Showing posts sorted by date for query URUGUAY. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query URUGUAY. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Monday, May 12, 2025

Xinhua Commentary: China and LatAm join hands to draw blueprint for next decade of cooperation


Source: Xinhua
Editor: huaxia
2025-05-13 13:20:45
by Xinhua writers Zhao Kai, Meng Yifei

MEXICO CITY, May 12 (Xinhua) -- Amid the accelerating changes in the global landscape, the 4th ministerial meeting of the China-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Forum opened Tuesday in Beijing.

The return to Beijing 10 years after the forum's debut ministerial meeting marks a significant milestone. It is expected to further advance the vision of a China-Latin America community with a shared future and enhance cooperation among the developing countries of the Global South.

United by a commitment to multilateralism and self-improvement as Global South nations, China and Latin America have achieved plenty over the past decade. Against this backdrop, the forum has grown into a vital platform that enhances mutual political trust, aligns development strategies, and strengthens people-to-people bonds.

Over the past years, close high-level contacts and strategic communication have guided China-LAC relations through a shifting international landscape, paving the way for a new stage of equality, mutual benefit, innovation, and openness, with tangible benefits for both peoples.

Deepened political trust was evident when Panama, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Honduras established or restored diplomatic ties with China, and when Venezuela, Uruguay, Colombia, and Nicaragua upgraded or established a strategic partnership with China.

Notably, relations between Brazil and China have been elevated to foster a community with a shared future for a more just world and a sustainable planet. The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is contributing to development in more than 20 economies in the LAC region, highlighted by multiple landmark cooperation projects currently underway.

China is now Latin America's second-largest trading partner, and the region has become the second-largest destination for overseas Chinese investment, with 600.8 billion U.S. dollars in stock by the end of 2023. Currently, China has five free trade partners in the region. The country has been the largest market for Chilean cherries for years, and Chinese companies account for 37 percent of automobiles sold in Ecuador.

The China-LAC cooperation is also expanding into new sectors, such as renewable energy, digital technology, and transnational e-commerce, with dynamics driven by successful bilateral forums on science and technology innovation, digital technology cooperation, and space cooperation, all under the framework of the China-CELAC Forum. China's cloud computing, big data and AI technologies have widely empowered local industries to facilitate digital transformation.

High-level BRI construction is also helping advance the region's industrial upgrade, such as fully equipping Trinidad and Tobago's Phoenix Park Industrial Estate with a state-of-the-art 5G network.

The deepening of China-LAC relations has boosted employment, including the creation of higher-income jobs through BRI projects. Among recent examples is the April reopening of the Mexico City Metro's key Line 1, a project assisted by Chinese expertise aimed at improving residents' transit experience.

Meanwhile, a wide range of programs have strengthened cultural exchanges and the people-to-people bonds. These include Chinese government scholarships and vocational training programs for CELAC member countries, the China-LAC Youth Development Forum, the China-LAC Cultural Exchange Year, and China's foreign aid projects aimed at improving livelihoods.

Standing at a new historical starting point, China-LAC relations and cooperation are expected to build on the previous accomplishments and enter a new era replete with opportunities and broader prospects.

The China-CELAC Forum meeting in Beijing is sending a strong message of unity from the Global South, particularly in response to the increasing uncertainty and unpredictability stemming from rising unilateralism, protectionism, and bullying actions.

Undoubtedly, enhancing China-LAC relations and collaboration will contribute to stability and foster positive momentum in a tumultuous world. ■

China’s Xi slams ‘bullying’ in veiled swipe at US as Beijing hosts Latin America leaders


Leaders and officials from Latin America and the Caribbean have descended on the Chinese capital for the China-CELAC Forum.PHOTO: EPA-EFE

UPDATED May 13, 2025

Beijing - Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed on May 13 to deepen ties with Latin America and condemned “bullying” in a thinly veiled swipe at the United States, as he addressed regional leaders in Beijing.

Leaders and officials from Latin America and the Caribbean have descended on the Chinese capital for the China-CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) Forum.

Beijing has stepped up economic and political cooperation with Latin American nations in recent years and has urged a united front against US President Donald Trump’s recent maelstrom of tariffs.

Addressing leaders on May 13, Mr Xi hailed China’s burgeoning ties with the region.

“Although China lies far from the Latin American and Caribbean region, the two sides have a time-honoured history of friendly exchanges,” he said at the opening ceremony, likening the summit to a “great, sturdy tree”.

“Only through unity and cooperation can countries safeguard global peace and stability and promote worldwide development and prosperity,” Mr Xi said, pledging US$9.2 billion (S$12 billion) in credit towards “development” for the region. He also warned of “bloc confrontation”.

Mr Xi’s remarks come a day after the United States and China announced a deal to drastically reduce tit-for-tat tariffs for 90 days, an outcome Mr Trump dubbed a “total reset”.

Under that agreement, the United States agreed to lower its tariffs on Chinese goods to 30 per cent while China will reduce its own to 10 per cent.

The deal marked a major de-escalation of a gruelling trade war between the world’s two largest economies which threw global markets into turmoil.

Mr Xi told delegates on May 13: “There are no winners in tariff wars or trade wars.”

“Bullying and hegemony will only lead to self-isolation,” the Chinese leader warned.

“The world today is undergoing accelerated transformations unseen in a century, with multiple risks intertwined and overlapping,” Mr Xi said.

Among notable attendees at the forum is Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who arrived in Beijing on May 10 for a five-day state visit.

Also present is Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who last week said he intends to sign an accord to join Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative during his visit.

Two-thirds of Latin American countries have joined Beijing’s trillion-dollar BRI infrastructure programme, and China has surpassed the US as the biggest trading partner of Brazil, Peru and Chile, among others. AFP
More on this Topic

Wednesday, May 07, 2025

 

World’s Largest Battery-Electric Ship Launched by Incat

largest battery-electric ship
China Zorrila will use the largest battery power system when it enters service in South America (Incat)

Published May 2, 2025 3:40 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

 

Incat is heralding a milestone in the shipping industry as it floated out the world’s largest battery-electric ship which it says is also the largest electric vehicle of its kind ever built. The ferry China Zorrilla (approximately 14,000 gross tons) being built for Argentina-based Buquebus was floated from the building dock today at the Incat shipyard in Hobart, Tasmania in Australia.

Officially known as Hull 096 currently, the vessel is 130 meters (426 feet) in length and when completed will carry up to 2,100 passengers and 225 vehicles. It was originally ordered in 2019 and then billed simply as the largest aluminum ship and designed for service on the River Plate running between Argentina and Uruguay.

Discussions began between Incat and the shipowner and in 2023 they reported they were investigating the possibility of replacing the planned LNG powerplant with a battery-electric solution. The original concept called for four dual-fuel engines using LNG and providing a maximum speed of over 40 knots.

