BIGGEST REACTIONARY RALLY IN CANADA


Thousands march in Montreal against virus restrictions

Issued on: 02/05/2021

Protesters in Montreal, marching on May 1, 2021 -- mostly unmasked and ignoring social distancing rules -- said restrictions imposed by the Quebec government are "unjustified" Andrej Ivanov AFP


Montreal (AFP)

Tens of thousands of protesters marched Saturday at Montreal's Olympic Stadium, rallying against restrictions imposed by the government to stem a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic in Canada.

Some demonstrators were arrested at the start of the march, according to an AFP journalist, with signs in the crowd expressing opposition to masks, curfew and health passports.

A heavy police presence was on hand, although the event proceeded largely in a festive atmosphere to the rhythm of drums.

Police refused to provide a crowd estimate, but Canadian media said the turnout was about 30,000, making it the largest rally against Covid restrictions in Quebec in recent months.

Protesters, mostly unmasked and ignoring social distancing rules, said restrictions imposed by the Quebec government were "unjustified."

They criticized compulsory mask-wearing for outdoor gatherings and a provincial curfew that was imposed at the beginning of January -- a move not seen on a provincial scale in Canada since the Spanish flu outbreak a century ago.

Due to slowing rates of infection, the Quebec government said that starting Monday, the start of the curfew in Montreal would be pushed back to 9:30 pm, from 8 pm.

"We are simply asking for an end to the health measures," Daniel Pilon, who said he was an organizer of the event, told AFP.

"The collateral damage (of the health measures) is much greater than the collateral damage created by the Covid," he added, saying there have been increases in suicides and bankruptcies.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the protest "deeply disappointing."

"The irony here is that by gathering, people are putting each other at risk, spreading further cases of Covid-19, and extending the time in which we will have to be faced with restrictions and public health measures," he said.

Montreal's Olympic Stadium is one of the country's biggest vaccination sites, and had to be shut down on Saturday due to the demonstration.

Canada has recorded more than 1.2 million cases of coronavirus and 24,200 deaths, more than half of them in Ontario and Quebec.

© 2021 AFP

CHADIAN COUP 

Mourners hold funerals in Chad's capital, police fire on protesters in south

SON ASSISSINATES DAD BLAMES REBEL FORCES

Issued on: 01/05/2021 

Mourners gather at a funeral for 18-year-old Synna Garandi in N'djamena on May 1, 2021, after his death during a demonstration in the Chadian capital. © Issouf Sanogo, AFP

Text by: FRANCE 24


Hundreds of chanting mourners carrying Chadian flags gathered in the capital, N'Djamena, Saturday to bury some of the victims who were shot dead this week during demonstrations against the country's new military government. Meanwhile, security forces in the southern town of Sarh shot and wounded at least four protesters, according to hospital sources.

Crowds of mourners arrived in N'Djamena by minibus and motorcycle taxis under a scorching sun at midday, as military and police vehicles lined the road to the cemetery's entrance. Family members wailed as Yannick Djikoloum's flag-draped casket was lowered into the ground.

“The history of great men is written in blood. The victory of the Chadian people is in hand,” read a sign held by one mourner.

The 20-year-old was one of at least six people who died Tuesday when demonstrations began before dawn in the largest unrest to hit N'Djamena since the military announced a week earlier that rebels had killed Chad's President Idriss Deby on a distant battlefield.

The fear of further crackdowns kept demonstrators home in N'Djamena on Saturday, though a protest was swiftly put down in the southern town of Sarh.


'We lived through a terrible scene'

Protesters in Sarh banged pots and pans in a show of defiance against the military council, while police responded by firing into the crowd with live ammunition, witnesses said. One person who was shot in the abdomen is in critical condition, according to a medical worker who requested anonymity.

"Two of my friends were wounded by gunshots right in front of me, and spent more than an hour on the spot before they could be transported to the hospital," Allaissem Bernodji Manace, who protested in Sarh, told Reuters.

"We lived through a terrible scene," he said.

Civil society leaders in the neighbouring town of Koumra said that a dozen people were arrested during a parallel protest, to which security forces responded with beatings and teargas.

A representative of Chad's military council declined to comment on the actions of security forces, but said the protesters were "just young people who marched through the streets creating traffic jams".

UN expresses alarm over 'disproportionate use of force'

On Tuesday, security forces were accused of shooting at the crowds who took to the streets to protest that the military put Deby's 37-year-old son, Mahamat, in charge after his death. Under Chad's constitution, power should have been handed over to the president of National Assembly.

The UN human rights office expressed alarm at Tuesday's violence, saying it was “deeply disturbed by the apparently disproportionate use of force – including the use of live ammunition – by defense and security forces.”

Meanwhile, the interim government's prime minister urged unity on Saturday after civil society groups called for protests to continue.

“We must join forces to guarantee peace and restore calm,” Prime Minister Albert Pahimi Padacke said, urging people to support the interim government.


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The spectre of more anti-government protests is just one of the threats now facing the transitional military council in power. The rebels blamed for killing Deby also have continued to battle the Chadian military 300 kilometres (186 miles) north of the capital.

The armed group, known as the Front for Change and Concord in Chad, has threatened to attack the capital and depose Deby's son. A march on N'Djamena, though, became less likely after former coloniser France lent its support publicly to the new administration.

