washed over Canada, including from foreign sources,” Trudeau said.

“After these illegal blockades and occupations received disturbing amounts of foreign funding to destabilize Canada’s democracy it became clear that local and provincial authorities needed more tools to restore order.”

Trudeau wins House vote on Emergencies Act

Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP

POLITICO Canada Staff
Mon, February 21, 2022

OTTAWA, Ont. — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won approval from the House of Commons on Monday night for the Emergencies Act, which he put into play a week ago to end the convoy blockades in Canada.

The Liberal government won the vote 185-151 with the support of the New Democratic Party.

Outside the House of Commons, the streets around Parliament Hill have been cleared of trucks and protesters, although police still control access to the area.

Trudeau has said from the start that the never-before-used emergency measures would be targeted and temporary. On Monday morning, he told Canadians the state of emergency is not over.

“There continues to be real concerns about the coming days,” he said, “but we will continue to evaluate every single day whether or not it is time and we are able to lift this state of emergency.”

When asked if he considered the vote one of confidence in his minority government, Trudeau replied, “I can't imagine anyone voting against this bill as expressing anything other than a deep mistrust in the government's ability to keep Canadians safe at an extraordinarily important time.”

The Conservatives and Bloc Québécois voted against use of the sweeping enforcement measures and accused the prime minister of overreach.

Convoys rolled into Ottawa in January soon after the government of Canada introduced vaccination rules for cross-border truckers. The mandates turned out to be the least of their grievances.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has said the threat posed by the so-called Freedom Convoy justified use of the act. “They came here to overthrow a democratically elected government,” he said last week. “It is a movement funded by foreign influence, and it is fed on disinformation. Its goal is to disrupt our democracy.”

Big rigs and protesters occupied Ottawa streets for almost three weeks, holding out against Ottawa Police Services, which failed to manage the crisis.

“Hurtful and racist symbols were everywhere … the incessant honking was unbearable,” Ottawa Centre MP Yasir Naqvi told POLITICO over the weekend. “Nearby parking lots were used as urinals, our skies were filled with firecrackers as they were hurled down streets every night, and the air was thick with diesel fuel.”

Protesters also shut down key trade corridors for a time along the U.S.-Canada border, including at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ont.

Once the Emergencies Act was invoked, police created a perimeter around key blocks in downtown Ottawa and established checkpoints to control entry into the area.

On Friday, a wave of municipal, provincial and federal police forces began to clear the streets in a massive sweep that lasted three days. Police said Monday that they’ve made 196 arrests and towed 115 vehicles.

BETTER THAN SOME STATES IN USA

Colombia’s highest court legalizes abortion up to 24 weeks
By MANUEL RUEDA

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Abortion-rights activists celebrate after the Constitutional Court approved the decriminalization of abortion, lifting all limitations on the procedure until the 24th week of pregnancy, in Bogota, Colombia, Monday, Feb. 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia became the latest country in Latin America to expand access to abortion Monday as the nation’s Constitutional Court voted to legalize the procedure until the 24th week of pregnancy.

The decision by the tribunal of nine judges fell short of the expectations of pro-choice groups that had been pushing for abortion to be completely decriminalized in Colombia. But it was nevertheless described as a historic event by women’s rights groups, which estimate 400,000 women get clandestine abortions in the country each year.

Before the ruling, Colombia allowed abortions only when a woman’s life was in danger, a fetus had malformations or a pregnancy resulted from rape.

Now women in Colombia will be able to get abortions until the 24th week of their pregnancy without having to provide any justification. After the 24th week of pregnancy, abortion will still face restrictions.

“We were trying to get the complete decriminalization of abortion ... but this is still a historic step,” said Cristina Rosero, a lawyer for the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group that was one of five organizations that filed a lawsuit in 2020 to get the high court to review Colombia’s abortions laws.

The lawsuit argued that restrictions on abortion discriminated against women from low income areas for whom it was harder to get legal abortions, because they had less access to doctors, lawyers or psychologists who could help them to prove that carrying out pregnancies would put their health at risk.

