Pritzker Architecture Prize awarded to Paris-based duo


This 2021 image shows French architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, recipients of this year's Pritzker Architecture Prize. The pair founded Lacaton & Vassal in Paris in 1987 and have devoted their energies to both private and public housing, as well as museums and other cultural and academic institutions. (Laurent Chalet/Pritzker Prize via AP)


JOCELYN NOVECK
Tue, March 16, 2021

The Pritzker Architecture Prize, the field's highest honor, has been awarded to the Paris-based duo of Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal for “prioritizing the enrichment of human life," especially in the context of public housing.

The selection of the French laureates, who have long focused on creating more liveable structures that connect to nature in even the densest of urban settings, was announced Tuesday by Tom Pritzker, chairman of The Hyatt Foundation, which sponsors the award.

“Through their design of private and social housing, cultural and academic institutions, public spaces, and urban developments, Lacaton and Vassal re-examine sustainability in their reverence for pre-existing structures, conceiving projects by first taking inventory of what already exists,” organizers said in a statement. “By prioritizing the enrichment of human life ... they are able to benefit the individual socially, ecologically and economically, aiding the evolution of a city."

In her own remarks, Lacaton noted that “good architecture is open — open to life .... It should not be demonstrative or imposing, but it must be something familiar, useful and beautiful, with the ability to quietly support the life that will take place within it.”

In an interview from Paris, the pair explained how the global pandemic has reinforced their longtime view that people deserve open space and a connection to nature, even when living in housing projects in dense cities.

“It's clear that in one year many things have changed, especially in terms of our relationship with space,” Lacaton said. “We have all been forced to stay home. It has clearly made visible that living space is extremely important.”

She noted the duo had long focused on the theory that “more generous space is extremely important for everyday life. We have made efforts to always develop more space than the standard that's requested. So for us this is a confirmation .... generosity of space is extremely important for everyone and is not connected to how much money you have.”

Added Vassal: “We believe more and more that we have to open spaces to the natural elements — to air, sun, and natural light.” One of the ways the pair attempts to connect the inside to the outside, he said, is the model of an apartment opening onto a greenhouse-like enclosed conservatory or “winter garden,” which itself opens onto a balcony. “It's a way of bringing the concept of a house with a garden into the dense city,” he said.

In a 2011 project, Lacaton and Vassal transformed a 17-story Paris city housing project originally built in the early ’60s, collaborating with Frederic Druot. They removed a concrete facade and increased space for residents, adding terraces and large windows with full views of the city. In a similar undertaking in Bordeaux in southwest France several years ago, they added a “winter garden” to a 530-unit dwelling, increasing space for residents while making sure they weren't displaced during the job.

The pair also transformed the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2012, increasing the space by 20,000 square meters (215,278 square feet), in part by creating new underground spaces in the popular contemporary art museum.

Lacaton and Vassal met while studying architecture in the late '70s in Bordeaux. Lacaton then pursued an urban planning degree while Vassal moved to Africa to work in urban planning in Niger — an experience he called “a second school of architecture.” In Niger, the two built their first joint project, a straw hut made of locally sourced wood.

The pair founded Lacaton & Vassal in 1987 in Bordeaux and moved it to Paris in 2000. They have devoted their energies to both private and public housing, as well as museums and other cultural and academic institutions.

The Pritzker Architecture Prize was established in 1979 by the late entrepreneur Jay A. Pritzker and his wife, Cindy. Winners receive a $100,000 grant and a bronze medallion.

“Our work is about solving constraints and problems, and finding spaces that can create uses, emotions and feelings," Vassal said in a statement. “At the end of this process and all of this effort, there must be lightness and simplicity, when all that has been before was so complex.”

Italy court blocks Bannon-linked plans for populist academy



Italy BannonFILE - In this Thursday, March 21, 2019 file photo former White House strategist Steve Bannon arrives to deliver his speech on the occasion of a meeting at Rome's Angelica Library. Italy’s top administrative court, the Council of State, has ruled Monday March 15, 2021, against a conservative think tank affiliated with former White House adviser Steve Bannon over its use of the Certosa di Trisulti monastery, located in the province of Frosinone south of Rome, to train future populist leaders. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, file)

NICOLE WINFIELD
Tue, March 16, 2021,

ROME (AP) — Italy’s top administrative court has ruled against a conservative think tank affiliated with former White House adviser Steve Bannon over its use of a hilltop monastery to train future populist leaders.

The Council of State ruled Monday that the Culture Ministry was correct in cancelling the concession it had given to the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, or Human Dignity Institute, the ANSA news agency and RAI state television reported. The ruling overturned an earlier decision by a regional administrative tribunal that had sided with the institute.