The French have a large military base in Chad, and the rebels already have accused France of providing intelligence on rebel positions to the Chadian army.

France's acceptance of Mahamat Idriss Deby comes after Chad became a vital partner in the fight against Islamic extremism during his father's tenure. Chadian forces have played a critical role in the fight against Islamic extremism, particularly in northern Mali, and the French government described Deby as a “courageous friend” following his death.

(FRANCE 24 with AP and REUTERS)

FORGOTTEN THEIR ARAB AND MOORISH PAST

Black candidate challenges political status quo in Spain

By ARITZ PARRA

AP today

Serigne Mbaye, who is running on a ticket with the anti-austerity United We Can party, in the Madrid regional assembly elections, talks with a potential voter during an election campaign event in Madrid, Spain, Friday, April 16, 2021. Mbaye, a Senegalese-born environmental refugee wants to defy a history of underrepresentation of the Black community and other people of color in Spanish politics. Serigne Mbaye's candidacy has been met with a racist response from an increasingly influential far-right political party. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

MADRID (AP) — Two young Senegalese men met on a Europe-bound migrant boat in 2006, a year that saw a record influx of Africans to Spain’s Canary Islands.

Since then, one died of a heart attack running away from Spanish police and the other is running in a polarized election Tuesday for a seat in Madrid’s regional assembly.

Serigne Mbaye not only wants to fight what he considers to be “structural racism” against African migrants but also to defy a history of underrepresentation of the Black community and other people of color in Spanish politics.

“That’s where all discrimination begins,” the 45-year-old told The Associated Press.

In 2018, having failed to secure legal work and a residence permit, the man he met on the boat — Mame Mbaye, no relation — died of a heart attack eluding a police crackdown on street vendors.

After that, Serigne Mbaye, who at the time represented a group of mostly Black African hawkers, became one of the most vocal voices against Spain’s Alien Law, saying it ties migrants arriving unlawfully to the underground economy. The regulation also punishes them with jail for committing minor offenses, leaving them with a criminal record that weighs against their chances of getting a residence permit.

“His image at night when we were on the boat always haunts me,” said Serigne Mbaye, who is now a Spanish citizen. “The sole fact that he is dead and I’m alive is because of an unjust law that condemns and punishes us. Some of us make it. Some can spend 20 years in a vicious circle without papers.”

Mbaye is running on a ticket with the anti-austerity United We Can party, the junior partner in the country’s ruling, Socialist-led coalition.

Only a handful of Black people have succeeded in at the top level of Spanish politics. Equatorial Guinea-born Rita Bosaho, now the director of racial and ethnic diversity at Spain’s Equality Ministry, in 2015 became the first Black national lawmaker in four decades of democratic rule. Luc André Diouf, who also migrated from Senegal, also won a seat in Spain’s Lower House in 2019.

At a lower, regional level, Mbaye wants to show that “Madrid is diverse.”

“That a Black person is running in the lists has surprised many. In that way, this is making many people think,” he said.

Vox, the country’s increasingly influential far-right party, has responded to Mbaye’s candidacy with an Instagram post vowing to deport him, even though that’s impossible because the far-left candidate is a Spanish citizen. With its mixture of patriotism and populist provocation, Vox has become the third force in the national parliament and might emerge as the kingmaker in Madrid’s May 4 election.

“They are basically saying that because I’m Black there is no place for me here,” said Mbaye. “These are the kind of messages that criminalize us and that we continue receiving.”

Vox has also made waves with large subway ads citing inaccurate figures comparing Madrid’s alleged public spending on unaccompanied foreign minors with the alleged average stipend for a retiree. The party blames the minors — a total of 269 people in the region’s population of 6.7 million — for increased insecurity.

Judges have ruled that the billboards fall under free speech. But when Vox is accused by opponents of being racist, the party says its crusade is only against illegal migration and that a racist party wouldn’t have a mixed-race spokesman in northeastern Catalonia’s regional parliament. That’s Rafael Garriga, a dentist of Belgian and Equatorial Guinean descent.

“By surrounding themselves with what they see as some kind of respectability, they try to legitimize clearly racist speech while not crossing certain legal lines,” said Antumi Toasijé, a historian who heads the National Council Against Ethnic and Racial Discrimination.

The ascent of the far-right and the polarization in social media has normalized hate speech in Spain, he said.

The Black Lives Matter movement led last year to some of the largest protests against racism seen in Spain. But while many condemned the murder of Black citizens by police in the United States, few reflected on domestic racism or Spain’s own history of colonialism, slavery and, according to Toasijé, “a long tradition of attempts to conduct ethnic cleansing.”

In a country where the census doesn’t ask about race or ethnicity, like in much of Europe, a recent government study put the number of Black people in Spain at just over 700,000.

Toasijé’s own estimation elevates the figure to at least 1.3 million “visibly” Black people, including sub-Saharan Africans, Black Latin Americans and Afro-descendants born in Spain. That would be 2.7% of the population, or at least nine Black lawmakers if the 350-seat Congress of Deputies reflected the country’s diversity. There is currently one Black lawmaker.

Still, quotas or other measures that would help address racial inequality aren’t even part of the debate, said Toasijé.

That underrepresentation also affects Spain’s Roma people, a community of 700,000 that scored a historic victory in 2019 by snatching four parliamentary seats, close to the 1.5% share it represents in the total population. But one of them failed to retain his seat in a repeated election.