Rosero said the changes made to Colombian law will now make it easier for people of lower income levels to access safe abortions.

“Our challenge now is to ensure that this ruling is implemented” she said.

Elsewhere in Latin America, Argentina, Uruguay and Cuba also allow abortions without restrictions until certain stages of pregnancy, while in Mexico a supreme court ruling recently said that women cannot cannot be tried in court for terminating their pregnancies.

Latin America is also a region where some countries prohibit the termination of pregnancy without exception, like in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

In Colombia, where a majority of the population identifies as Roman Catholic abortion has long been a controversial issue. Judges met several times to review the lawsuit filed by women’s rights groups without voting on it. Meanwhile pro-choice groups waving green flags, faced off against pro-life protesters dressed in blue.

Jonathan Silva, an activist for the pro-life group United for Life, said he was surprised by Monday’s decision. “We don’t understand how this happened” he said. “But we will have to stage protests, and call on members of congress to regulate abortion.”

A poll conducted last year in Colombia said that 25% of people considered abortion a crime, while 42% disagreed with that statement. In Colombia, women who get illegal abortions can face up to three years in prison.

REST IN POWER

Dr. Paul Farmer, global humanitarian leader, dies at 62

By STEVE LeBLANC and DÁNICA COTO

In this picture taken Jan. 10, 2012, Partners in Health's co-founder, Dr. Paul Farmer, gestures during the inauguration of national referral and teaching hospital in Mirebalais, 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Dr. Paul Farmer, a physician, humanitarian and author renowned for providing health care to millions of impoverished people, has died. He was 62. Farmer co-founded the global nonprofit Partners in Health, which confirmed his death Monday, Feb. 21, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery, file)


BOSTON (AP) — Dr. Paul Farmer, a U.S. physician, humanitarian and author renowned for providing health care to millions of impoverished people worldwide and who co-founded the global nonprofit Partners in Health, has died. He was 62.

The Boston-based organization confirmed Farmer’s death on Monday, calling it “devastating” and noting he unexpectedly passed away in his sleep from an acute cardiac event while in Rwanda, where he had been teaching.

Farmer was a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of the division of global health equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He wrote extensively on health, human rights and social inequality, according to Partners in Health.

“A compassionate physician and infectious disease specialist, a brilliant and influential medical anthropologist, and among the greatest humanitarians of our time — perhaps all time — Paul dedicated his life to improving human health and advocating for health equity and social justice on a global scale,” wrote George Q. Daley, dean of Harvard University’s Faculty of Medicine, in a statement.

Partners in Health, founded in 1987, said its mission is “to provide a preferential option for the poor in health care.” The organization began its work in Cange, a rural village in Haiti’s central plateau, and later expanded its operations to regions including Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder, who wrote the nonfiction book, “Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World,” told The Associated Press the two traveled together for a month as Farmer treated prisoners and impoverished people in Haiti, Moscow and Paris.

“He was an important figure in the world,” Kidder said. “He had a way of looking around corners and of connecting things. He couldn’t obviously go and cure the whole world all by himself, but he could, with help of his friends, give proof of possibility.”

One of Kidder’s strongest memories of Farmer occurred in Peru, where the doctor was treating patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. Kidder recalled a woman wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt who followed them to their car, looking very shy.

With her head down, she said, “Thank you,” to Farmer in Spanish. Kidder recalled: “Paul turned, took each of her hands in his and said, ‘For me, it is a privilege,’ in Spanish.”

He added that Farmer was instrumental in getting AIDS treatments, and created various health systems around the world.

“It really humiliates the nay-sayers, who think it’s somehow OK for some people to get health care and others not,” Kidder said. “It just drove him nuts.”

Michelle Karshan, vice president of a nonprofit prison health care system in Haiti who worked closely with Farmer, said he was determined, innovative and always knew how to get around obstacles and bureaucracy.

