Scores killed in single day in Myanmar crackdown, reports say

Issued on: 11/04/2021 

This screengrab from Hantarwadi Media video footage taken on April 9, 2021 and provided to AFPTV shows a protester setting off fireworks from behind a makeshift barricade while a man at left holds a homemade rifle in a clash with security forces during a crackdown on demonstrations against the military coup in Bago. AFP - HANDOUT

Text by: NEWS WIRES

At least 82 people were killed in one day in a crackdown by Myanmar security forces on pro-democracy protesters, according to reports Saturday from independent local media and an organization that keeps track of casualties since the February coup.

Friday’s death toll in Bago was the biggest one-day total for a single city since March 14, when just over 100 people were killed in Yangon, the country’s biggest city. Bago is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of Yangon. The Associated Press is unable to independently verify the number of deaths.

The death toll of 82 was a preliminary one compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which issues daily counts of casualties and arrests from the crackdown in the aftermath of the Feb. 1 coup that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

'The most alarming development yet'

Their tallies are widely accepted as highly credible because cases are not added until they have been confirmed, with the details published on their website.

In its Saturday report, the group said that it expected the number of dead in Bago to rise as more cases were verified.

The online news site Myanmar Now also reported that 82 people had been killed, citing an unnamed source involved with charity rescue work. Myanmar Now and other local media said the bodies had been collected by the military and dumped on the grounds of a Buddhist pagoda.

At least 701 protesters and bystanders have been killed by security forces since the army’s takeover, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

The attack on Bago was the third in the past week involving the massive use of force to try to crush the persistent opposition to the ruling junta.

Attacks were launched Wednesday on hardcore opponents of military rule who had set up strongholds in the towns of Kalay and Taze in the country’s north. In both places, at least 11 people -- possibly including some bystanders -- were reported killed.

The security forces were accused of using heavy weapons in their attacks, including rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, though such allegations could not be independently confirmed by The Associated Press. Photos posted on social media from Bago appeared to show fragments of mortar shells.

Most protests in cities and town around the country are carried out by nonviolent demonstrators who consider themselves part of a civil disobedience movement.

But as the police and military escalated the use of lethal force, a hardcore faction of protesters armed themselves with homemade weapons such as firebombs in the name of self-defense. In Kalay, activists dubbed themselves a “civil army” and some equipped themselves with rudimentary hunting rifles that are traditional in the remote area.

A report by Myanmar Now said residents of Tamu, a town in the same region as Kalay, used hunting rifles Saturday to ambush a military convoy, and claimed to kill three soldiers.

The junta has taken other measures as well to discourage resistance. It recently published a wanted list of 140 people active in the arts and journalism charged with spreading information that undermines the stability of the country and the rule of law. The penalty for the offense is up to three years’ imprisonment. Arrests of those on the list have been highly publicized in state media.

State television channel MRTV reported Friday night that a military court had sentenced to death 19 people -- 17 in absentia -- for allegedly killing an army officer in Yangon on March 27. The attack took place in an area of the city that is under martial law, and the court action appeared to be the first time the death sentence has been imposed under the junta’s rule.

The U.N. special envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, arrived Friday in the Thai capital Bangkok on a regional mission to resolve the crisis in Myanmar. She intends to sound out several Southeast Asian governments for their ideas but has been denied permission to visit Myanmar.

(AP)

SECOND ERUPTION
St. Vincent covered in ash as volcano activity continues
ABC NEWS 4/10/2021

Much of St. Vincent remains covered in ash, following eruptions at the island's La Soufriere volcano.

Thousands evacuated as volcano erupts in St. Vincent

After nearly 42 years without an explosion, the volcano in the northern part of the eastern Caribbean island, erupted Friday.

MORE: New fissure opens on volcano

"There's been three explosive events that occurred during the day," University of the West Indies Seismic Research Center director, Dr. Erouscilla Joseph, said in an audio statement on the center's Facebook page

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© Robertson S. Henry/Reuters Ash and smoke billow as the La Soufriere volcano erupts in Kingstown on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent, April 9, 2021.

The ash plume reached as high as six miles into the air, with wind taking it as far as 25,000 feet east of St. Vincent, according to official estimates.

Activity at the volcano continued into Saturday, with Vincentians living close enough reporting that rumblings could be heard coming from La Soufriere, overnight.

"Overnight, we have had more or less an almost continued period of the venting of many ash up into the atmosphere," Richard Robertson, the UWI Seismic Research Center's lead scientist monitoring the volcano, said Saturday during a national radio address.

© The UWI Seismic Research Centre via Getty Images La Soufriere Volcano erupts on the Carrobean island of Saint Vincent, April 9, 2021.

There have been reports of some people's homes being damaged by the weight of the ash, the Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves said, but he also said those reports have yet to be confirmed.

© Robertson S. Henr/Reuters

Officials are now left trying to figure out how to remove the ash.

On Saturday Gonsalves announced during the radio address plans to mount a cleanup operation, beginning in Kingstown, the capital of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

"It's a complicated business, you can't leave it," Gonsalves said. "But, in the disposal of it, you have challenges."

Officials were looking into using street sweepers and water from fire trucks.

Friday's eruptions came less than 24 hours after Gonsalves gave the order for people living closest to the volcano -- an area declared the "red zone" -- to evacuate their homes.

© Robertson S. Henry/Reuters Ash covers roads a day after the La Soufriere volcano erupted after decades of inactivity, in Kingstown, St Vincent and the Grenadines April 10, 2021.

Shelters have been set up to house evacuees, while the government has also booked hotel rooms for people to take shelter. Over 3,200 people have opted to use shelters.

Gonsalves said there may be delays in getting food supplies to evacuees in shelters, with numbers constantly changing.

Gonsalves asked those impacted by the volacano's eruption to have patience and remain calm, and said "additional supplies" will be sent.

Some countries have also publicly pledged to send supplies or even personnel, to aid St. Vincent with recovery efforts. Gonzalves said the United States is among those countries Gonsalves said he’s been speaking with.

© Robertson S. Henr/Reuters Ash and smoke billow as the La Soufriere volcano erupts in Kingstown on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent April 9, 2021.

A number of neighboring Caribbean countries have offered to take in evacuees. Several cruise ship companies have also offered to send ships to transport those evacuees to other islands.

