LGBTQ Russians seek refuge in Argentina

Associated Press

(27 May 2023) 

An increasing number of Russians from the LGBTQ community are settling in Argentina to escape discrimination and the war in Ukraine. 

(AP Video/Victor R. Caivano, Yesica Brumec, Natacha Pisarenko)

Roger Waters says Nazi outfit at Berlin concert was anti-fascist
 

FILE PHOTO: GERMANY-MUSIC/ROGER WATERS reuters_tickers

This content was published on May 27, 2023

BERLIN/LONDON (Reuters) - Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters said he was opposing fascism and bigotry when he wore a Nazi-style uniform on stage at a concert in Berlin that led German police to launch an investigation into the British musician.

The 79-year-old said aspects of his performance at Berlin's Mercedes-Benz Arena that have been questioned were "quite clearly" a statement against fascism, injustice and bigotry.

"Attempts to portray those elements as something else are disingenuous and politically motivated," he tweeted.

Images from a May 17 concert showed the famed singer and bass player in a long black trench coat with bright red arm bands, aiming an imitation machine gun into the audience.

The outfit included a swastika-like emblem made of two crossed hammers - iconography that also appeared on costumes in a film based on Pink Floyd's hit 1979 album "The Wall", a critique of fascism.

Waters said the depiction of "an unhinged fascist demagogue" had been a feature of his shows since "The Wall".

Social media users defended Waters, saying the performance was a recreation of satirical scenes from the film starring rock star turned campaigner Bob Geldof and that Waters had worn the same costume in past concerts.

Nazi symbols, flags and uniforms are prohibited in Germany. Waters is being investigated under a separate law on suspicion of "incitement of the people", police said.

The costume worn by Waters "is deemed capable of violating the dignity of the victims, as well as approving, glorifying or justifying the violent and arbitrary rule of the Nazi regime in a way that disrupts public peace," a police spokesperson said.

Other German cities including Munich, Frankfurt and Cologne tried to cancel Waters' concerts after Jewish groups including the Central Council of Jews accused him of anti-Semitism.

Waters is a member of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement that targets Israel over its occupation of territories where Palestinians seek statehood.

He denied the accusations and the efforts to stop the concerts were unsuccessful. The final German tour date at Frankfurt's Festhalle venue on Sunday is still listed on Waters' website.

(Reporting by Friederike Heine in Berlin and Sachin Ravikumar in London, Editing by Andrew Heavens and Andrew Cawthorne)

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/05/berlin-police-investigate-roger-waters.html

Serbia’s President Vucic steps down as head of governing party

President Aleksandar Vucic says he will remain head of state, amid ongoing anti-government protests following two consecutive mass shootings.

Tens of thousands of people have rallied in support of Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic following huge anti-government protests 

[Marko Djurica/Reuters]

Published On 27 May 2023

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has stepped down as leader of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), following anti-government protests against two mass shootings that killed 18 people this month.

On Saturday, Vucic told an SNS congress that he would remain head of state, but that a new approach was needed to unite the country.

“A slightly different approach is needed to unite a greater number of those who want to fight for the victory of patriotic Serbia … a successful Serbia that will focus on its citizens, for a country that will not look for reasons for division, but for unification and togetherness,” said the 53-year-old.

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After two mass shootings, Serbians rally against violence

The move came a day after tens of thousands of people from across Serbia and from neighbouring Kosovo, Montenegro and Bosnia rallied in the centre of the Serbian capital Belgrade in a show of support for Vucic after the massive anti-government protests against the shootings.

Another anti-government protest was scheduled for later on Saturday.

Leaders of the SNS accepted Vucic’s resignation offer at the party congress in Kragujevac, central Serbia, and appointed defence minister Milos Vucevic to replace him, as Vucic had proposed.

Opposition parties and rights watchdogs have long accused Vucic and the SNS of autocracy, stifling media freedoms, violence against political opponents, corruption and ties with organised crime.

Vucic and his allies deny the accusations.

Vucic told the congress he would stay head of state and would remain a party member. “I will never leave this party, I am proud to have led the best party all these years,” he told cheering delegates.

After his appointment, Vucevic confirmed the SNS will join an umbrella political organisation which Vucic plans to create on June 28.

“If Vucic is a locomotive of that movement, the first railcar would be the SNS,” he told reporters.

Mass shootings shock Serbia

Tens of thousands of Serbians rallied in Belgrade earlier this month after the two consecutive deadly shootings sent the country and surrounding Balkan region into a state of shock.