“He didn’t take no for an answer,” she said. “He didn’t think anybody was too poor or too illiterate to be entitled to receive health care.”

She noted that when the World Health Organization resisted giving HIV medication to people who were illiterate in Haiti for fear they would not know when or how to take it, Farmer set up his own program and created a chart that relied on the sun’s position. He also hired people known as “accompaniers,” who would hike through Haiti’s rough mountainous terrain to make sure patients had water, food and were taking their medications.

“I’m so sad for all the people who are not going to have him in their lives. He was there for everybody,” Karshan said.

Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry praised Farmer’s work, as did former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

“Paul Farmer changed the way health care is delivered in the most impoverished places on Earth. He saw every day as a new opportunity to teach, learn, give, and serve — and it was impossible to spend any time with him and not feel the same,” Clinton said in a statement.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, with thousands of cases reported daily in Massachusetts, local health departments were overwhelmed by the task of contact tracing to help slow the spread of the disease.

The state launched a contact tracing collaborative in April 2020, and asked Partners in Health to lead the initiative, which made more than 2.7 million calls to residents at a total cost of about $158 million, according to the state.

Farmer is survived by his Haitian wife, Didi Bertrand Farmer, and their three children.

___

Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Global health champion Paul Farmer dies at 62


Physician and medical anthropologist Paul Farmer is seen addressing a Haiti fundraising event in Los Angeles on January 7, 2017 

(AFP/Michael Kovac)

Mon, February 21, 2022

Paul Farmer, an American physician and medical anthropologist renowned for his innovative work in providing health care to poorer countries, died Monday at age 62, his Partners in Health group said.

The Boston-based organization said he "unexpectedly passed away today in his sleep while in Rwanda."

Farmer's work on providing healthcare solutions to poorer countries brought him wide acclaim. A 2003 book profiling him, "Mountains Beyond Mountains," called him "the man who would cure the world."

Samantha Power, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, tweeted that Farmer was "a giant" in his field.

"Devastating news," she posted. "Paul Farmer gave everything -- everything -- to others. He saw the worst, and yet did all he could to bring out the best in everyone he encountered."

Pulmonologist and medical analyst Dr Vin Gupta tweeted: "It is hard to overstate the impact Dr Paul Farmer had on the medical profession."

And actor Edward Norton, a social and environmental activist, called Farmer "one of the most loving, funny, generous & inspiring people to grace humanity with his soul in our lifetimes."

Working in Haiti in 1987, Farmer co-founded Partners in Health to help devise and deliver better healthcare in poor and badly underserved countries.

A co-founder and close longtime associate was Jim Yong Kim, who went on to lead the World Bank from 2012 to 2019.

In 2009, Farmer succeeded Kim as chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

The same year he was named a UN deputy special envoy to Haiti, working with Bill Clinton.

Farmer held that position at the time of the island's devastating 2010 earthquake, and soon was headed to Haiti on an airplane full of physicians.

Farmer, a lifelong advocate for the poor Caribbean nation, co-founded the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.

He was editor in chief of the journal Health and Human Rights, and wrote extensively on the juncture of those two fields.

Farmer was also chief of the division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women's Hospital, in Boston, Massachusetts.

He, Kim and another Partners in Health co-founder, Ophelia Dahl -- daughter of British writer Roald Dahl and American actress Patricia Neal -- are featured in a 2017 documentary, "Bending the Arc."

In addition to Rwanda and Haiti, Partners in Health works in Kazakhstan, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mexico, Peru, Russia and Sierra Leone, as well as in Navajo communities in the United States.

Farmer was married to Didi Bertrand Farmer, a Haitian medical anthropologist.

bbk/mlm

Gold mining site blast reportedly kills 59 in Burkina Faso


OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — A strong explosion near a gold mining site in southwestern Burkina Faso killed 59 people and injured more than 100 others Monday, the national broadcaster and witnesses reported.