Incat reports the ship is now being equipped with over 250 tonnes of batteries and an Energy Storage System (ESS) boasting more than 40 megawatt-hours of installed capacity making it possible to run only on battery power. The ESS, which is four times larger than any previous maritime installation in the world, is connected to eight electric-driven waterjets and supplied by technology partner Wärtsilä. Corvus Energy was to develop the ESS system.

The shipyard boats that this combination of technology sets a new global benchmark for the shipping industry. It is being called a defining moment for maritime sustainability.

 

The ferry was floated out becomes the largest electric vehicle of its kind (Incat)

 

“This is a historic day – not just for Incat, but for the future of maritime transport,” said Incat Chairman Robert Clifford. “We’ve been building world-leading vessels here in Tasmania for more than four decades, and Hull 096 is the most ambitious, most complex, and most important project we’ve ever delivered. This ship changes the game.”

Work will now continue completing the vessel’s interior, which includes a 2,300 square meter duty-free retail deck – the largest shopping space on any ferry in the world. Final fit-out, battery installation, and energy system integration will take place ahead of sea trials later this year on the River Derwent. 

Incat previously reported the vessel was scheduled for delivery before the end of this year. The ship is the ninth Incat-built vessel for Buquebus.

 

Media Organisations Demand End to Israel’s Genocide



Peoples Dispatch 

On World Press Freedom Day, media organizations from across the globe released a joint statement demanding an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.


Over 50 media organizations from countries across the world released a statement on World Press Freedom Day, honoring the Palestinian journalists who have been killed and those that continue to risk their lives exposing Israel’s genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip. The organizations demand press freedom, which cannot exist while genocide continues and journalists are targeted.

The full statement reads:

May 3 marks World Press Freedom Day, which will be commemorated this year amid Israel’s ongoing genocidal aggression against the Gaza Strip and countries of the region.

Since this genocide began, tens of thousands of innocent people, most of them children, women, and elderly have been murdered and tens of thousands of others have been injured. The aggression has included a total systematic destruction of the Gaza Strip and its infrastructure, in addition to forced displacement, blockade, and the starvation of the people in Gaza.

Amid this barbarity, the people of the world have stood firmly with the Palestinian people in demanding an end to the genocide in Gaza, an end to Israel’s colonial occupation of Palestine, and an end to its aggression against Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria. The unprecedented outpouring of international solidarity and support has been in great part due to the work of Palestinian journalists who have sacrificed their lives to document this genocide and tell the stories happening on the ground, forever shifting public opinion against the Israeli state and its primary backer, the United States.

Their immeasurable sacrifice has had a toll, Palestinian journalists have been singled out by Israeli forces, who have bombed media offices, journalists’ accommodations, and press vans in Palestine and Lebanon.

Israel’s war on the people of the region has been the most deadly in recent history for journalists, with over 200 killed, and the number continuing to rise.

All of this has happened while the regimes that boast human rights, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, international law, and international conventions are drowning in the darkness of silence.

Further undermining of press freedom has taken place on digital platforms where texts mentioning “zionist” “genocide” and “Palestine” are censored, shadow-banned, and deleted.

On this World Press Freedom Day, we declare that there can be no press freedom as long as genocide is taking place and as long as our colleagues in Palestine and Lebanon are targeted in a futile attempt to extinguish the voices that clamor against Israel’s genocide and occupation.

We call on people of conscience, journalists, and media outlets to join us in upholding and defending true press freedom and to continue reporting on Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people and the peoples of the region.

We extend our greetings to the journalists of conscience all over the globe

Glory and eternity to journalist martyrs

May 3, 2025

Signatories:

  1. Taqadoom, Kuwait
  2. Peoples Dispatch, International
  3. African Stream, Kenya
  4. Al Akhbar English, Lebanon
  5. Al Hadaf Magazine, Palestine
  6. Al Maydan, Sudan
  7. Al Nahj, Morocco
  8. Al Nida, Lebanon
  9. Al Nour Newspaper, Syria
  10. Altaqadomi, Bahrain
  11. ANRED, Argentina
  12. ARG Medios, Argentina
  13. Barricada TV, Argentina
  14. Brasil de Fato, Brazil
  15. BreakThrough News, US
  16. Capire, International
  17. Colombia Informa, Colombia
  18. Coloquio Internacional Patria, Cuba
  19. Comuna Audiovisual, Argentina
  20. Comunicambio, Peru
  21. ComunicaSul, Brazil
  22. CovertAction Magazine, US
  23. Dialogos do Sul Global, Brazil
  24. Dominio Cuba, Cuba
  25. El Grito del Sur, Argentina
  26. Europe for Palestine, Europe
  27. Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism, UK
  28. Globetrotter, International
  29. Insurrecta, Ecuador
  30. International Magazine, India
  31. La Komuna Noticias, Peru
  32. Laborans, Turkey
  33. Liberation News, US
  34. Madar, International
  35. Mint Press News, US
  36. Nawafth, Egypt
  37. Nida al Wattan, Jordan
  38. Opera Mundi, Brazil
  39. Pagine Esteri, Italy
  40. Palestine Chronicle, Palestine
  41. Pan African TV, Ghana
  42. Periferia UY, Uruguay
  43. Prensa Rural, Colombia
  44. Radio Gráfica, Argentina
  45. Red Alterna, Colombia
  46. Republic Palestine, Palestine
  47. Resumen Latinoamericano, Argentina
  48. Revista Crisis, Argentina
  49. Revista Crisis, Ecuador
  50. Sout Alshaab FM, Lebanon
  51. Sout Alshaab, Tunisia
  52. Tareeq Alshaap, Iraq
  53. Telesur English, Latin America and the Caribbean
  54. Telesur, Latin America and the Caribbean
  55. Thaqafa Jadeda Magazine, Iraq
  56. The Insight Newspaper, Ghana
  57. The Katie Halper Show, US
  58. Venezuela Analysis, Venezuela

 

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch

Thursday, May 01, 2025


Donald Trump is weakening US influence in Latin America


Published 
Email
US president Donald Trump hosts the annual Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House on April 21, 2025, in Washington, DC.

First published in Jacobin.

Indignation and resistance to Donald Trump’s bullying, deportations, and economic reprisals are spreading across Latin America. Though the mainstream media has amply covered pushback from Canada and Western Europe and the street protests and town halls in the United States, along with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders’s Fighting Oligarchy tour, it has not given much attention to the growing defiance to the south.