"Those countries are not going to take you unless you are vaccinated, which is understandable in the time of the pandemic," Gonsalves said.

The last time St. Vincent's La Soufriere volcano erupted was on April 13, 1979. On Friday, around 8:41 a.m. local time, officials confirmed the first explosive eruption since then. Later that day, two more eruptions occurred.

  

Caribbean island Saint Vincent covered in thick ash after volcanic eruption

Issued on: 11/04/2021 -

A cloud of volcanic ash hovers over Kingstown, on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent, Saturday, April 10, 2021, a day after the La Soufriere volcano erupted. © Lucanus Ollivierre, AP

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Ash covered much of the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent on Saturday, and the stench of sulphur filled the air after a series of eruptions from a volcano that had been quiet for decades.

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The thick dust was also on the move, traveling 175 kilometers (110 miles) to the east and starting to impact the neighboring island of Barbados.

"Barbadians have been urged to stay indoors as thick plumes of volcanic ash move through the atmosphere," the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency said.

The whitish powder caked roads, homes and buildings in Saint Vincent after the powerful blasts from the volcano called La Soufriere that began Friday and continued into the night.

"Saturday morning on the island of over 110,000 residents looked like a winter wonderland, albeit blanketed by ash," the news portal news784.com said

Visibility in some areas was extremely limited, while in the capital city Kingstown on the south of the island -- the volcano is in the north -- the ash caused a thin haze of dust, the portal said.

"Vincentians are waking up to extremely heavy ash fall and strong sulphur smells which have now advanced to the capital," the local emergency management agency tweeted.

The eruptions prompted thousands of people to flee for safety. Around 16,000 people live in areas under evacuation orders.

Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said Saturday that water has been cut off in most areas and the country's air space is closed because of the ash. Around 3,000 people spent the night in shelters.

"It's a huge operation that is facing us," Gonsalves told NBC News.

He said his government has been in contact with other countries that want to provide aid. Guyana and Venezuela are sending ships with supplies, Gonsalves said.

The initial blast from La Soufriere, the highest peak in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, sent plumes of hot ash and smoke 6,000 meters (20,000 feet) into the air Friday morning.

A second, smaller eruption took place Friday afternoon, belching out a 4,000-meter-high ash cloud, the University of the West Indies Seismic Research Centre said.

The Centres director, Erouscilla Joseph, said late Saturday that there had been "additional explosions" throughout the day which had been accompanied by more ash.

"Unfortunately, we believe that more seismic unrest will be expected overnight," she added in a voice recording posted to Twitter.

The 1,235-meter La Soufriere -- the name is French for "sulphur mine" -- had not erupted since 1979, and its largest blow-up happened over a century ago, killing more than 1,000 people in 1902.

It had been rumbling for months before it finally blew.

Evacuation orders

"We are trying to be ok. It's deathly quiet outside and the mood is pensive," said Vynette Frederick, 44, a lawyer in Kingstown.

Northwest of Kingstown on the 30-kilometer-long (18-mile-long) island, Zen Punnett said things had calmed down after the initial panic as evacuation orders came out Thursday night.

"It's gotten hazier. We are staying inside," she said.

The emergency management agency posted photos of a Coast Guard ship evacuating residents of an area who had previously refused to leave. Standing on a dock, the air above the evacuees was a chalky gray.

Most of the people in the red zone had been moved to safety by Friday, authorities said.

Cruise ships were on the way to assist the evacuation effort.

The Saint Vincent and Grenadines police on Saturday issued an appeal for troublemakers to stop making prank calls to emergency responders.

"We are in the middle of a serious evacuation and security exercise, to safeguard and rescue persons who are affected by the eruption," the agency said.

"These irresponsible calls divert much-needed resources and personnel from the evacuation exercise."

(AFP)

LOTTA CONTINUA

Amazon won in Alabama but still faces resistance in Europe

The vote in Alabama represents a victory for Amazon over trade union organisers in the US. But as its empire expands, it faces a bigger war against labour activists in Europe.

Issued on: 10/04/2021 

Demonstrators hold a banner reading "Stop Amazon and its world" as they protest against a proposed Amazon site, in Perpignan, on January 30, 2021. © Raymond Roig, AFP

Text by: Catherine Bennett


Amazon workers in Alabama may have voted not to unionise on Friday but the e-commerce giant faces stiff opposition further from home. Activists and trade unions across Europe are mobilising against the company's "disrespectful" business model. FRANCE 24 spoke to an anti-Amazon protest movement in the west of France about why the company faces so much opposition.

The tally is in. A Friday vote count revealed that Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama, voted overwhelmingly against forming a trade union, with 1,798 against and a paltry 738 in favour.

Labour union organisers in the US had hoped that workers at the Alabama warehouse would help kickstart the labour activist movement.

But Amazon has a history of extinguishing attempts at unionisation in the US. This is just the second time in the company’s history that a union effort has even got so far at a vote. Yet overseas, the company struggles to win over its workers in the same way.

In Europe, Amazon’s second-biggest market, different labour laws, regulators and the power wielded by trade unions means that Amazon frequently has to concede to pressure from workers.

One prime example occurred last year, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. French Amazon warehouse workers sued the company, saying they refused to work in unsafe conditions. In April, a judge ruled in their favour, and Amazon was ordered to only sell essential items. During lockdown, when sales of video games and entertainment products were booming, this was a huge blow to the company and Amazon France responded by deciding to temporarily shut down operations, only reopening in late May.

A slow rise to dominance

Amazon arrived in France in 2007, but it wasn’t until 2016 that the company launched its delivery service in the country. Every year Amazon covers more ground in France – opening up more warehouses and dominating the e-commerce sector. In 2019, Amazon represented 22% of the e-commerce market in France, with its nearest rival Cdiscount accounting for just 8.1% in comparison.

But unlike in the United States, its progress is stalled by France’s energetic activist and trade union movements.

A national strategy

Amazon’s strategy is to target several areas at once as possible locations to build warehouses or logistics facilities. Depending on the size of local opposition – and how loudly that opposition can make its voice heard – Amazon will either let the idea fade away and set its sights on another spot, or will follow through with a request for planning permission and lobbying local authorities.