A 13-year-old suspect carried out an attack that officials say he had planned for months. A day later, a 21-year-old suspect in a moving car opened fire on passers-by in a town south of Belgrade.

Following the shootings, the union of educators of Serbia announced a strike and called for an end to the promotion of violence in the country.

“We demand for a ban on the promotion and public appearance of all convicted criminals, as well as all reality shows in which the participants behave violently,” their statement read.

At their protest march, Serbians demanded better security, a ban on violent content on TV and the resignation of key ministers.

Vucic became president of the SNS in 2012, replacing Tomislav Nikolic who held the post since 2008 when the party was formed as an offshoot of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party.

He first served as the deputy prime minister and prime minister, and was then elected president in 2017 and in 2022. His second and last term expires in 2027. Along with its allies, the SNS holds a majority of 164 seats in the 250-member parliament.

A nationalist firebrand during the wars in the 1990s, Vucic later embraced pro-European policies, proclaiming Serbia’s membership in the European Union its strategic goal. He also maintains close ties with Russia and China.

Back in Mexico, 'Earth Monster' sculpture points to ancient beliefs

Story by By David Alire Garcia • Reuters

 Yesterday 

The Olmec bas-relief Monument 9 of Chalcatzingo is pictured at the Museo Regional de los Pueblos de Morelos© Thomson Reuters

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A massive stone sculpture carved by Olmec artists more than 2,000 years ago that evokes ancient religious beliefs has returned to Mexico after decades in the United States in a homecoming cheered by officials and scholars.

Known today as the "Earth Monster," the sculpture was likely taken from central Mexico during the 1960s, spending time in the hands of private collectors as well as on public display before being seized by antiquities trafficking agents working with New York prosecutors.

The symbol-laden artifact weighs roughly a tonne (2,200 pounds) and was likely found several decades earlier at the Chalcatzingo archeological site in Morelos state, just south of Mexico City.

U.S. officials coordinated with their Mexican counterparts to repatriate the sculpture earlier this week.

It was carved from volcanic rock sometime between 800-400 BC during the heyday of the Olmec civilization, one of Mexico's earliest complex societies with sites mostly clustered around the country's Gulf coast. The Olmecs are well-known for their advanced artistic tradition, including colossal head sculptures.


The Olmec bas-relief Monument 9 of Chalcatzingo is pictured at the Museo Regional de los Pueblos de Morelos© Thomson Reuters

The artifact depicts a mythological mountain and its stylized cave entrance in the form of a cross, according to Mario Cordova, an Olmec archeologist who traveled to the United States as part of the recovery mission.


The mountain was also made to resemble the head of a jaguar, ancient Mexico's most fearsome predator, with the cave doubling as its open jaws and the entrance into the underworld.

Some have speculated the sculpture may have been used in ritual acts as a sacred passageway.

"This is a very important piece," said archaeologist Sara Ladron de Guevara, a scholar of Mexico's Huastec culture, pointing in particular to the cross-shaped open mouth.

"I can't remember any other sculptures that include this kind of opening," she said.

Other scholars note how the worldview of the Olmecs as seen in the "Earth Monster" sculpture is a recurring theme across ancient Mexico, including up to the Aztecs, who began their rise to power around 1,700 years later and whose main temple also doubled as a sacred mountain.

"The mountain-cave-mouth symbolic complex acquired a high iconographic value throughout Mesoamerica from very early times, giving rise over the millennia to increasingly complex sets of images," according to a book written by the father-son scholarly duo Alfredo Lopez Austin and Leonardo Lopez Lujan.

Lopez Lujan currently leads excavations at the Aztecs' holiest shrine in downtown Mexico City.

The Olmec sculpture's return to Mexico was hailed by Mexico Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, who spoke just before it was carefully hauled onto a plane for its trip back home.

"This gives us back something that explains where we come from," Ebrard said.

(Reporting by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Tom Hogue)

Farmer-turned-policeman is Mexico’s eyes and ears at Popocatepetl volcano

By MARÍA VERZA

AP

yesterday


Mexico farmer becomes official volcano watcher
When the Popocatepetl volcano reawakened in 1994, scientists scoured the surrounding areas for people who could be their eyes and ears. Nefi de Aquino, a farmer in his fifties who knew photography and lived beside the volcano, fit the bill. Since then his life changed. (May 25) (AP video shot by: Gerardo Carrillo)

SANTIAGO XALITZINTLA, Mexico (AP) — When the Popocatepetl volcano reawakened in 1994, Mexican scientists needed people in the area who could be their eyes and ears. State police helped them find one, Nefi de Aquino, a farmer then in his 40s who lived beside the volcano. From that moment on, his life changed.