Buoyed by Donald Trump’s 2016 victory and the rise of nationalist sentiment in Europe, Bannon and the institute had launched plans to establish an academy to train populists and nationalists at the 13th century Trisulti monastery, an abbey surrounded by a forest in the province of Frosinone south of Rome.


But local residents objected and ultimately the Culture Ministry, under the leadership of the center-left politician Dario Franceschini, sought to revoke the lease, alleging a host of irregularities that the institute denied.

The center-left leader of the Lazio region, Nicola Zingaretti, hailed the Council of State decision.

“Steve Bannon and the sovereigntists must leave the Trisulti,” Zingaretti said on Facebook, vowing to work with the Culture Ministry to “return this marvelous place to the people.”

The local Catholic bishop praised the decision, saying the Council of State had done the right thing by returning the monastery “to the people of God and to the entire community.”

In a statement reported by the Avvenire newspaper of the Italian bishops conference, Bishop Lorenzo Loppa said the diocese would now work with the community to find a new life for this “monastic jewel,” suggesting it could be used as the headquarters of a foundation.

Benjamin Harnwell, founder and president of the institute, said his lawyers were studying the tribunal ruling and would decide in the coming week what if any recourse they might take.

Harnwell had previously said the Culture Ministry's decision to try to revoke the concession was politically motivated, arguing the institute was being targeted because of its affiliation with Bannon and its support for Italy's right-wing leader Matteo Salvini and his “heroic blockade of the illegal migration into Italy."

Dignitatis Humanae, which says its goal is to defend the Judeo-Christian foundations of Western civilization, had counted on the high-profile support of conservative American Cardinal Raymond Burke, who was named honorary president of the institute in February 2019. But Burke resigned in June of that year, saying in a statement he was stepping down because the institute had “become more identified with the political program of Mr. Bannon.”

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Britain's NatWest bank faces money laundering charges


FILE PHOTO: People maintain social distance while they queue outside a Natwest bank in Wimbledon

Tom Wilson and Iain Withers

Tue, March 16, 2021

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's financial regulator has started a criminal action against NatWest over allegations it failed to detect suspicious activity by a customer depositing nearly 400 million pounds ($553 million) over five years, mostly in cash.

The action is the first such case against a British bank under a 2007 money laundering law. If convicted, the bank faces a maximum penalty of an unlimited fine.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it was bringing the proceedings after NatWest's systems failed to adequately monitor and scrutinise activity over an account held by a British customer between November 2011 and October 2016.

Around 365 million pounds was paid into the unnamed customer's accounts, of which around 264 million pounds was in cash, the watchdog alleged.

NatWest had previously disclosed in its 2020 annual report an FCA investigation in relation to "certain money services businesses and related parties".

The business was Fowler Oldfield, a Bradford-based gold dealer and jeweller liquidated after a police raid in 2016, a source familiar with the matter said. Bloomberg first reported the identity of the customer.

In the last statement by liquidators for Fowler Oldfield, dated December 2020 and filed at Companies House, they said NatWest was the secured creditor and that the police held the company's seized assets.

Telephone numbers listed for Fowler Oldfield did not work.

NatWest will appear in court on April 14, the FCA said.

The watchdog was keeping the possibility of charging individuals under review, a source said.

The bank said on Tuesday it took the matter "extremely seriously" and was cooperating with the investigation, adding it had made multi-year investment in its financial crime systems and controls.

'SHOCKWAVES'

The case threatens NatWest with further costs for past misdeeds at a time when it has been trying to clean up its image under CEO Alison Rose, who took over in 2019.

The bank - which remains 62% state-owned after a bailout in the 2007-09 financial crisis - rebranded from the scandal-tainted Royal Bank of Scotland name last year.

"In terms of enforcement, initiating a criminal prosecution against a leading bank is like pressing the nuclear button," commented Jonathan Fisher QC, Barrister at Bright Line Law.

"In terms of reputation it is potentially very damaging, and given that anti-money laundering procedures have been around for a long time, if NatWest has fallen short, it leaves the bank with a lot of explaining to do."

Claire Cross, a partner at law firm Corker Binning, said the FCA's move would send "shockwaves" across the finance industry. "It also sets an important precedent - no-one is too big to escape the FCA’s criminal net," she added.

The company's shares fell 3% in early trading and were last down around 1%, compared to a 1% gain for the FTSE 350 banks index.

($1 = 0.7231 pounds)

(Additional reporting by Kirstin Ridley; editing by David Evans and Angus MacSwan)

PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS DEMAND THEIR PAY

Yemeni protesters storm palace with cabinet members inside

Tue, March 16, 2021

DUBAI (Reuters) - Dozens of Yemeni protesters stormed a presidential palace in the southern port city of Aden on Tuesday demanding payment of public sector salaries, witnesses said.