Amazon is currently pursuing a number of plans to build warehouses in different French regions. One proposed site is in Montbert in the west of France, a plan that has been met with passionate demonstrations from locals and trade union representatives. Amazon’s proposal has now run out of steam, partly because of the backlash, and was halted in March.

FRANCE 24 spoke to Alain Thalineau, a spokesperson for the protest group ‘Amazon Ni Ici Ni Ailleurs’ (‘Amazon neither here nor elsewhere’), who helped to organise the movement against Amazon in Montbert.

“It’s not that we don’t want the warehouse, it’s the fact that it’s an Amazon warehouse,” he explained. “They’ve come here without any attempt at dialogue."

A French trade union posted a 'survival guide to Amazon' on its Facebook page. Amongst its advice: 'Don't think of the job as a stroke of luck. You're selling your labour', 'Don't trust Amazon if you're ill or have an accident. They only want to make sure you don't get paid', 'HR is there to manage human resources, not to help you', and 'Get everything in writing'.

An un-European business model

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The accusations that activists and trade unions level against Amazon focus not only on workers’ rights but also on environmental issues and Amazon’s reputation for tax avoidance.

Thalineau says that Amazon's business model disrespects the rules of the countries where it operates: “Amazon thinks it’s above state laws, above thinking about working conditions, the environment or the tax system. Amazon will always find opposition in France because they think that the country is there to work for them, when in fact [the company is] there to serve us, the citizens.”

Thalineau was keen to stress that it’s not just in France that trade unions and activists are putting up a fight – he considers this a pan-European battle.

Amazon has also encountered resistance in Italy, Spain and Germany as well. The German trade union Verdi called a general strike for workers at six Amazon sites at the beginning of April to try to force the company’s hand on wage issues. Just a week earlier, Amazon workers in Italy went on their first ever national strike over working conditions, a 24-hour strike that affected the company’s entire logistics operation in the country.

The vote in Alabama represents a victory for Amazon over trade union organisers in the US. But as its empire expands, it faces a bigger war against labour activists in Europe.

Nature Sounds Can Actually Heal Pain, According to a New Study

You already knew that getting outside to breathe a bit of fresh air and take in the sunshine is good for your soul, but as one researcher recently found, getting outside to listen to Mother Nature can actually help heal your body too.

© Provided by Travel + Leisure Feeling achy? Get out in Mother Nature.

Rachel Buxton, a research associate in the department of biology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, along with a few of her colleagues, recently studied the effects of natural sounds, including the birds chirping and rivers running, on both the human mind and its effects on human pain. The team found natural sounds can have a positive effect on both, and published their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Nature Sounds Can Actually Heal Pain, According to a New Study"

"It's good for what we're calling positive effect, so things like feelings of tranquility," Buxton shared with U.S. News and World Report about the findings. "It's good for alleviating stress and just a wide variety of benefits that we saw from alleviating pain to improving mood and cognitive ability...I think it's really remarkable, not only that natural sounds confer these health benefits, but also the variety of health benefits."

As to which sound people respond to best, the researchers found soundscapes that included birds had the largest effect on lowering stress and feelings of annoyance.

"We actually have pretty good evidence that there are major health benefits to being exposed to nature," George Wittemyer, co-author of the study, shared with 9 News. "The evidence is really clear. Listening to natural sounds reduces stress, reduces annoyance and it's correlated with positive health benefits."

So we should all run to our nearest national park, right? Well, hang on a second, because the researchers have a bit of bad news to share too.

While researching how natural sounds affect humans, the team studied audio tracks recorded at 221 sites across 68 national parks. It found that biological sounds (those made by animals) were highly audible at about 75 percent of the sites. However, it also found that human noises like car horns were found in high levels at almost every park. In total, it found just 11.3% of the places they evaluated had low audibility of human sounds. This means the more people that go to parks, the more human noises will drown out the natural ones.

Still, this doesn't mean the team thinks we should avoid natural spaces, but rather, spend more of our efforts protecting them.

"I would strongly encourage people to take a moment to stop and listen. Experience the benefits of sound. I think it's something we often overlook and take for granted," Wittemyer said. "We should be protecting them. We should be protecting the natural soundscape and ensure that we don't inundate it with noise."

Read more about the findings here.

Iran reports 'power failure' accident at Natanz nuclear site

Issued on: 11/04/2021 - 13:18

A handout picture provided by the Iranian presidential office on Saturday shows a video conference screen of an engineer inside Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment plant - Iranian Presidency/AFP

Tehran (AFP)

Iran reported an accident caused by a "power failure" Sunday at its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, with one lawmaker blaming the outage on an act of "sabotage".

No-one was injured and there was no radioactive release, the official Fars news agency reported, citing the spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI).

The incident came a day after the Islamic republic said it had started up advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges at the site, in a breach of its commitments under a troubled 2015 deal with world powers.

AEOI spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said there had been "an accident in part of the electrical circuit of the enrichment facility" at the Natanz complex near Tehran, but that there were "no casualties nor pollution".

"The causes of the accident are under investigation and more details will be released later," he added.

He did not say whether power was cut only in the enrichment facility or across other installations at the site and added that there was "no further information for the moment".

But Malek Chariati, spokesman for the Iranian parliament's energy commission, took to Twitter to allege sabotage.

"This incident, coming (the day after) National Nuclear Technology Day as Iran endeavours to press the West into lifting sanctions, is strongly suspected to be sabotage or infiltration," Chariati said.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani had on Saturday inaugurated a cascade of centrifuges for enriching uranium and two test cascades at Natanz, in a ceremony broadcast by state television.

An Israeli public broadcast journalist, Amichai Stein, said on Twitter "the assessment is that the fault" at Natanz is the "result of an Israeli cyber operation," without elaborating or providing evidence to corroborate his claim.

- 'Terrorist sabotage' -

Iran's president had on Saturday also inaugurated a replacement factory at Natanz, after an explosion at a facility making advanced centrifuges there last July.

Iranian authorities blamed the July incident on "sabotage" by "terrorists", but have not released the results of their investigation into it.

The equipment inaugurated Saturday enables quicker enrichment of uranium and in higher quantities, to levels that violate Iran's commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal it agreed with the five permanent UN Security Council powers, plus Germany.

The administration of then-US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from this multilateral nuclear accord in 2018 and re-imposed biting sanctions on Iran.

