Leading poll boycott, Venezuela's Guaido seeks more sanctions on Maduro 

CIA AGENT CALLS FOR MORE STARVATION FOR VENEZUELA TILL THEY GIVE UP THEIR STRUGGLE FOR CONSTUIENT ASSEMBLY DEMOCRACY

Issued on: 01/12/2020 - 

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido says the international community still needs him to help oust President Nicolas Maduro ROFLMAO


Caracas (AFP)

Opposition leader Juan Guaido is leading a boycott of Venezuela's legislative elections on Sunday and, despite losing political momentum, has told AFP he is still the person the international community needs to oust Nicolas Maduro's regime.

To make that happen, he needs the continued support of the United States and President-elect Joe Biden, though Biden's advisors have said they will explore direct contacts with Maduro.

"It would be a tragedy," warned Guaido in the interview at his Caracas home Monday.


"Let's not be in any doubt that at times, the international community would fall into the temptation of getting along with the dictator.

"What's the incentive for the dictator (to leave) if he knows that he's going to be recognized? None!"

Guaido said he has yet to speak directly with Biden or his staff, but has made approaches through US lawmakers, as he hopes to maintain "bipartisan support" from Democrats and Republicans.

- 'Fraud' election -

Recognized for more than a year as interim president by dozens of countries -- including his chief backer, the United States -- Guaido has dismissed the December 6 polls as "a fraud" designed to strengthen Maduro's grip on power.

"It would be difficult to call that process an election," the 37-year-old opposition leader said.

Guaido's apartment has lost the warmth of a home, as it has been converted into a makeshift office with papers, books and computers on every table and a pile of boxes in a corner.

He moved his operation into his home after Maduro's feared Sebin intelligence service raided and trashed his office several months ago, one of several episodes aimed at intimidating Guaido and other opposition figures.

His desk, in what was his young daughter Miranda's room, is flanked by a Venezuelan flag and a photograph of one of the dozens of demonstrations he led in 2019, now increasingly rare.

- Popular support -

The poll boycott leaves the way open for Maduro's United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to win a majority in the National Assembly, the only institution still in opposition hands.

"Maduro's objective isn't even to gain legitimacy," Guaido said, adding the goal was instead to "annihilate the democratic alternative in Venezuela."

Guaido and the mainstream opposition parties have instead organized an alternative five-day referendum next week to garner popular support for a plan to prolong the current Assembly.

The intention is that if the legislative elections are invalidated, then the current Assembly would remain in place.

Guaido is speaker of the Assembly, a position from which he proclaimed himself interim president in January 2019. However, his popularity has dropped dramatically since then.

Without the Assembly, Guaido would lose formal legitimacy, leaving governments that have backed him -- not least Biden's incoming administration -- in a difficult position.

- Targeting sanctions -

Guaido hopes Biden will ratify existing US sanctions and fine-tune a more effective Maduro policy with the European Union and other Latin American countries.

"We have to get the government in the US on the same page as Europe, and with the countries of Latin America... and standardize sanctions," he said.

"Not only should they be increased but they should be standardized to prevent the dictatorship from being able to circumvent them."

Guaido insists on "maintaining international pressure" while simultaneously rekindling "popular pressure," which ebbed away in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

He also said Venezuela's powerful military should be offered "incentives" to withdraw their allegiance from Maduro.

Outgoing US President Donald Trump's sanctions strategy included a veiled threat of military force to topple Maduro, a hope that the most radical Venezuelans clung to, later blaming Guaido when it did not materialize.

Guaido distanced himself from any further talk of military intervention.

"No one is offering military action, neither as a first, nor as a second, nor a third option" Guaido said.

"But there was talk of the options on the table, understanding the criminal nature of Nicolas Maduro," he added, emphasizing Maduro's indictment in the US on federal drug trafficking charges.

© 2020 AFP

Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon reaches 12-year high under Bolsonaro
Issued on: 30/11/2020 - 

FILE PHOTO: Smoke billows during a fire in an area of the Amazon rainforest near Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil, September 10, 2019. © REUTERS/Bruno Kelly/File Photo
Text by:NEWS WIRES|
Video by:Fraser JACKSON

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon surged again over the past year, hitting a 12-year high, according to official figures released Monday that drew a chorus of condemnation of President Jair Bolsonaro's government.

A total of 11,088 square kilometres (4,281 square miles) of forest was destroyed in Brazil's share of the world's biggest rainforest in the 12 months to August, according to the Brazilian space agency's PRODES monitoring program, which analyses satellite images to track deforestation.

That is equivalent to an area larger than Jamaica, and was a 9.5-percent increase from the previous year, when deforestation also hit a more than decade-long high.

"Because of such deforestation, Brazil is probably the only major greenhouse gas emitter that managed to increase its emissions in the year the coronavirus pandemic paralyzed the global economy," said the Brazilian Climate Observatory, a coalition of environmental groups.

Forests such as the Amazon play a vital role in controlling climate change because they suck carbon from the atmosphere. However, when trees die or burn, they release their carbon back into the environment.

