Estonian president slams interior minister over homophobic interview

In an interview with DW, Estonia's far-right Interior Minister Mart Helme made disparaging remarks about the LGBT+ community. The Estonian president and the prime minister have both decried Helme's stance on gay people.


Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid heavily criticized Interior Minister Mart Helme on Saturday over homophobic comments Helme made in a DW interview.

Helme told DW's Russian service that he was really "not friendly" to gay people and told them to go to Sweden.

The far-right politician's comments came in response to questions from DW's Konstantin Eggert on plans for a referendum excluding gay people from marriage. Below is an excerpt from the interview:

Helme: "[The referendum] is important for all people, because without marriage, without women and men having children, there is no future (...) We want the state to be preserved, and it cannot be preserved without children and without morality."

DW: What, will gay people attack and flood the Estonian nation?

Helme: "Let them run to Sweden. Everyone there treats them more politely."

DW: And you treat them rudely?

Helme: "I really am not friendly to them."

DW: Today this is called homophobia.

Helme: It is not homophobia. I would say that those people who call our referendum unnecessary are heterophobes. They are getting into the bedrooms of heterosexuals. They do it, not us. If they can do their homo propaganda, we can do other propaganda as well.

Read more: European LGBT+ equality survey shows east-west divide

'Our own people'

President Kaljulaid, a liberal conservative without official party affiliation, condemned the comments from Helme, the founder and leader of the far-right populist Conservative People's Party (EKRE) that forms part of the three-party ruling coalition in Estonia.

Kaljulaid said Helme was "not suitable" to be a Cabinet member.

"A minister with such views is not suitable for the government of the Republic of Estonia," said Kaljulaid, adding that she had expressed her position to Prime Minister Juri Ratas.

"I do not understand the overt hostility of Marth Helme against our society. We are talking about our own people — our policemen and teachers, our creative people and builders, our neighbors, colleagues and friends," she said.

Prime Minister Ratas, of the more centrist Estonian Centre Party, also condemned his comments in a post on Facebook.

Ratas said the Estonian constitution made it clear that all people were equal in the eyes of the law and that no one should be discriminated against. He said it also forbids incitement to discrimination or hatred.

In light of this, and the promise of the coalition agreement to follow these values, he said his comments were "unequivocally reprehensible."

In an interview with public broadcaster ERR, Ratas he said the coalition would meet early next week to discuss the matter.

Estonia's opposition has called for Helme to resign.

The above story has been updated with a more precise translation of Helme's remarks.


VIDEO CONFLICT ZONE https://p.dw.com/p/3k510

aw/rs (dpa, Interfax)

 Masculinities: Liberation through photography

Did #MeToo manage to "kill the patriarchy" or does toxic masculinity still reign supreme? An exhibition in London explores male self-image in a globally connected era, where gender standards are constantly changing. 

Brotherly Love

If aggression is a key feature of toxic masculinity, it might be skin-deep. The aesthetic of this picture is part of the Taliban self-image. Photographer Thomas Dworzak compiled dozens of such shots in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2001, as the US-led invasion of the country started. The contrast between macho insurgents portrayed by the media and their vulnerable self-image could not be greater.

High stakes for Earth's climate future in US vote

Issued on: 19/10/2020 -

Climate change amplifies extreme weather like droughts, which create ideal conditions for wildfires  Samuel Corum AFP/File

Paris (AFP)

The United States presidential election will be "make or break" for the planet after four years during which Donald Trump frustrated global efforts to slash emissions, climate experts warn, fearing his re-election may imperil the world's chances of avoiding catastrophic warming.

In a year dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, increasing signs of the brutal impacts of climate change have come into view, with record temperatures, sea ice loss and enormous wildfires scorching parts of the Arctic Circle, Amazon basin and the US itself.

Scientists say the window of opportunity to contain Earth's warming is narrowing fast.

This deadline magnifies the global significance of American voters' choice between Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden to lead the world's second-largest emitter for the next four years.