Iran later responded by progressively rolling back its own commitments under the agreement.

Trump's successor Joe Biden has said he is prepared to return to the deal, arguing it had -- until Washington's withdrawal -- been successful in dramatically scaling back Iran's nuclear activities.

Iran's latest move to step up uranium enrichment follows an opening round of talks in Vienna Tuesday with representatives of the remaining parties to the nuclear deal on bringing the US back into it.

The Vienna talks are focused not only on lifting the crippling economic sanctions Trump reimposed, but also on bringing Iran back into compliance.

Iran's nemesis Israel has always been implacably opposed to the 2015 accord.

In November last year, Iran's top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed by machine gun fire while travelling on a highway outside Tehran.

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said a satellite-controlled gun with "artificial intelligence" was used in the attack, which Tehran blamed on Israel.

© 2021 AFP

THEY WOULD BE RIGHT

Iran calls Natanz atomic site blackout 'nuclear terrorism'

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran on Sunday described a blackout at its underground Natanz atomic facility an act of “nuclear terrorism,” raising regional tensions as world powers and Tehran continue to negotiate over its tattered nuclear deal.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

While there was no immediate claim of responsibility, suspicion fell immediately on Israel, where its media nearly uniformly reported a devastating cyberattack orchestrated by the country caused the blackout.

If Israel was responsible, it further heightens tensions between the two nations, already engaged in a shadow conflict across the wider Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who met Sunday with U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, has vowed to do everything in his power to stop the nuclear deal.

Details remained few about what happened early Sunday morning at the facility, which initially was described as a blackout caused by the electrical grid feeding its above-ground workshops and underground enrichment halls.

Ali Akbar Salehi, the American-educated head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, who once served as the country's foreign minister, offered what appeared to be the harshest comments of his long career, which included the assassination of nuclear scientists a decade ago. Iran blames Israel for those killings as well.

He pledged to “seriously improve” his nation's nuclear technology while working to lift international sanctions.

Salehi’s comments to state TV did not explain what happened at the facility, but his words suggested a serious disruption.

“While condemning this desperate move, the Islamic Republic of Iran emphasizes the need for a confrontation by the international bodies and the (International Atomic Energy Agency) against this nuclear terrorism,” Salehi said.

The IAEA, the United Nations' body that monitors Tehran's atomic program, earlier said it was aware of media reports about the incident at Natanz and had spoken with Iranian officials about it. The agency did not elaborate.

However, Natanz has been targeted by sabotage in the past. The Stuxnet computer virus, discovered in 2010 and widely believed to be a joint U.S.-Israeli creation, once disrupted and destroyed Iranian centrifuges at Natanz amid an earlier period of Western fears about Tehran's program.

Natanz suffered a mysterious explosion at its advanced centrifuge assembly plant in July that authorities later described as sabotage. Iran now is rebuilding that facility deep inside a nearby mountain. Iran also blamed Israel for the November killing of a scientist who began the country’s military nuclear program decades earlier.

Multiple Israeli media outlets reported Sunday that an Israeli cyberattack caused the blackout in Natanz. Public broadcaster Kan said the Mossad was behind the attack. Channel 12 TV cited “experts” as estimating the attack shut down entire sections of the facility.

While the reports offered no sourcing for their information, Israeli media maintains a close relationship with the country’s military and intelligence agencies.

“It’s hard for me to believe it’s a coincidence,” Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies, said of Sunday’s blackout. “If it’s not a coincidence, and that’s a big if, someone is trying to send a message that ‘we can limit Iran’s advance and we have red lines.’”

It also sends a message that Iran’s most sensitive nuclear site is “penetrable,” he added.

Netanyahu later Sunday night toasted his security chiefs, with the head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen, at his side on the eve of his country’s Independence Day.

“It is very difficult to explain what we have accomplished,” Netanyahu said of Israel’s history, saying the country had been transformed from a position of weakness into a “world power.”

Israel typically doesn't discuss operations carried out by its Mossad intelligence agency or specialized military units. In recent weeks, Netanyahu repeatedly has described Iran as the major threat to his country as he struggles to hold onto power after multiple elections and while facing corruption charges.

Speaking at the event Sunday night, Netanyahu urged his security chiefs to “continue in this direction, and to continue to keep the sword of David in your hands,” using an expression referring to Jewish strength.

Meeting with Austin on Sunday, Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz said Israel viewed America as an ally against all threats, including Iran.

“The Tehran of today poses a strategic threat to international security, to the entire Middle East and to the state of Israel,” Gantz said. “And we will work closely with our American allies to ensure that any new agreement with Iran will secure the vital interests of the world, of the United States, prevent a dangerous arms race in our region, and protect the state of Israel.”

The Israeli army’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, also appeared to reference Iran.

The Israeli military’s “operations in the Middle East are not hidden from the eyes of the enemy,” Kochavi said. “They are watching us, seeing (our) abilities and weighing their steps with caution.”

On Saturday, Iran announced it had launched a chain of 164 IR-6 centrifuges at the plant. Officials also began testing the IR-9 centrifuge, which they say will enrich uranium 50 times faster than Iran’s first-generation centrifuges, the IR-1. The nuclear deal limited Iran to using only IR-1s for enrichment.

Since then-President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, Tehran has abandoned all the limits of its uranium stockpile. It now enriches up to 20% purity, a technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Iran maintains its atomic program is for peaceful purposes.

The nuclear deal had granted Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for ensuring its stockpile never swelled to the point of allowing Iran to obtain an atomic bomb if it chose.

On Tuesday, an Iranian cargo ship said to serve as a floating base for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard forces off the coast of Yemen was struck by an explosion, likely from a limpet mine. Iran has blamed Israel for the blast. That attack escalated a long-running shadow war in Mideast waterways targeting shipping in the region.

___

Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, and Josef Federman and Ilan Ben Zion in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press

UK

Brixton riots 40 years on: ‘A watershed moment for race relations’

“For me, the Brixton riot was a Brixton uprising,” 

Aamna Mohdin Community affairs correspondent 

THE GUARDIAN 4/11/2021

It’s been 40 years since Ros Griffiths watched her neighbourhood burn to the ground. Then 15, she wandered the streets through one of the most devastating civil disturbances England has seen, in a state of shock. “As I got into the area, you could see the fighting. It looked like war.”