Yemen's Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik and other members of the internationally recognised government remain holed up inside the building, two Yemeni officials said.

Most of Aden is controlled by forces of the United Arab Emirates-backed separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC), which had fought the government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in the past.

Abdulmalik's cabinet was formed last year to unite the STC with Hadi's government and fulfil a Saudi aim of ending a feud among Riyadh's allies.

The two groups are the main Yemeni factions in a Saudi-backed alliance fighting the Houthis, who control the north, including the capital Sanaa.

Tuesday's protest broke out over public services and after the government failed to pay salaries of retired soldiers, the witnesses said.

Footage on social media showed Aden's security chief, Mathar al-Shaebe, negotiating with a group of protesters and asking them to leave the security perimeter of Maasheq Palace.

The Houthis seized control of Sanaa in September 2014, forcing the then government into exile in Riyadh and Aden. In March the following year, the Saudi-led coalition launched a campaign to try to restore Hadi's government, carrying out thousands of air raids.

Tens of thousands have been killed, mostly civilians, and millions of Yemenis have been pushed to the brink of famine.

(Reporting by Yemen team; Writing by Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Catherine Evans and Giles Elgood

USA
Cannabis entrepreneurs, celebrity investors light up as legalization blooms


Nabis warehouse associate David Garcia holds a tablet with cannabis orders that he uses to pick products from the shelves at the Nabis warehouse in Oakland

Paul Lienert and Jane Lanhee Lee
Tue, March 16, 2021, 

DETROIT/OAKLAND, Calf. (Reuters) - Driven by a surge in cannabis use during the COVID-19 pandemic, industry entrepreneurs and investors are gearing up for even greater growth as legalization spreads and the economy reopens.

So far, 36 states and the District of Columbia have approved medical use of marijuana, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Of them,15 states and D.C. have approved recreational use of pot.

Cannabis technology startups, including those enabling home delivery of pot, got a big boost during the pandemic as more Americans partook, igniting investor interest in companies that provide everything from cultivation management tools to compliance and e-commerce software for an industry that still operates in a legal gray zone at the federal level.

Cannabis entrepreneurs say they have to move quickly and build their brands before full U.S. legalization levels the playing field - a process that many expect to gather steam this year.

“Why are you going to Weedmaps (for listings of cannabis retailers) if you can go to Yelp? Why do you order through this or that system if you can order through DoorDash or Uber Eats?” asks Steve Allan, chief executive of The Parent Company, which has Jay-Z as chief visionary officer and is looking to consolidate smaller players following its January listing through a special purpose acquisition company.

TPCO has built its own e-commerce technology that can handle everything from business management to retail sales, said Allan.

In one of the biggest venture capital deals in the sector to date, Oregon-based e-commerce platform Dutchie on Tuesday announced it raised $200 million in a funding round that values the company at $1.7 billion.

Dutchie’s investors include former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, NBA star Kevin Durant and DoorDash co-founder Stanley Tang. The company's online marketplace connects cannabis dispensaries with consumers, who can order home delivery.

Reuters has identified more than 90 private and public cannabis tech companies in North America, with total private investment in the first quarter at the highest level in 18 months, according to data compiled by PitchBook and Crunchbase.

All told, investors have poured more than $2.5 billion into cannabis tech startups since 2018.

Public investors are piling in too. Special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, that target the broader cannabis industry raised at least $4.3 billion through early 2021, with $1.7 billion of that still waiting to be deployed, according to cannabis researcher BDSA.

That interest comes as shares of publicly traded cannabis companies - many of which are listed in Canada because they are barred from U.S. exchanges - have begun to rebound after a brutal sell-off in 2019.

“We’re still in the very early innings” of investing, said Harrison Aaron, an investment analyst with Gotham Green Partners, a New York-based private equity firm with a cannabis-centric portfolio.

U.S. legal cannabis sales for both medicinal and recreational use last year jumped 45%, according to BDSA.

“We don’t necessarily want things to go (fully) legal today because there’s a lot of value in our companies, and we want more time to build,” said Lenore Kopko, managing partner at Gotham Green.

Others believe entry to the cannabis industry may not be quick or easy for many of the big outside players.

“Cannabis legislation, regulations and supply chain flows create complexity that is not built into software made for other industries,” said David Hua, founder and CEO of Meadow, which sells compliance and operating software for cannabis retailers.

CELEBRITIES GALORE

Cannabis startup funding in the sector has been led by a closely knit network of investors that often co-invest with one another. That network includes Liquid 2 Ventures, headed by former NFL quarterback Joe Montana, and Casa Verde Capital, founded by entertainer Snoop Dogg.

Another of those firms, Beverly Hills-based Arcadian Capital, has invested in more than a dozen cannabis tech startups. Boca Raton-based Phyto Partners has funded 10, many of them as a co-investor with Arcadian.