Opposition to Trump throughout Latin America is taking on many forms. In some places, like Mexico, presidents have forged a united front over the issue of tariffs, which includes prominent businesspeople and some leaders of the opposition. Diplomatic initiatives by other presidents, such as Lula of Brazil, are aiming to build a unified Latin American stand against Trump’s measures by shoring up regional organizations, principally the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

The opposition has also included street mobilizations. Most recently, Panamanians reacted to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s visit on April 12 by taking to the streets. The National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights (Frenadeso), one of the main sponsors, denounced Washington’s veiled schemes to establish four military bases in the country. The protests intimidated right-wing president José Raúl Mulino; though called a “traitor” by Frenadeso, Mulino warned Hegseth of the danger of implementing the plan. “Do you want to create a mess?” he warned, and added that “what we’ve put in place here would set the country on fire.” Frenadeso also denounced Mulino’s capitulation to pressure from Washington that resulted in Panama’s exit from China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Three issues have galvanized the pushback against Trump in Latin America: tariffs, deportations, and Washington’s policy of exclusion. The latter includes ostracizing Cuba and Venezuela from the Latin American community of nations as well as rhetoric and actions designed to drive China from the continent.

Trump’s policies have also intensified the polarization in Latin America that pits left and center-left governments against the far right, which is closely aligned with Washington and Trump in particular. The indignation produced by Trump’s inflammatory remarks on the Panama Canal and Gulf of Mexico and his policy of mass deportation and tariffs to likely to strengthen the Latin America left at the expense of the Right.

They also stimulate anti-Americanism, which according to Bloomberg columnist Juan Pablo Spinetto is “gaining new life in Latin America.” Spinetto writes that the harshness of his take-it-or-leave-it approach will . . . give new force to the anti-Americanism . . . undermining . . . interest in cooperating and establishing common goals.”

In one example of the repudiation of one of the many heinous measures taken by the Trump administration, the prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, thanked Cuban international health workers for their assistance during the COVID-19 epidemic. On February 25, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had announced sanctions against government officials and their family who were “complicit” in promoting the Cuban health missions — the measure also threatens “complicit” nations with trade restrictions. Mottley announced that she would not back down in her defense of the Cuban missions and said that “if the cost of it is the loss of my visa to the US, then so be it. But what matters to us is principles.”

To make matters worse for Rubio, in a joint session in Jamaica after the secretary of state hailed the measure against the Cuban health missions, Prime Minister Andrew Holness in effect rebuked him. Holness said, “In terms of Cuban doctors in Jamaica, let us be clear, the Cuban doctors in Jamaica have been incredibly helpful to us.” Similar statements were made by the prime ministers of Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Defeat at the OAS

On March 10, Albert Ramdin of Suriname was elected secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS) after his only competitor, Paraguay’s foreign minister, Rubén Ramírez Lezcano, dropped out of the race. In its reporting on the event, the mainstream media largely took their cue from the claim by White House envoy for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone, that “the OAS Secretary General will be an ally of the United States.” He added that Ramdin’s Suriname government is “on the right path economically . . . bringing in foreign investments that’s non-Chinese.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. Ramdin opposes US sanctions and favors dialogue with the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro. In contrast, his rival, Ramírez, had pledged to promote regime change in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

Furthermore, China, with its OAS observer status, had supported Ramdin’s candidacy, while the right-wing, pro-Trump governments of Argentina and El Salvador backed Ramírez. Ramdin defends the “one China” policy; in a 2006 trip to Beijing, he stated that his goal was to “expand and deepen” the relationship between China and the OAS, a strategy that he evidently continues to support.

Ramdin owes his nomination not only to the unanimous support of Caribbean nations, but also the joint endorsement by the progressive governments of Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, Bolivia, and Chile. It was reported that Lula’s initiative was a response to Ramírez’s trip to Washington where he met with Trump advisors, after which he visited Mar-a-Lago. There he posed for photo ops with Trump and Elon Musk, which were seen as a virtual endorsement of his OAS candidacy.

Rubio’s congratulations notwithstanding, Ramdin’s replacement of Washington lackey Luis Almagro as OAS secretary general can’t be to the liking of the Trump administration. The right-wing Latin American press was more up front. Argentina’s Derecha Diario reported that Ramdin, with a “troubling trajectory aligned with socialism . . . represents a threat to the independence of the OAS and seeks to benefit the leftist dictatorial regimes in Latin America.”  The article went on to claim that Ramdin has admitted that “Suriname’s diplomatic missions . . . work ‘hand in hand’ with those of China.” The same line on Ramdin is being pushed by Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and cochair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC).

If the past is any indication, the Trump administration may attempt to blackmail the OAS by threatening to reduce its contributions to the organization, currently representing 60 percent of its budget. In fact, some Trump advisors have privately raised that possibility, and Washington has already frozen “voluntary contributions” to the OAS. The prospect of the United States completely pulling out of what it considers to be an unfriendly OAS would, however, dovetail with the vision of Mexico’s former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who favors replacing the OAS with a Latin American organization modeled after the European Union.

Challenging the hegemon

After Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on Mexican and Canadian imports, Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, called a rally for March 6 at Mexico City’s central plaza to announce retaliatory measures. Although Trump postponed the tariffs, Sheinbaum held the rally anyway and converted it into a festival to celebrate Washington’s turnaround.

In front of an estimated crowd of 350,000 Mexicans, some of whom held signs reading “Mexico Is to Be Respected,” Sheinbaum said, “We are not extremists, but we are clear that . . . we cannot cede our national sovereignty . . . as a result of decisions by foreign governments or hegemons.”

The showdown with Trump has helped forge a “common front,” a term used by Francisco Cervantes Díaz, president of Mexico’s main business organization, who pledged that at least three hundred businesspeople would attend the March 6 rally. Some members of the Mexican opposition to Sheinbaum and her ruling Morena party also took part.

But the nation’s two main traditional parties, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the National Action Party (PAN), refused to unite behind the president. At the outset, they blamed the governing party’s drug policy for triggering Trump’s measures. Then the PRI-PAN’s standard-bearer, Xóchitl Gálvez, called Sheinbaum’s threat to enact counter-tariffs “ill-advised.”  The phenomenon of a broad “common front” behind the president being pitted against a hardened right opposition is just one more indication of how polarized politics has become throughout the region.

Sheinbaum’s decisiveness resonated in Mexico, with her approval rating climbing to 85 percent. Her reaction to Trump stood in sharp contrast with the submissiveness of Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, who immediately headed to Mar-a-Lago after Washington first announced the tariff hikes. Panamanian president Mulino also buckled under.

Immediately following Trump’s initial tariff announcement, Lula and Sheinbaum spoke by phone on the need to strengthen CELAC to serve as an alternative to US commercial ties. Lula, like Sheinbaum, combined caution with firmness (at one point he called Trump a “bully”). Lula’s action on the international front is designed to promote a multilateral response to Trump’s tariff surge. In late March, he traveled to Japan to gain support for a customs agreement between that nation and MERCOSUR, which takes in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay.