But even amid the smoke, fire and police cars that tore through the streets, Griffiths still remembers the reggae music that played softly into the night.

Brixton was then the centre of the UK’s black community, Griffiths said, with young people from across the country coming down for the weekend to enjoy its cultural vibrance. From the protests and literature to the sound systems, the street corners reverberated a simple yet powerful political message: black is beautiful.

For her generation of black Britons, plagued by mass unemployment, poor housing conditions and police brutality, it was a message they desperately needed to hear.

But as she walked through the wreckage, she saw the consequences of decades-long tension being ignored. The violence, which over the next summer would sweep through a number of England’s inner cities, was widely condemned

.

© Provided by The Guardian Ros Griffiths was a teenager when she witnessed the Brixton riots in 1981. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

Griffiths said what happened in Brixton all those years ago helped her peers, the generation that followed Windrush and who wrestled most painfully with the identity of being black and British, to make a stand.

“For me, the Brixton riot was a Brixton uprising,” she said. “It was a watershed moment for race relations.”

* * *

Alex Wheatle moved from Shirley Oaks children’s home to a social service hostel in Brixton when he was 15. He immediately fell in love with the place – the all-night parties, the record shops, and using what money he had to be as stylish as possible.

“It was like an awakening to my culture,” he said. “For the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged.”

© Provided by The Guardian Alex Wheatle photographed near his home in Clapham. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer

There was a political awakening, too. “Everyone knew of a tale of a young black guy being hauled into the police cells and getting beaten up,” he said. “No one listened to us, no one believed us.”

The issue went much further than the police. Wheatle remembers waiting on corners for builders’ vans to pick them up for a day’s labour. When he went to Brixton unemployment exchange, he saw that the jobs there for young black women were as chambermaids.

Wheatle said the New Cross fire, in which 13 young people died in a blaze during a birthday party at the beginning of the year, crystallised what many black Britons felt at the time: that the people in power did not care about them.

“Something systemic was happening in terms of racial discrimination. It was being observed in schools, in the job market, in policing and the courts,” said Colin Prescod, a British sociologist and chair of the Institute of Race Relations.

The optimism of the Windrush generation, who had hoped their children would be able to get a decent education and jobs, had evaporated by the late 1970s, Prescod said. The “dashing of the migrant settler dreams” was felt acutely by the black Britons born in the country.

In the first seven weeks of 1980, there was a 78% increase in street crime over the previous year in the so-called L district, which included Brixton. One tool used to crack down on street crime by the police was “sus”, which was a charge of loitering with suspicion to commit a criminal offence.

© Provided by The Guardian Colin Prescod: ‘Something systemic was happening in terms of racial discrimination.’ Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

In the run-up to April 1981, “Operation Swamp 81” was planned, a special police exercise that began on 6 April and was meant to finish on 11 April. It consisted of 100 officers patrolling in plainclothes in certain areas between 2pm and 11pm daily. About 1,000 people were stopped and 100 arrested for a variety of offences, of which only a few were for robbery or burglary.

On 10 April, the first warm day of the year, PC Steve Margiotta tried to stop a distressed young black man who was bleeding from a stab wound. The young man ran away and a crowd formed around Margiotta and his colleagues.

Related: Black youth unemployment rate of 40% similar to time of Brixton riots, data shows

That night, Brixton was awash with false rumours that the police had prevented the young man from getting treatment and he had died. There was an increased level of policing the following day, and in the afternoon of 11 April two police officers patrolling Atlantic Road questioned a man sitting in a car outside a car hire firm.

“Everyone knew that something big was going to happen, everyone knew it. When it did, I just followed the crowd and just raced into Atlantic Road. And by the time I got there, they were rocking a police van from side to side, and it smashed on to the road,” Wheatle said.

By then there were hundreds of people throwing things at police officers on Atlantic Road and into Coldharbour Lane. Julian Skellett, then a 24-year-old student living in Brixton, was in a pub drinking with friends. “I looked out of the window and I saw this police car, which I think was a panda, upside down and in flames,” he said. The pub landlord locked the customers in and they stayed there for several hours.

“It was exhilarating. It was empowering. It was frightening because in the corner of your mind you’re thinking: lord God, if the police catch you in a cell, you’re finished,” Wheatle said. “But the exhilaration to actually see the police in retreat was something I’d never seen before. It is usually us running away from the police.”

By the evening, crowds were throwing petrol bombs. The Windsor pub was burning and flares could be seen all over Railton and Mayall roads. The fire brigade and ambulance crew were caught in the crossfire.

By the end of the weekend, hundreds of civilians and more than 350 police officers had been injured . Two dozen buildings had been set ablaze, causing damage estimated at £7.5m.

A now-retired Metropolitan police officer, who was deployed to Brixton from east London, remembers walking around the area in the early hours of the Monday morning with a bizarre sense of deja vu. “I realised what it was. As it got lighter, you could see it was like the pictures of the Blitz. It looked like it looked as though there’d been a bombing raid in Brixton.”

© Provided by The Guardian Local residents walk past a burned-out pub in Brixton after a second night of rioting in the area, 13 April 1981. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images

* * *

Wheatle was arrested a few weeks after the riot and later imprisoned for taking part. While he was in prison his cellmate Simeon encouraged him to write about his experiences: his story was important.

In the decades that followed, the acclaimed director Steve McQueen would agree, and he featured Wheatle’s life in an episode of Small Axe. It explores how Wheatle, known as the Brixton Bard, became a successful British novelist, writing the acclaimed book East of Acre Lane.

He wasn’t the only one to find his voice. “I had the confidence to say enough is enough, I’m not having it. You will not call me these racial slurs, you will not refer to me as if I’m inadequate,” Griffiths said.

Brixton itself has changed over the years, and so too has British policing. Following a report by Lord Scarman, who led an inquiry into the riot, the government passed the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act, which regulated stop and search, and it set up the Independent Police Complaints Authority in 1985.

Prescod doesn’t believe that would have been possible without the riots and the movement that followed. “Riots pushed the analysis of racism in this country,” he said.

As for Griffiths, remembering the past is important for changing the future. She is excited by the hunger of young people today to make a difference in their communities, especially those involved with Black Lives Matter protests. Their fight is similar to her generation’s struggle.