The provisional toll was provided by regional authorities following the blast in the village of Gbomblora, RTB reported. The explosion was believed to have been caused by chemicals used to treat gold that were stocked at the site.

“I saw bodies everywhere. It was horrible,” Sansan Kambou, a forest ranger who was at the site during the explosion, told The Associated Press by phone.

The first blast happened around 2 p.m., with more explosions following as people ran for their lives, he said.

Burkina Faso is the fastest-growing gold producer in Africa and currently the fifth largest on the continent, with gold being the country’s most important export. The industry employs about 1.5 million people and was worth about $2 billion in 2019.

Small gold mines like Gbomblora have grown in recent years, with some 800 across the country. Much of the gold is being smuggled into neighboring Togo, Benin, Niger and Ghana, according to the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies.

The small-scale mines are also reportedly used by jihadis linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State, which have staged attacks in the country since 2016. The groups reportedly raise funds by taxing miners, and also use the mine sites for recruiting fighters and seeking refuge.

Mining experts say the small-scale mines have fewer regulations than industrial ones and thus can be more dangerous.

“The limited regulation of the artisanal and small-scale mining sector contributes to increased risks that can be very dangerous, including the use of explosives which are often smuggled into the country and used illegally,” said Marcena Hunter, senior analyst at Global Initiative, a Swiss-based think tank.

As Kuwait cracks down, a battle erupts over women’s rights
By ISABEL DEBRE and MALAK HARB

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Mashael al-Shuwaihan, who sits on the board of Kuwait's Women's Cultural Society, speaks during an interview, at a protest outside Kuwait's National Assembly, in Kuwait City, Monday, Feb. 7, 2022. Her placard reads: "Freedom and equality for women are constitutional pillars." Women might be progressing across the Arab world, but in Kuwait, the guardians of conservative morals have increasingly cracked down on their rights in recent months, prompting activists to take to the streets last week. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)


KUWAIT CITY (AP) — It all started over yoga.

When an instructor in Kuwait this month advertised a desert wellness yoga retreat, conservatives declared it an assault on Islam. Lawmakers and clerics thundered about the “danger” and depravity of women doing the lotus position and downward dog in public, ultimately persuading authorities to ban the trip.

The yoga ruckus represented just the latest flashpoint in a long-running culture war over women’s behavior in the sheikhdom, where tribes and Islamists wield growing power over a divided society. Increasingly, conservative politicians push back against a burgeoning feminist movement and what they see as an unraveling of Kuwait’s traditional values amid deep governmental dysfunction on major issues.

“Our state is backsliding and regressing at a rate that we haven’t seen before,” feminist activist Najeeba Hayat recently told The Associated Press from the grassy sit-in area outside Kuwait’s parliament. Women were pouring into the park along the palm-studded strand, chanting into the chilly night air for freedoms they say authorities have steadily stifled.

For Kuwaitis, it’s an unsettling trend in a country that once prided itself on its progressivism compared to its Gulf Arab neighbors.

In recent years, however, women have made strides across the conservative Arabian Peninsula. In long-insular Saudi Arabia, women have won greater freedoms under de-facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Saudi Arabia even hosted its first open-air yoga festival last month, something Kuwaitis noted with irony on social media.

“The hostile movement against women in Kuwait was always insidious and invisible but now it’s risen to the surface,” said Alanoud Alsharekh, a women’s rights activist who founded Abolish 153, a group that aims to eliminate an article of the country’s penal code that sets out lax punishments for the so-called honor killings of women. “It’s spilled into our personal freedoms.”

Just in the past few months, Kuwaiti authorities shut down a popular gym hosting belly dance classes. Clerics demanded police apprehend the organizers of a different women’s retreat called “The Divine Feminine,” citing blasphemy. Kuwait’s top court will soon hear a case arguing the government should ban Netflix amid an uproar over the first Arabic-language film the platform produced.