Trump, who has described climate change as a hoax, has doubled down on support for polluting fossil fuels and revoked or rolled back a host of environmental standards.

And just a day after the US vote on November 3, the country will formally withdraw from the Paris agreement, the international accord aimed at restraining emissions and averting runaway warming.

Trump's signature act of climate disruption has "already diminished our moral standing, taking us from a leader to the rear of the pack", climate scientist Michael Mann told AFP.

Without US climate leadership "I fear that the rest of the world will not take seriously enough their obligations to reduce emissions in time to avert the worst impacts of climate change," he said.

"That's why I've called this a make-or-break election when it comes to the climate."

- 'Ultimate stress test' -

Earth has so far warmed on average by one degree Celsius above preindustrial levels, enough to boost the intensity of deadly heatwaves, droughts and tropical storms.

Climate change, driven by the greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, has accelerated in recent decades.

The 2015 Paris Agreement was meant to start putting the brakes on.

Under the deal, nations agreed to cap global warming at "well below" 2C.

The US undertook to cut its emissions by 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.

In 2016, Trump's election heralded the unravelling of those pledges, culminating in the vow to withdraw completely from the Paris deal.

It was the nightmare scenario to lose the support of one of the world's biggest polluters that has emboldened other nations to slow-walk their climate commitments, analysts say.

But Mohamed Adow, the director of climate think tank Power Shift Africa, said Trump showed the accord was actually "much stronger than many of us feared".

"He has been the ultimate stress test and despite his full frontal attack, no one else has followed his folly and quit the agreement," he said.

In fact, with an end-of-year deadline to upgrade their commitment to curb greenhouse gas emissions, other major emitters have begun to fill the climate leadership void.

The European Commission now wants emissions in Europe cut 55 percent by 2030.

But it was China's recent vow to go carbon neutral by 2060 that has the potential to be a "game-changer", according to Lois Young, Belize's envoy to the UN, although she noted the plans unveiled by the world's largest emitter were still light on detail.

Young, who chairs the Association of Small Island States and has accused Trump of "ecocide", said countries like Brazil and India are "waiting and watching".

"If they come on board and leave America behind, following the China lead, I think it will minimise the damage," she told AFP.

But the US is still crucial.

Laurence Tubiana, who was a key architect of the Paris deal as France's top negotiator, said the rest of the world simply "cannot compensate" for the country's emissions.

While US states and businesses have independently acted to cut carbon, Tubiana predicted their efforts would fall short without new government policy.

In this context, she said a second Trump term would be "very bad news".

In contrast to Trump, Biden has pledged to return the US to the Paris accord.

He wants the US to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and has announced a $2-trillion climate change package to revamp the country's energy sector.

"There's no more consequential challenge" than climate change, Biden has said.

Increasingly, this position chimes with public opinion.

Some 60 percent of Americans think climate change was a major threat to US well-being, the Pew Research Center said this year, the highest proportion since the first survey in 2009.

And taking into account the drop in emissions linked to Covid-19, the group Climate Action Tracker has estimated that the US could meet its 2025 Paris targets.

"Ultimately, the transition to a zero carbon world is now unstoppable, the question is can it happen fast enough to protect the world's poorest people," said Adow from Power Shift Africa.

"The stakes for the planet could not be higher."

© 2020 AFP

FOOTBALL HOOLIGANS AND REACTIONARIES
Czech police use tear gas, water cannons as thousands protest Covid-19 rules

Issued on: 19/10/2020 - 

Demonstrators protest in central Prague against the Czech government's new measures to slow the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus on October 18, 2020. © Michal Cizek, AFP
Text by:NEWS WIRES

Thousands of protesters, including "radical" football fans according to police, gathered in the capital's historic Old Town Square to demand the resignation of Health Minister Roman Prymula, the mastermind behind the restrictions.

The rally turned fierce as protesters and police scuffled after authorities began dispersing the crowd, saying attendance far exceeded the current limit.