“1981 was a very significant time in my life. I was fighting to belong somewhere,” she said. “I am accomplished now and my focus is on passing on the baton on to the next generation of young leaders.”

Ecuador chooses its economic future in presidential runoff
By Alexandra Valencia 

4/10/2021

© Reuters/SANTIAGO ARCOS The second round of presidential election in Ecuador

QUITO (Reuters) -Ecuadoreans voted in a presidential runoff on Sunday to decide whether to maintain the pro-market policies of the last four years or return to the socialism of the preceding decade as the Andean country seeks to revive its stagnant economy.

© Reuters/STRINGER Second round of the presidential election in Ecuador

Left-wing economist Andres Arauz won the first round of the election in February, garnering almost 33% of the vote, on promises of generous cash handouts and a resumption of the socialist policies of his mentor, former President Rafael Correa.

Arauz's rival, banker and third-time presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso, is promising to create jobs through foreign investment and financial support for the agricultural sector. Lasso won just shy of 20% of the first-round ballots.

Pollsters say the results will hinge on a relatively high percentage of undecided voters.

"At the last minute I decided on Lasso, I think he is the only option," said Margarita Alvarado, 42, a manicurist voting at a school in Quito. "I don't want to go back to the arrogance, to the corruption, to the handouts of the past decade."

The elections council said the vote was proceeding without incident and that citizens were respecting social distancing measures meant to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Results are expected on Sunday night. The new president will take office on May 24.

The oil-exporting nation's economy was already weak due to low crude prices when the coronavirus outbreak started. The pandemic has pushed a third of the population into poverty and left half a million people unemployed.

President Lenin Moreno, who did not seek re-election, imposed painful austerity measures as part of a $6.5 billion financing agreement with the International Monetary Fund, but was unable to kick-start the economy.

© Reuters/SANTIAGO ARCOS The second round of presidential election in Ecuador

Indigenous activist Yaku Perez, who narrowly lost out to Lasso for a slot in the runoff, is calling on supporters to spoil their ballots to protest what he called electoral fraud in the first round.

© Reuters/SANTIAGO ARCOS The second round of presidential election in Ecuador

"I don't trust either of the candidates, they have both been corrupted by the usual political parties," said Mirella Parraga, 43, a homemaker, after voting null at a polling station in central Guayaquil, the country's biggest city.

"I don't want to give my vote to someone who will make the situation in this country worse."

Arauz, 36, has offered to give $1,000 to a million families as soon as he takes office, as well as provide benefits to young people such as free internet access.

His plans are being closely watched by foreign investors who hold Ecuadorean bonds, some of whom have expressed concerns about heavy spending plans in the face of the government's delicate finances.

Lasso has tried to soften his conservative image by promising to fight discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and boost protection of animal rights.

Both candidates are calling on supporters to "take care of the votes" and denounce irregularities on voting day and during the vote tallying process.

(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia; Additional reporting by Yury Garcia; Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Paul Simao and Daniel Wallis)

'You cannot claim any more:' Russia seeks bigger piece of Arctic Ocean seabed

In a statement, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada said Canada "remains firmly committed to exercising in full its sovereign rights in the Arctic" according to international law.

IQALUIT, Nunavut — Russia wants to stretch out imaginary lines on the ocean floor — and below it — and that has one northern security expert worried about consequences for other Arctic countries like Canada.

 

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Last week, Russia filed a submission to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf to extend a claim to the Arctic Ocean seabed.

The UN still has to review the submission but, if it's approved, Russia would have exclusive rights to resources in the seabed and below it, but not in the water.

The new submission would push Russia's claim all the way up to Canada's exclusive economic zone, an area 200 nautical miles from the coastline, in which Canadians have sole rights to fish, drill and pursue other economic activities.

Philip Steinberg, a political geography professor at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom, estimates Russia's submission expands its original claim by about 705,000 square kilometres.

Robert Huebert, a political science professor at the University of Calgary, said Russia's request gets as close to Canada's 200-mile limit as possible.

"This is a maximalist submission. You cannot claim any more," said Huebert, an Arctic security and defence analyst with the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies.

Countries have sovereignty over their zones but can submit scientific evidence to the UN to claim control over the soil and subsoil of the extended continental shelf.

Russia's amended submission overlaps with those from Canada and Denmark, but does not extend into the north of Alaska.

"In effect, they’re claiming the entire Arctic Ocean as their continental shelf in regards to where their Arctic comes up against Canada’s and Denmark's." Huebert said.

The claims from Canada, Denmark (on behalf of Greenland), and Russia already overlap at the North Pole, but the amended claim goes beyond that, Huebert said.

"We haven’t seen a country before that’s extended over its neighbours. Here’s a situation where they’re claiming the entire Canadian and Danish continental shelf as part of their continental shelf."

Huebert noted there have been recent reports of an increased Russian military presence on the Ukrainian border over the last two weeks.

"If the Russians reinvigorate the conflict with Ukraine, that is going to spill into all of this." he said.

“I don’t think anyone should assume that Russia will do anything less than pursue its maximum foreign policy interests."

Whitney Lackenbauer, a professor at Trent University who specializes in circumpolar affairs, disagrees.

"Russia is playing by the rules. And for those of us who are concerned about Russia’s flouting of the rules-based order, I actually take a great deal of comfort in seeing Russia go through the established process in this particular case," Lackenbauer said.

He believes Russia's submission signals eventual talks between the three countries to determine the limits of their continental shelves.

"Setting out to negotiate where the outermost limits would be was something that was always in the cards," Lackenbauer said.

"I’m not worried about Russia’s actions as an Arctic coastal state seeking to determine the outermost limits of its extended continental shelf."

Nor is he concerned about potential conflict, since Russia has submitted the required scientific evidence.

"You can’t sit on a continental shelf and claim squatter’s rights to it."

In a statement, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada said Canada "remains firmly committed to exercising in full its sovereign rights in the Arctic" according to international law.

The statement also said Russia's revised outer limit "does not establish new rights for Russia over the newly created overlap areas."

It said Canada is studying Russia’s revised claim on its outer limits to prepare an appropriate response.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 11, 2021.

___

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship

Emma Tranter, The Canadian Press

Lake Baikal: The bitter battle over tourism at Russia's 'Sacred Sea'
Lake Baikal, Russia's 'Sacred Sea,' has been a lifeline for inhabitants of southern Siberia for thousands of years, thanks to its pristine water and rich fauna.