Hamdan al-Azmi, a conservative Islamist, has led the tirade against yoga, accusing outsiders of trampling on Arab heritage and bemoaning the aerobic exercise as a cultural travesty.

“If defending the daughters of Kuwait is backward, I am honored to be called it,” he said.

The string of religiously motivated decisions has touched off sustained outrage among Kuwaiti women at a time in which not a single one sits in the elected parliament and gruesome cases of so-called honor killings have gripped the public.

In one such case, a Kuwaiti woman named Farah Akbar was dragged from her car last spring and stabbed to death by a man released on bail against whom she had lodged multiple police complaints.

The outcry over Akbar’s killing pushed parliament to draft a law that would, after years of campaigning, eliminate Article 153. The article says that a man who catches his wife committing adultery or his female relative engaged in any sort of “illicit” sex and kills her faces at most three years in prison. There also can be just a $46 fine.

But when it came time to consider the article’s abolition, Kuwait’s all-male parliamentary committee on women’s issues took an unprecedented step. It turned to the state’s Islamic clerics for a fatwa, or non-binding religious ruling, about the article.

The clerics ruled last month that the law be upheld.

“Most of these members of parliament come from a system in which honor killings are normal,” said Sundus Hussain, another founding member of the Abolish 153 group.

After Kuwait’s 2020 elections, there was a marked increase in the influence of conservative Islamists and tribal members, Hussein added.

Before activists could absorb the blow, authorities called on clerics to answer a new query: Should women be allowed to join the army?

The Defense Ministry had declared they could enlist last fall, fulfilling a long-standing demand.

But clerics disagreed. Women, they decreed last month, may only join in non-combat roles if they wear an Islamic headscarf and get permission from a male guardian.

The decision shocked and appalled Kuwaitis accustomed to government indifference to whether women cover their hair.



“Why would the government consult religious authorities? It’s clearly one way in which the government is trying to appease conservatives and please parliament,” said Dalal al-Fares, a gender studies expert at Kuwait University. “Clamping down on women’s issues is the easiest way to say they’re defending national honor.”

Apart from the defense of what social conservatives consider women’s honor, there is little on which Kuwait’s emir-appointed Cabinet and elected parliament can agree. An anguished stalemate has paralyzed all efforts to fix a record budget deficit and pass badly needed economic reforms.

Nearly two years after parliament passed a domestic violence protection law, there are no government women’s shelters or services for abuse victims. Violence against women has only increased during the pandemic lockdown.

“We need a complete overhaul to address the flaws of our legal system when it comes to the protection of women,” said lawmaker Abdulaziz al-Saqabi, who’s now drafting Kuwait’s first gender-based violence law. “We are dealing with an irresponsible — and unstable — system that makes any reform almost impossible.”

Some advocates attribute the conservative backlash to a sense of panic that society is changing. A year ago, activists launched a groundbreaking #MeToo movement to denounce harassment and violence against women. Hundreds of reports poured into the campaign’s Instagram account with harrowing accusations of assault, creating a profound shift in Kuwaiti discourse.

Organizers in recent months have struggled to sustain the momentum as they themselves have faced rape and death threats.

“The toll it took was massive. We became immediate clickbait. We couldn’t go out in public without being constantly stopped and constantly harassed,” said Hayat, who helped create the movement last year.

Hayat has little faith in the government to change anything for Kuwait’s women. But she said that’s no reason to give up.

“If there’s a protest, I’m going to show up. If there’s someone who needs convincing, I’m going to try,” she said, while women around her pumped their fists and held signs aloft.

SOCIALISM 
Maine policy makers make bold push for publicly owned power

USSA 

UNITED SOCIALIST STATES OF AMERICA

Experts and elected officials in Maine, among other parts of the United States, say that investor-owned electric companies are slowing, if not blocking, the transition to a greener, smarter electric grid. 

Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo

LONG READ 

BANGOR, Maine, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- According to energy experts, the challenges posed by climate change warrant a greener, smarter, decentralized electrical grid -- a grid better able to accommodate a diversity of renewable energy sources.