The situation isn’t better for descendants of Latin Americans or Moroccans, who represent some of the largest groups of non-white Spaniards, or the more than 11% of foreign-born residents who can’t even run in regional or national elections.

Moha Gerehou, a Spanish journalist and anti-racism activist, said “structural racism” is inbred in Spanish life.

“It has a lot to do with education, because the main bottleneck is in access to universities, leaving low-paid and precarious employment like domestic work or harvesting, where there is rampant exploitation,” he said.

Barring sports figures and some artists, people of color are pretty much invisible in high-powered Spanish circles from academia to big business, said Gerehou, who just published a book on growing up as a Black person in a provincial northern Spanish capital.

His description is of a largely white country that considers itself non-racist and welcoming to migrants, even when numerous studies have captured rampant discrimination against people of color, especially in jobs or housing.

“The problem is that the debate of racial representation is still on the fringes,” Gerehou said. “We need to go much faster

THE OTHER GREEN CAPITALI$M 
Marijuana social equity: Seeds planted but will they grow?

By THOMAS PEIPERT and MICHAEL R. BLOOD

April 30, 2021


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Sarah Woodson poses for a portrait in Denver on Saturday, April 3, 2021. Woodson, the executive director of the advocacy group The Color of Cannabis, runs a 10-week business course to help students navigate Colorado's social equity application process and to connect them with marijuana industry leaders. Colorado's social equity program is aimed at correcting past wrongs from the war on drugs, which disproportionately affected minorities. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

DENVER (AP) — Terrence Hewing was working for a package delivery company in 2007 when police approached his cargo van in suburban Denver. He was early for a pickup, and someone out for a walk called authorities after seeing him napping in the driver’s seat.

Officers found about a pound of marijuana inside the vehicle. That led to a couple of days in jail, thousands of dollars in legal fees and a felony conviction for drug possession. Hewing lost his job and, because of his criminal record, for years struggled to find housing and a stable, well-paying career.

“I felt like I was in a certain box in society,” he said. “There’s people that don’t have felonies and people that do. It makes you almost feel kind of outcast.”

Hewing, 39, recently became one of only a few Black entrepreneurs to receive a business license in Colorado’s recreational marijuana industry. His goal is to run a company that delivers the very substance that stained his record.

His opportunity is the result of personal ambition paired with Colorado’s effort to right past wrongs from the war on drugs.

Hewing will enter the market as a so-called social equity operator, licensed under a program that provides reduced fees and mentoring to encourage the growth of new businesses, especially for Black people arrested or imprisoned for marijuana offenses.

Social equity has been a selling point for marijuana legalization in many states. New York, which last month broadly legalized cannabis use, has set a goal of getting 50% of licenses to minorities and other social equity applicants.

But so far the goals have far outstripped realities, partly due to legal entanglements as states look to broaden diversity in cannabis boardrooms, retail shops, production plants and greenhouses.

Disappointment with the slow rollout of equity programs has taken on a deeper resonance at a time when the nation is undergoing a racial reckoning, brought on by cases of police brutality and punctuated last year by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The limited statistics available indicate business owners and investors at the top of the booming industry remain overwhelmingly white.

In Nevada, about 30% of people in the state are Latino and 10% are Black. But the state’s first demographic survey of the cannabis industry released earlier this year showed only about 2% of board members identified as Black and just over 7% Latino.

States are making progress toward a more diverse marijuana industry but so far the push for social equity has been plagued with a lot of delays and litigation, said Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies at the Marijuana Policy Project.

In some cases, aspiring social equity licensees have been locked up again, this time in predatory contracts, with profits and control largely in the hands of investors. In others, they’ve been overmatched in a cutthroat market dominated by international companies valued at millions and sometimes billions of dollars.

And sometimes states themselves have been slow to establish and grow programs.

Voters in Washington and Colorado in 2012 made their states the first to legalize recreational marijuana. But only now are they moving toward greater social equity.

Colorado’s program, which took effect at the beginning of the year, is open to all races, but the state Marijuana Enforcement Division says on its website the goal is to increase diversity, especially among owners. It also acknowledges “the effects of decades of criminal enforcement of marijuana laws on communities of color.”

According to a 2020 study by the American Civil Liberties Union, Black people in the United States are nearly four times more likely than white people to be arrested for marijuana possession, despite comparable usage. The study analyzed marijuana possession arrests from 2010 to 2018.

The Colorado program is open to those who lived in the state for at least 15 years between 1980 and 2010 in an opportunity zone or an area disproportionately affected by drug laws, which is determined by education and poverty levels, unemployment rates and the number of people who receive public assistance. The program also is open to those with a household income below 50% of the state’s median and those who either were or have a close family member arrested or convicted of a marijuana offense.

One provision allows new license holders to partner with an existing marijuana business to learn from experienced professionals.

Coming seven years after sales of recreational marijuana were legalized, it’s been a long wait, said Sarah Woodson, Hewing’s wife and executive director of the advocacy group The Color of Cannabis.

“Once it becomes regulated, (they) literally should be the first people that have an opportunity to legitimize and capitalize from that business,” said Woodson, referring to people with marijuana convictions.

As many look for answers to increase minority participation in the business, a recurring question has emerged: Do equity programs do enough to help license holders who may have little, if any, business experience or access to capital needed to launch a successful company?