The network occasionally is joined by other high-profile individual investors. DoorDash’s Tang and Twitch co-founder Justin Kan were among those backing Oakland-based Nabis, a cannabis online marketplace for dispensaries that also has a warehouse, delivery service and online financing for retailers.

There is another draw for investors beyond the immediate business opportunity: data on a brand-new industry.

For Arcadian, the torrent of data that is being generated by cannabis tech startups provides “a great mechanism to learn more about the industry,” said Matthew Nordgren, the company’s founder and managing partner.

Industry boosters say technology developed and incubated by the cannabis industry could open new pathways for retail trade in other sectors.

Socrates Rosenfeld, co-founder and CEO of Jane Technologies, the Santa Cruz creator of an e-commerce platform that has been funded by Arcadian and Gotham Green, called it "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a tech company to work in partnership with the operators in this space to build and redefine how tech and analog retail work together.”

(Reporting by Paul Lienert and Jane Lanhee Lee; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Dan Grebler)

AAPI women more than twice as likely to report hate incidents as men, report finds



Shawna Chen
Tue, March 16, 2021, 7:00 AM·2 min read

Racism-fueled violence against Asian Americans continues to spike, with women more than twice as likely to be targeted than men, according to a report from the reporting center Stop AAPI Hate published Tuesday.

Why it matters: Anti-Asian racism escalated after the pandemic began, with people blaming Asian Americans for COVID-19, which was first detected in China.

It follows a long history of anti-Asian sentiment in the U.S., made worse last year by former President Trump's "Chinese virus" rhetoric.

Driving the news: Stop AAPI Hate received nearly 3,800 self-reported incidents from March 19 last year to Feb. 28. The organization warned the number represents only a fraction of incidents due to tendencies to underreport.

By the numbers: Verbal harassment (68.1%) and shunning (20.5%), or the deliberate avoidance of Asian Americans, comprise the two largest proportions of total reported incidents.

Physical assault comes in third at 11.1%.

Chinese people are the largest ethnic group to report experiencing hate (42.2%), followed by Koreans (14.8%), the Vietnamese (8.5%) and Filipinos (7.9%).

Businesses are the "primary site" of discrimination (35.4%), while 25.3% of reported incidents took place in public streets.

Of note: Though not specified in the report, women also face hate-motivated sexual violence. One attack occurred in a train station last week.


Anti-Asian sentiment during the pandemic has also forced many Asian American businesses to shutter.

The big picture: Anti-Asian hate has gained more attention in recent weeks, as a string of particularly violent attacks against Asian American elders spurred outrage.

About four in 10 Americans have said it's more common for people to express racist views about Asian people now than before the pandemic, per a July report from the Pew Research Center.

Last week, Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) announced plans to reintroduce the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which would designate a Justice Department officer to oversee review of reported coronavirus-related hate crimes.

UN Women: COVID-19 is `most discriminatory crisis' for women


FILE - In this Wednesday, March 7, 2018 file photo, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of U.N. Women, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, in New York. The U.N. health agency and its partners have found in a new study released Tuesday, March 9, 2021 that nearly one in three women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetimes, calling the results a “horrifying picture” that requires action by government and communities alike. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of UN Women, called violence against women "the most widespread and persistent human rights violation that is not prosecuted.” (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, file)


EDITH M. LEDERER
Mon, March 15, 2021

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The head of UN Women called the COVID-19 pandemic “the most discriminatory crisis” that women and girls have ever experienced on Monday, pointing to women losing jobs far more often than men, a “shadow pandemic” of domestic violence, and 47 million more women being pushed into living on less than $1.90 a day this year.

Emerging from the pandemic, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said the world also faces more orphans and child-headed homes, an increase in child marriage, 59 percent of women reporting having to spend more time on domestic work since the pandemic began, and a digital gender gap leaving many women unprepared for the future.

She spoke at the opening of the annual meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women whose theme this year is on women's participation and decision-making in public life and combatting violence against women and girls.


Mlambo-Ngcuka, the executive director of the U.N. women’s agency, said the World Health Organization’s latest report shows that the highest rates of intimate partner violence in the past 12 months -- 16% -- was against young women aged 15 to 24.

A report for the commission’s session also underlined that “violence against women in public life is a major deterrent to their political participation, and affects women of all ages and ranks, in every part of the world,” she said.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said every month the toll from violence against women rises -- from sexual abuse to child marriage.

“The damage is incalculable and will resound down the decades, into future generations,” he said.

The U.N. chief said the fallout from the pandemic “has shown how deeply gender inequality remains embedded in the world’s political, social and economic systems.”