The collective approach to tariffs that the progressive Latin American governments are now proposing, with Lula at the helm, is diametrically opposed to the bilateral agreements that the United States has pushed in the region since 2005. That year, Latin American progressive presidents led by Hugo Chávez delivered US-style multilateralism in the form of the Free Trade Area of the Americas proposal (FTAA) a fatal blow, much to the chagrin of then president George W. Bush.

The polarization that pits progressive governments, which favor Latin American unity, against those on the right, which sign bilateral trade agreements with Washington, was on full display at CELAC’s ninth summit held in Honduras in April. The rightist presidents of Argentina, Paraguay, Peru, and Ecuador were conspicuously absent, while those on the left side of the spectrum, representing Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Honduras, and Venezuela, participated.

Especially significant was Lula’s insistence that countries in the region move away from the dollar by trading in local currencies. In an obvious reference to Trump, Lula said, “The more united our economies are, the more protected we are from unilateral actions.” And the summit’s host, Honduran president Xiomara Castro, remarked, “We cannot leave this historic assembly . . . without debating the new economic order that the United States is imposing on us with tariffs and immigratory policies.”

The right-wing presidents of Argentina and Paraguay, Javier Milei and Santiago Peña, met separately in Asunción to reject CELAC’s united position on tariffs. Their representatives at CELAC refused to sign the final document called the “Declaration of Tegucigalpa,” which opposed unilateral international sanctions and Trump’s tariffs.

Both nations objected to Xiomara Castro’s use of the term “sufficient consensus” to refer to support for the declaration at the summit. Arguing that the term does not exist in international law, Paraguay questioned whether the final document could be issued in the name of the organization and unsuccessfully insisted that the dissenting position of both countries be officially recognized.

The question of the appropriateness of the phrase “sufficient consensus” was taken up by the Right throughout the region. But the issue went beyond semantics. The intention was clearly to discredit, if not sabotage, steps taken to achieve Latin American unity.

Polarization hurts the right

Trump’s policies have intensified the extreme polarization in which the far right has replaced the center right at the same time the Left has gained influence. A case in point is Venezuela. The deportation of 238 Venezuelans from the United States to an overcrowded for-profit prison in El Salvador, and others to Guantanamo, has horrified Venezuelans.

Some have taken to the street to protest, including scores of family members holding photos of victims. One typical sign read “Jhon William Chacín Gómez — He’s Innocent.” Chacín’s wife and sister told reporters that his only crime was his tattoos. In a show of pro-Venezuelan solidary and in defiance of the repressive atmosphere that exists in the nation, protesters in El Salvador also hold signs with photos of individual Venezuelan prisoners.

The issue has put the Venezuelan right, led by María Corina Machado, in a bind. Machado knows that even the slightest criticism of Trump’s deportation policy will lose her the support of the president. For that reason, she has firmly backed Trump on the issue. She has said, “We respect the measures taken in the framework of the law by democratic governments like the United States . . . to identify, detain, and penalize the Tren de Aragua, and we trust in the rule of law that exists in those democratic nations.” Machado calls the Tren de Aragua gang “the executing arm of the Maduro regime,” thus feeding into Trump’s narrative that demonizes Venezuelan immigrants.

The issue of deportations has divided the Venezuelan opposition more than it already is. The hard-line opposition that supported the candidacy of Machado and then her surrogate Edmundo González is now split. In April, the two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles was expelled from one of the nation’s major parties, Primero Justicia, due to his differences with Machado, one of them being on the issue of the deportations. Capriles asked with regard to Venezuelan deportees, “What is their crime? What is the criteria for proving it?” He went on to demand “respect for human rights,” adding “it is unacceptable to characterize all [Venezuelan] migrants as delinquents.” José Guerra, a leading member of the Venezuelan opposition, told me that “there’s no doubt that the issue of the deportations is playing a fundamental role in splitting the opposition into two blocs.”

The irony of Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

It’s ironic that the twenty-first-century president who proclaims the Monroe Doctrine as the cornerstone of US policy south of the border is distancing Latin America so much from Washington. Events since Trump took office that portend a worsening of relations between the two include the election of an OAS secretary general who doesn’t share Trump’s objectives and may result in Washington’s defunding of or complete withdrawal from the organization; Trump’s remarks that display complete insensitivity to nationalist sentiment in the region; his weaponization of tariffs that single out Venezuela and Nicaragua for special treatment and serves as a warning for governments such as Brazil, Colombia, and Uruguay; the gutting of foreign aid programs; and mass deportations. In addition, the fervent anti-China campaign that invokes the Monroe Doctrine will clash with the reality of Chinese economic expansion in the continent.

If Latin America does move away from the US camp, the blame can’t be placed entirely on Trump. His bullying is just a more extreme version of the imperialism that has always characterized US actions in the region. Progressive governments there now seem more determined than ever to put a check on it.

Steve Ellner is an associate managing editor of Latin American Perspectives and a retired professor at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela, where he lived for over forty years. His latest book is his coedited Latin American Social Movements and Progressive Governments: Creative Tensions Between Resistance and Convergence.

Monday, April 21, 2025

 

Tusi (a mixture of ketamine and other drugs) is on the rise among NYC nightclub attendees



Society for the Study of Addiction




Tusi”, also known as “tucibí” or “pink cocaine”, is a drug concoction that emerged in Latin America and Europe within the past decade and is becoming increasingly popular in the USA.  A new study published in the scientific journal Addiction estimates that in 2024, 2.7% of electronic dance music-nightclub attending adults in New York City (NYC) used Tusi in the past year, with higher use among Hispanic people and people who use other drugs.  

Consumers often don’t understand what Tusi is when they take it.  Tusi is commonly confused with the 2C family of drugs – psychedelics – because it is a phonetic translation of “2C”. Tusi is also commonly called “tucibí” or “tusibí” (the phonetic translation of 2C-B, a particular type of psychedelic).  And it is also often called “pink cocaine” (“cocaina rosada” in Spanish).  All of these names have the potential to confuse people who use, who may believe they are taking a psychedelic drug or largely unadulterated cocaine. 

In fact, Tusi is a drug mixture that rarely contains 2C drugs and most commonly contains ketamine and MDMA (ecstasy), sometimes in combination with cocaine.  And therein lies the potential danger.

Lead author Dr Joseph Palamar, of NYU Grossman School of Medicine, explains: “People who use illicit drugs are often at risk of using drugs adulterated or even replaced by other drugs.  But Tusi puts people who use drugs at an even higher risk, partly because it is easily confused with two other types of drugs – 2C series or cocaine – and partly because Tusi is pretty much always a concoction of various drugs. This greatly increases the risk of adverse or unexpected effects.”