Bolsonaro, a far-right climate-change skeptic, has presided over rising deforestation and wildfires since taking office in January 2019.

His government is pushing to open protected lands to mining and agribusiness, and has slashed funding for environmental protection programs.

Environmentalists say those policies fuel the destruction of the Amazon, about 60 percent of which is in Brazil.

"The Bolsonaro government's vision of development for the Amazon is a throwback to the rampant deforestation of the past. It's a regressive vision that's far from the effort needed to deal with the climate crisis," Greenpeace spokeswoman Cristiane Mazzetti said in a statement.

Vice President Hamilton Mourao, who presented the figures in a press conference, defended the government's committment to fighting deforestation.

"The message I bring in the name of President Bolsonaro is that we will continue working with science and technology to support the work of environmental protection agencies," said Mourao, a retired army general who heads Bolsonaro's Amazon task force.

The latest annual deforestation figure was the highest since 2008, when 12,911 square kilometers of forest were destroyed in the Brazilian Amazon.

(AFP)

Nike Japan ad on teenage bullying and racism sparks debate

Justin McCurry in Tokyo THE GUARDIAN

A video made by Nike Japan that explores bullying and racism using three schoolgirl footballers has sparked praise and outrage online, including calls to boycott the company’s products.

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters

A new Nike commercial in Japan has sparked a debate about racism and bullying.

The two-minute film, which was released on Monday, had racked up 14.2m views on Twitter by Wednesday afternoon and more than 63,000 likes. More than 16,000 people had commented. The YouTube version had been viewed almost 10m times.

Some social media users described the commercial as “amazing”, “powerful” and beautiful,” but others were less impressed.

While the film’s message clearly riled members of Japan’s online right – many of whom commented using pseudonyms – more measured critics said it misrepresented modern Japanese society.

“Is Japan really such a country full of discrimination? It feels like you’re creating a false impression of Japan,” said one user quoted by Soranews24.com.

Another wrote: “Nowadays, you often see one or two people of different nationalities going to school perfectly peacefully. The one that’s prejudiced is Nike.”

“Is it so much fun to blame Japan?” another asked.

A scroll through the first 50 or so comments revealed several by people saying they would never buy Nike products again.

Japan is a relatively homogenous society, but the heroics of the country’s multiracial rugby team at last year’s world cup and the success of tennis star Naomi Osaka, who has a Japanese mother and Haitian father, are challenging old ideas about what it means to be Japanese.

The Nike ad, titled The Future Isn’t Waiting, depicts three football-playing teenage girls from different backgrounds: one is Japanese, another is Korean and the third has a black father and Japanese mother.

In one scene, the mixed-race girl is surrounded by a group of classmates who touch her hair.

The Korean girl is shown reading on her smartphone about the “zainichi problem” – a word used to describe ethnically Korean people who are “staying in Japan”.

The Japanese girl, meanwhile, is bullied at school and struggles to cope with parental pressure to achieve academically.

In the end, the three are united by a desire to confront their problems and prove themselves through their love of football.

Osaka, who was named the world’s highest-earning female athlete earlier this year, is celebrated in the country of her birth, but her rise to tennis stardom revealed problematic attitudes in some sections of Japanese society.

An animated ad by one of Osaka’s sponsors, the Cup Noodle maker Nissin, portrayed her with with pale skin, wavy brown hair and Caucasian facial features, while a standup comedy act said she “looked sunburned” and “needed some bleach”.

Nike has not commented on the controversy but said on its website it believed in the ability of sport to transform lives.

“We have long listened to minority voices, supported and spoken for causes that fit our values,” it said. “We believe sports have the power to show what a better world looks like, to bring people together and encourage action in their respective communities.”

'Worst work in the world': US park rangers grapple with tide of human waste

In Colorado, Rocky Mountain national park staff commissioned two new toilets in the Boulder Field area near Longs Peak. Photograph: Courtesy Rick Sommerfeld
With toilets in short supply, ordure can harm streams and wildlife. An entrepreneur has a nifty solution

Supported by


Grant Stringer
Wed 2 Dec 2020 

For 20 years, Richard Lechleitner had a grueling task at Mt Rainier national park: digging human waste out of backcountry toilets and carrying it down the mountains.

Staff at the park in Washington state grappled with an influx of visitors hiking far from roads, along with thousands of climbers attempting to reach the active volcano’s 14,000-foot summit each year. People heeded the call of nature on Mt. Rainier’s pristine glaciers, as well as in its unvarnished wilderness toilets.

“They’d put in these horrible toilets that just smelled terrible,” Lechleitner said. Maintaining them, he found, was appallingly dirty work.

At national parks across the US, from the peaks of Denali in Alaska to desert backpacking destinations in Utah and Arizona, managers have struggled to deal with this inevitable byproduct of people eager to get outdoors, a desire that continues amid the pandemic. Unlike a discarded Clif Bar wrapper, human waste carries a slew of bacteria and pathogens when left unbagged or otherwise unaddressed.