Over the past year, Guterres said women leaders are among those who’ve kept COVID-19 transmission rates low and put their countries on tract for recovery while countries with less effective responses to the pandemic “have tended to be those where strongman approaches prevail and women’s rights are under assault.”

But the secretary-general said “looking across the world, we see that women’s voices remain missing from the highest levels of leadership.”

According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s latest report released last week, only 25 percent of lawmakers worldwide are women and only 22 countries have a female head of state or government with Europe topping the list.

“At current rates parity among heads of government will not be achieved until 2150,” Guterres said. “That’s right, another 130 years of men making the same kinds of decisions they have made for the past 130 years and more.”

While these new numbers are little changed, UN Women’s Mlambo-Ngcuka said there are gains “to celebrate and inspire us.”

She pointed to the share of women in government in Lithuania increasing from 8 percent to 43 percent, Rwanda leading the world with the largest share of women ministers at 54.8 percent, and the percentage of women ministers in the United States rising from 17 percent in 2020 under former president Donald Trump to 46 percent in President Joe Biden’s Cabinet, “a historic high.”

Despite these positive developments, Guterres said men are dominating decision-making during the pandemic.

“A study of 87 countries found that 85 percent of COVID-19 task forces contained mostly men,” the U.N. chief said.

Guterres stressed that women have the skills and expertise for top jobs, and in many countries they’re graduating from higher education at higher rates than men.

“What we need is not more training for women, but to train those in power on how to build inclusive institutions,” he said. “We need to move beyond fixing women and instead fix our systems.”

Mlambo-Ngcuka called for “big, bold steps” and urged global leaders to make space especially for young women to enter public life.

“We see them on the streets across the world, leading movements even in the face of lethal threat,” she said.

David Stuurman: The South African who twice escaped Robben Island


Wed, March 17, 2021

David Stuurman statue

David Stuurman, who has just had an airport named after him, was one of the first leaders of resistance to colonial expansion in South Africa, yet few people in the country know much about him, as the BBC's Mohammed Allie reports.



To the colonial establishment of the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, David Stuurman was a criminal and a threat, but to the Khoi and Xhosa people (or amaXhosa) he achieved hero status for his brave and continued resistance to forced removals and subjugation.

Stuurman also has the distinction of being the only person to have twice escaped from Robben Island - later known as one of the places where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated - off the coast of Cape Town.

In 1809 he was among the first political prisoners to be banished there.

First escape

"He was arrested and charged for resisting colonial rule as well as opposing the conscription of the Khoi into militias that were created to defend the colony and to attack the San and amaXhosa," cultural activist Stephen Langtry told the BBC.

"By December of 1809 Stuurman and a few others were the first to escape from the island using one of the whaling boats that was anchored in the harbour.

"He made it out of the colony and was given refuge amongst the amaXhosa. He was recaptured [a decade later] and put to hard labour on Robben Island. On 9 August 1820, he escaped again," Langtry added.

Even though the getaway boat capsized, Stuurman survived only to be caught once more and sent back to the island in December for a third stint.
Death in Australia

This time he was chained to a wall until he could be transported in February 1823 to Australia.

Stuurman was then put to work at the military barracks in Sydney for six years before he was granted a ticket to leave. But by that time he had become lame in his right leg and was unable to return home, according to Sydney Living Museums.

He died in Australia in 1830 and was buried in a cemetery which was later redeveloped as Sydney's central railway station, meaning that Stuurman's remains could not be located.

David Stuurman's spirit was laid to rest back in South Africa in a ceremony in 2017

After negotiations with the Australian authorities that lasted several years, a traditional ceremony was conducted in Sydney in 2017 to repatriate the spirit of Stuurman. Three days later a second spiritual repatriation was conducted at the Sarah Baartman Heritage Centre in the South African town of Hankey, Eastern Cape province.

Born around 1773, near the Gamtoos River in what is now Eastern Cape, Stuurman took over the leadership of his Khoi clan from his brother Klaas who died in 1803.

He became involved in the anti-colonial fight after his people were dispossessed of their land by the Dutch and British colonisers, forcing him and other indigenous people to live and work on their land as labourers.
'Tied up and beaten'

Stuurman himself worked for a farmer, Johannes Vermaak, but his brutal treatment led him to abandon his job.

At one point it was alleged that he had threatened Vermaak.

"[After the disagreement] Vermaak had first demanded that he be shot but settled for having him tied to a wagon and beaten with sjamboks [whips]," historian Vertrees Malherbe has written.

"After that he was salted and left in the burning sun, for some hours."