"Participants attacked the police without any reason," Prague police chief Tomas Lerch told reporters, while another officer described them as "radical fans".

"We used a water cannon, tear gas and petards," Lerch said, adding that nearly 20 officers were injured.



Prague's emergency service tweeted it had treated nine people and taken four to hospital "mainly with head injuries, cuts, inebriation and breathing problems following tear gas intoxication."

Police said they detained around 50 people before the rally and seized fireworks, brass knuckles, telescopic batons and firearms.

PHOTO Hundreds of demonstrators, mostly hooligans, clash with police during a protest against the Czech government's new measures in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic at the Old Town Square in Prague, Czech Republic, 18 October 2020. @epaphotos pic.twitter.com/EOToiPEUG5— Martin Divisek (@martin_divisek) October 18, 2020

The Czech Republic is the worst-off in the EU's rankings of new coronavirus cases and deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.

On Friday, the EU member of 10.7 million people set a new record in daily infections with 11,105 cases.

As of Sunday, it has registered more than 170,000 confirmed cases and over 1,400 deaths.

The rally was organised by the HON civic association, though football supporters made up a sizeable percentage of the crowd.

"The government announces the measures automatically without context and most of us have no chance to cope with them," reads a statement signed by the fans of 13 out of 18 Czech top-flight football clubs.

Waving a Czech flag, protester Vlasta Ciencialova, who came to Prague from the east of the country, did not mince her words regarding Prymula.

"He admits no opposition. How dare he? Who does he think he's talking to? We're not sheep, we're normal people," she told AFP.

Prymula himself slammed the protesters for "disdaining the work of medical workers."

"I suppose we'll have hundreds of new infections as a result," he added.

(AFP)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Top Australian horse trainer faces trial for cheating, cruelty

Issued on: 19/10/2020 - 

Darren Weir (C) trained Prince of Penzance, which was ridden to victory at the 2015 Melbourne Cup by the first female jockey to win the race, Michelle Payne PAUL CROCK AFP

Sydney (AFP)

Melbourne Cup-winning Australian trainer Darren Weir was committed to stand trial Monday on animal cruelty and conspiracy to defraud charges stemming from the 2018 spring racing carnival.

A magistrate ruled there was enough evidence for a jury to decide whether Weir, his former assistant Jarrod McLean and stable hand Tyson Kermond conspired to cheat and deceive racing stewards in Victoria state.

They are accused of horse torture, including the alleged use of electronic shock devices known as "jiggers" on three thoroughbreds to enhance their performance in the lead up to the 2018 season.

All three pleaded not guilty via video link at the Ballarat Magistrates Court with another hearing scheduled for November 19.

Weir trained the New Zealand thoroughbred Prince of Penzance, which was ridden to victory at the 2015 Melbourne Cup by the first female jockey to win the race, Michelle Payne.

He was banned from the sport in Victoria last year after dramatic police raids on his stables.

© 2020 AFP

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Jury indicts Texas billionaire in $2B decades-long tax fraud scheme


The United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Building is seen in Washington, D.C. File Photo by Kevin Dietcsch/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 17 (UPI) -- A federal grand jury has indicted Texas billionaire Robert Brockman in a decades-long, $2 billion tax fraud scheme.

A federal grand jury in San Francisco returned a 39 count indictment against Brockman on Thursday, a Department of Justice statement said.

Brockman, a 79-year-old resident of Houston, Texas, and Pitkin County, Colorado, has been CEO of an Ohio-based software company, Reynolds and Reynolds, that makes software for car dealerships, since a 2006 merger with Houston-based Universal Computer Systems, according to the indictment.

Tax evasion, wire fraud, money laundering, and other offenses are among the charges officials announced. The charges stem from alleged decades-long scheme to hide approximately $2 billion in income from the IRS and to defraud investors in the software's company's debt securities.

"Today's indictment reflects the Department of Justice's commitment to finding and prosecuting the costliest and most sophisticated tax crimes in the United States," Principal Deputy Assistant General of the Tax Division Richard Zuckerman said in a statement.