A backcountry toilet at Camp Muir, a climbing destination at 10,000ft on Washington’s Mt Rainier. Photograph: Kyle Roepke/Courtesy Geoff Hill

Colorado’s Rocky Mountain national park has been hit especially hard. There, a surge in visitors meant toilet paper became a more common sight in wilderness areas, rangers told the Guardian. But the park is now known nationally for pioneering a solution used at other sites, including Mt Rainier.

Between 2016 and 2019, the 265,000-acre park near Denver saw a 40% increase in visitors hiking and climbing its woods and jagged peaks. In 2019, it was the third-most visited national park in the U.S.

More hikers than ever were flocking to Longs Peak, a sheer 14,000ft mountain near the continental divide. The main trail attracts thousands of people each day during the summer, but around the mountain there are just four toilets, spread miles apart. That leaves hikers with limited options.

By 2015, rangers were trekking to the toilets and finding repulsive conditions. At its worst, the solid matter would freeze and thaw repeatedly and rise above the seat. Rangers would have to dig the material from the chamber and load it into a five-gallon bucket, place the cargo on to a pack animal and ride down.

“This is some of the worst work in the world,” said Geoff Hill, a toilet entrepreneur who worked with the park’s rangers as a doctoral student studying backcountry waste.

Because the toilets were in such a sordid state, many hikers probably refused to use them, opting instead to dig a shallow hole or cover their business with a rock.

Human pathogens can sully streams and harm high-altitude denizens, such as marmots. The beaver-like creatures would sometimes become stuck inside the toilet chambers and covered in waste, according to park staff.

Park chiefs poured time and resources into a solution. They settled on a nifty toilet product that Hill designed, called ToiletTech.

The system separates urine from solid waste, which creates cleaner excrement – and less work for rangers. Beneath the toilet seat, excrement lands on a small conveyor belt, while urine flows through a separate pipe and into a septic field. When a visitor presses a foot-powered pump inside the bathroom, ordure travels from the conveyor belt into its own chamber. There, it remains dry, lightweight and free of viruses usually present in a wet barrel of urine-soaked waste.

The new facilities, which replaced the four toilets near Longs Peak, have since helped cut down on solid matter in the area and made rangers’ lives much easier, although 200mph winds once blew the doors off a unit in the Boulder Field area.

Land managers have installed Hill’s toilets across the country to rave reviews, from Angel’s Landing in Utah’s Zion National Park to Terwilliger Hot Springs outside Portland, Oregon, as well as at Mt Rainier.

“If I was to win the lottery, I literally would go out … and buy enough toilets to work in all of the backcountry camps at Mt Rainier,” Lechleitner said of the new design.

But even Hill’s toilets come with drawbacks. Waste from remote areas is still flown out by helicopter, which is expensive. Lechleitner also said the ToiletTech units aren’t cheap, at $4,000 per unit, and National Park System maintenance upgrades are notoriously backlogged.

A helicopter delivers parts for new toilets installed near Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain national park, in 2018. Photograph: Courtesy Rick Sommerfeld

Mt Rainier is a petri dish for experiments in another, cheaper method of waste control: requiring climbers to carry their own excreta off the mountain when they’re not near bathrooms.

Land managers will either supply visitors with a kind of plastic bag – often containing an inner lining that seals and neutralizes some of the smell – or ask that they bring their own.
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Merely asking hikers to carry their waste has helped protect Coyote Gulch, a maze of narrow canyons swarmed with backpackers in Utah’s Glen Canyon national recreation area, and other popular canyons. The dry environment means waste won’t degrade easily there, and the remote region only has one toilet, said the ranger Steve Henry.

“People are really opening up to the idea,” Henry said.

Plastic bags aren’t a perfect fix – they have to be incinerated at a cost to already cash-strapped agencies, or tossed in a landfill. And people generally don’t want to carry their own feces for days on end.

If a bathroom is still miles away and hikers don’t have a carry-out bag, the best thing they can is tote a trowel to a spot far from streams and trails, said Ben Lawhorn, director of education and research for the outdoor ethics group Leave No Trace.

“Once you get eight miles into the backcountry, it’s up to you to dig a hole,” Lawhorn said.

Trump’s border wall construction threatens survival of jaguars in the US

Wall is going up in four sections in Arizona’s mountain ranges spanning the US-Mexico border where the cats had reappeared

El Jefe has been photographed repeatedly by remote sensor cameras in the Santa Rita mountains in Arizona over the past few years. Photograph: Reuters

Supported by


Samuel Gilbert in the Coronado national forest, Arizona

Tue 1 Dec 2020

By the 1960s, the North American jaguar had vanished from the southern US borderland after being hunted to extinction.

Yet in the mid-1990s, there was a remarkable discovery: the jaguar had reappeared in the Sky Islands of Arizona, a region of rugged linked mountain ranges spanning the US and Mexico border that boasts the highest biodiversity in inland North America. Since then, the large cats have been seen over a dozen times in the region, reviving hopes of a full return of the elusive predators to the US.

“They are coming back because the Sky Islands are their home,” said Dr Aletris Neils, the director of CATalyst, a wild cat conservation organization that runs the only jaguar monitoring project in the US. “All we have to do is let them.”