Key dates in Stuurman's life. [ Early 1770s Stuurman born in what is now Eastern Cape ],[ 1795 British forces seize Cape Colony from the Dutch, then return it in 1803 and finally gaining control in 1806 ],[ 1799 Khoi rebellion, which Stuurman helps lead, begins ],[ 1809 Stuurman arrested and held on Robben Island but later escapes ],[ 1820 Stuurman recaptured after second escape ],[ 1830 Stuurman dies in Australia after being transported there in 1823 ], Source: Source: SA History Online, BBC Monitoring, Image

Stuurman's active career as Khoi leader spanned a tumultuous period in the first two decades of the 19th Century, when the Xhosa, Boers, Khoikhoi, San and the British clashed intermittently in the Eastern Cape.

The conflict was largely because of colonial expansion which dispossessed Xhosa and Khoi people of their land, cattle and other belongings.

In 1799 the Khoi on the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony rebelled. Hundreds left the farms which, in many instances they were forced to work on, and went to live with the Xhosa, according to South African History Online.

Together the Khoi and the Xhosa attacked the colonialists.

Stuurman helped lead the expeditions to recapture cattle from Dutch colonists between 1795 and 1803.

By all accounts, Stuurman was a thorn in the side of both the frontiersmen and the new British authorities in the Cape as he refused to be coerced into giving up his clan's independence.

'For us, he's a legend'

"He was important for his contributions in resisting colonial occupation. He was also a formidable resistance fighter," cultural activist Shepi Mati told the BBC.

"At one point he received refugees - people who ran away from slavery and forced conscription into farm labour and offered them a safe haven among his community who resided in the area now called Hankey in the Eastern Cape.

"Stuurman himself was highly regarded in the community. He was not afraid to take on the colonialists. He took back land and cattle that was forcibly taken from his people."

Khoi activists and Khoi San community members took part in the symbolic burial in 2017

Mati added that Stuurman also played an important role in fostering unity between the Khoi and the Xhosa.

"For us he's a legend. He's one of the Khoi and San heroes who was the first, together with his brother Klaas, to fight colonialism, land dispossession and slavery at the time," says Christian Martin, an Eastern Cape-based Khoi and San activist. In 2016, he proposed that Port Elizabeth's airport should be named in Stuurman's honour.

"Stuurman was way ahead of his time when it comes to unity and nation building.

"There's a white people's version of Stuurman where he is painted as a murderer. Remember some people also thought of Nelson Mandela as a terrorist - but to millions he was a hero."

The colonists saw him as a bandit and unwilling to co-operate and in 1809 Stuurman was arrested and held on Robben Island.
'First revolutionary'

Martin reveals that he received several messages from white South Africans after the renaming of the international airport in Port Elizabeth (which itself has got a new name - Gqeberha).

One, written in Afrikaans, called Stuurman "a notorious robber and murderer" who had settlers killed, stole their cattle and "chased their women and children, barefoot and wearing only their nightclothes into the field in the bitter cold".

Perhaps part of the source of the anger was that the airport was once named after former Prime Minister HF Verwoerd, considered to be one of the architects of apartheid, which legalised racial discrimination.

According to Errol Heynes, a former deputy mayor of Port Elizabeth, Stuurman, by opposing forced removals, became "one of the first revolutionaries in the country".

"It was important to highlight those who had fought the first settlers and fought colonisation before the advent of apartheid," he adds.

Stuurman has been honoured in other ways. In 2015 a life-size bronze sculpture of him, created by Cape Town-based artist Keith Calder, was erected at the National Heritage Monument in Tshwane.

Despite this and having played a key role in resisting colonialism it has taken the renaming of the airport for many South Africans to learn more about him.

With this move and the tales of his heroism, including the double escape from Robben Island, there is now likely to be more interest.

Bernie Sanders rips into Jeff Bezos: 'You are worth $182 billion ... why are you doing everything in your power to stop your workers' from unionizing?

Annabelle Williams
Wed, March 17, 2021


Bezos declined Sanders' invitation to testify at a hearing, but the senator had harsh words for him.


Sanders criticized Amazon's countering of a union drive in Alabama despite the CEO's record wealth.


The hearing included testimony from a pro-union worker at Amazon's Bessemer warehouse.


At a hearing on Wednesday morning, Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke critically about Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who declined Sanders' invitation to testify, and Elon Musk, the two wealthiest men.

"Bezos and Musk now own more wealth than the bottom 40%. Meanwhile, we're looking at more hunger in America than at any time in decades," Sanders said in his opening remarks at the Senate Budget Committee hearing, which was titled The Income and Wealth Inequality Crisis in America

"If he was with us this morning, I would ask him the following question ... Mr. Bezos, you are worth $182 billion - that's a B," Sanders said. "One hundred eighty-two billion dollars, you're the wealthiest person in the world. Why are you doing everything in your power to stop your workers in Bessemer, Alabama, from joining a union?"