In Maine, public power advocates agree. But the key to a modern, sustainable and resilient electrical grid, they argue, isn't a regulatory tweak or leadership change -- it's a structural overhaul and consumer control.

That's the end game for Our Power, a group of lawmakers, conservationists and business leaders aiming to transfer control of Maine's two largest shareholder-owned utilities, Central Maine Power and Versant Power, to a consumer-owned non-profit.

Buoyed by the referendum result last year that saw Maine voters nix Central Maine Power's planned power line corridor through part of the state's North Woods, public power advocates aim to put public seizure of Maine's two largest utilities to a popular vote.

RELATED Power line corridor through Maine in jeopardy after rebuke by voters

Though it's not yet clear whether One Power will get the signatures they need in time for a referendum vote in 2022, or if they'll wait until 2023, the group says they're making progress.

"We're about two-thirds of the way there and we're finding that there is incredible bipartisan and nonpartisan support for this initiative," Maine state Rep. Nicole Grohoski, of Ellsworth, told UPI.

"We're very optimistic from the polling and just being out in the streets that people recognize the problems with foreign government control of our grid and a lack of commitment to our local needs."

RELATED Maine's North Woods offers glimpse of future fights for 'green energy'

Keith Plume of PayneCrest Electric Company in September 2014 checks that solar panels are lined up correctly at the Ameren O'Fallon Renewable Energy Center in O'Fallon, Mo., which has more than 19,000 solar panels and generates nearly 8 million kilowatt-hours of energy per year. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

Inspired by the climate

Reports from climate scientists -- at the United Nations and elsewhere -- on the world's progress at kicking its fossil fuels addiction have grown increasingly dour in the last few years.

As such, the call to ditch coal, oil and gas in favor of renewable energy sources, like wind and solar, in addition to demands for a more adaptable, multidirectional power grid, have become louder and more urgent in Maine and several other states.

The nation's electric grid, capable of delivering on-demand energy to millions of Americans, is a wholly 20th century machine, experts say, optimized for one-way flow from large power sources to centralized transmission hubs and on into homes.

Policymakers say that new technologies and management strategies are needed to create a power grid of renewables, batteries and other eco-friendly energy solutions

That grid, they say, should be able to move energy in multiple directions, bringing in excess power from rooftop solar installations, even as it offloads electricity to charge the iPhones next door.

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"The grid is going to have to be more accommodating to small-scale energy assets and resources," Maine state Sen. Rick Bennett, a Republican who also opposed the CMP Corridor, told UPI. "The old model is the electrons all moving in one direction, but the new model will be electrons moving all directions."

Public power advocates in the Pine Tree State say investor-owned utilities are standing in the way of increased renewable energy generation -- like that produced at Revision Energy in Rockland, Maine -- they want Maine voters to bless a public takeover of the state's two largest private utilities. Photo by Crispins C. Crispian/Wikimedia Com

More green energy

Public power advocates insist a grid owned by Mainers -- and "governed by an independent Board of Directors made-up of Mainers elected to staggered terms by the people of Maine," according to Our Power -- will embrace, not constrain, renewable energy projects.

Last year, a group of solar industry leaders complained that Central Maine Power was sabotaging renewable projects by slow-walking interconnection studies, which are reviews required by the non-profit regional transmission organization ISO-New England, and asked Maine's Public Utilities Commission to investigate.

Under pressure from regulators, CMP admitted it had "failed to meet its obligations."

For their part, Central Maine Power says it is working to bring major renewable projects online.

"CMP has brought nearly 600 MW of solar power onto the grid -- 100MW just last year. Enough to power about 82,000 homes," Catharine Hartnett, manager of corporate communications at Avangrid, told UPI in an email.

CMP's parent company, Avangrid, is a major investor in renewable energy projects around the world. That's an asset CMP claims can help them accelerate the decarbonization process in Maine.