© Provided by CNN

© CNN Olkhon Island

The gigantic ancient lake, bigger than all of the Great Lakes of North America combined, encompasses about 23% of the planet's freshwater reserves and is home to over 2,000 species.

It is also the site of a bitter battle between the state, residents, and environmentalists trying to strike a balance between a population dependent on tourism and mass development infringing on a fragile ecosystem.

'It can't hold more people'

On seeing Baikal for the first time, it's hard to believe it's a lake. The crescent-shaped Baikal -- 400 miles long and a mile deep -- completely freezes in the winter, creating a mirror-like surface of clear ice with no horizon in sight.

The stillness of nature and swathing silence, only disrupted by low-pitched groans of cracking ice, is overwhelming. But that serenity is getting harder to find these days, as swarms of tourists encroach ever further.

From dusk till dawn, local drivers race on a makeshift ice highway to get their groups to the next scenic spot at the lake's biggest island, Olkhon, before others take over.

© CNN Vitaly Ryabtsev

A man in a neon-colored snowboarding suit spreads his arms to pose for a picture near a rock formation: an Instagram hit dubbed Dragon's Tail. A group of women a few feet back yell at him to get out of the way, furious he cut the line and blocked the view.

While visitors take selfies, guides gather to divide up areas of clear ice, the tourists' most sought-after backdrop.

In the last decade, Baikal has become Russia's biggest tourism sensation, especially among travelers from Asia, with visitor numbers growing from hundreds of thousands to almost 2 million in 2019, according to official data.

Even amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Russian government encouraged domestic travel to boost the economy, and this winter, the numbers flocking to Baikal doubled compared to previous seasons.

The infrastructure, however, is unprepared for this influx. Most areas lack the basic necessities -- such as centralized sewage and treatment facilities -- necessary to cope with mass tourism.

Despite that, illegal hotels have sprung up here -- aided by crippling corruption and lack of oversight -- bypassing environmental assessments, driving up real estate prices and forcing out locals. An investigation resulted in charges against a local official in 2020, and regional prosecutors periodically crack down on illegal construction, shutting down multi-room hotels registered as private houses. Few are being demolished, however.

© CNN Construction ruins from an illegal hotel

Places like the village of Listvyanka -- on a narrow strip of land sandwiched between the lake and a mountain -- welcome visitors with half-constructed hotels and crooked storefronts nesting on top of each other.

"What we have as a result is pollution. All this waste water falls into the cesspool and from there goes directly into Baikal," said environmentalist Vitaly Ryabtsev, pointing to a massive yellowish stain on a frozen river in Listvyanka, right where it flows into the lake.

Ryabtsev, who has spent the past 40 years trying to preserve Baikal, says he doesn't recognize the place anymore, largely because humans have driven out entire species of animals in a matter of a couple of decades.

"This is not the place for mass tourism," Ryabtsev said. "I'd say that the most important measure would be to impose a ban on the further construction of hotels and tourist centers, at least until the existing tourist facilities are put in order."

The results of unregulated human activity are not just an eyesore -- they've had a very real impact on the lake's dwellers.

Around a decade ago, scientists with the local branch of the Limnological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences noticed some odd changes along the shoreline. Spirogyra, a kind of algae that is not typically found in Baikal, began to grow next to some of the most popular tourist spots and spread fast.

© CNN Waste water in Listvyanka

The scientists quickly saw the algae suck out the life out of other living creatures, harming organisms responsible for cleansing Baikal's water and covering its bed with green slime.

In just a few years, spirogyra covered most of the lake's bed near places like Listvyanka, prompting the experts to conclude its appearance was a direct result of unfiltered sewage being dumped from new properties.

"This alga is like a parasite in a human body, and its massive growth is a clear sign of the disease in this great lake's ecosystem," Oleg Timoshkin, a hydrobiologist with the Limnological Institute, said in a lecture.

© CNN

He and his team worry that huge parts of Baikal will be affected if the process accelerates, jeopardizing the lake's purity.

Video: 'There is not enough space': Welcome to a town that many say can't take on more people (CNN)

A heritage site under threat

For Russians, Baikal has long been a part of their national identity and a source of pride. In 1996, the lake was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its unique flora and fauna and "outstanding value to humanity."

© CNN Waste containers at the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill

Russian President Vladimir Putin called Baikal's preservation "a government priority" after a 2017 visit to address pollution issues.

But like many other heritage sites, Baikal is facing an array of environmental threats, and some locals question if Russia is prioritizing tourism revenues over conservation.

Last New Year's Eve, Russian environmentalists woke to an unwelcome gift as the authorities issued new legislation rolling back some key protections for the lake.

The international coalition Rivers without Boundaries, which took part in a year-long discussion with the state about its proposals, said it was shocked by the eventual legislation. Among other concerns, it allows development in previously untouched areas within Baikal's municipal zones.

"We see that our government, instead of restricting anthropogenic activity around Baikal, moves in a completely different direction," said the group's ecologist, Alexander Kolotov. "All recent legislation aims to weaken its environmental protection status."

The group, together with Greenpeace, sent a petition to UNESCO, arguing that Baikal's protections have been significantly weakened due to "consistent lobbying efforts" from companies looking to expand their businesses around the lake.

A large part of Baikal falls under the jurisdiction of the Irkutsk region. In a 2020 government report, the regional tourism body outlined measures to reduce the negative impact of tourism on the environment. But the same report also said "the presence of special environmental restrictions" was a "systematic" problem hindering the tourism industry.

Russia's largest bank, the state-owned Sberbank, is also spearheading an ambitious investment program aiming to build more hotels around Baikal and attract more than 3 million tourists a year by 2024.

The new regulations have sent ripples through local communities divided over the benefits and dangers of the tourism boom.

Gala Sibiryakova moved away from overcrowded Listvyanka over 15 years ago and settled in the remote village of Khuzhir on Olkhon Island, which has a current population of around 1,600.

She remembers Khuzhir to be a quiet place, where locals lived at one with nature and enjoyed unobscured views of majestic Baikal from their small houses. That soon changed.

"All this development, construction on all the corners we used to go and loved taking pictures of once -- now all of these places are fenced off [by hotels]," Sibiryakova says while walking a pack of white Samoyed dogs. "And the saddest thing is that we used to drink the very tasty Baikal water, but now we cannot drink it; it is no longer clean."

For Sibiryakova, the changes tourism brought into her community are also personal. Her husband Fedor is a native Buryat, belonging to one of the two largest indigenous groups in Siberia. Their eldest daughter is one of the very few people on Olkhon who can still speak and write in the native language.

The most sacred place on Olkhon is the Shaman Rock, where many come to make wishes and shamans perform rituals following spiritual practices linking the power of nature and spirits. For a long time no one was allowed close to the rock, but now tour guides have set up portable toilets around it to cater to tourists.

"Because of this tourist boom, the land became so expensive, and often locals could not compete with Moscow and foreign entrepreneurs, with Chinese entrepreneurs," she said. "So we had this displacement of the indigenous people, the local culture disappeared along with local traditions and customs."

At the same time, tourism has undeniably become a source of income for many on Olkhon, especially since the local fish factory was shut down and fishing outlawed.

Anna, a street vendor in Khuzhir who refused to give her last name, said she disagreed with the "green" activists and welcomed the easing of restrictions.

"We had nothing here just 20 years ago, and now we have electricity, internet, and a steady stream of income. If that's all taken away, what are we going to do? Where will we work?"

In 2019, several hundred Khuzhir residents took to the streets to protest their village's incorporation into the lake's existing national reserve zone, worried they'd have to give up their land and businesses because of stricter regulations. Many of them have now welcomed the relaxation of restrictions, hoping it will ease the burden of bureaucratic hurdles.

Ryabtsev said the conflict between locals shocked by the impacts of mass tourism and those relying on it to survive has gotten so bad that he now avoids the topic in conversations with Olkhon locals.

Sibiryakova believes the anti-green sentiment stems from misinformation.

"People were afraid they would be evicted and left with nothing, so they came to protest without really understanding the laws," she said. "For a long time you couldn't build a private house but gigantic hotels for some reason had been allowed to build, so they thought it would help, but locals are not better off now."

"I think there just should be some balance. Of course, you can't totally abolish tourism, Baikal is beautiful, and people need to see it; it would be wrong to deprive them of it," Sibiryakova added. "But now, for such a huge number of people, there is just not enough space."

Baikal's ticking bomb

Russia has tapped into many of its natural reserves for profit, and its history with Baikal is no exception.

In the 1960s, the Soviet government set up Baikalsk Paper and Pulp Mill, which specialized in pulp chemical bleaching, a process known to cause significant environmental damage if its byproducts are released in waterways.

Its construction is believed to have sparked the Soviet ecological movement, with activists working for decades to shut down the plant considered the lake's main polluter.

The Russian government long conceded the mill was polluting the lake, but the fear of unrest in Baikalsk, a town born along with the factory and fully dependent on it, kept it alive for years.

The outrage over the harmful industry carried over into modern Russia, and the plant was eventually shut down in 2013, but ecological reasons hardly drove the decision. The mill amassed debts, and the business was deemed unviable.

The huge dilapidated buildings now stand silent and abandoned, but the danger to Baikal, however, remains. According to the Russian state news agency TASS, the factory's reservoirs have over half a century accumulated at least 6.5 million tons of dangerous toxic waste -- contained to this day in rusty tanks and man-made ponds.

Scientists worry that since its abandonment, the mill has become even more dangerous to Baikal, with polluted waste water stretching two kilometers into the lake, compared to about 200 meters seven years ago.

"As soon as the storage ponds overflow, streams run into Baikal," Alexander Suturin, a head scientist with the Limnological Institute of the Russian Academy of Science, told TASS. "Secondly, there is a large amount of accumulated waste water sitting under the site. When the plant was operating, the water was pumped out and discharged to treatment facilities, now there are no treatment facilities, but the contamination remains and is leaking into Baikal."

Local authorities have made efforts to contain tanks or even remove waste water altogether, swapping several contractors, but have so far struggled to find a long-term solution. The latest subcontractor has been tasked with eliminating the waste by 2024, state media reported.

Environmentalists like Ryabtsev and Kolotov worry that Russia's inconsistent environmental policy won't get to grips with what the past few decades of human activity have already done to unique places like Baikal, which after more than 25 million years of existence could be on a path of irrevocable decline.

"We are extremely concerned about this invasion into untouched lands and the UNESCO heritage sites," Kolotov said. "Russia signed up to protect these sites, but in reality ... it turns out these sites sometimes need protection even from those who were supposed to protect them."

A California city is paying its homeless population to clean up their tent sites as the state fights a homelessness crisis

insider@insider.com (Katie Canales) 

4/10/2021
 

© Provided by Business Insider Echo Park Lake Thursday, March 25, 2021 in Los Angeles, CA. Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

The California town of Elk Grove is paying its homeless population $20 gift cards to clean tent sites.

The year-long program has saved the city thousands of dollars.
California has long been racked by a homelessness crisis, exacerbated by a housing shortage.

Officials in the California town of Elk Grove are paying those who are homeless in its city to keep their encampment sites clean, according to CNN.


Elk Grove, which sits about 15 miles south of Sacramento, appears to have started the pilot program about a year ago. The city's housing and public services manager, Sarah Bontrager, told CNN that the public works team distributes trash bags and visits the homeless encampment every two weeks. If they arrive and those living there have trash bagged, she said they are eligible for $20 gift cards to grocery stores.

Per the report, whoever receives the gift cards can use them on anything except cigarettes and alcohol, and most end up using the credit on food or personal hygiene products.

Bontrager said the most common complaint they receive regarding the city's homeless population is the volume of trash. The city is "saving thousands of dollars" by paying those who are homeless to clean their encampments instead of using public workers, she told CNN.

Bontrager said it costs $1,000 in labor and equipment each time public workers have to clean up an encampment site, per CNN. But since the program stood up, the city has only used $10,000 of a $15,000 budget.

California has long endured a crushing homelessness crisis, exacerbated by a housing shortage and a lack of affordable living. More than a quarter of the unhoused population in the US is comprised of the state's homeless community, according to a March 2020 report from The Guardian.

California has the third-largest homeless population in the US, with over 128,000 people living unhoused in the state, per CBS Los Angeles.