Los Angeles, the nation’s largest legal pot shop, opened for businesses in 2018. But more than three years later its social equity program remains a work in progress after getting tangled in a legal fight and later undergoing a major makeover, intended in part to shield inexperienced social equity licensees from shark investors.

The delays have left many potential operators and their financial backers in limbo, waiting for permission to open for business while start-up costs pile up.

“I’m paying rent on an empty building,” lamented Kika Keith, a leading Los Angeles activist and co-founder of Social Equity Owners and Workers Association. She’s seeking a social equity license to open a retail shop in the city’s historically Black neighborhood Crenshaw.

After two years of planning, an earlier partnership collapsed under delays and shifting regulations that prompted her initial investors to back out. By that time, the company had spent $350,000 on lease payments, lawyers and other costs. Keith, who is Black and grew up in South Los Angeles, has secured new financial backers but is still waiting for a license.

Keith likens her long fight to struggles of the past, like breaking down Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation in the South. “They continue to push us down deeper in the hole,” she said.

Cannabis business attorney Hilary Bricken said California’s market is treacherous even for experienced operators, with dense layers of constantly shifting regulation, heavy taxes and competition from the still-booming illicit industry. Pot remains illegal federally, which can make loans and other banking services hard to find.

Companies generally are out to make profits and build brands, not focus on a humanitarian mission, she said. Investors could be uneasy about entering a partnership in which they would have to surrender significant control to the equity operator, as under rules in Los Angeles.

In capitalism, “the dollar rules,” she said.

Hoping to address such concerns, Woodson’s group, anchored in the historically Black neighborhood of Five Points near downtown Denver, runs a 10-week business course to help students navigate the social equity application process and to connect them with industry leaders.

Michael Diaz-Rivera, 35, who identifies as white, Black and Puerto Rican, recently completed the program, which teaches about business and marketing, filing taxes, and licensing and management, among other topics.

An elementary school teacher with a felony conviction for marijuana possession, Diaz-Rivera sees his future in a pot delivery business, though he acknowledges he’s had trouble finding investment and with little business experience worries about falling into an unfair contract.

With social equity “I’ve noticed that a lot of established businesses aren’t as interested in that because they don’t get anything out of it,” he said.

As for Hewing, he is bullish about his prospects, despite the obstacles.

“We’re trying to get it to where we’re actually creating businesses and owners and generational wealth,” he said. “People can help their communities and restore the negative damage that was caused by the war on drugs.”

——

Blood reported from Los Angeles. He is a member of AP’s marijuana beat team. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MichaelRBloodAP. Follow AP’s complete marijuana coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/marijuana.

Counting the costs of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan

By ISABEL DEBRE

AP MAY 2,2021


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FILE - In this Oct. 27, 2013 file photo, relatives surround the body of a 10-year-old Afghan girl who was killed by a roadside bomb, apparently targeting a group of soldiers, during her funeral on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. America’s longest war, the two-decade-long conflict in Afghanistan that started in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, killed tens of thousands of people, dogged four U.S. presidents and ultimately proved unwinnable despite its staggering cost in blood and treasure. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — America’s longest war, the two-decade-long conflict in Afghanistan that started in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, killed tens of thousands of people, dogged four U.S. presidents and ultimately proved unwinnable despite its staggering cost in blood and treasure.

This final chapter, with President Joe Biden’s decision to pull all American troops from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, has prompted a reckoning over the war’s lost lives and colossal expenditure.

Here’s a look at the spiraling cost of America’s campaign — the bloodshed, wasted funds and future consequences for the war-battered nation teetering on the brink of chaos.

THE COST IN LIVES

Afghans have paid the highest price. Since 2001, at least 47,245 civilians have been killed in the war as of mid-April, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University, which documents the hidden costs of the post-9/11 wars.

Gun and bomb attacks targeting civilians surged to previously unseen heights since the intra-Afghan peace negotiations opened in Qatar last fall, according to the U.N. Watchdogs say the conflict has killed a total of 72 journalists and 444 aid workers.

The Afghan government keeps the toll among its soldiers secret to avoid undermining morale, but Costs of War estimates the war has killed 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan troops.

The war has forced 2.7 million Afghans to flee abroad, mostly to Iran, Pakistan and Europe, the U.N. said. Another 4 million are displaced within the country, which has a total population of 36 million.

Meanwhile, 2,442 U.S. troops have been killed and 20,666 wounded in the war since 2001, according to the Defense Department. It’s estimated that over 3,800 U.S. private security contractors have been killed. The Pentagon does not track their deaths.

The conflict also has killed 1,144 personnel from the 40-nation NATO coalition that trained Afghan forces over the years, according to a tally kept by the website iCasualties. The remaining 7,000 allied troops also will withdraw by Biden’s 9/11 deadline.

FILE - This May 14, 2010 file photo, shows the Tarakhil power plant built with the help of the U.S. Agency for International Development, on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. Washington has poured over $143 billion into nation-building since 2002, according to the latest figures from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). Much of the billions lavished on huge infrastructure projects went to waste, the U.S. inspector general discovered. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das, File)

THE COST IN DOLLARS

The U.S. has spent a stunning total of $2.26 trillion on a dizzying array of expenses, according to the Costs of War project.