"While there is no market overlap, the corporate industry expertise and experience that can be shared between practices helps utility companies plan and prepare to bring renewables of all kinds onto our systems," Hartnett said.

Currently, shareholders cover the costs of investing in green technologies. Should Mainers assume ownership of the state's utilities, she said taxpayers will shoulder that risk.

"Significant grid and substation upgrades and improvements, energy storage solutions and other novel investments are made by shareholders -- so any risk falls to them," Hartnett said. "A consumer-owned utility would have to bond or distill this kind of investment into rates and customers assume all the risk."

Our Power and its allies counter that the ability to borrow at low rates and redirect profits currently flowing to foreign shareholders will allow a consumer-owned utility to invest more aggressively in grid modernization and green technologies.

Our Power's takeover plan calls for a non-profit company, Pine Tree Power, to purchase the infrastructure of Central Maine Power and Versant using tax-exempt revenue bonds at 2% to 3% interest rates.

Windmills spin on a wind farm near Charles City, Iowa in February 2009 after the Obama administration's stimulus plan boosted the U.S. wind-power industry by paying for new transmission lines. File Photo by Brian Kersey/UPI | License Photo

Monopoly profits

Electric utilities don't make money like most businesses.

They don't exactly sell a product, and usually don't compete -- there aren't rival power lines running down most city blocks. Instead, utilities make money by controlling the infrastructure that carries electricity from producers to consumers.

Without a competitive market dictating the price of this infrastructure, most places have public utility commissions that set guaranteed rates of return. While commissions have some discretion, they're significantly handcuffed by legal precedents guaranteeing regulated monopolies a sizable return on equity.

In the United States, regulated electrical monopolies earn an average of 10.1% return on equity.

Maine state Rep. Seth Berry see this legally bound economic arrangement as one of the major problems with investor-owned utilities.

"Investor-owned utilities really make their money by buying stuff," Berry told UPI. "More poles, more trucks, more computers."

"And because they have a total bias towards buying stuff, and not toward hiring people to do smart things, every time you come up with a problem that they need to solve, say like new technology that can save time and money and allow the grid to operatively smartly, their solution is always, rather than a smart grid, something really big, really dumb and really expensive."

"I'm not casting blame -- it is their fiduciary duty to prioritize profits," Berry said. "The incentives are fundamentally perverse and rigged against our interests."

Berry likens the power grid to a road system for electricity.

"If we were to turn over our road network to a foreign for-profit monopoly, would we have an efficient road network and would it work in the best interest of citizens?"

Though plenty of the utilities' revenue pays the salaries and wages of Mainers, the profits guaranteed to Central Maine Power and Versant don't stay in the Pine Tree State.

That's because the two utilities are owned by foreign companies: Versant by Emera, a Canadian Crown corporation; and Central Maine Power by Avangrid, a company in which Spain-based energy giant Iberdrola holds a majority stake.

Our Power wants to buy back the electric system's roads and keep Mainers' money in Maine.

"We want to own the infrastructure," said Grohoski. "It's like buying a house at an affordable interest rate instead of renting forever."

As wind energy projects across the U.S. increase, Dallas-based Tri Global Energy, whose wind turbines are pictured, says it is responsible for 28% of wind projects in Texas -- which leads the nation in wind-based energy capacity -- 24.5% of projects in Illinois and 43% of projects in Indiana. Photo courtesy of Tri Global Energy

Public power isn't a panacea

According to the American Public Power Association, of the 114 U.S. cities with the stated goal of going 100% renewable, six have already met their aim: Aspen, Colorado; Burlington, Vermont; Georgetown, Texas; Greensburg, Kansas; Kodiak Island, Alaska; and Rockport, Missouri.

Of those six, five are served by publicly owned and controlled utilities. That's not a coincidence, according to public power advocates.