Along with the tax offenses, the indictment alleges that Brockman engaged in a fraudulent scheme to obtain approximately $67.8 million in the software company's debt securities.

In a virtual hearing Thursday, Brockman pleaded not guilty on all counts and was released on $1 million bond, The Wall Street Journal reported.


"We look forward to defending him against these charges," Brockman's lawyer Kathryn Keneally said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal.

Brockman used a "web of offshore entities" in Bermuda and Nevis to carry out the alleged scheme, according to the indictment. He also directed untaxed capital gains incomes to secret bank accounts in Bermuda and Switzerland.

According to the indictment, Brockman backdated documents and used encrypted code words to communicate with offshore money handlers. Among the code names, were fish-themed names like "Redfish," "Bonefish," and "Snapper," according to the indictment.

A spokesman for Reynolds and Reynolds told The Washington Post that the company "is not alleged to have engaged in any wrongdoing, and we are confident in the integrity and strength of our business" noting that Brockman's actions occurred "outside of his professional responsibilities."

Witness and co-conspirator Robert F. Smith, a founder of Vista Equity Partners, a San Francisco-based private equity fund with a single investor, Brockman, bolstered the case against Brockman, The Post reported. To avoid taxes, Smith helped Brockman hide profits earned through Vista in offshore accounts, according to prosecutors.

Brockman is a Marine veteran who started out his career working in marketing at Ford Motor and later worked as an IBM salesman before founding Universal Computer Systems in the 1970s and leading the company through its 2006 acquisition by Reynolds and Reynolds.

Damage from Trump's trade wars won't heal quickly: analysts

MONOPOLY CAPITALISM VS STATE CAPITALISM

Issued on: 19/10/2020 - 

The trade war with China is just one way that US President Donald Trump disrupted the global economy STR AFP/File


Paris (AFP)

After four years in office, Donald Trump has failed to achieve his promise to eliminate the US trade deficit, and dealt a lasting blow to the multilateral economic system that global trade is based upon, analysts say.

But even if Democrat Joe Biden wins the presidential election as most opinion polls currently show, US trade policy is likely to maintain a protectionist streak and the confrontation with China to persist.

One of Trump's main 2016 campaign themes was that the United States -- the world's biggest economy -- had been taken advantage of by its trade partners and he pledged to shake up global trade arrangements and eliminate the nation's trade deficit.

Trump has indeed shaken up the global trading system but the US trade deficit has grown under his presidency, and analysts say he has little to show for his efforts.

"Trump's trade policies have delivered few tangible benefits to the US economy while undercutting the multilateral trading system, disrupting long-standing alliances with US trading partners, and fomenting uncertainty," said Cornell University professor Eswar Prasad.

While the US trade deficit with China -- which was Trump's main target -- has indeed shrunk, imports from Canada and Mexico have jumped, deepening the overall deficit.

The import tariff increases that Washington has imposed on many products have "protected American manufacturers", according to Gianluca Orefice, an economics professor at the University of Paris-Dauphine.

But those tariffs also "raised production costs" for US industry and demonstrated the extent of the reliance on Chinese suppliers.

- 'Breaking not building' -

The global economic infrastructure is now in a deep state of flux.

"Obviously his policy has been deeply damaging with respect to Europe, to the WTO, which will be hard to repair," said Edward Alden, a journalist and author who specialises on US trade policy and who is currently a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

Trump's refusal to appoint new judges has paralysed the World Trade Organization's dispute resolution system, hobbling the arbitrator of the world's multilateral trading system.

"Donald Trump has shown he is capable of breaking, but incapable of building," said Sebastien Jean, director of CEPII, the main French institute for research into international economics.

"When one looks at what he got from China one is tempted to say: All that for that?" he added.

The truce in the US-China trade war reached in January left unsolved major points of contention such as intellectual property theft and forced technology transfers.