The Defense Department’s latest 2020 report said war-fighting costs totaled $815.7 billion over the years. That covers the operating costs of the U.S. military in Afghanistan, everything from fuel and food to Humvees, weapons and ammunition, from tanks and armored vehicles to aircraft carriers and airstrikes.

Although America first invaded to retaliate against al-Qaida and rout its hosts, the Taliban, the U.S. and NATO soon pivoted to a more open-ended mission: nation-building on a massive scale.

Washington has poured over $143 billion into that goal since 2002, according to the latest figures from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

Of that, $88 billion went to training, equipping and funding Afghan military and police forces. Another $36 billion was spent on reconstruction projects, education and infrastructure like dams and highways, the SIGAR report said. Another $4.1 billion has gone to humanitarian aid for refugees and disasters. The campaign to deter Afghans from selling heroin around the world cost over $9 billion.

Unlike with other conflicts in American history, the U.S. borrowed heavily to fund the war in Afghanistan and has paid some $530 billion in interest. It has also paid $296 billion in medical and other care for veterans, according to Costs of War. It will continue to pay both those expenses for years to come.

FOLLOWING THE MONEY

Much of the billions lavished on huge infrastructure projects went to waste, the U.S. inspector general discovered. Canals, dams and highways fell into disrepair, as Afghanistan failed to absorb the flood of aid. Newly built hospitals and schools stood empty. Without proper oversight, the U.S. money bred corruption that undermined government legitimacy.

FILE - In this April 11, 2016 file photo, farmers harvest raw opium at a poppy field in the Zhari district of Kandahar province, Afghanistan. President Joe Biden's decision to end America's longest war has prompted a reckoning over the colossal cost of the two-decade-long conflict in Afghanistan. Despite the costly counternarcotics campaign, opium exports reached record heights. (AP Photos/Allauddin Khan, File)

Despite the costly counter narcotics campaign, opium exports reached record heights. Despite the billions in weapons and training to Afghan security forces, the Taliban increased the amount of territory they control. Despite vast spending on job creation and welfare, unemployment hovers around 25%. The poverty rate has fluctuated over the years, reaching 47% through 2020, according to the World Bank, compared to 36% when the fund first began calculating in 2007.

“We invested too much with too little to show for it,” said Michael Wahid Hanna, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Century Foundation.

THE COST OF LEAVING

Although few want to prolong the war interminably, many fear its final end may jeopardize Afghanistan’s modest gains in health, education and women’s rights, made in the early years as the U.S. expanded the economy and toppled the Taliban, which had imposed tough strictures on women.

Since 2001, life expectancy has increased to 64 years from 56, the World Bank says. Maternal mortality has more than halved. Opportunities for education have grown, with the literacy rate rising 8% to roughly 43%. Life in cities has improved, with 89% of residents having access to clean water, compared to 16% before the war.

Child marriage has declined by 17%, according to U.N. data. Girls’ enrollment in primary school has nearly doubled, and more women have entered college and served in Parliament. These figures still pale compared with global standards.

But more broadly, the failure of America’s ambitions to build a stable, democratic Afghanistan has left the country mired in uncertainty as U.S. forces leave. The nation’s history tells of civil war that follows foreign invasions and withdrawals.

“For better or worse, the U.S. has a serious stabilizing presence right now, and once that’s gone there’s going to be a power vacuum,” said Michael Callen, an Afghanistan economy expert at the London School of Economics. “In the 20 years’ war, there’s going to be a whole lot of scores that need to be settled.”

FASCISM; NO INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY*
El Salvador’s new assembly votes to oust high chamber judges

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Suecy Callejas, Vice President of the Congress, center, smiles during the first session in San Salvador, El Salvador, Saturday, May 1, 2021. For the first time in three decades the traditional conservative and leftist parties have been sidelined by a resounding electoral defeat, clearing the way for President Nayib Bukele's party to help him advance his agenda. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)

EL SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador’s new Legislative Assembly, controlled by President Nayib Bukele’s New Ideas party, held its first session Saturday with lawmakers voting to remove the magistrates of the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court.

The assembly voted 64 to 19 with one abstention to oust the five magistrates on the chamber, which had angered Bukele by ruling against some of his tougher measures during the pandemic.

Ruling party lawmakers defended the decision, saying the court had put private interests above the health and welfare of the people, while the opposition called it a power grab by a populist president seeking total control.

“This is an outrage against the Republic and democracy,” the conservative opposition National Republican Alliance, or ARENA, said on its Twitter account.

ARENA party president Erick Salguero called the initiative a violation of the constitution and part of Bukele’s “search for complete power.”

Bukele defended the process, saying the Legislative Assembly’s ability to dismiss the court’s judges is “an INCONTROVERTIBLE power clearly expressed in article 186 of the Constitution of the Republic.”

El Salvador’s constitution states that the magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice may be removed by the Legislative Assembly for specific causes established by law. Both the election and dismissal of its magistrates must have the support of two thirds of the lawmakers.

“We note with concern the proposal by some members of the National Assembly to remove five magistrates of El Salvador’s Constitutional Chamber,” tweeted Julie Chung, acting assistant secretary for the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. “An independent judiciary is the foundation of any democracy; no democracy can live without it.”

José Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas division, wrote on Twitter that “Bukele is breaking with the rule of law and seeks to concentrate all power in his hands.”