"The bottom line is that public power communities can exercise local decision-making to drive the utility's priorities -- whether they are related to renewables, affordability, reliability/resilience, or anything else," Tobias Sellier, senior director of communications at the American Public Power Association, told UPI in an email.

But public control doesn't guarantee a greener, smarter grid, according to John Farrell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and director of the Energy Democracy Initiative.

"Institutional change is hard," Farrell told UPI. "Any institution, public or private, is generally resistant to change. We have crappy municipal-owned utilities, investor-owned utilities -- institutional change is hard."

In Nebraska, the only state serviced entirely by a publicly owned electrical utility, ratepayers enjoy relatively cheap energy, but not a particularly green grid. A majority of the state's electricity is still supplied by coal plants.

While Farrell, who advocates for a more democratic and decentralized power grid, said consumer-owned utilities are typically more respondent to the needs of citizens, he also said public utilities can have perverse incentives because they come to count on the revenues generated by captive consumers.

Efficiency programs, efforts to bring distributed energy resources online and other cost-saving strategies often translate to less money heading to a city's bank account.

"There are some 2,000 municipal utilities in the U.S., but still only a handful have gone 100% renewable," Farrell said. "Many more continue to drag their heels, even in cities like Los Angeles, where clean energy is really popular."

Unhappy customers are everywhere

For years, Maine's two largest utilities have been plagued by abysmal consumer satisfaction ratings, as well as regular and lengthy outages -- all while charging some of the highest rates in the country.

Last year, a survey of residential energy consumers across the country, conducted by J.D. Power, revealed Central Maine Power as the country's worst rated utility. Versant wasn't much more popular, receiving the fourth lowest consumer satisfaction rating.

What's more, Mainers fork over a premium for their dissatisfaction, paying the 11th highest electricity rates in the country, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

And with newly approved rate hikes, the average household can expect to see their electricity bill increase by roughly $30 a month in 2022.

The conditions for frustration are present across the country, with energy prices rising and the threat of climate change and extreme weather exposing unprepared utilities.

In Boulder, Co., where voters are more environmentally conscious than most, frustrations with the region's private utility -- and its reluctance to go green -- motivated citizens to vote for a public takeover of the local power grid.

Those plans were tabled after the pandemic constrained the city's budgets, and the city's government is once again working with the utility to shrink Boulder's carbon footprint.

The newest agreement between the city and Excel Energy is characterized by a stronger commitment to the renewable energy and energy efficiency programming.

"What we were able to build in were some guarantees in emissions reductions, in addition to some exit ramps that are built in to allow us out of the franchise if Excel isn't meeting emissions reductions or if the community decides that we are not getting what we want out of the partnership," Jonathan Koehn, director of Boulder's Climate Initiative, told UPI.

"The municipalization effort kind of gave us a seat at the table and allowed us to negotiate more effectively with the utility," Koehn said.

Elsewhere, state lawmakers and concerned citizens are considering taking up the fight for public power.

In New York, a pair of bills backed by labor and climate activists -- one already introduced and another on the way -- call for the expansion of green energy infrastructure by the New York Power Authority, as well as the elimination of for-profit utilities.

In New Mexico, regulators recently rejected Avangrid's proposed multi-billion-dollar acquisition of the state's largest electric provider, with commissioners claiming the energy giant was not the right partner to help the state shift toward more renewable energy production.

Now, the state's Public Regulation Commission, at the request of legislators, is preparing to assess the pros and cons of publicly owned electric power.

The fight ahead

One in seven Americans gets their power from a publicly owned utility, but most public utilities have always been public. Public takeovers are rare, and most successful ones have involved modestly sized municipalities.

The largest public takeover occurred in the 1980s, when New York's state government turned a bankrupt Long Island power company into a consumer-owned utility.

Despite the dearth of precedents, One Power say they're committed to public ownership of Maine's power grid.

"We have looked at other options, but this is the only real remedy," said Berry. "We've done the math here in Maine, and both through the blended economics study and subsequent review of it, we know this makes the most sense and that rate payers will save money."