He became a police officer himself, but with a very specific job: watching Popocatepetl and reporting everything that he saw to authorities and researchers at diverse institutions.

For nearly three decades, de Aquino says he has been “taking care of” the volcano affectionately known as “El Popo.” And for the past 23 of those years, he has been sending scientists daily photographs.

Collaboration between researchers and local residents — usually people of limited means — is crucial to Mexico’s volcano monitoring. Hundreds of villagers collaborate in different ways. Often local residents are the only witnesses to key events. Sometimes scientists install recording devices on their land, or have them collect ash samples.

One evening this week, the thin 70-year-old policeman with a hoarse voice stopped his patrol truck near the cemetery overlooking his home town, one of the area’s best vantage points. At his feet lay the town of Santiago Xalitzintla. Directly in front at a distance of 14 miles (23 kilometers) sat Popocatepetl, puffing smoke, the rim of its crater aglow.

Since it appeared calm, de Aquino didn’t stay long. Over the previous week, he had been busy sending digital volcano photographs to a slew of researchers at universities and government agencies as the mountain’s activity increased and authorities raised the alert level. Once again the world’s eyes were on the 17,797-foot Popocatepetl, including those of the 25 million people living within 60 miles of its crater.

On Friday, officials said the volcano’s activity had decreased somewhat although they maintained the same alert level.

A farmer who was a meat packer for three years in Utah in his late 20s when he illegally emigrated to the United States, de Aquino’s life took a radical turn one day in 1994 when someone in his home town told him police were looking for him.

At first he was afraid to go to the police, but eventually did. The interview was brief.

“’Do you know how to read?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Write?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you drive?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you have a license?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Heck, this one will work.’”

Officers told de Aquino that the government was looking for people to monitor the volcano and that he, then 41, had certain advantages. He appeared serious, he had finished high school and during his short stay in the United States he had learned how to take photographs.

At first he was given a volunteer civil defense role, and he took some courses at National Center for Disaster Prevention, or CENAPRED where he was “immersed in the volcano.” But he wasn’t thrilled with doing the work without pay. So authorities offered to send him to the police academy.

Although de Aquino became an officer with some normal police duties, he was an odd cop. He almost always worked alone, patrolling remote mountain roads, taking photos of the volcano.

The ways that local people who help monitor the volcano are compensated are seldom straightforward, because they are not on the payrolls of universities or other research institutions, despite “becoming our eyes close to the volcano,” said Carlos Valdés, a researcher at the UNAM’s Geophysics Institute and former head of CENAPRED.

As an example, Valdés said that the key person when the seismic monitoring system was installed on Popocatepetl was a mountain climber who lived in the town of Amecameca. The man, since deceased, knew the safest routes to climb and how to avoid putting instruments in locations that were sacred to locals.

The way to compensate the man, was “to buy tires for his jeep, repair the vehicle, get him coats,” because it was otherwise difficult to pay him.

Paulino Alonso, a technician at CENAPRED who does fieldwork at Popocatepetl, said collaboration with locals also has given researchers a better understanding of how locals perceive risks.

“A machine is never going to speak to the human perception of danger,” Alonso said.

In 2000, when Popocatepetl grew more active, authorities declared a red alert and thousands of people were evacuated. De Aquino’s monitoring work intensified.

“They gave me cameras, a patrol car and binoculars and every day I had to send three photos: one in the morning, one at midday and one at night,” the policeman said.

He continues that work to this day, filling up his adobe-walled home with thousands of photographs. De Aquino lives alone on a modest ranch on the volcano’s slopes, where he has some fruit trees growing beside a stream, and also raises corn and a few animals.

De Aquino helps keep locals informed about the volcano and assists during evacuations. Once, his house becomes an impromptu shelter for soldiers, police and government officials, he said.

De Aquino has gotten to go along on overflights of the crater, the first time terrified. “You see the whole base, how it lights up, how its puts out smoke ... it felt strange,” he said.

He has continued in his job despite being past retirement age.

“What I have learned from (Popocatepetl) is that while it’s calm, it doesn’t do anything, but when it gets mad, it goes crazy,” he said.