The 39-year-old Bukele, a populist who has been criticized for having autocratic tendencies, is by far the most popular politician in Central America.

His New Ideas party swept Feb. 28 legislative elections by a landslide last month devastating the two traditional parties who had long ruled the Central American nation.      

* CARL SCMIDTT, NAZI JURIST, PROF U OF CHICAGO POST WAR 

AN INDICATION OF CIVILIZATION; SLAVERY*
Black Freedmen struggle for recognition as tribal citizens
By SEAN MURPHY

AP  MAY 2,2021

LeEtta Osborne-Sampson is pictured outside her home Monday, April 26, 2021, in Oklahoma City. Sampson-Osborn, a Seminole Freedman who has a tribal identification card and serves on the tribe's governing council, said when she went to the Indian Health Services clinic to get a vaccination in February, a worker at the clinic told her the Seminole Nation doesn't recognize Freedmen for health services. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — As the U.S. faces a reckoning over its history of racism, some Native American tribal nations that once owned slaves also are grappling with their own mistreatment of Black people.

When Native American tribes were forced from their ancestral homelands in the southeastern United States to what is now Oklahoma in the 1800s — known as the Trail of Tears — thousands of Black slaves owned by tribal members also were removed and forced to provide manual labor along the way. Once in Oklahoma, slaves often toiled on plantation-style farms or were servants in tribal members’ homes.

Nearly 200 years later, many of the thousands of descendants of those Black slaves, known as Freedmen, are still fighting to be recognized by the tribes that once owned their ancestors. The fight has continued since the killing of George Floyd last year by a Minneapolis police officer spurred a reexamination of the vestiges of slavery in the U.S.

CHEROKEE NATION FREEDMEN

The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole nations were referred to historically as the Five Civilized Tribes, or Five Tribes, by European settlers because they often assimilated into the settlers’ culture, adopting their style of dress and religion, and even owning slaves. Each tribe also has a unique history with Freedmen, whose rights were ultimately spelled out in separate treaties with the U.S.

Today, the Cherokee Nation is the only tribe that fully recognizes the Freedmen as full citizens, a decision that came in 2017 following years of legal wrangling.

“I think that we are a better tribe for having not only embraced the federal court decision but embraced the concept of equality,” said Cherokee Nation Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr., a longtime supporter of citizenship rights for the Freedmen.

The Cherokee Nation, among the largest Native American tribes, has about 5,800 Freedmen citizens who have traced an ancestor on the tribe’s original Freedmen rolls in the late 19th century.

When the federal government sought to break up tribal reservations into individual allotments after the Civil War, they created two separate tribal rolls — one for members with American Indian blood and one for Freedmen. In many cases, tribal citizens who appeared Black were placed on the Freedmen rolls, even if they had blood ties to the tribe.

Of the Five Tribes, only the Chickasaw Nation never agreed to adopt the Freedmen as citizens, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society.

SEMINOLE NATION CONTROVERSY

The Wewoka-based Seminole Nation in particular faces fierce criticism after several Black tribal citizens were denied COVID-19 vaccines at a federally operated American Indian health clinic.

LeEtta Osborne-Sampson, a Seminole Freedman who has a tribal identification card and serves on the tribe’s governing council, said she sought a vaccine in February at a clinic operated by the Indian Health Service, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She said a worker told her the Seminole Nation doesn’t recognize Freedmen for health services. When she asked for additional explanation, the worker called over a tribal police officer, she said.

“So, I left,” said Osborne-Sampson. “Even the worst person would try to help when there’s a pandemic all over the world, but they don’t care about the Freedmen. I feel like they want us to die.”

Three other Seminole Freedmen shared similar experiences with The Associated Press about the same clinic.

The Seminole Nation says the decision about whether to provide vaccines to Seminole Freedmen rests with the IHS, not the tribe.

“To be clear, the Seminole Nation does not operate the Wewoka Indian Health Services clinic, has absolutely no policy oversight and was in no way involved with administering COVID-19 vaccines,” Seminole Nation Chief Greg Chilcoat said in a statement.

The agency said in a statement that it was reviewing eligibility of Seminole Freedmen and will be working with the tribe to determine what services IHS will provide.

FIGHTING FOR CITIZENSHIP

Seminole Freedmen say they are unable to receive services other tribal citizens get, including health care, tribal license plates and housing subsidies. The Seminole Freedmen have been fighting for years to be recognized as full tribal citizens in legal battles that underscore the systemic racism that Freedmen from all Oklahoma-based tribes say they have experienced from tribal governments and their members.

Many Seminole Freedmen are descendants of freed Black slaves who joined the Seminoles in Florida during their wars against the U.S. government.

“We fought in three wars with them to get where we’re at, and now they’ve turned against us,” said Anthony Conley, who also said he was denied a vaccine at the clinic.

Conley said he believes racism and an unwillingness of tribal citizens to share tribal funds is at the core of the tribe’s decision to exclude Freedmen from full citizenship, a claim that Chilcoat disputes.

TRIBAL SOVEREIGNTY

The Muscogee (Creek) and Choctaw nations have cited tribal sovereignty as reasons for their opposition to citizenship for Freedmen. When Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters of California last year attempted to force the tribes to reconcile the Freedmen issue by inserting language into a housing bill, Choctaw Nation Chief Gary Batton said the U.S. government is responsible for the Freedmen’s plight, not the Choctaw Nation.