Tusi use in this study was determined by self-report.  The study surveyed a sample of 1,465 adults attending 124 electronic dance music events hosted by NYC nightclubs from January through November 2024.  Participants took a survey on an electronic tablet before entering the nightclub. The survey results were used to estimate prevalence of Tusi use among all people who attended an electronic dance music event at a NYC nightclub in 2024.

Ketamine/MDMA drug mixtures marketed as “tucibí” or “pink cocaine” have been reported from Spain since about 2018.  In Latin America, drug checking programs in Argentina have been testing the contents of Tusi since at least 2019, in Uruguay since at least 2020, and in Columbia and Chile since at least 2021.  Systematic drug checking data focusing on Tusi have been lacking in the US.

-- Ends –

For editors:

This paper is available to read online on the Wiley Online Library for one month after the embargo has lifted (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.70069) or you may request an early copy from Jean O’Reilly, Editorial Manager, Addictionjean@addictionjournal.org.

To speak with lead author Dr Joseph Palamar, please contact him at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine by email (joseph.palamar@nyulangone.org).

Full citation for article: Palamar JJ, Abukahok N, Acosta P, Krotulski AJ, Walton SE, Stang B, and Cleland CM.  Tusi Use among the New York City Nightclub-Attending Population. Addiction. 2025. DOI: 10.1111/add.70069

Primary funding:  National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) award numbers R01DA057289, R01DA060207, and P30DA01104.

Declaration of interests: Dr. Palamar has consulted for the Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program. The authors have no potential conflicts to declare.

Addiction (www.addictionjournal.org) is a monthly international scientific journal publishing peer-reviewed research reports on alcohol, substances, tobacco, gambling, editorials, and other debate pieces. Owned by the Society for the Study of Addiction, it has been in continuous publication since 1884.

Sunday, April 20, 2025

ENVIRONMENT: UNPACKING URBAN RESILIENCE

Sheheryar Khan 
Published April 20, 2025   
DAWN




The term ‘resilience’ has become a mainstay in global development and climate discourse, championed as a guiding principle for policy responses to climate change. Government institutions and civil society alike present it as a catch-all solution for addressing environment and climate-induced crises.

However, in the context of Pakistan’s rapidly urbanising landscape, where environmental vulnerabilities are intertwined with socio-economic precarity, the concept of resilience requires a deeper examination. Who is expected to be resilient, and what does resilience mean for those most affected by climate and environment risks?

In a country repeatedly battered by floods, heatwaves, resource scarcity and toxic levels of air quality, the resilience of urban populations cannot be reduced to mere adaptive capacity, it must be understood in relation to systemic inequalities, governance failures and the political economy of risk.

Resilience, as conceptualised in environmental and urban studies, refers to the ability of individuals, communities or systems to withstand, recover from and adapt to external shocks. Scholars studying resilience emphasise that it is not just about enduring crises, but about how social, economic and political systems interact to shape the capacity to respond to them.

In the face of recurring environmental disasters such as floods, heatwaves, resource scarcity and toxic air, what does it mean to promote ‘resilience’? Is it truly addressing the root causes or merely applying temporary fixes?

However, in Pakistan’s development sector, resilience is often framed in terms of technical solutions, such as infrastructure projects or disaster management strategies, without addressing the deeper social and economic inequalities that make certain groups more vulnerable in the first place. In Pakistan, where informal settlements, weak infrastructure and governance challenges exacerbate climate risks, resilience cannot be examined in isolation from broader socio-political and economic factors.

VULNERABILITY, RISK AND RESILIENCE

To meaningfully engage with resilience, it is crucial to distinguish it from vulnerability and risk. Vulnerability refers to the susceptibility of individuals or communities to harm due to their socio-economic and spatial positioning.

In Pakistan’s urban areas, factors such as informal housing, lack of access to water and sanitation and socio-economic marginalisation heighten vulnerability, making certain populations more exposed to external shocks. Risk, on the other hand, is the probability of a hazard or an external shock intersecting with vulnerability to produce adverse outcomes.

In cities such as Karachi and Lahore, risk is not just an environmental issue, but also one of class, as low-income communities often live in areas that have inadequate drainage system capacities that are vulnerable to urban flooding, thereby increasing their risk.

Resilience, in this context, must go beyond survival and instead focus on transforming the conditions that produce risk and vulnerability in the first place.

LIVED REALITIES

For many urban dwellers in Pakistan, resilience is not just about bouncing back from crises, but about navigating ongoing hardship and uncertainty. In recent years, extreme weather events and environmental crises, such as urban flooding, heatwaves and poor air quality, have exposed the inadequacies of resilience-building efforts that emphasise short-term recovery, while ignoring long-standing structural issues.

Major cities including Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad experience frequent urban flooding due to poor drainage systems and unregulated urban expansion, disproportionately affecting informal settlements that remain excluded from formal planning processes.

In these spaces, resilience is often portrayed as a community-driven effort but, in reality, it is shaped by larger systemic forces that dictate who gets access to safe housing, clean water and reliable infrastructure. The burden of resilience falls disproportionately on those least equipped to bear it, such as women, daily wage labourers and marginalised communities, who are expected to adapt while the conditions that create their vulnerability remain unchanged.

THE GOVERNANCE OF RESILIENCE

In Pakistan, urban governance is characterised by fragmented institutional frameworks, weak disaster response mechanisms and a lack of inclusive planning. The air quality crisis in Punjab exhibits these shortcomings every year. The absence of long-term regulatory enforcement and weak institutional coordination mean that the air quality crisis is treated as a seasonal emergency rather than a chronic governance failure.

The burden of adapting to deteriorating air quality falls on individuals who are expected to self-protect through personal measures, such as masks and air purifiers — solutions that are financially inaccessible for many. The lack of a robust crisis response mechanism and the failure to integrate air quality management into urban resilience planning reflects these broader governance shortcomings.

A more critical and justice-oriented approach to resilience demands moving beyond adaptation to address the root causes of vulnerability. Pakistan’s urban resilience agenda must prioritise inclusive urban planning that strengthens land-use policies to prevent the marginalisation of informal settlements and which integrates low-income communities into formal city planning processes.

To that end, strong local governments are essential for fostering resilience at the community level, by creating mechanisms that allow cities to anticipate, absorb and adapt to environment-related challenges. A well-functioning local government system can implement proactive measures, such as improved urban planning, targeted social protection programmes in times of crises, and climate-responsive policies tailored to the specific needs of different urban populations.

Local governments play a crucial role in developing early warning systems, strengthening public services and ensuring equitable infrastructure development, particularly for marginalised communities. Moreover, they can facilitate participatory decision-making, engaging communities in resilience-planning and ensuring that adaptation strategies address the lived realities of vulnerable groups.

Without a decentralised and empowered local governance structure, urban resilience remains fragmented, reactive and ineffective in addressing long-term environmental risks.