Meanwhile, "the Trump administration's erratic statements and policy decisions have resulted in the US being perceived as an unreliable and untrustworthy trading partner," said Cornell's Prasad.

This has led certain countries to go around the US and conclude bilateral or multilateral trade pacts, such as when Pacific nations went ahead with a deal after Trump pulled his country out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Trump had vaunted his deal-making prowess as a businessman before his election, but he has shown little taste for intricate and intense multilateral trade negotiations.

Instead he prefers to air grievances against German cars and a French tax on the big tech giants.

- Changing the dynamic -

Trump's four years in office have resulted in "the weakening of the rules-based multilateral trading system, embodied by the WTO, that the US was instrumental in setting up," said Prasad.

That could make it more difficult to achieve much in the way of cooperation to support and sustain a recovery in the global economy from the novel coronavirus crisis.

US journalist Alden does credit Trump with successfully renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, an effort that was supported by both Democrats and Republicans.

CEPII's Jean also credits Trump with changing the dynamic concerning China, which helped the EU change its policy towards Beijing, including several European countries joining the US in banning 5G mobile equipment from Chinese manufacturer Huawei.

The Brussels-based European think tank Bruegel said it believes that a Biden victory would mean a return to more courteous US style of diplomacy.

But the content may not change that much.

"The differences between Trump and Biden on trade are smaller than on many other issues," said Alden.

The positions of both Democrats and Republicans have hardened in recent years towards China, which is now viewed as a rival that needs to be contained as it has not evolved into a liberal market economy as had been hoped.

"Under either candidate, the trade war is likely to spread," said Vicky Redwood at Capital Economics.

"The trade war was basically inevitable given China's economic rise and persistence with high levels of state intervention rather than adoption of market forces," she said.

© 2020 AFP

French health workers ‘traumatised’ as Covid-19 resurges


Issued on: 10/10/2020 - 16:07

A medical worker prepares to enter the room of a patient suffering from the coronavirus disease in the Intensive Care Unit at the Clinique Bouchard-ELSAN private hospital in Marseille, France, September 21, 2020. © Eric Gaillard, REUTERS
Text by:Bahar MAKOOI
5 min

After having battled the first spike of Covid-19 infections last spring, nurses in intensive care wards in and near Paris tell FRANCE 24 that exhausted health workers are frightened by the virus’s resurgence.

Five months since the lifting of the almost two-month-long lockdown that helped suppress France’s Covid-19 caseload, the coronavirus has resurged as more people return to circulation. The country recorded more than 20,000 new cases on Friday, a record daily tally.

This comes after Paris and three neighbouring regions were put on the top coronavirus alert level on Tuesday, shutting the City of Lights’ iconic cafés and bars for at least 15 days. That same day, 40 percent of beds in the intensive care units of the Paris region were occupied by Covid-19 patients.

Nurses in the region’s hospitals are anxious once more; they remember all too well the panic in March, at the peak of the Covid-19 crisis. “We’re going to be there for whoever needs us. We don’t ask ourselves any questions, we just do what we’ve got to do and get on it with it,” said Isabelle*, a night nurse at Melun Hospital southeast of Paris.

“How could a country like ours have faced a shortage of equipment?” she asked. “I’ll never forget having to wear the same surgical mask for 12 hours straight, having to wear a bin bag as a gown, the risks for my family. I had Covid-19 symptoms, but I had to go to work anyway.”


‘A lot of them will never get over it’

Isabelle was one of the first nurses at her hospital to deal with serious coronavirus cases. She worked six days a week, more than 50 hours in total. She said she herself is all right, but expressed concern about her “traumatised” colleagues. “On more than one occasion we had pits in our stomachs because there was no more room in intensive care. We had to make choices as soon as space opened up. Many patients died on the floor [outside the intensive care ward]. Placing the deceased in bags and seeing them leave for the mortuary without even being washed – that was hard.”

Student nurses were called in as reinforcements. One of the students Isabelle worked with has since dropped out, too upset by the experience to continue. “We didn’t even have time to train them,” she said. “They really went through the wringer. You shouldn’t have to go through something like that when you’re 20. A lot of them will never get over it. How could the government let something like that happen?”