The unionization push being voted on at Amazon's Bessemer fulfillment center has been the focal point of a high-profile labor dispute between the behemoth "everything store" and the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union. Amazon has aggressively pushed its workers to vote against unionization, launching a campaign called "Do It Without Dues" to encourage workers to stick to the status quo.

Sanders pointed out the disparity between Bezos' wealth growth during the pandemic and the struggles of rank-and-file workers.

"Jeff Bezos has become $77 billion richer during this horrific pandemic, while denying hundreds of thousands of workers who work at Amazon paid sick leave," he said.

Jennifer Bates, an employee at the Bessemer warehouse who testified at Wednesday's hearing, said the unionization efforts were an attempt to "have a level playing field." Bates cited tough working conditions, long hours, and a lack of job security as major drivers of the unionization efforts.

"Amazon brags it pays workers above the minimum wage," she said. "What they don't tell you is what those jobs are really like. And they certainly don't tell you what they can afford."

When asked what having a union would mean to her and her coworkers, Bates said it would result in their voices being "amplified" and a "sense of empowerment, "and not just at the Amazon in Bessemer but all over the country."

"We take employee feedback seriously, including Ms. Bates's, but we don't believe her comments represent the more than 90% of her fulfillment center colleagues who say they'd recommend Amazon as a great place to work to friends and family," an Amazon spokesperson told Insider. "We encourage people to speak with the hundreds of thousands of Amazon employees who love their jobs, earn at least $15 an hour, receive comprehensive healthcare and paid leave benefits, prefer direct dialogue with their managers, and voted Amazon #2 on the Forbes best employers list in 2020."

While much of the hearing was devoted to the Amazon unionization fight, which will be decided at the end of March, Sanders said "Amazon and Jeff Bezos are not alone" and decried the "corporate greed" that drives income inequality.

Others who testified at the hearing included former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who said unions were important and cited the steep decline in union membership since the labor heyday of the mid-1900s.

Sanders has been a vocal critic of Amazon, while President Joe Biden has taken a softer approach in referencing the union drive. In a statement earlier in March, Biden condemned "anti-union propaganda" from large companies but stopped short of naming Amazon.

Atlanta mayor calls police depiction of motive in spa killings 'victim blaming'

Caitlin Dickson and Christopher Wilson

Wed, March 17, 2021

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms took issue with the way authorities described the possible motive of the suspect in the Tuesday evening killings of eight people at three spa locations.

The mayor countered the depiction used by Capt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department shortly after he pointed to suspect Robert Aaron Long’s assertion that “sexual addiction” rather than racism toward Asian Americans was behind his shooting rampage.

“We are not about to get into victim blaming, victim shaming, here,” Bottoms said at a Wednesday news conference, adding, “We don’t know additional information about what his motives were. We will not begin to blame victims, and as far as we know in Atlanta these are legally operating businesses that have not been on our radar, the radar of [the Atlanta Police Department].”

Earlier at the news conference, Baker drew scrutiny for his matter-of-fact description of Long’s mindset.

“He was pretty much fed up and kind of at the end of his rope and yesterday was a really bad day for him, and this is what he did,” Baker said, adding that the businesses were seen by Long as “a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate.”

Long, 21, was arrested Tuesday evening. Six of the eight victims were Asian women, but Atlanta Police Chief Rodney Bryant said Wednesday morning that it was too early to call the murders a hate crime. The killings come amid an increased focus on violence against Asian American communities, and the FBI is involved in the investigation.

On Wednesday afternoon, Long was charged with murder and assault.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms speaking about the arrest of Robert Aaron Long on Wednesday. (Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department said that Long confessed to the crimes and that he was apprehended after his family assisted law enforcement. Officials stated that Long told them he viewed the spas as a sexual outlet, but it is not yet known whether he had visited any or all of the three establishments prior to his attack, or if any of those establishments had ties to the sex industry.

Officials said they believe that when they apprehended Long he was heading to Florida to commit further violence, suggesting he was planning to target “some type of porn industry” business. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Long purchased a gun used in the killings on Tuesday just hours before the shooting.

Police responded to the report of a robbery in Acworth, a suburb of Atlanta, just before 5 p.m. on Tuesday. They found four people dead and one injured at Young’s Asian Massage. An hour later they responded to reports of a robbery at Gold Spa in northeast Atlanta. Three women were found dead there, along with another victim at Aromatherapy Spa across the street.

Authorities released names of four of the victims: Ashley Yaun, 33; Paul Andre Michels, 54; Xiaojie Yan, 49; and Daoyou Feng, 44.

“That the Asian women murdered yesterday were working highly vulnerable and low-wage jobs during an ongoing pandemic speaks directly to the compounding impacts of misogyny, structural violence and white supremacy,” said Phi Nguyen, a litigation director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice, in a statement.

“While authorities are still investigating the motive in these attacks and whether or not they were anti-Asian in nature, we already know that too many within the AAPI [Asian American/Pacific Islander] community fear every day for themselves and their loved ones as a result of the spate of attacks over the past year,” the Southern Poverty Law Center said in a statement. “We all must call on elected officials to take steps to counter anti-Asian hate and other extremist or hateful ideology. And law enforcement at every level, along with social media companies, must work together to help intercept and combat this growing threat.”


Atlanta mayor: Asian spa shootings ‘a crime against us all’

Nick Niedzwiadek
Wed, March 17, 2021

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Wednesday condemned the attacks on three Atlanta-area spas that left eight people dead, including six Asian women.

“Whether it is senseless violence that we've seen play out in our streets, or more targeted violence like we saw yesterday, a crime against any community is a crime against us all,” Bottoms said at a news conference.

Law enforcement officials in Georgia Wednesday said the shootings do not appear to be racially motivated but stressed the investigation into the deadly shootings is ongoing. A 21-year-old male suspect in the shootings was taken into custody Tuesday night following a police chase.

Captain Jay Baker of the Cherokee County sheriff's office said that the man claims to have a sex addiction and that the businesses were a “temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate.”

“It is still early on, but those were comments that he made,” Baker said, adding that investigators have not found a potential political or religious motivation for the attacks.

Authorities also said the alleged shooter said he was planning to leave the state when he was apprehended and may have gone after a business tied to "the porn industry" in Florida.

“For as tragic as this was on yesterday, it could have been worse,“ Bottoms said. “It is very likely that there would have been more victims on yesterday.”

The shootings Tuesday came amid heightened concern about a rise in hate crimes against people of Asian descent in recent months and immediately posed questions about why the particular businesses were targeted. At least one victim survived the attack but remains hospitalized.

The man, Robert Aaron Long, has been charged with four counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault in Cherokee County, part of the Atlanta metro area where one of the businesses was located. Additional charges are expected to follow related to the two shootings that occurred within the city.

Bottoms said that regardless of what fueled the violence, the fear and outrage it induced needs to be addressed.

“Whatever the motivation was for this guy, we know that many of the victims, [the] majority of the victims were Asian,” she said. “We also know that this is an issue that is happening across the country. It is unacceptable. It is hateful, and it has to stop.”

The Atlanta mayor said she has been in contact with the White House in the aftermath of the shootings, and the Biden administration said early Wednesday that the president had been briefed on the “horrific” situation.

President Joe Biden said Wednesday afternoon that he has been in touch with Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray about the situation and acknowledged the concern expressed by the AAPI community.

"I have been speaking about the brutality against Asian-Americans, and it's troubling," Biden said from the Oval Office. "I'll have more to say when the investigation is completed."

Earlier in the day Vice President Kamala Harris said the string of shootings was "tragic."

"It speaks to a larger issue, which is the issue of violence in our country, and what we must do to never tolerate it and to always speak out against it," the vice president said. "I do want to say to our Asian-American community that we stand with you and understand how this has frightened and shocked and outraged all people."

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) released a statement Wednesday saying he is "heartbroken" for the victims and their families.

"While the motive for last night's terrible violence remains under investigation, I express my love and support for and stand in solidarity with the Asian-American community, which has endured a shocking increase in violence and harassment over the last year," Ossoff said.

Numerous Asian-American political figures expressed outrage at Tuesday's shootings, as well as the animus directed at Asians within the United States.

Andrew Yang, a leading New York City mayoral candidate, said the tragedy underscores the need for additional resources to combat anti-Asian hate crimes and that he did not believe that race was a non-factor in Georgia.

“We should be treating hate crimes as such," he said in Times Square on Wednesday. "And make no mistake, these women were targeted on the basis of their race."

Yang's wife, Evelyn, similarly dismissed the idea that the locations of the shootings can be separated from the victim's identities.

"If you target massage parlors you are targeting Asian women," she wrote in a tweet. "I appreciate all the supportive sentiment out there but let’s be clear in calling this what it is — a hate crime."

Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) blamed former President Donald Trump for stoking some of the anti-Asian sentiment. The former president and some of his aides repeatedly used the racist term "kung flu" in reference to the coronavirus and frequently labeled it the "China virus." Trump invoked the latter as recently as Tuesday night in a Fox News interview that aired as news was starting to emerge about the shootings.

"We feel that we have been invisible," Meng, who is of Tawainese descent, said on MSNBC. "We are so hurt about what happened last night in Atlanta, but also hurt about this yearslong-worth of hateful incidents and hate crimes that have skyrocketed across the country.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki likewise told reporters Wednesday there's "no question" Trump contributed to "perceptions of the Asian-American community that are inaccurate, unfair [and] have elevated threats against Asian Americans."