The writer is a Commonwealth Scholar at the University of Bristol in the UK


Published in Dawn, EOS, April 20th, 2025

Synchronized Global Climate Breakdown



 April 18, 2025
Facebook

Photo by Melissa Bradley

The world has entered a new climate era that threatens the fabric of civilization because it’s the reverse of the climate system that society was built upon. As it happens, the biosphere is starting to unravel as the world’s long-standing normal climate system shows clear signs of breaking down while planetary heat throws scientists a curve ball. The normal climate system behavior 0ver the decades is gone.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (which Trump cannot cripple like NOAA) on a global basis the past year was the hottest in the 175-year observational record with record-setting ocean heat and record-setting sea-level rise. Ninety percent (90%) of global warming is hidden from society absorbed by the oceans. Remarkably, the world’s oceans broke temperature records every single day for 12-months-running. (BBC). Now it’s gotten so excessive that scientists are worried about “payback.”

Everything is on the line, major ecosystems like Antarctica and the Amazon rainforest are regurgitating years of abuse; only recently, West Antarctica was rushed to Red Alert status by freaked-out polar scientists, and large swaths of the Amazon rainforest emit CO2 in competition with cars, trains and planes for the first time in human history, as rainfall at Summit Station (10500’ elevation) has been a strange eerie twist for Greenland. This is climate breakdown in full living color.

A recent article in Science/Alert d/d April 9, 2025 is filled with examples warning of climate breakdown: ‘Exceptional’ – Ongoing Global Heat Defies Climate Predictions.

Weird stuff that never happened thoroughout human history is happening to the climate system. For example, according to Copernicus Climate Change Service, since July 2023, the world has sustained a near-unbroken streak of record-breaking temperatures by the month every month, e.g. March 2025 was the hottest March ever recorded for the European Continent. And every month for the past 21 months has exceeded the dreaded 1.5C upper limit, to wit: “March was 1.6C above pre-industrial times, extending an anomaly so unusual that scientists are still trying to fully explain it. That we’re still at 1.6 °C above preindustrial is indeed remarkable,’ said Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London.” (Science/Alert)

It wasn’t so long ago when climate scientists thought exceeding global 1.5C above pre-industrial, labeled as the “danger zone” by the IPCC, would take decades. Guess what? It’s early!

Repercussions of Climate Breakdown – Worldwide

Anomalous/abnormal climate behavior is now the new normal. Extraordinary climate events from all corners of the world recently happened within a tight window of only 30 days of each other, events classified as either the worst ever or all-time record or unprecedented or once in 100 years, etc. Today, the planet is like a movie script entitled Climate Breakdown with climate disasters all happening all at the same time regardless of location or season. It’s a whacky script with people on the run, searching for a safe place.

In real life, evidence of this gonzo climate system is everywhere to be found, e.g., in March 2025 different parts of the European Continent experienced “the driest March on record” as other parts of the Continent experienced “the wettest March on record.” At the same time as Europeans didn’t know which end was up, climate change hit India, enduring record-setting scorching heat as Australia was swamped by all-time-record-smashing floods whilst Asia and South America hit new all-time records of devasting heat. This weird global climate system is off its rocker in synchronized fashion. Why is this happening? Human-generated burning of fossil fuels is at the heart of far too many concurrent global climate disasters to ignore any longer the necessity of sharp reductions in burning fossil fuels or suffer an explosive planet. Nothing is normal any longer. Get over it!

The following headlines are evidence of simultaneous, happening within 30 days of each other, record-breaking climate events across the globe (of note: not including Antarctica, which is clearly, and frighteningly, starting to breakdown in an “emergency mode” as is the world-famous Amazon rainforest and Arctic permafrost and Greenland:

Bigger Than Texas: The True Size of Australian’s Devasting FloodsThe Guardian, April 4, 2025 “The extent of flood waters that have engulfed Queensland over the past fortnight is so widespread it has covered an area more than four times the size of the United Kingdom. The inundation is larger than France and Germany combined – and is even bigger than Texas.”

Dry Topsoil Across Germany Could Impact Crop Yields Following March Dry SpellClean Energy Wire, April 11, 2025.

Floods Batter Italy after Florence Sees a Month’s Rainfall in One Day, The Watchers, March 16, 2025. “Red alerts were in effect across Italy, including Florence and Pisa, following an extreme flooding event that triggered multiple landslides and caused widespread damage.

Heavy Rains Hit Spain for Third Consecutive Week, Reuters, March 18, 2025. “Spaniards are still on edge after torrential rains four months ago in the eastern Valencia region led to the country’s deadliest natural disaster in decades.”

Record-breaking March Heat Reminds Us That Adaptation Cannot WaitThe Indian Express, March 20, 2025.

Record Heatwaves Hits South America: Urgent Call for Climate Action, Green.org, March 5, 2025. “This year has witnessed South America endure its hottest recorded temperatures, with some regions experiencing heat levels never seen before. Countries like Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay are reporting temperatures soaring above 40°C (104°F). This isn’t just uncomfortable—it poses serious health risks and disrupts daily life.”

Extraordinary March Heatwave in Central Asia up to 10° C Hotter in Warming Climate, World Weather Attribution, April 4, 2025. “In March 2025, Central Asia experienced an unusually intense heatwave, with temperatures reaching record highs across the region.”

In the U.S, tornadoes in March were more than double the monthly average and three separate outbreaks produced more than 200 tornadoes. (National Centers for Environmental Information, March 2025) More to the point, from March 13th to 16th, 2025 the tornado outbreak was the largest on record for the month of March. Meanwhile, wildfires spread across southern Appalachia, exacerbated by additional fuel available from downed trees following Hurricane Helene (est. costs up to $250 billion). It’s a fact: Warmer ocean waters, a direct result of climate change, fuel stronger hurricanes with higher wind speeds, heavier rainfall, and more destructive storm surges. Hmm.

As stated in Science/Alert by Bill McGuire, climate scientist, University College London, the contrasting extremes “shows clearly how a destabilized climate means more and bigger weather extremes… As climate breakdown progresses, more broken records are only to be expected.” (Science/Alert)

Therefore, it’s fair to pose a nagging proposition of what happens when more all-time records continue to pile up one after another to what end? What is that end? And what can be done to stop the relentless pounding of harmful climate extremes. Maybe world leaders need to confront this reality by summoning climate scientists. But will Trump summon climate scientists for advice on how the US can help slow down the biggest, fiercest freight train in all human history barreling down the mountainside?

And what’s to stop this madness?

Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Restoring the Wild: How Reintroducing Bison Could Revive Britain’s Landscapes and Ecosystems


April 18, 2025
Facebook

Photograph Source: Charles J. Sharp – CC BY-SA 4.0

Although there is no evidence that the European bison (Bison bonasus), known as wisent, ever roamed the islands of the United Kingdom, its genetic heritage suggests that it is attuned to the environment. The European bison is a hybrid that descends from the steppe bison (Bison priscus) and the aurochs (Bos primigenius), both extinct species that were once native to the UK.