Several health workers’ unions criticised the decision to bring in student nurses in the early days of the pandemic. It was the use of “cheap labour who were asked to put aside their studies”, said Christophe Prudhomme, the left-wing CGT union’s spokesman for emergency medical workers.

“It’s like the hospital system itself is on a ventilator machine,” he told FRANCE 24. “Following budget cuts after budget cuts, things have to be done at the last minute – and it’s exhausting.”

The desire to volunteer is flagging amid the exhaustion – in contrast to the situation in March, when volunteers swelled the ranks of staff combatting Covid-19 in intensive care wards.

‘We’re not superheroes’

Another nurse, Audrey, volunteered at Kremlin-Bicêtre Hospital in Paris’s southern suburbs because she had worked in intensive care there a few years previously. “To start with, I didn’t really think about it,” she said. “But it was too difficult for my children, and I’m worried about my in-laws, with whom we live – they’re categorised as vulnerable.”

“Every evening I’d have to go in through the cellar, shower and wash all my clothes,” Audrey continued. “At the end of a shift my head would be spinning; I’d feel nauseous from wearing a FFP2 mask for hours on end without a break.” After a few difficult days, she resolved to take more breaks and take her mask off more often.

The sense of fatigue from the acute stage of the pandemic has still not gone away – despite the nightly round of applause in support of health workers and the influx of donations during that period. “We’re not superheroes,” Audrey said. “People are tired of the psychological burden caused by the pandemic – and there’s another dimension to it when you’re on the coronavirus front line. My colleagues and I didn’t have a peaceful summer; we were too worried about the rising number of cases.”

Nevertheless, there have been some positive changes over the past few months, Isabelle noted: “We now know a lot more about the disease and how to stop it from spreading.”

A doctor at the same hospital, Arnaid Mori, agreed: “We’ve got better at detecting it and managing it,” he said.

“Last time, we had to close the surgical wards,” said Mori, a surgeon specialising in the digestive system who was drafted onto the Covid-19 front line. “But this time we’re asking to be able to continue performing other operations; at the very least, we should be able to operate on some patients such as those suffering from cancer, because a few months’ delay could have a life-threatening impact,” he said.

Delays in cancer diagnosis and treatment during the initial stage of the pandemic could result in excess mortality of two to five percent, according to a study by the Gustave Roussy Institute, a cancer research centre near Paris.

One potential pitfall in the weeks to come, Prudhomme said, is a lack of ventilators to go with intensive-care beds. “We think at least 12,000 machines are needed. France has a lot more ventilators than before – but only 5,500 on hospital beds.”

France has enough ventilators in storage for 29,000 patients, Health Minister Olivier Véran announced at the end of September. However, in order to free up 12,000 beds, “if necessary on any given day”, operating theatres and recovery wards would have to be dedicated to treating Covid-19 patients.

This would force surgical operations to be postponed once again.

*Name has been changed.

This article has been translated from the original in French.

Tower of London ravens re-adapt to life after lockdown

CORVIDS VS COVID
Issued on: 19/10/2020 - 

The ravens at the Tower of Raven are some of the world's most famous birds

 TOLGA AKMEN AFP


London (AFP)

Chris Skaife has one of the most important jobs in Britain. As Yeoman Warder Ravenmaster at the Tower of London, he is responsible for the country's most famous birds.

According to legend firmly rooted in Britain's collective imagination, if all the ravens were to leave the Tower, the kingdom would collapse and the country be plunged into chaos.

Coronavirus lockdown restrictions saw tourist attractions across the country close their doors, including the imposing 1,000-year-old royal fortress on the banks of the River Thames.

That left Skaife with an unprecedented challenge of how to entertain the celebrated avian residents, who suddenly found themselves with no one to play with -- or rob food from.

It also raised fears the birds -- known as the guardians of the Tower -- would fly away to try to find tasty morsels elsewhere, and worse still, risk the legend coming to pass.

- Royal decree -

There are eight ravens in captivity in the Tower of London: Merlina, Poppy, Erin, Jubilee, Rocky, Harris, Gripp and George.

A royal decree, purportedly issued in the 17th century, stated there must be six on site at any one time but Skaife said he keeps two as "spares", "just in case".

They are free to roam the grounds but to prevent them from flying too far, their wings are trimmed back slightly.

Back in March when lockdown began, Skaife -- who is in his 50s and a retired staff sergeant and former drum major in the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment -- was furloughed.

But he still came to work to look after his majestic feathered charges, rotating feeding and caring duties with his three assistants.

"During that period of time, the ravens didn't actually see anybody," he told AFP.

"There were slight changes that I noticed. For instance, I had to keep them occupied without the public being there (and) there were less things for them to do.

"So I gave them enrichment toys that would help them enjoy their day."

With no people around, he put balloons, ladders and even mirrors in their cages to keep them entertained, and hid food around the Tower grounds for them to find.

- Slim pickings -

Breakfast time involves Skaife, in the distinctive black and red uniform of the "Beefeaters", distributing a meal of chicks and mice, which the ravens cheerfully devour.

Skaife's favourite is Merlina, he reveals with a smile.

She has become an internet favourite from his frequent posts and videos of her on his Instagram and Twitter accounts, which have more than 120,000 followers.

Once feeding time is over, he opens the cages on the south lawn to allow them to stretch their wings.

The Tower reopened its doors on July 10 but the pandemic has had a devastating effect on visitor numbers.

Some 60,000 people visited the Tower every week in October 2019 but it is now only 6,000, according to Historic Royal Palaces, which manages the site.

During the three-month national lockdown, Skaife said the ravens were given more freedom to explore other parts of the Tower.

But to be doubly sure they didn't fly off completely, their wings were clipped back further.

- Caged confinement -

The birds are now kept in their cages more often to make sure they eat enough, as there are slim pickings from the Tower's rubbish bins because of the reduced footfall.

"I don't particularly like doing it," said Skaife.

He says the ravens may be kept in cages but the Tower is their real home.

"So, I would never want to keep a raven in an enclosure."

Now, as life returns to a semblance of normality, the ravens are re-adapting to seeing more humans again and their old routine.

"Of course, we don't want the legend to come true," he said.

video-phz/kjm/dl/rbu

© 2020 AFP

Thousands of indigenous Colombians march on Bogota demanding end to violence


Issued on: 19/10/2020 - 

Thousands of indigenous activists arrived in Bogota on Sunday, calling for an end to violence and greater territorial rights Raul ARBOLEDA AFP

Bogota (AFP)

Thousands of indigenous Colombians arrived in the country's capital on Sunday, demanding a meeting with President Ivan Duque and an end to growing violence in their territories.

The demonstrators are also asking that they be consulted on major development projects and for the full implementation of a 2016 peace plan that ended a half century of insurgency by the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

"We demand guarantees for life, the right to land and that they comply with the peace agreements with the FARC rebels," Hermes Pete, senior advisor to the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca, told AFP.

Protests began on October 10 in southwestern Colombia and gradually advanced to the capital.

The approximately 7,500 who traveled to Bogota demanded a face-to-face meeting with the president to discuss the rise in violence from guerrillas and other groups financed by drug trafficking.

But presidential advisor Miguel Ceballos insisted that there was no possibility of meeting with Duque, instead offering a meeting with a federal delegation and the ombudsman -- an offer protestors rejected.

Ceballos also stressed his concerns about the risks of the pandemic, saying the government had distributed 1,000 Covid-19 tests among the demonstrators.

But protest spokesperson Noelia Campo insisted the minga, or indigenous meeting, "does not come sick, the minga comes healthy," and asked that the movement not be stigmatized.

Bogota mayor Claudia Lopez welcomed the protest movement and urged Duque to listen to its demands.

The group will march Monday to the Plaza de Bolivar, next to the presidential palace.

On Wednesday, they will join the "national strike," an anti-government movement that began in late 2019.

Duque, a conservative, has faced numerous protests during his two years in office, prompted by abuses by the armed forces, controversial economic and education policies, and a marked increase in violence against human rights activists.

"We have come to tell the country to respect our lives, to respect our territory... because today the pandemic is not killing us, we are being killed by the murderous bullets and the spread of the different armed groups," protest spokesperson Campo said.

Dozens of armed groups remain active in Colombia, fighting over the lucrative drug-trafficking trade in the world's largest producer of cocaine.

Representing 4.4 percent of Colombia's 50 million population, indigenous groups have for decades fought for their territorial rights, using methods such as roadblocks to gain attention.

© 2020 AFP

Bolivian election exit polls show socialist candidate ahead

Early exit polls suggest Luis Arce, an ally of former President Evo Morales, may have enough support to avoid a runoff vote. Sunday's poll was a repeat of the 2019 election, which led to Morales fleeing the country.


An exit poll in Bolivia's high stakes presidential election has given socialist candidate Luis Arce the lead he needs to avoid a runoff election. The quick-count Ciesmori polls were released late on Sunday by Bolivian media, and showed Arce with 52.4% of the votes and Carlos Mesa in second place with 31.5%. 

Arce, a former economy minister, is an ally of former President Evo Morales, while Mesa is a centrist who served as president in the early 2000s. To avoid a runoff, the winning candidate needed to secure more than 50% of the vote, or 40% with a lead of at least 10% over the second-place candidate.

Read more: Bolivia's presidential election could spark further instability

Without claiming victory, Arce thanked supporters and had a confident tone in a press conference shortly after midnight in the Bolivian capital, La Paz. 

"We are going to work, and we will resume the process of change without hate," Arce told reporters. "We will learn and we will overcome the mistakes we've made [before] as the Movement Toward Socialism party."
An election redo 

Bolivia erupted in violence in October 2019 as Morales was seeking a fourth term — despite the fact he was not technically eligible to do so.

The country's high court gave Morales the green light to run, even though he lost a referendum asking Bolivians if the constitution could be amended to add a fourth term. Early results announced on election night were reversed two days later, handing a narrow victory to Morales. The delay in results triggered violence nationwide that cost at least 30 lives, caused food shortages and led police and military leaders to force the former president into exile.

Prior to Sunday's vote, Bolivia's Supreme Electoral Court unanimously ruled against reporting preliminary vote totals as ballots are counted, advising that only the final tally should be reported. The counting process could take up to five days. 

Conservative Senator Jeanne Anez, the interim president who did not take part in the election, asked voters to stay calm until final results were announced.

"Patience, we must all be patient waiting for the results without generating any type of violence," she said. "I assure you we will have credible results."

Still cautioning that the results weren't yet official, Anez later congratulated Arce on his "apparent win" on Twitter. 

In Morales' shadow 

If Arce's victory is confirmed, it would be a triumph for the leftist movement Evo Morales built. But as his successor, Arce will likely have to govern under the long shadow of the man who was his former boss and the country's first Indigenous president. 

Despite overseeing a long period of stability in one of Latin America's most volatile countries and an export-led economic surge, Morales remains a polarizing figure in Bolivian politics. In particular, his quest for a fourth term upset large chunks of the population.

The staunch support he still holds, however, likely contributed to Arce's success. Arce will face the question of whether Morales can return from exile and how he should face a series of corruption scandals.

All of this is happening as the coronavirus pandemic has struck Bolivia harder than almost any other country on a per capita basis — nearly 8,400 of its 11.6 million people have died of COVID-19.

Landlocked Bolivia remains one of the poorest countries in the region, despite being rich in resources. The election also comes amid severe economic turmoil, with GDP expected to contract by 6.2% in 2020. 

jcg/msh (AFP, AP, dpa)

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