These hopes are threatened by Donald Trump’s border wall. In four years, his administration has built some 400 miles of the border wall in increasingly remote regions of the border. The barrier has severed wildlife corridors and fragmented crucial habitats for numerous endangered and threatened animals, including the wide-ranging jaguar.

Trump’s lame-duck period is no respite: the wall is currently going up in four sections in the Sky Islands, where “grizzly bears and grey wolves mix with tropical species like ocelots and jaguar”, said Neils. “There is no place like it on this planet. [The Sky Islands] are perfect for jaguars.”

“If all contracts are complete, 93% [of jaguar territory] will be blocked and walled off,” said Myles Traphagen, the borderlands program coordinator for Wildlands Network, who mapped the impact of current wall contracts in jaguar territory.

A Mexican jaguar dubbed ‘the Boss’ is seen in Tucson, Arizona, in a photo provided by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 2017. Photograph: USFWS/EPA

The wall cannot be completed in the next two months, but damage can still be done in remote areas. According to Traphagan, construction is occurring at nearly a mile a day along the entire border, and in some of the last remaining jaguar corridors in the Sky Islands, including a stretch of open border in the Pajarita wilderness as well as the Buenos Aires national wildlife refuge.

In recent years, signs of the jaguars and other endangered cats such as the ocelot have decreased as border wall construction has ramped up in the Sky Islands. “There have been fewer jaguar detections since border wall construction exploded than in any previous year since monitoring began,” said Neils.

Researchers say a permeable border allowing the jaguar and other animals to move freely is essential, yet narrow slats in the new wall prevent all but the smallest of creatures from climbing through it.

Coronado national forest, where ocelots and jaguars had once frequently been documented, is an area of concern. When the Guardian visited in early November, bulldozers were busily grading a steep road over the Huachuca mountains into the Coronado national forest.

“This is jaguar country,” said Emily Burns, standing atop Montezuma Pass, looking down at a stretch of still-unwalled border in the Coronado national forest where the future barrier is set to be built.

Burns is director of the Sky Island Alliance, a non-profit working to protect and restore the Sky Islands’ diversity. Eighty-four species have recently been documented by the alliance’s wildlife-monitoring project and its wildlife cameras, including bobcats, javelinas (a favorite jaguar snack), and recently a mountain lion with her two cubs.

Burns notes that three dozens laws, including the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Protection Act, have been waived to allow construction in the Sky Islands.

And construction carries its own dangers. On a visit to the wildlife camera at the perennial Yaqui spring, where the mountain lion family was recently photographed, the pools were dry. The likely culprit, according to Burns, was groundwater pumping by nearby border wall construction crews.

Neils, the director of CATalyst, and her husband, Chris Bugbee, would know. The two have spent the better part of two decades researching jaguars in the Sky Islands. Bugbee, an ecologist and senior researcher at CATalyst, has spent thousands of hours tracking the famous “El Jefe” jaguar with the help of his dog Mayke, who he trained to identify big-cat scat and bark to notify his owner.

“I always felt a very strong connection with El Jefe,” said Bugbee. The 210-pound cat had a taste for skunks (minus the odiferous end) and a telltale marking in the approximate shape of the state of Arizona.

But in an echo of the broader decline in jaguar numbers, El Jefe has not been seen for years.

UK to become first country in Europe to ban live animal exports

Environment secretary hails ‘Brexit success’ for animal welfare, but poultry to be excluded and Northern Ireland exempted

An estimated 6,400 animals were sent to Europe for slaughter in 2018. Photograph: Eyes on Animals 

Animals farmed is supported by


Sophie Kevany
Wed 2 Dec 2020 

Plans to ban the export of live animals for slaughter and fattening are to be unveiled by the UK’s environment secretary, George Eustice, on Thursday.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the plans were part of a renewed push to strengthen Britain’s position as a world leader on animal welfare.

An estimated 6,400 animals were sent to Europe for slaughter in 2018, according to Defra. Many of those left through the port of Ramsgate in Kent.

“Live animals commonly have to endure excessively long journeys during exports, causing distress and injury. Previously, EU rules prevented any changes to these journeys, but leaving the EU has enabled the UK government to pursue these plans,” Defra said.

The eventual ban would be considered a Brexit success, seeing Britain become the first country in Europe to end this practice.

The beginning of a joint eight-week consultation in England and Wales would mark “a major step forward in delivering on our manifesto commitment to end live exports for slaughter”, said Eustice. “Now that we have left the EU, we have an opportunity to end this unnecessary practice. We want to ensure that animals are spared stress prior to slaughter.”


Exclusive: livestock ships twice as likely to be lost as cargo vessels


It is understood from a UK government source that the joint consultation will be used as the basis for discussions with Scotland. Those discussions, and the consultation findings, will then be used to examine ways of harmonising the ban.

However, live exports look set to continue in Northern Ireland which “will continue to follow EU legislation on animal welfare in transport for as long as the Northern Ireland protocol is in place”, according to Defra.

Poultry exports also appear set to continue, Defra added: “The measure on live exports will not impact on poultry exports or exports for breeding purposes.” The UK currently exports tens of millions of chicks a year in an industry that was worth £139m in 2018.


UK's trade in breeding chicks may not be covered by planned live export 'ban'

Asked if the eventual ban might be an achievement that could be credited to the prime minister Boris Johnson’s partner, Carrie Symonds, the source would not comment. Symonds is a patron of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation (CAWF) which has long lobbied for an end to live exports.

“We are hoping this consultation will lead to an end to live exports for slaughter and fattening, which has caused such enormous suffering, by 2022 or even next year,” said CAWF’s founder, Lorraine Platt. The foundation sent its latest research report on ending live exports to the UK government several weeks ago.

Compassion in World Farming’s chief policy adviser, Peter Stevenson, said the organisation was “delighted that Defra plans to ban live exports for slaughter and fattening. We have campaigned for over 50 years against the massive suffering caused by this inhumane, archaic trade, so this unambiguous proposal is very welcome.”

The RSPCA’s CEO, Chris Sherwood, was equally welcoming and said he looked “forward to seeing this happen as the RSPCA has campaigned on this issue for more than 50 years”

Cuban leaders, artists, revive row over free speech

A promise of dialogue between the Cuban government and artists calling for greater freedom of expression seems to have stalled, after communist authorities blamed a protest on US interference.

© YAMIL LAGE Cuban government supporters take part in a rally to condemn the media campaign in support of the San Isidro movement in Havana, November 2020

Unprecedented discussions were expected to get underway this week between Culture Minister Alpidio Alonso and artist representatives, but no concrete meeting has been announced.

© YAMIL LAGE Cuban President Miguel Diaz Canel (C) arrives at a concert rally to condemn the media campaign in support of the San Isidro movement in Havana, on November 29, 2020

Commitment to talks was one of the key agreements reached on Friday night after an extremely rare protest by about 300 artists outside the Culture Ministry building in Havana.

© YAMIL LAGE A group of young intellectuals and artists demonstrate outside the Culture Ministry in Havana, November 2020

Permission for such protests is rarely given in Cuba.

Rarer still, the ministry agreed to receive a delegation of 30 of the artists.

Their demands included freedom of creation and expression, the right to openly disagree with state authorities and an end to repression and harassment of independent artists on the communist-run island.

"It's a historic moment when the Culture Ministry in a one-party state receives a group of young people who disagree with it," said filmmaker Juan Pin Vilar, 58, who was part of the delegation. His main motivation in taking part was to "help these young people have a better future."

© YAMIL LAGE Cuban President Miguel Diaz Canel accused the US of embarking on an "unconventional war strategy"

He described that initial meeting on Friday as "an example of how to build a country."

- 'Media circus' -

By Saturday, however, the government's tone had changed. The foreign ministry summoned the US Charge d'Affaires Timothy Zuniga-Brown, accusing him of "blatant and provocative interference" after the US State Department had tweeted its support.

© YAMIL LAGE Artists and intellectuals demonstrating outside Cuba's Culture Ministry in Havana in November 2020

On Sunday, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel denounced "an unconventional war strategy to try to overthrow the revolution."

Dressed in a T-shirt in the colors of the Cuban flag, Diaz-Canel addressed a gathering of several hundred young people who took part in a "defense of the revolution" rally in a Havana park.

If there is a dialogue, it will only be about "everything that concerns socialism," he warned.

"You know they tried to trick us. They set up a media circus," he said, describing the Friday protest as "the last attempt" of the Trump administration to "overthrow the revolution".

Washington has long funded anti-Communist programs in Cuba, said Michael Bustamante of Florida International University.

"For a long time, the US government has been giving money for what they call the promotion of Cuban democracy," he said. "These are controversial programs."

"But it's far too simplistic to say that as soon as someone has demands related to civil society, it's orchestrated by Washington."

The demonstration followed the expulsion by police on Thursday night of members of a previously little known artists' collective from their premises in the historic center of Havana.

Members of the San Isidro Movement had been protesting for 10 days, with six of them on hunger strike, and their movement had gained significant attention.

- 'A better future' -

Prominent names from Cuba's cultural world have thrown their weight behind the movement, including actor Jorge Perugorria, director Fernando Perez and, via the internet, the singers Leoni Torres and Cimafunk.

"What's happened is unprecedented. A whole community of artists, including those close to the institutions, who've joined forces....it's an awakening of consciousness," said Camila Lobon, a 25-year-old plastic artist.

"What really motivated the demonstration was the community's demand that the harassment of artists, intellectuals, journalists and, in general, citizens who disapprove of the state's policies in Cuba be totally stopped, a demand for respect and recognition of freedom of expression."

Cuba's mobile 3G internet has played a key role in publicizing the San Isidro Movement's work, widely disseminated online, and urging hundreds of young artists to turn out at the ministry on Friday.

Social media has given critical voices greater visibility. However, many have criticized sudden outages to Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp recently.

At the same time the powerful state media has slammed what it called the "San Isidro farce".

Lobon said the government's change of tone "is a strategy they have always used....to simply deny that they can give in under popular pressure."

"The public response in the government media is harsh and I don't agree with that," said Juan Pin Vilar.

Regardless, he said, "this dialogue must continue."

ka/db/mjs/gle

Signs of dissent within Thai military as protests grow

By Chayut Setboonsarng and Matthew Tostevin

© Reuters/JORGE SILVA FILE PHOTO: 

Police officers sit on the ground after the motorcade carrying Thailand's King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida drove past in Bangkok

BANGKOK (Reuters) - In July, as thousands of Thais demanded the resignation of the government in one of the largest street demonstrations since a 2014 military coup, Army Sergeant Ekkachai Wangkaphan sided with the protesters.

"Down with dictatorship," he wrote on Facebook under a news story about a jailed activist, a week before the protest. On the day of the protest, July 18, he shared a livestream and pictures with the hashtag of the Free Youth protest group. A few weeks later, he shared a photo of a protester carrying a placard saying "The country where you speak the truth and you go to jail."

© Reuters/MATTHEW TOSTEVIN 

Mobile phone shows picture of hand of Thai man in army uniform giving the salute of anti-government protesters taken in Bangkok

His superiors in the Royal Thai Army warned him to stop. But he had already made up his mind to quit and left the army in October.

"When the protests escalated, orders to prohibit social media posts came in more often," Ekkachai, 33, told Reuters in an interview. "They want to nip it in the bud, but they can't.”

Social media is exposing discontent among some soldiers, police and civil servants after months of protests against Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and the monarchy of King Maha Vajiralongkorn. Although Thai soldiers have occasionally expressed sympathy for protesters in past bouts of political unrest, the rapid expansion of social media is making it difficult to contain.

© Reuters/Ekkachai Wangkaphan 

Former Thai Army Sergeant Ekkachai Wangkaphan poses with the three-fingered salute of anti-government protesters in this image he took in Bung Kan, Thailand

Reuters reviewed dozens of social media posts and messages on chat groups used by soldiers and police and found many expressing sympathy with protesters and anger or unease over the way those who oppose the government are being treated. Some posted about their loyalty to Thailand's institutions.

It is impossible to establish how far disaffection reaches based on social media activity. But the posts have attracted the attention of authorities.

“If you are posting things that are creating misunderstanding and provocation that would create instability, that is inappropriate," said Colonel Sirijan Ngathong, the army's deputy spokeswoman, adding that commanding officers were reviewing the social media activity of soldiers to prevent breaches of army rules.

She did not respond to requests for comment on the case involving Ekkachai or whether surveillance had increased since protests escalated in July.

Some posts appeared on the viral video-sharing app TikTok. One TikTok video, now removed, showed a soldier giving the three-fingered salute, a gesture of resistance featured in “The Hunger Games” film that Thailand’s student-led, anti-government protest movement adopted. "Keep up the struggle, Thai brothers and sisters," said the caption.

The video’s author told Reuters that he is a serving professional soldier but asked that his name not be used.

Some sections of the army have intensified their clampdown. A message posted by a coordinator in a private chat group used by officers in one artillery regiment, reviewed by Reuters, prohibited soldiers from joining protests or giving any political opinions on social media.

"After finding political expressions that were not suitable, commanders are asked to consider and rectify accordingly and to explain the political situation correctly to troops," the message said.

The army did not respond to a request for comment on the message.

It is unclear if disaffection will affect the protests or the way the government responds to them.

"While there is some disaffection within the armed forces, grumblings do not remain significant enough to constitute a significant faction," said Paul Chambers, a politics expert at Naresuan University in northern Thailand.

Government spokesman Anucha Burapachaisri declined to comment on disaffection among members of the security forces or civil service, saying only that the country should be focused on dialogue between those with different views.

PROTESTS SWELL

Tens of thousands of people have protested in the streets of Thailand since July, calling for a new constitution and the removal of Prayuth, who led a military coup in 2014. Protesters have also demanded curbs on the powers of the king, until recently a taboo subject in a country where criticism of the monarchy is a crime.

The army plays a pivotal role in Thailand, which has been ruled by serving or former military officers for more than two-thirds of the time since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932. Thailand’s army has seized power 13 times since then and has on several occasions been involved in bloody crackdowns on protesters including in 1973, 1976, 1992 and 2010.

Although many of the coups have had the broad support of the armed forces, cracks in the military have been exposed in the past. During a bloody 2010 crackdown on red-shirted anti-government protesters in Bangkok, some green-uniformed soldiers openly sympathized with the demonstrators, tipping off the group’s leaders ahead of a planned army operation. They were dubbed “watermelons” - green on the outside with red sympathies on the inside.

That same year, rogue general Khattiya Sawasdipol – known as “Seh Daeng” or “Commander Red” - was assassinated after he came out in support of anti-government protesters, showing that displays of disloyalty in the Thai military can be dangerous.

"Security forces, especially those who have to confront the protesters, are in a stressful position," said Kiranee Tammapiban-udom of government consultancy Maverick Consulting Group. They have to follow orders but at the same time are branded "servants of tyranny" by protesters, she said.

One protest leader, Tattep Ruangprapaikitseree, said he encouraged security forces to disobey orders. "Turn your backs to your commanders, the regime will collapse," he told Reuters.

Another soldier who had also posted on social media said he was looking to defuse tension rather than escalate it. "Maybe it's time for the older generation to listen to the young,” he said. “Asking Prayuth to quit and for changes to the constitution is not abolishing the monarchy."

DRESS CODE: YELLOW

Some Thai police and civil servants are also questioning their roles. Many have been ordered to join official displays of loyalty to the crown, such as lining royal motorcade routes wearing yellow shirts - the king's colour.

Police Colonel Kissana Phathanacharoen told Reuters such activities are part of police duty and that law enforcement was politically neutral.

"Is this police work?" queried one police officer in an internal chat group, responding to a superior officer’s request in the group for participants to join a royal event. The superior officer responded in the chat group that he was passing on orders and that questions should be addressed to more senior levels.

One document seen by Reuters, sent by the Bangkok Metropolitan Police to the Office of Police Strategy, a national body, requested "250 female police officers and 1,950 male along the route of the royal motorcade" for a funeral on Oct. 29 in Bangkok.

"Dress code: yellow shirt with yellow collar. Long black pants, black shoes." Bangkok police spokesman Kissana said this was a normal police duty.

"Basically, we are disguised as civilians," a female police officer in her late 20s from the Royal Thai Police told Reuters, asking to remain anonymous. "We’re told to wear yellow and shout 'Long live the king'." Protesters say police are easy to spot on such occasions because of their short haircuts.

One 23-year-old civil servant complained at being ordered to attend a seminar to praise the works of the Chakri dynasty, of which Vajiralongkorn is the 10th king.

"I can't do much, so I donate to the protesters," she told Reuters.

(Reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng and Matthew Tostevin in Bangkok; Editing by Bill Rigby)

Thai prime minister acquitted of ethics breach, retains post

BANGKOK — Thailand’s highest court on Wednesday acquitted Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha of breaching ethics clauses in the country’s constitution, allowing him to stay in his job.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The constitutional Court ruled on a complaint brought by the Pheu Thai party, the largest opposition grouping in Parliament, that Prayuth had broken the law by continuing to live in his military residence after he retired as army commander in September 2014.

The complaint alleged that he broke constitutional articles barring government ministers from receiving special benefits from state agencies or enterprises because that would amount to a conflict of interest. If a minister is found guilty of violating ethical standards, the official is to be disqualified and forced to step down.

The nine-judge panel agreed with an army explanation that retired senior officers such as Prayuth are allowed to stay in army housing in recognition of their service.

The ruling comes as Prayuth has been dealing with a persistent student-led pro-democracy movement that has been holding frequent well-attended rallies demanding that he and his government step down, charging that they came to power illegitimately.

Even before the court convened Wednesday. the protesters had called a rally to respond to the verdict.

"Thailand’s justice system has completely lost its integrity. The court’s verdict today shows they look down on the people. This will fuel people’s anger and be the condition that drives our rallies to a higher level,” a protest leader, Parit “Penguin” Chiwarak, told The Associated Press.

As army commander, Prayuth led a coup in May 2014 that ousted an elected government led by the Pheu Thai party. He then headed the junta that ruled for five years and was also prime minister in the military-guided government.

A general election last year brought to power a proxy party established by the military, which with its allies selected Prayuth to serve again as prime minister. The ongoing protests charge that the 2017 constitution established under military rule gave the proxy Palang Pracharath Party an unfair advantage in the election.

When Prayuth and several of his Cabinet ministers faced a censure debate in Parliament in February, opposition leader Sompong Amornwiwat of the Pheu Thai party raised the issue of whether Prayuth had acted illegally by continuing to live at his army residence at a base in Bangkok.

Prayuth’s defence has been that the official residence of the prime minister is undergoing renovation, and also that he faces security concerns.

The army argued on his behalf that his military housing is actually a VIP guest house, though critics suggest that if he did not pay at least for water and electricity, he may be breaking the law.

The court said that senior officers such as Prayuth were entitled to live in military housing as special guests in honour of their military careers. Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan and Interior Minister Anupong Paochinda were given the same privilege, former army chief Gen. Apirat Kongsompong declared before his retirement this past September. The court also said the current chief, Gen. Narongpan Jittkeawtae, had explained that the army’s regulations allow it to pay for utilities and other necessary costs in such instances.

In the past 12 years, court rulings have ousted three Thai prime ministers.

The court, like the military, is considered a pillar of the country’s royalist establishment, and the ultimate bulwark against threats to it. The three ousted politicians were associated with a former prime minister, populist billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by a 2006 military coup after being accused of abuse of power, corruption and disrespect to the monarchy.

The court's rulings have generally been favourable to Thaksin's opponents and hostile to his supporters, leading to criticism that it it is guided as much by politics as by law.

Grant Peck And Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul, The Associated Press

CBC News journalists deported from Uganda, despite having press credentials
CBC/Radio-Canada 1 day ago

© CBC A scan of the official press accreditation cards issued to the CBC News crew by the Media Council of Uganda.

A CBC News crew was deported from Uganda this weekend despite following protocols laid out for foreign journalists entering the country.

The deportation, which occurred on Friday, happened about a month before the country's elections. Opposition parties and election observers have expressed concerns the vote won't be free or fair.

Uganda is due to hold presidential and parliamentary elections on Jan. 14. Incumbent President Yoweri Museveni is seeking to extend his 34 year-rule — but has been accused of muzzling the media and has clamped down on political opponents.

"The expulsion of a foreign news crew in the early days of an election campaign that's already been marred by government security forces opening fire on opposition protests is extremely ominous," said CBC News foreign correspondent Margaret Evans, who was one of three CBC News journalists deported.

Evans, producer Lily Martin and videographer Jean-François Bisson landed in the country on Nov. 21 to do a series of reports from both rural and urban areas, mainly focusing on issues relating to the coronavirus pandemic.

"Before entering the country, we applied for — and were issued with — accreditation from the Media Council of Uganda," Evans said, noting they also sought advice from the Ugandan High Commission in London on proper visa requirements prior to the trip.

"They advised that we enter Uganda on an 'ordinary,' or tourist, visa. This is a long-established practice for foreign journalists."

© Jean-François Bisson/CBC CBC News videographer Jean-François Bisson, left, correspondent Margaret Evans, centre, and producer Lily Martin pose in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in southwestern Uganda.

Evans said five government agents arrived at their hotel in Kampala on Thursday.

"They said we were breaking the law by having arrived in the country on a tourist visa and then performing 'business activities,'" Evans said. "We, of course, said that made no sense given that we had openly applied for media credentials."

Hotel security intervened after the CBC News crew refused to go to an undisclosed address with the five officials, who also wanted to confiscate their passports. Evans said she then went to her room to call and ask CBC's London bureau manager to contact the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi — which is also responsible for Uganda.

"We agreed with the man who had identified himself as being with the police that we would present ourselves at the Ministry of the Interior the next day," Evans said.

© Lily Martin/CBC Evans, left, and Bisson are pictured aboard a flight between Entebbe and Kisoro while on assignment in Uganda.

The CBC News crew arrived at the ministry at 9 a.m. local time on Friday, along with Canada's honorary vice-consul in Uganda. Evans said they were held for several hours before being told they were being deported. They were then allowed to return to their hotel under armed guard to pack before being driven to the airport in Entebbe for an overnight flight to Amsterdam, she said.

"The vice-consul engaged on our behalf, but it was pretty clear it had been decided the day before when they sent five people to our hotel," Evans said.

A spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada told CBC News on Sunday that they are aware of the situation.

"Consular officials were in contact with local authorities in Uganda to gather information, and Canadian officials provided consular services to the affected individuals," spokesperson Angela Savard wrote in an email, adding that no further information could be disclosed due to Privacy Act provisions.

"Canada will continue to advocate for the protection of media freedom around the world."

A spokesperson from the Ugandan government communications department said on Twitter the government "reserves the right to admit foreign persons including journalists."

The same spokesperson, Ofwono Opondo P'Odel, also sent a pair of statements to CBC News in response.

"Every visa, work permit and media accreditation have terms and conditions, which can be revoked by the Uganda authority if violation occurs," he said in the first statement.

In a follow-up statement, P'Odel said the journalists "applied for a tourist visa, instead they were found working without work permit. Consequent they [were] removed and advised to apply for permit and can be allowed to return."

As stated by Evans, the trio had been advised to apply for tourist visas upon entering.
Violent protests following arrest of opposition candidate

Intimidation and violence against media is a regular occurrence in Uganda, according to Reporters Without Borders, a non-profit organization that advocates for freedom of information. In the organization's press freedom index for 2020, Uganda ranked 125th out of 180 countries.

Evans said Museveni's government has been accused of suppressing Ugandan journalists "through a series of arbitrary arrests and attacks — especially against those covering the campaign of opposition candidate Bobi Wine, who has himself been jailed by the government on more than one occasion."

"Those journalists don't have the support we in Canada are fortunate enough to have in circumstances like these," she said

.

© Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters, James Akena/Reuters Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, left, is looking to extend his 34-year rule but is facing opposition from candidate Bobi Wine.

Wine, a member of parliament and a musician who has emerged as a serious threat to a sixth term for Museveni, was released on bail on Nov. 20 after he was charged with holding rallies likely to spread COVID-19. New York-based Human Rights Watch said authorities were "weaponizing" COVID-19 to suppress the opposition ahead of elections.

"This is just the beginning of the campaign season," Oryem Nyeko, the group's Africa researcher, said on Nov. 20. "It seems to be a sign of things to come."

Protests erupted in the wake of Wine's arrest, which, according to Reuters, led to at least 37 deaths. Violence snowballed as authorities deployed the military across Kampala and surrounding areas to help police forces disperse protesters they accuse of rioting and looting. Police said they used live bullets, tear gas and water cannon and arrested nearly 600 people.