Britain once hosted a broad range of great beasts. We slaughtered the bears, elk, and lynx many centuries ago. The wolves lasted the longest. Now, only the names of their crags, hills, meres, or the ubiquitous deep pits where we caught and bound them for torture recall their former existence. As with the aquamarine blue moor frogs, black storks, and night herons, humans hastened the end of them all.

Today, one in seven of England’s surviving species is also threatened with extinction. In large part, much of the landscape that appears to be so green is dead. Chemicals and pesticides in the soil have killed smaller species. The disappearance of these minute species has caused a chain reaction within the natural order, starving, poisoning, or otherwise compromising the food chain.

Gone is the food for some creatures or the cover for others. The living space that remains is highly restricted and commonly of poor quality. The absence of one pivotal creature can mean the loss of natural function upon which others depend. Even when our understanding of this is crystal clear, we respond in a reluctant, slow-motion fashion.

The Downside of Conservation

Conservation comes in many forms, and my beginning was not with the wild but with the tame. At a time when you can drive through the landscape and see so many of the old black or spotted sheep, white long-horned cattle, or brick-red pigs more or less everywhere, it’s hard to remember that these relics were nearly extinct by the 1970s. Farming at that time was already set to conquer its Everests of “improvement.”

Rivers of government cash flowed into subsidies for everything imaginable, from the import of faster-growing continental livestock to new and super-productive crops, to fertilizers that flowed from white plastic sacks rather than freely from cows’ backsides, to pesticides that killed their target species, and much more besides.

Guilds of focused advisors in drab brown overalls and tiny vans met farmers free of charge to explain how to employ this largesse. Colleges produced legions of indoctrinated students who marched out in ranks to feed the world. Research stations, laboratories, and experimental farms, all centrally funded, were established throughout the land.

Meadows full of dancing wildflowers or woodlands where spotted flycatchers dipped and weaved to catch beakfuls of insects twirling in sunlit strobes did not fit the narrative of those times. Most were plowed under or ripped free from the soil that had held them for centuries, awaiting incineration on well-prepared pyres.

Birds of all sorts died in myriads when cornfields, old pastures, and orchards were sprayed with new toxins. Frogs returned to breed in the spring to discover their ancestral ponds had vanished. Photographers produced heartbreaking black-and-white images of them sitting in massed aggregations on their drying spawn.

Breeds of livestock with their roots buried deep in Britain’s culture were discarded as well. It did not matter that they had adapted to frugal living to produce something—a little meat, milk, horn, or dung to fertilize small fields—for folk who had nothing and could offer them less.

Who cared if they had been brought by the Norse, the Romans, or the Celts? They were out of time. Small or slow-growing and difficult to handle with independent spirits, the sooner they were all gone, the better. Their qualities of disease resistance, fine wool, or superlative meat meant nothing. Any adaptation to specific environments was meaningless in a time when whole landscapes could be rearranged.

Farmers Are Not the Problem

To be clear, farmers are not the problem. The problem is the great false idol of the industrial machine that so many unblinkingly worship. In general, farmers are a well-humored bunch. The old ones with good stories are always the best, and I have spent many hours sitting in their cozy kitchens listening to their tales as small dogs snoozed next to the iron cooker and busy wives bustled to serve cakes.

There was slight Henry Cowan, who regretted until the day he died that he had allowed a passing dealer to buy his last two horses, kept long after the others had gone, for the glue works. Tall Francis Watson, a big bear of a man who, at the age of 17, had guarded the palace of the Nizams in Hyderabad and whose great joy it was to linger for no particular purchase in our village shop to converse with its Pakistani proprietors in Urdu. And Miss Bartholomew, whose old cats pissed on her house chairs and whose ancient pet pigs were turned by her stockman daily to ease their bed sores when they could no longer stand.

All of them were once characters of great color who have now passed in time. Their world was simpler, of clear rights and dark wrongs. The reapers who harvested in their golden youths are not of the sort that scythe the earth today. The prospect that the land that they had cleared of rocks, drained and deforested, and then reforested, enriched, and impoverished in the swiftest succession would ever be used again for any purpose other than farming would not have seemed plausible to them at all. The notion that some of England’s oldest beasts could be restored to accelerate nature’s gainwould have seemed absurd.

The Benefits of Bison

So why bother bringing bison back to Britain when we could be content to sit back in our slippers and reintegrate beavers into the countryside, which, in theory at least, is as easy as falling off a stationary bus? The answer, in large part, is process. If, as it seems tantalizingly tangible, we are going to move from an era of unequivocal public subsidy for farming 70 percent of the British landmass (23 million acres) to a time when public money will be employed more evenly to repair nature, then at least a few of the large creatures we hunted to extinction may be restored in a limited fashion to assist this endeavor.

Bison, for example, are not cattle. They are high forest browsers. If you reinstall them in dark, dull plantation woodlands with little biodiversity value, they will smash and debark big trees, wallow in sand soils, gouge out damp clays, provide pesticide-free blood and dung in abundance for insects, and crunch down woody scrub at random in a jagged and irregular manner.

They rip the bark from the stems of broad-leafed trees in a frozen winter by inserting the teeth of their lower palate under the surface of the tree, gripping it tightly with their upper jaw, and tugging sharply downward in order to “whip crack” the length of the stem before it tumbles away like a falling curtain to be consumed.

A single bison can eat 32 kilos of bark in a day. Multiply this by a stamping herd, hoarfrosted with steaming nostrils, and the impact of bison on woodland structure becomes obvious. Whole groves of succulent, young trees are retarded or misshapen. Their wounds leach resin or sap, which snails cluster into to exploit.

Some bare areas may scab over and scar, while others decay completely for woodpeckers to peck full of voids. Bats, martens, and birds use these cavities as nesting sites, while specialists such as willow tits make their own abodes in desiccated pockets rotted down by mycelia of many sorts. Nature loves randomness, and there is more in the simplest of forms.

The fur from a bison’s woolly coat will be gathered by birds from the grasping thorns of bramble or rose or from their backs directly when it peels in scrofulous mats in the springtime. This warm, snuggly material, which is ideal for their nests, will be filched from them by small mammals and taken underground. The repetitive wallowing of bison in dry sandbanks scours these vegetation-free features in random patches.

In their well-trampled base lie easily excavatable egg-laying areas for sand lizards, while mining insects pit any exposed standing banks with their tunnels. Over time, the fragrant possibility exists that the European bee-eater, a child-painted wonder of yellows, blues, browns, and greens, will one day grace them as sites for their nest tunnels.