“There is no more fundamental element of tribal self-governance than the authority of a Tribe like the Choctaw Nation to determine our own citizenship,” Batton wrote in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Ultimately, it might be a decision for the federal courts to make. Osborne-Sampson said she and other Freedmen are consulting with an attorney on how to proceed.

* OSWALD SPENGLAR DECLINE OF THE WEST

MOVE OVER SPRUCE GOOSE
Gigantic Stratolaunch aircraft makes 2nd test flight

AP April 29, 2021

The Stratolaunch aircraft, a six-engine jet with the world's longest wingspan lands at Mojave Air and Space Port during craft's second flight, Thursday, April 29, 2021in Mojave, Calif. The gigantic aircraft has flew (FLOWN) for the second time in two years. (AP Photo/Matt Hartman)

MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) — The gigantic Stratolaunch aircraft flew Thursday for its second time, taking to the skies over the Southern California desert

The six-engine jet with the world’s longest wingspan took off from Mojave Air and Space Port two years after its maiden flight, following a change in ownership and purpose.

“We are airborne,” the Stratolaunch company tweeted at about 7:30 a.m.

The behemoth safely touched down on its 28 wheels about three hours later and Stratolaunch called the flight test a success.

Named Roc, the twin-fuselage aircraft has a wingspan of 385 feet (117 meters). It was developed by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen, who died just months before it flew for the first time in April 2019.

Allen intended to use it as a carrier aircraft for space launches, carrying satellite-laden rockets beneath the center of the wing and releasing them at high altitude.

The new owners initially plan to use it as a carrier aircraft for launches of reusable hypersonic flight research vehicles.

Hypersonic describes flights at speeds of at least Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound.

Thousands in Brazil rally for Bolsonaro, ignoring virus

AFP Issued on: 01/05/2021 - 

A demonstrator holds a Brazilian flag during a protest in Brasilia in support of President Jair Bolsonaro, on May 1, 2021 Sergio Lima AF

Brasília (AFP)

Several thousand Brazilians marched Saturday in support of far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, ignoring a surging pandemic even as government opponents took their own protests online.

There were rallies in Brasilia, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, with many demonstrators wearing the yellow and green of the country's flag.

Brazil, with more than 403,000 Covid-19 deaths, is second only to the United States in that grim category, and Bolsonaro faces widespread criticism for not taking the pandemic more seriously.

Two weeks ago, the president said he was waiting for "a sign from the people" before "taking measures" to revoke restrictions imposed by mayors or governors to contain the spread of the virus.

More recently, he told a television interviewer that the army "could take to the street one day, to ensure respect for the Constitution (and for) freedom to come and go."

In Rio on Saturday, several hundred protesters seemed to respond to his call. Rallying along celebrated Copacabana beach, they waved banners demanding a "military intervention" to bolster Bolsonaro's powers.

A slogan widely seen at the various rallies was "Autoriso Bolsonaro" ("I authorize Bolsonaro") to send in the army.

In Brasilia, several thousand people assembled on the Esplanade of Ministries as Bolsonaro briefly passed overhead in a helicopter.

One of his sons, the deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro, waded into the crowd, his mask worn down around his chin, taking selfies with supporters, their faces also uncovered.

"It's a critical moment and Bolsonaro needs the people's support," Edvaldo de Paulo, a sixtyish demonstrator, told AFP in Brasilia.

"We have to clean house in Brasilia to let the president govern," said Elenir Ritonni, a 63-year-old retiree who joined several hundred demonstrators in Sao Paulo.

Few anti-Bolsonaro protests were planned for Saturday, but key opposition leaders, on the right and the left, were taking part in a trade union-sponsored event on social media critical of Bolsonaro.

Among them were former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2010), who is expected to challenge Bolsonaro in next year's elections, and his center-right predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002).

On Tuesday, a Senate commission of inquiry was established to examine the government's handling of the health crisis, with many experts saying it has been incompetent and irresponsible.

SpaceX returns 4 astronauts to Earth; rare night splashdown

By MARCIA DUNN

AP NEWS 59 minutes ago


1 of 9

In this image made from NASA TV video, the SpaceX Dragon capsule floats after landing in the Gulf of Mexico near the Florida Panhandle early Sunday, May 2, 2021. SpaceX returned four astronauts from the International Space Station on Sunday, making the first U.S. crew splashdown in darkness since the Apollo 8 moonshot. (NASA TV via AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX safely returned four astronauts from the International Space Station on Sunday, making the first U.S. crew splashdown in darkness since the Apollo 8 moonshot.

The Dragon capsule parachuted into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Panama City, Florida, just before 3 a.m., ending the second astronaut flight for Elon Musk’s company.

It was an express trip home, lasting just 6 1/2 hours.

The astronauts, three American and one Japanese, flew back in the same capsule — named Resilience — in which they launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in November.

“We welcome you back to planet Earth and thanks for flying SpaceX,” SpaceX’s Mission Control radioed moments after splashdown. “For those of you enrolled in our frequent flyer program, you’ve earned 68 million miles on this voyage.”

“We’ll take those miles,” said spacecraft commander Mike Hopkins. “Are they transferrable?” SpaceX replied that the astronauts would have to check with the company’s marketing department.

Within a half-hour of splashdown, the charred capsule — resembling a giant toasted marshmallow — had been hoisted onto the recovery ship.

In this image made from NASA TV video, the SpaceX Dragon capsule is retrieved from the Gulf of Mexico near the Florida Panhandle. (NASA TV via AP)

Hopkins was the first one out, doing a little dance as he emerged under the intense spotlights.

“It’s amazing what can be accomplished when people come together,” he told SpaceX flight controllers at company headquarters in Hawthorne, California. “Quite frankly, you all are changing the world. Congratulations. It’s great to be back.”

Commander Mike Hopkins egresses the SpaceX Dragon capsule. (NASA TV via AP)

The 167-day mission was the longest for a crew capsule launching from the U.S. The previous record of 84 days was set by NASA’s final Skylab station astronauts in 1974.

Saturday night’s undocking left seven people at the space station, four of whom arrived a week ago via SpaceX.

“Earthbound!” NASA astronaut Victor Glover, the capsule’s pilot, tweeted after departing the station. “One step closer to family and home!”

Hopkins and Glover — along with NASA’s Shannon Walker and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi — should have returned to Earth last Wednesday, but high offshore winds forced SpaceX to pass up a pair of daytime landing attempts. Managers switched to a rare splashdown in darkness, to take advantage of calm weather.

SpaceX had practiced for a nighttime return, just in case, and even recovered its most recent station cargo capsule from the Gulf of Mexico in darkness. Infrared cameras tracked the capsule as it re-entered the atmosphere; it resembled a bright star streaking through the night sky

From left to right, Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi. (NASA via AP)

All four main parachutes could be seen deploying just before splashdown, which was also visible in the infrared.

Apollo 8 — NASA’s first flight to the moon with astronauts — ended with a predawn splashdown in the Pacific near Hawaii on Dec. 27, 1968. Eight years later, a Soviet capsule with two cosmonauts ended up in a dark, partially frozen lake in Kazakhstan, blown off course in a blizzard.

That was it for nighttime crew splashdowns — until Sunday.

Despite the early hour, the Coast Guard was out in full force to enforce an 11-mile (18-kilometer) keep-out zone around the bobbing Dragon capsule. For SpaceX’s first crew return in August, pleasure boaters swarmed the capsule, a safety risk.

The SpaceX Dragon capsule parachutes into the Gulf of Mexico near the Florida Panhandle. (NASA TV via AP)

Once finished with their medical checks on the ship, the astronauts planned to hop on a helicopter for the short flight to shore, then catch a plane straight to Houston for a reunion with their families.

Their capsule, Resilience, will head back to Cape Canaveral for refurbishment for SpaceX’s first private crew mission in September. The space station docking mechanism will be removed, and a brand new domed window put in its place.

A tech billionaire has purchased the entire three-day flight, which will orbit 75 miles (120 kilometers) above the space station. He’ll fly with a pair of contest winners and a physician assistant from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, his designated charity for the mission.

Transportation Integration Office, and NASA astronaut representative Joe Acaba watch a dolphin swim next to a ship Saturday, May 1, 2021, as NASA and SpaceX teams prepared for the splashdown of the SpaceX capsule in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Panama City, Fla., Saturday, May 1, 2021. (Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP)

SpaceX’s next astronaut launch for NASA will follow in October.

NASA turned to private companies to service the space station, after the shuttle fleet retired in 2011. SpaceX began supply runs in 2012 and, last May, launched its first crew, ending NASA’s reliance on Russia for astronaut transport.

Boeing isn’t expected to launch astronauts until early next year.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content

SpaceX capsule departs station with 4 astronauts, heads home

By MARCIA DUNN

today


This image from video provided by NASA shows the SpaceX capsule as it departs the International Space Station, Saturday, May 1, 2021. A SpaceX capsule carrying four astronauts departed the International Space Station late Saturday, aiming for a rare nighttime splashdown to end the company’s second crew flight. (NASA via AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A SpaceX capsule carrying four astronauts departed the International Space Station late Saturday, aiming for a rare nighttime splashdown to end the company’s second crew flight.

It would be the first U.S. splashdown in darkness since Apollo 8′s crew returned from the moon in 1968.

NASA’s Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi, headed home in the same Dragon capsule that delivered them to the space station last November. The ride back was expected to take just 6 1/2 hours.

“Thanks for your hospitality,” Hopkins radioed as the capsule undocked 260 miles (420 kilometers) above Mali.

SpaceX targeted a splashdown around 3 a.m. Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Panama City, Florida. Despite the early hour, the Coast Guard deployed extra patrols — and spotlights — to keep any night-owl sightseers away. The capsule of the first SpaceX crew was surrounded by pleasure boaters last summer, posing a safety risk.

Hopkins, the spacecraft commander, rocketed into orbit with his crew on Nov. 15 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Their replacements arrived a week ago aboard their own Dragon capsule — the same one that launched SpaceX’s first crew last spring.

The four should have been back by now, but high offshore wind kept them at the space station a few extra days. SpaceX and NASA determined the best weather would be before dawn.

The delays allowed Glover to celebrate his 45th birthday in space Friday.

“Gratitude, wonder, connection. I’m full of and motivated by these feelings on my birthday, as my first mission to space comes to an end,” Glover tweeted.

Saturday night’s undocking left seven astronauts at the space station: three Americans, two Russians, one Japanese and one French.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.