'Don Goyo's Angry': The Legends Behind Rumbling Mexican Volcano

By Sofia Miselem

AFP

May 26, 2023

Ash and smoke billow from Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano

Pictures by Claudio Cruz. Video by Carlo Echegoyen

In the foothills of Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano, locals have their own beliefs about why ash is recently raining down on them -- and it has little to do with conventional science.

According to legend, the spirit of the volcano located 70 kilometers (about 45 miles) southeast of Mexico City is embodied by a man known locally as "Don Goyo."

And when he gets upset, "El Popo" starts to rumble as it has for more than a week.

"Don Goyo's angry because they didn't put out his offering," said Jose Luis, a 55-year-old charcoal seller in Xalitzintla, the community closest to Popocatepetl.

Some residents even report having seen the mountain incarnate appear before them.

Jose Marcos said that when he was a child, Don Goyo -- full name Gregorio Chino Popocatepetl -- came to his house for a glass of water and a taco.


Jose Marcos, 77, a local farmer, keeps a wary eye out for further rumblings from the volcano known familiarly as El Popo

"We asked him 'who are you?' He said: 'Don't you know me? I'm Gregorio Chino Popocatepetl. I'm the volcano,'" the 77-year-old farmer said.

Every year on March 12, residents mark the day known as Don Goyo's birthday.

Hundreds of people approach the crater to offer typical dishes, liquor, flowers and clothes, and sing a traditional song.

This year, however, authorities restricted access to the site due to the increased danger, dismaying locals who warned that it would anger the mountain's spirit.


"We've already asked Don Goyo to wait for us until next year," local mayor Gumaro Sandre Popoca told AFP.

Life in Xalitzintla, home to about 2,000 inhabitants, revolves around volcanoes.

The walls are dotted with images of Popocatepetl and the neighboring Iztaccihuatl volcano.

Mediums who claim to communicate with "Don Goyo" are influential figures in the community.

One of them, Nazario Castro, blames people who enter the exclusion zone to take selfies for upsetting the volcano.

"They're provoking it because they go up" to take pictures and "it starts to thunder," Castro said.

Isabel, a restaurant owner in the town, said that as an 11-year-old girl she also saw the man who embodies Popocatepetl.

"He comes down from the mountain. He's tall, with white hair and green eyes," she said.

"He scared me. I ran home and got under the bed," added the 54-year-old, who did not want to give her full name for fear of being called a "gossip."


"We're not afraid," says Eufemia de Jesus Ramos, who sells birds at an animal market near Popocatepetl volcano

But she enthusiastically recounted a pre-Hispanic love story involving Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl.

According to legend, Iztaccihuatl ("white woman" in the Indigenous Nahuatl language) was the daughter of a local chief who fell in love with a handsome warrior called Popocatepetl ("smoking mountain").

But Popocatepetl was sent to war and a lovelorn Iztaccihuatl died of grief.

When the warrior returned, he found her body and carried it to the mountain, where both were covered with snow and became majestic volcanoes.


All around the Popocatepetl volcano are signs for how to escape should an eruption occur

For the past week, "El Popo," which awoke from decades of slumber in 1994, has unnerved locals with several explosions and repeated emissions of ash, gasses and molten rock.

Authorities increased their warning level to one step below red alert, which, if reached, would mean evacuation for thousands of people living near the volcano.

While some residents have already left as a precaution, others prefer to stay.

"We're not afraid," said Eufemia de Jesus Ramos, who sells birds at an animal market in San Andres Calpan, about 25 kilometers from Popocatepetl.

"If we leave, the thieves will take advantage of it," the 65-year-old said.

© Agence France-Presse

Booming eruptions, ash everywhere: What life is like under Mexico’s most dangerous volcano

Mexico’s Popocatépetl volcano erupting on May 23, 2023.

(Cristopher Rogel Blanquet / Getty Images)

BY KATE LINTHICUM

LA TIMES

STAFF WRITER MAY 25, 2023

SANTIAGO XALITZINTLA, Mexico —

Each spring, residents of this village tucked at the base of one of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes trek up to a cave near its crater to make a peace offering.

Their gifts of fruit, flowers and turkey cooked in sweet mole are meant to placate Popocatépetl, the nearly 18,000-foot-high volcano viewed by many here not just as a geological wonder, but also as a mythological being whose whims have long shaped the lives of those in its shadows.

These days, the consensus among villagers is clear: Popocatépetl isn’t happy.

Villagers in Santiago Xalitzintla, Mexico, plant corn in the shadow of the Popocatépetl volcano.
(Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)
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For months now, the volcano has been spewing molten rock and shooting massive columns of ash into the sky.

The eruptions have grown bigger and more frequent in recent weeks — rattling homes with wheezing exhalations that residents compare to steam escaping from a pressure cooker. Bone-gray ash blankets everything: cars, crops and even the dogs that beg for scraps in the streets.


At Mexico’s gay cowboy conventions, men connect with each other — and their country’s rugged past
May 22, 2023

The sheer quantity of ash — a mixture of rock, mineral and glass particles from deep inside the volcano — has prompted officials to ground thousands of flights at airports in nearby Mexico City and Puebla and to suspend school in nearly two dozen municipalities.

On Sunday, officials raised the volcano threat level to “Yellow Phase 3,” which calls for those who live nearest to the volcano — including the 2,000 residents of Santiago Xalitzintla — to prepare for possible evacuation.

Although the volcano appears to be more active now than it has been in the last two decades, there is no indication that catastrophic eruption is underway, said Ana Lillian Martín del Pozzo, a volcanologist at the Geophysics Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. It has been centuries since the volcano last expelled a significant flow of lava.

Pedestrians cross an ash-covered street in Atlixco, Mexico, on May 22, 2023.
(Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)

Still, the volcano’s long history of destructive explosions and the 24 million people who reside within 60 miles of its crater make Popocatépetl an acute threat. Authorities aren’t taking any chances.

Scientists are monitoring seismic activity, testing the chemical content of the ash and probing other metrics that predict volcanic activity. The federal government has mobilized 7,000 troops in case an evacuation becomes necessary.

As geology fans gape at video feeds that show incandescent rocks blowing from El Popo’s peak, those who live along its flanks have watched with respect and a noteworthy lack of trepidation.

Soldiers patrol as ash from the Popocatépetl volcano blankets the streets of Santiago Xalitzintla, Mexico.
(Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)

Residents went on with their scheduled celebration of a saint’s day over the weekend, dancing to a live band as flurries of ash fell, dusting the streets with what looked like snow.

And although many complain of sore throats, coughs and irritated eyes, they have mostly continued tilling the earth, tending their horses and otherwise going about life as usual.

“We’re used to it,” said Nazario Galicia, an 81-year-old farmer who on a recent afternoon was feeding his donkeys even as truckloads of national guard troops descended on the village to sweep up ash. “Our grandparents lived with the volcano, and their grandparents lived with it too.”

Two people wear hoodies and masks to shield themselves from the ash emitted by the Popocatépetl volcano in Atlixco, Mexico, on May 22, 2023. The volcano’s activity has increased over the last week.
(Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)

Like many people here, Galicia believes the volcano is a kind of deity — they call him Don Goyo — whose behavior is closely linked to human activity.

Galicia wondered whether the powerful eruptions in recent days were occurring because townsfolk had been unable to bring their annual offering this spring, when milder bursts from the volcano ruled out an ascent. Or maybe, he said, the volcano was responding to current events, airing its discontent with Mexico’s high levels of violence and corruption.

A woman sweeps ash from the Popocatépetl volcano in Santiago Xalitzintla, Mexico.
(Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)

Popocatépetl and a nearby volcano, the relatively dormant Iztaccihuatl, have loomed large in Mexican mythology since at least the time of Aztecs.



According to one popular myth, they were formed after ill-fated lovers — the warrior Popocatepetl and the princess Iztaccihuatl — died tragic deaths and were turned into stone.

Popocatépetl’s explosions have displaced humans in the past. Archaeologists say a pre-Hispanic settlement not far from Santiago Xalitzintla was buried twice by ash long before the Europeans arrived in Mexico.

The volcano was dormant for about half of the last century but rumbled back to life with a series of relatively small eruptions beginning in the 1990s.

The government ordered evacuations then, and some locals moved away. But most residents returned, adopting new practices such as covering water and food supplies for farm animals to prevent contamination from falling ash. Many, too, have embraced a kind of steely humor to cope with living alongside an ever-present threat.

Villagers make peace offerings to the Popocatépetl volcano


Residents of Santiago Xalitzintla, Mexico, a village at the base of the Popocatépetl volcano, trek up to a cave near its gaping crater to make a peace offering.

“We hope it calms down,” said Juana Hernández, 55, as she finished off her tacos near the town’s plaza one afternoon this week. “If not we’ll have to bring an offering.”

She wondered whether a chicken would do. Her friend Francisca de los Santos, 56, had another idea. “Maybe we should sacrifice one of our men,” she said, laughing.

The friends said they haven’t slept much in recent days, thanks to the volcano’s rumblings. In the evenings, villagers gather outside in the cold to watch eruptions light up the night sky.

Many children are scared of the pyrotechnics. Some had urged their parents to find them a new place to live.

But despite her burning throat, scratchy eyes and worry that her family’s fruit trees might not survive the volcano’s blowing debris, De Los Santos said she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

After all, in this part of Mexico so prone to natural disasters — where earthquakes can level apartment buildings in seconds — there’s a certain pride that comes with living in proximity to danger.

Agustín Ochoa, the 64-year-old owner of a hat shop in the next town over, said life is more exciting under a volcano.

“The day there’s no eruption,” he said as he whisked ash from several white cowboy hats, “we’ll miss it.”


Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.

Volcanic ash obscures a view of the city of Atlixco, Mexico.
(Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)

 

 

UAE releases Lebanese detainees after death in custody raised allegations of mistreatment

By ABBY SEWELL

AP

 Relatives and supporters of Lebanese citizens detained in the United Arab Emirates protest in front of the Foreign Ministry headquarters demanding the release of the detainees, in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, May 15, 2023. Lebanon's foreign ministry said Saturday, May 27, a group of Lebanese citizens detained in the United Arab Emirates have been released.

 (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

BEIRUT (AP) — A group of Lebanese citizens detained in the United Arab Emirates have been released, Lebanon’s foreign ministry said Saturday.

Lebanon’s ambassador to the UAE notified the ministry of the release of 10 Lebanese detainees who had been arrested there about two months ago, the ministry said in a statement.

The release comes after the death earlier this month of a Lebanese man who was detained in the UAE on unknown charges. A committee of family members of Lebanese citizens detained in the UAE alleged in a statement that Ghazi Ezzedine, 55, had died under torture, and rights groups raised concerns about the Emirati government’s lack of transparency regarding Ezzedine’s case and the linked detentions.

Emirati authorities have not commented on the case or on the release of the other detainees.

Afif Shouman, head of a group of Lebanese families with relatives detained in the Gulf country, said seven Lebanese citizens remain detained in the UAE, none of whom have been convicted of a crime, and called for their release.

UAE authorities have detained dozens of Lebanese, mostly Shiites, in the past over alleged links to the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The UAE, like other Gulf Cooperation Council members, considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

In 2019, the UAE sentenced one Lebanese national to life in prison and two to ten years in prison on charges of links to Hezbollah.

Amnesty International said in a statement at the time the trial of the men “failed to meet international fair trial standards,” as the evidence included confessions that were “extracted under duress, and the defendants were detained incommunicado for months and denied access to lawyers during interrogation and investigation.”

Baby eels remain one of America’s most valuable fish after strong year in Maine

By PATRICK WHITTLE

today

- Bruce Steeves uses a lantern to look for young eels, known as elvers, on a river, in southern Maine. Fishermen in the U.S.'s only commercial-scale fishing industry for valuable baby eels once again had a productive season searching for the tiny fish. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Fishermen in the U.S.’s only commercial-scale fishing industry for valuable baby eels once again had a productive season searching for the tiny fish.

Baby eels, called elvers, are often worth more than $2,000 per pound because of how valuable they are to Asian aquaculture companies. That makes them one of the most valuable fish species in the U.S. They’re raised to maturity so they can be used in Japanese food, some of which is sold in the U.S. in unagi dishes at sushi restaurants.

The elvers have again been worth more than $2,000 per pound at the docks this year, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources. The fishermen are limited to a combined quota of a little less than 10,000 pounds per year and were about through it by early May, the department said. The price was a tick below last year’s, but higher than the previous two.

Fishermen this year have been aided by favorable weather and strong international demand, said Jeffrey K. Pierce, a former Maine state representative and adviser to the Maine Elver Fishermen Association. Foreign sources of baby eels have largely dried up, and that has made Maine eels more valuable in recent years.

“There’s a huge demand for it. They’re not getting a lot out of Europe,” Pierce said. “And it’s just a great product.”

South Carolina is the only other state in the country with a fishing industry for baby eels, and that state’s fishery is much smaller.

Maine fishermen harvest the eels using nets in rivers and streams every spring. Some fish in rural areas, while others harvest them in the state’s cities, including Portland and Bangor. They’re also harvested by members of Native American tribes in the state.

The worldwide industry for eels has been threatened by poaching for many years because of how valuable the fish are. Maine has adopted new controls in recent years to try to thwart illegal elver fishing and dealing in the state. Federal law enforcement has also targeted illegal eel dealing and fishing.

Still, illegal dealing persists. One study published this year by a research team led by the University of Exeter found that as much as two-fifths of the North American unagi samples they tested actually contained European eels, which are banned from importing or exporting.

VP Harris, 1st woman to give commencement speech at West Point, welcomes cadets to ‘unsettled world’

By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN

AP

May 27, 2023

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the graduation ceremony of the U.S. Military Academy class of 2023 at Michie Stadium on Saturday, May 27, 2023, in West Point, N.Y. (AP Photo/Bryan Woolston)

NEW YORK (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman to deliver a commencement speech at West Point, lauded graduating cadets Saturday for their noble sacrifice in serving their country, but noted they were entering an “unsettled world” because of Russian aggression and the rising threats from China.

“The world has drastically changed,” Harris told the roughly 950 graduating cadets. She referred to the global pandemic that took millions of lives and the fraught shifts in global politics in Europe and in Asia.

“It is clear you graduate into an increasingly unsettled world where long-standing principles are at risk,” she said.

As the U.S. ended two decades of war in Afghanistan, the longest in the country’s history, the vice president again condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the first major ground war in Europe since World War II.

She also warned cadets to be wary of China, as it rapidly modernizes its military and muscles for control of parts of the high seas, ostensibly referring to the brewing disputes over the South China Sea.

Harris made no mention in her address about the ongoing skirmishing in Washington, where the White House and congressional Republicans try to avert a debt crisis.

In her speech, Harris touched on the importance of having institutions reflect the diversity of the broader United States, making the comment at an institution that has made slow progress diversifying its ranks in the four decades since the first class of female cadets graduated.

Today, about one quarter of the student body are women. Only a few dozen graduates each year are Black women, like Harris, though the number has ticked up in recent years. The academy didn’t admit women until 1976 and had its first female graduates in 1980.

Upon graduation, the cadets will be commissioned as Army second lieutenants.

West Point dates to 1802. Since then, the college has educated future military leaders including Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Gen. George Patton and Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Harris’ visit is her first to the U.S. Army academy. Commencement speakers at the country’s military academies are usually delivered by the president, vice president or high-ranking military official — which until Harris’ election meant speakers have always been men.

Harris was joined at the commencement by Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth, who in 2021 became the first woman to hold the military service’s top civilian post.

While Harris visited West Point, about 60 miles (96 kilometers) north of Manhattan, President Joe Biden heads to Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Thursday to address graduates at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III addressed the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, on Friday.

Last year, Harris addressed graduates at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.

Cracks emerging in Europe’s united front to battle climate change

By SAMUEL PETREQUIN

AP

today

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 Large parts of the forests are missing in the Taunus region near Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, April 7, 2023. The European Union has been at the forefront of the fight against climate change and the protection of nature for years. But it now finds itself under pressure from within to pause new environmental efforts amid fears they will hurt the economy. (AP Photo/Michael Probst, File)

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union has been at the forefront of the fight against climate change and the protection of nature for years. But it now finds itself under pressure from within to pause new environmental efforts amid fears they will hurt the economy.

With the next European Parliament elections set for 2024, some leaders and lawmakers are concerned about antagonizing workers and voters with new binding legislation and restrictive measures and are urging the 27-nation bloc to hit the brakes.

Since Ursula von der Leyen took the helm of the powerful European Commission back in 2019, environmental policies have topped the EU agenda. EU nations have endorsed plans to become climate neutral by 2050 and adopted a wide range of measures, from reducing energy consumption to sharply cutting transport emissions and reforming the EU’s trading system for greenhouse gases.

But cracks in the European united front against climate change have emerged in recent months.

The first sign was earlier this year when Germany, the bloc’s economic giant, delayed a deal to ban new internal combustion engines in the EU by 2035 amid ideological divisions inside the German government.

An agreement was finally reached in March, but just weeks later, the bloc’s other powerhouse, France, called for a pause on EU environmental regulation, causing controversy.

As he presented a bill on green industry earlier this month, French President Emmanuel Macron said it was time for the EU to implement existing rules before adopting new ones.

“We have already passed a lot of regulations at European level, more than our neighbors,” he said. “Now we have to execute, not make new rules, because otherwise we will lose all players.”

Macron has been particularly concerned by a U.S. clean energy law that benefits electric vehicles and other products made in North America, fearing it will expose European companies to unfair competition. Although Europeans and their American partners keep working to resolve the challenges posed by the U.S. law, Macron’s logic basically holds that a pause on environmental constraints would help EU businesses keep producing on home soil, despite competition from countries such as China that have lower environmental standards.

Belgian Prime minister Alexander De Croo quickly followed suit, calling this week for a moratorium on the introduction of EU legislation aimed at nature preservation, creating a rift within the governing coalition including green politicians.

The law proposed by the EU’s executive arm aims, by 2030, to cover at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas with nature restoration measures, “and eventually extend these to all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050,” the commission said.

De Croo said that climate legislation should not be overloaded with restoration measures or limits on agricultural nitrogen pollution, warning that businesses would no longer be able to keep up.

“That’s why I’m asking that we press the pause button,” he told VRT network. “Let’s not go too far with things that, strictly speaking, have nothing to do with global warming. These other issues are important too, but measures to address them must be taken in phases.”

Macron and De Croo have found allies at the European Parliament, where members of the biggest group, the Christian Democrat EPP, have asked the European Commission to withdraw the nature restoration law proposal on grounds that it will threaten agriculture and undermine food security in Europe.

The move came after two parliamentary committees, the Fisheries Committee and the Agriculture Committee, rejected the planned legislation.

EPP lawmakers claim that abandoning farmland will lead to an increase in food prices, more imports and drive farmers out of businesses.

“This is an exceptional step and shows that the Parliament is not ready to accept a proposal that only increases costs and insecurity for farmers, fishers and consumers,” said Siegfried Mureşan, the vice-chairman of the EPP Group responsible for budget and structural policies.

The growing opposition to the nature restoration law has caused great concern among environmental NGOs, and Frans Timmermans, the EU Commission’s top climate official in charge of its Green Deal, warned he would not put forward an alternative proposal because there isn’t time.

“You can’t say I support the Green Deal, but not the ambition to restore nature. It’s not ‘à la carte menu,’” Timmermans said.

The EU commission has also proposed setting legally binding targets to reduce the use of pesticides by 50% by 2030 and a ban on all pesticide use in public parks, playgrounds and schools. To ease the transition to alternative pest control methods, farmers would be able to use EU funds to cover the cost of the new requirements for five years.

“If one piece falls, the other pieces fall. I don’t see how we can maintain the Green Deal without the nature pillar, because without the nature pillar, the climate pillar is also not viable,” Timmermans told EU lawmakers. “So we need to get these two together.”

German government denies Scholz comments spurred raids on climate activists

AP
yesterday

Activists and supporters of the group 'Letzte Generation' Last Generation demonstrate in Stuttgart, Friday May 26, 2023. A German government spokesperson on Friday rejected the notion that comments by Chancellor Olaf Scholz criticizing climate activists might have prompted raids against them this week. (Andreas Rosar/dpa via AP)

BERLIN (AP) — A German government spokesperson on Friday rejected the notion that comments by Chancellor Olaf Scholz criticizing climate activists might have prompted raids against them this week.

Police on Wednesday searched more than a dozen properties across Germany linked to the group Last Generation, seizing assets as part of a probe into its finances. Prosecutors in Munich said they are investigating whether the group constitutes a criminal organization after its repeated road blockades and other protests drew numerous complaints from the public.

Days before the raids, Scholz said he thought it was “ completely nutty to somehow stick yourself to a painting or on the street.”

Members of Last Generation have hit back, describing the raids as a blow to democracy and accusing Scholz of belittling young people’s fears about global warming.

Scholz’s spokesperson, Wolfgang Buechner, said he didn’t know whether the chancellor had advance knowledge of the raids but that it would be unusual if that were the case.

Asked whether prosecutors in Bavaria could have taken Scholz’s comments as a signal to crack down on the group, Buechner strongly rejected the idea.

“It has to be possible for the German chancellor to answer a question about what he thinks of the protests in a plain-spoken way,” he said. “I think the chancellor did this in an appropriate way.”

Buechner said the German government remains committed to tackling climate change and protesters must abide by the law.

A United Nations spokesperson said Thursday that while governments have a duty to uphold the law, “people also have a fundamental right to demonstrate peacefully to have their voices heard.”

“And it is clear that a lot of the progress that we have seen on awareness on climate change and positive movement on climate change is due to the fact that people have been demonstrating peacefully throughout the world,” Stéphane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

“Climate advocates – led by the moral voice of young people – have kept the agenda moving through the darkest of days. They must be protected, and we need them now more than ever,” he told German news agency dpa.

Last Generation and other groups have said they plan further protests in Germany over the coming days.