Bison will, in short, do some things that cattle are incapable of doing and others that cattle don’t do very well. This, of course, is hardly surprising, given that ten thousand years of preparation for domestication has profoundly altered the shape, biology, and behavior of cattle, while bison have retained their wild being intact.

This excerpt is adapted from Derek Gow’s book Birds, Beasts and Bedlam: Turning My Farm Into a Lost Ark for Species (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2022). It is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) by permission of Chelsea Green Publishing and produced for the web by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute. 

Derek Gow is a farmer, nature conservationist, and author of Bringing Back the Beaver (Chelsea Green, 2022) and Birds, Beasts and Bedlam (Chelsea Green, 2022). Born in Dundee, Scotland, he left school when he was 17 and worked in agriculture for five years. Inspired by the writing of Gerald Durrell, Dow jumped at the chance to manage a European wildlife park in central Scotland in the late 1990s before developing two nature centers in England. He now lives with his children, Maysie and Kyle, on a 300-acre farm on the Devon/Cornwall border, which he is rewilding. Gow has played a significant role in the reintroduction of the Eurasian beaver, the water vole, and the white stork in England. He is currently working on a reintroduction project for the wildcat.

The Failure of US Conservation Groups to Criticize Wolf Slaughter

April 18, 2025
Facebook

Photo: George Wuerthner.

The state of Washington recently reported that its endangered wolf population had declined for the first time in 16 years. The state confirmed that it has 230 wolves, compared to 254 wolves in the previous year.

According to figures released by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Washington’s overall wolf population in 2024 decreased by at least 9.44%, and successful breeding pairs declined by 25%.

What accounts for this decline? Well, 37 wolves are documented as mortalities. The Washington Fish and Wildlife Department killed four wolves after the animals had conflicts with livestock.

In addition, an unknown number of wolves died from suspected poaching. Two wolves died while being captured by Fish and Wildlife. One wolf was killed by a cougar, and one by other wolves. One wolf was shot attacking livestock, one was shot in self-defense, and one died after ingesting plastic, according to Fish and Wildlife.

However, the most significant source of mortality was a consequence of tribal wolf slaughter. Colville tribal members accounted for more than half of the annual wolf mortality, killing a minimum of 19 wolves.

This ongoing killing of dozens of wolves by tribal members has been occurring for years, and it is hindering the recovery of endangered wolves in Washington. For instance, in 2022, tribal members slaughtered 22 wolves.

Wolves are covered statewide under the state’s endangered species law. Killing one of the animals without authorization can carry penalties of up to a year in jail or a $5,000 fine under the state’s law.

Last summer, the Fish and Wildlife Commission narrowly voted against downlisting wolves from “endangered” to either “threatened” or “sensitive,” moves that would have led to lower penalties for poaching and slightly easier access to permits to kill wolves that attack livestock.

Due to their Endangered Species Status, it is illegal for any citizen to kill in Washington State except in special instances, such as wolf-livestock depredation. However, tribal members are exempt from hunting regulations that restrict other citizens.

Unlike wolf trapping in states like Montana and Idaho, which allow the carnage of wolves, there are still limits on the number of animals that any individual trapper or hunter can take. However, the Colville tribe permits the trapping and hunting of wolves by any tribal member without limitations.

The high mortality of wolves by tribal members is setting back wolf recovery in the state. In particular, the Colville Reservation is a critical bridge between eastern Washington, where most of the state’s wolf population is found, and the colonization of the Cascades and western Washington.

The reservation contains excellent wolf habitat, which is why the tribe continues to massacre wolves in this area. The reservation is, in effect, a mortality sink. The good habitat (prey base) attracts new wolves and leads to their death.
Wolves return to the same places as the Colville Reservation because it is a suitable habitat for prey, and more get killed.

As much as I am dismayed by the tribal slaughter of wolves, I am even more outraged by the apparent willingness of so-called conservation organizations to accept the destruction of wildlife and wildlands by tribal people that they would denounce if perpetrated by anyone else.

While a few wolf advocacy organizations clinically noted the Colville tribe’s role in hindering wolf recovery in the state, none have chosen to criticize the tribe publicly.

This lack of accountability by the conservation community is part of what I call the Indian Iron Curtain, where environmental organizations are unwilling or, in some instances, even support the destruction of wildlife or wildlands done by tribal groups, which they would otherwise condemn if done by anyone else.

Not only does this perpetuate the myth that tribal people are somehow “natural environmentalists,” but it harms the wildlands and wildlife that are impacted. The annual tribal slaughter of bison by Yellowstone National Park, which many organizations support if a tribal member does the killing, is a perfect example of this double standard.

Throughout the West, these groups raise money off the backs of wolves. If a rancher or hunter kills wolves, I will get a message telling me to donate money to them to “save” wolves from slaughter.

One lame excuse I got from the ED of a wolf advocacy group for their lack of opposition to tribal slaughter was that the tribes have a “legal” right to kill wolves without restriction. Yet the same organization has no trouble blasting the annual carnage of wolves by hunters and trappers as unacceptable in states where it is legal to kill them.

For instance, a few years ago, there was outrage from conservation groupsafter 26 wolves were killed by trappers and hunters north of Yellowstone Park. Still, the very same organizations are silent about tribal wolf killings on the Colville reservation and elsewhere (like Alaska).]

Brooks Fahy of Predator Defense is one of the few people willing to condemn the tribal killings publicly.

Fahy says:” The silence from the “conservation” community on this subject is deafening.”

Fahy quips: “The Colville Tribe has essentially created an iron curtain of traps and bullets by preventing wolves from dispersing westward into the Cascades.”

As Fahy notes: “It does not make you an anti-Native American to be angry at what some of the tribes are doing, just like it doesn’t mean you’re antisemitic if you’re outraged over what Israel is doing in Gaza. It’s time to condemn unacceptable behavior.”

Most conservation organizations are loath to criticize tribes due to historical mistreatment, but in the end, it is the wildlife that suffers today. Why should wolves (grizzlies, salmon, bison, old-growth forests, etc.) have to accept the burden of past abuse of Indian people?

The double standard for tribal groups is part of a long-term change in conservation missions. When I came of age in the environmental movement in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a movement to consider ecology, evolutionary processes, and biocentric perspectives as the priority standard in advocacy. Since then, I have seen a significant shift towards anthropocentric attitudes and values in many organizations, to the detriment of overall conservation goals.

Social justice needs to be considered, but Nature Justice should have priority, for in the end, there is no social justice on a dead planet. We need to set limits on human exploitation, no matter who is doing it.

It’s time to take down the Indian Iron Curtain and hold all people who abuse, mistreat, or exploit Nature accountable. The wolves, bears, salmon, bison, old-growth forests, and wildlands will be glad you did.

George Wuerthner has published 36 books including Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy