'Zombie fires' burn despite temperatures plunging to 74 degrees below zero

By Adam Douty, Accuweather.com


Bone-chilling conditions are being reported across parts of Siberia, which has been experiencing some of the coldest air on Earth in recent days. Despite a blast of cold that is the most extreme in nearly eight years, "zombie fires" continued to burn beneath the frozen landscape.

On Tuesday evening, the temperature in Delyankir, Russia, fell to 75 degrees below zero, making it the lowest temperature recorded in that location since January 2014. Last winter, the temperature fell to a minimum 73 below zero on Jan. 18.

Delyankir is located in remote eastern Russia about 300 miles to the north of the Sea of Oshkosh.

The region is known for its extreme cold. Oymyakon, located about 90 miles to the southwest of Delyankir, is touted as the coldest permanently inhabited place on Earth with a record low of 90 below zero that occurred in 1933.

On Tuesday evening, local time, the temperature in Oymyakon plunged to minus 72 degrees, brutal to be sure, but still 1 degree shy of where the mercury bottomed out there last January.

Oymyakon, Russia: the coldest town on Earth

It was cold enough for local schools to close late last week, according to The Siberian Times. When temperatures fall below minus 63 degrees, children younger than 11 stay home. Anytime temperatures are "milder" than 63 below zero, all students are expected to attend class. At minus 65 degrees, all in-person classes are canceled.

The extreme cold may have been able to cancel school for some kids in the region, but it had a harder time extinguishing some of nature's most unrelenting wildfires, which have continued to burn right through the brutal cold snap. Peat fires, also known as "zombie fires," can burn for months or even years at a time. Video obtained by The Siberian Times and posted on Twitter showed smoke rising from the depths of a snowy landscape last week as the fires continued burning underground.

"I [saw] them near to grasslands close to the village of Khara Tumul, not far from Oymyakon," local photographer Semyon Sivtsev told The Siberian Times. "It was in the area where wildfires were burning in the summer."

"I know at least one zombie peat fire burning for several years in the area of Mundullakh, not far from Oymyakon," Sivtsev said. The fire was ultimately extinguished by snowmelt and heavy rains, according to Sivtsev.

Peat fires smolder under ice and snow during the winter only to emerge in the spring, according to Nature. Peat is a layer of soil that often consists largely of decaying plant material, and the fires that it fuels can release vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since peatlands are carbon-rich.

The wildfire season across Yakutia, Russia's largest territory and home to Oymyakon, was one of the worst on record for the region as nearly 31,000 square miles were charred, according to The Siberian Times. These fires can ignite peat which in turn can smolder for years, even under snow and ice and through some of the world's lowest temperatures.

The extreme winter climate of far northeastern Asia is also referred to as the "Pole of Cold," according to AccuWeather senior meteorologist Jim Andrews.

"The Siberian 'Pole of Cold' is located within the Sakha Republic, or Yakutia, in northeastern Asia," Andrews said. "In winter, it is the coldest inhabited area on Earth -- only the tops of the great Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets are colder."

Normally in Delyankir, high temperatures of 40 to 50 degrees below zero range from the middle of November through the middle of February. The normal low temperature during the time dips into the minus 60s.

During a record cold stretch of weather last winter, Yakutsk experienced one of the longest stretches of temperatures below minus 40 degrees in at least 14 years. Yakutsk is also situated in eastern Russia, about 500 miles to the southwest of Delyankir.

Widespread snow cover, the lack of heating due to a low sun angle and no nearby large bodies of water tend to make the region prime for extremely low temperatures during the depths of winter.

Huge bodies of water tend to retain heat better than land, so places that are situated closer to large bodies of water tend to be milder compared to places that are landlocked far from a body of water.

This cold snap comes less than six months after the region baked in record heat. Back in late June, temperatures in Oymyakon soared to 88.8 degrees, the hottest it has ever been in June up to that point.

While temperatures typically do not remain at levels currently seen across the region for much more than a few days to a week at a time, it is unlikely the region will have a significant turn to milder conditions anytime soon.

Leaking California oil pipe’s safeguards not fully working

By BRIAN MELLEY and MATTHEW BROWN

FILE - Workers in protective suits clean the contaminated beach in Corona Del Mar after an oil spill off the Southern California coast, on Oct. 7, 2021. A Dec. 3, 2021, report filed with federal regulators revealed the offshore pipeline that spilled tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil off the Southern California coast in October 2021 did not have a fully functioning leak detection system. The report was filed by pipeline operator, Beta Offshore, a subsidiary of Houston-based Amplify Energy.

 (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu, File)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The ruptured offshore pipeline that spilled tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil off the Southern California coast this fall did not have a fully functioning leak detection system at the time, according to a report obtained by The Associated Press.

The report was compiled by pipeline operator, Beta Offshore, a subsidiary of Houston-based Amplify Energy, and filed with federal regulators. It reveals Amplify is investigating whether personnel or control room issues contributed to the accident but does not explain what was wrong with the detection system.

The report, filed last week and released to the AP under a public records request, gives no new details on a possible anchor strike on the pipeline from a cargo ship suspected to be the cause of the roughly 25,000-gallon (112,000-liter) spill. Coast Guard investigators have said they suspect the pipeline began leaking long after it was snagged by the drifting cargo ship during strong winds in January.

It’s not clear why it took so long for the 1/2-inch (1.25-centimeter) thick steel line to leak, or whether another anchor strike or other incident led to the rupture and spill. But experts say that a properly functioning leak detection system might have been able to catch that things were amiss before an oil sheen spotted on the surface led to the leak’s discovery.

“The fact that they did not have the leak detection system working is surprising,” University of Houston pipeline expert Ramanan Krishnamoorti said, noting that the company’s accounting of the accident appeared inconsistent. “For experienced hands at this, when you’ve got a leak like this, you’d have seen signatures of it with pressure drops and flow rates.”

The spill came ashore at Huntington Beach and forced about a weeklong closure of that city’s beaches and others along the Orange County coast. Fishing in the affected area resumed only last week after testing confirmed fish did not have unsafe levels of oil toxins.

In its report, Beta said the pipeline’s leak detection system, while not fully functional, still helped to detect and confirm the leak. Federal investigators have previously said a low-pressure alarm went off at 2:30 a.m. on Oct 2, indicating a possible failure.

This still image from video taken Monday, Oct. 4, 2021, and provided by the U.S. Coast Guard shows an underwater pipeline that spilled tens of thousands of gallons of oil off the coast of Orange County, Calif. Video of the ruptured pipeline shows a thin crack along the top of the pipe. A Dec. 3, 2021, report filed with federal regulators revealed the offshore pipeline off the Southern California coast did not have a fully functioning leak detection system. The report was filed by pipeline operator, Beta Offshore, a subsidiary of Houston-based Amplify Energy. (U.S. Coast Guard via AP, File)

But in its report the company says the leak wasn’t discovered until 8 a.m. that day, by a third-party contractor who reported an offshore slick and notified personnel on a nearby Beta oil platform. The spill wasn’t reported to authorities until more than an hour later.

Spokesperson Amy Conway with Amplify Energy declined to answer questions from AP about the leak detection system, citing the ongoing investigation.

“Amplify continues to remain committed to working with the regulatory agencies investigating this event,” she said.

Accident reports filed with the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration require companies to disclose the pressure of pipelines that fail. Beta said the line did not exceed maximum pressure but declined to answer what the pressure was when the line leaked. It said it would supplement its response when it determines the exact time the accident occurred.

The break in the pipe that runs along the sea floor 100 feet (30.5 meters) under water was less than one-hundredth of an inch wide (.2 millimeters) and more than 20 inches (50 centimeters) long, the report said. That means the line could have been leaking for hours or days, according to Krishnamoorti and a second expert, pipeline accident consultant Richard Kuprewicz.

“It isn’t like a rupture that’s wide open, but it’s going to move some oil,” Kuprewicz said. He added that the report leaves unresolved questions about the spill and the company’s response.

“We don’t know how their leak detection system is set up. People think we ought to be able to see a pressure loss, but sometimes pressure loss wouldn’t show up even when you have big pipeline ruptures,” he said.

As of Nov. 11, the cleanup from the spill had cost the company more than $17 million. It also lost up to about $45,000 in oil, based on an estimated 588 barrels lost at a price of $76 each.

The damaged section of pipeline was expected to be removed under an order from pipeline safety officials that required a metallurgical analysis of why the line failed within 45 days of receiving the Oct. 4 order. However, that hasn’t happened.

Amplify attorneys said in a civil lawsuit related to the spill that it is awaiting approval of a repair plan the company submitted to federal officials on Nov. 19.

Because a dive team that was to perform the work was called away by the U.S. Navy to the Persian Gulf, the earliest the repairs would happen would be Dec. 15, and next February is more likely, the company’s attorneys said in a report to the federal court filed last week.

___

Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

Giant Christmas tree outside Fox News headquarters set afire | AP News

 

A man was charged with arson and other crimes

 Wednesday for setting fire to a 50-foot (15-meter) 

Christmas tree in front of Fox News headquarters in

 midtown Manhattan, police said. (Dec. 8)

Father’s Nazi past haunts Chilean presidential frontrunner
By FRANK JORDANS and JOSHUA GOODMANtoday


1 of 8

An image of an ID card issued by Germany's Federal Archive that shows that an 18-year-old named Michael Kast joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or NSDAP, on Sept. 1, 1942. While the Federal Archive couldn't confirm whether Michael Kast was the German-born father of the Chilean presidential frontrunner José Antonio Kast, the date and place of birth listed on the card matches that of José Antonio Kast's father, who died in 2014. A copy of the ID card, identified with the membership number 9271831, was previously posted on social media by Chilean journalist Mauricio Weibel.

 (German Federal Archive via AP)

BERLIN (AP) — The German-born father of Chilean presidential frontrunner José Antonio Kast was a member of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party, according to a recently unearthed document obtained by The Associated Press, revelations that appear at odds with the far-right candidate’s own statements about his father’s military service during World War II.

German officials confirmed this week that an ID card in the country’s Federal Archive shows that an 18-year-old named Michael Kast joined the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or NSDAP, on Sept. 1, 1942, at the height of Hitler’s war on the Soviet Union.

While the Federal Archive couldn’t confirm whether Kast was the presidential contender’s father, the date and place of birth listed on the card matches that of Kast’s father, who died in 2014. A copy of the ID card, identified with the membership number 9271831, was previously posted on social media on Dec. 1 by Chilean journalist Mauricio Weibel.

The ID card’s emergence adds a new twist to a highly charged presidential runoff billed on both side as a battle of extremes — between communism and right-wing authoritarianism — and marked by a steady flow of disinformation that has distorted the record and campaign pledges of Kast’s opponent.

Kast, 55, from the newly formed Republican Party, led the first round of Chile’s presidential election last month, two points ahead of leftist lawmaker Gabriel Boric, who he now will face in the Dec. 19 runoff.

A fervent Roman Catholic and father of nine, Kast’s family has deep ties to the military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet that came to power following a coup in 1973. His brother, Miguel Kast, served as the dictator’s central bank president.

“If he were alive, he would have voted for me,” Kast said of Pinochet during the 2017 campaign, in which he won just 8% of the vote. “We would have had tea together” in the presidential palace.

On the campaign trail this year, he has emphasized conservative family values, attacked migrants from Haiti and Venezuela he blames for crime and blasted Boric as a puppet of Chile’s communists.

He’s made inroads with middle class voters concerned that Boric — a millennial former student protest leader — would disrupt three decades of economic and political stability that has made Chile the envy of many in Latin America. To underscore those concerns, Kast traveled last week to Washington and met with American investors as well as Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the subcommittee overseeing U.S. relations with Latin America.

Some of his more radical supporters have also launched an online scare campaign involving a fake tweet from leftist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, false allegations that migrants are manning voting booths and a made-up medical report after Kast in a debate urged Boric to take a drug test.

The latest opinion polls give a slight edge in the runoff to Boric, who has pivoted to the center to galvanize support from voters fearful of a return to the country’s tumultuous past.

“This backs up Boric’s framing of the race as a dichotomy between fascism and democracy,” Jennifer Pribble, a Chile expert at the University of Richmond, said of the older Kast’s wartime record. “To the extent Kast seems to be hiding some element of his family’s history, it plays into that narrative.”

It’s unclear if Kast was aware of his father’s NSDAP membership card. Carolina Araya, a spokeswoman for Kast’s campaign, wouldn’t comment when asked repeatedly by the AP.

But in the past Kast has angrily rejected claims that his father was a supporter of the Nazi movement, describing him instead as a forced conscript in the German army.

“Why do you use the adjective Nazi?” he said in 2018 TV appearance in which he said he was proud of his father and accused a prominent Chilean journalist of trying to spread lies.

“When there is a war and (military) enrollment is mandatory, a 17 or 18 year old doesn’t have the option to say, ‘I’m not going,’ because they will be court martialed and shot to death the very next day,” he said later that year in comments posted on his social media account.

There is no evidence Kast had a role in wartime atrocities such as the attempt to exterminate Europe’s Jews. But while military service was compulsory, membership in the Nazi party was voluntary.

Some Germans enthusiastically joined the party while others did so believing it would bring advantages in a society where large parts of public life were expected to fall in line with Nazi ideology from 1933 onward.

“We don’t have a single example of anyone who was forced to enter the party,” said Armin Nolzen, a German historian who has extensively researched the issue of NSDAP membership.

Kast joined the party in 1942 within five months of turning 18 — the minimum age required for membership. He likely was a member of the Hitler Youth for at least four years before joining the party and would have been recommended by the district leader, Nolzen said. In all, the party had 7.1 million members that year — about one-tenth of the population.

Michael Buddrus of the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History in Berlin cautioned against overestimating the significance of NSDAP membership in people that young, but agreed that Kast must have joined of his own volition.

Given that Kast entered the military soon after, Buddrus said it was possible the teenager had never actively participated in a party gathering or paid dues.

“If you’re a party member, you’re a party member,” said Richard F. Wetzell, a research fellow at the German Historical Institute in Washington. “Being a party member does bind you to the party and its ideology even though many may have joined for purely opportunistic reasons.”

A 2015 book about Pinochet’s civilian collaborators written by Chilean journalist Javier Rebolledo claimed that the older Kast was at first reluctant to join the Nazi party. But he was persuaded by a sergeant to do so as he was being deployed to the Crimean Peninsula, according to Rebolledo’s book, which cites a memoir by Kast’s wife.

The war at the time was dominated by the Battle of Stalingrad, a turning point for Nazi Germany’s assault on the Soviet Union that resulted in some 2 million deaths and the local surrender of Axis forces a few months later.

As the war was ending, Kast, then serving in Italy, obtained a false ID indicating he was a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to Rebolledo.

After twice escaping arrest at the hands of the Allied forces, he returned to Germany and was discovered during the postwar period of denazification. But when he confessed his deceit, a sympathetic prosecutor took pity and in recognition of his honesty burned his army record, according to Rebolledo’s book.

The younger Kast has accused the Chilean journalist of taking his mother’s memoir out of context and distorting facts to attribute sinister motives to his father’s wartime activities.

Whatever his record, Kast migrated to Chile in 1950, followed a year later by his wife and oldest two children, and established himself in Paine, a rural community south of the capital of Santiago. Eventually, the couple built a small business selling cold cuts from a roadside kiosk into a nationwide chain of restaurants and manufacturer of packaged food.

A 1995 law passed by Chile’s congress granting the older Kast citizenship highlights his deep Catholic roots and “grand spirit of social justice” that translated into his role helping build five chapels, hospitals and a youth center as well as providing employees of his company, Cecinas Bavaria, with the means to buy their own homes.

But there was a darker side to the clan’s success.

According to Rebolledo, leftist agitators and peasants had threatened to expropriate the family’s business during the socialist administration of Salvador Allende. The day after Pinochet’s coup against Allende, police in Paine mopped up, disappearing in broad daylight a young militant, Pedro Vargas, who had been organizing workers at Bavaria, as he waited in line to buy bread.

The candidate’s brother, Christian Kast, testified that as a 16-year-old in the immediate aftermath of the coup, he had delivered food to the town’s police and spent the night with them. He told investigators probing Vargas’ disappearance that the next day he attended a barbecue at the police station and saw a dozen detainees — but not Vargas — hauled away, their heads shaven, never to be seen again.

With Vargas missing, a member of his family went in anguish to appeal for aid from Michael Kast.

“I thought he was going to help,” the person told the AP on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation nearly five decades on. “But he told me to go home, that there was a war going on and it was a matter of life and death. I couldn’t believe it.”

Today, just a few miles from where the presidential hopeful lives, symbols of the passions that filled Vargas’ shortened life — a book, a scale of justice, a photo of his dog — decorate one of 70 mosaics paying tribute to each of the victims stolen from the bucolic town that has the distinction of having suffered the most disappearances per capita in all of Chile.

___

Goodman reported from Miami. AP Writers Patricia Luna and Eva Vergara in Santiago, Chile contributed to this report.

Spain considers banning smoking in cars
by Arshiya Jahanpour
December 8, 2021
in Spain




The draft health plan also promotes generic packaging on cigarettes

The government in Spain has been forced by the priority of the coronavirus pandemic to delay moving forward on its fight against tobacco use, but has pushed ahead this week by finalising its ambitious Comprehensive Plan for the Prevention and Control of Smoking. The proposal contains five main goals and 21 objectives to be achieved in the next four years, among which include banning smoking in cars, introducing generic packaging for brands and equalising the law by imposing restrictions on electronic cigarettes.

The final draft has now been sent to scientific and medical experts as well as all the autonomous communities who will have until December 15 to submit their contributions.

Smoke-free outdoor spaces
The rule change would include “certain spaces of the private sphere”, such as “private vehicles”.

Electronic cigarettes
In the very near future, the Ministry of Health also wants to modify the current law to reflect “the changes in the market with the appearance of new products”, including e-cigarettes. If approved, the legislation will mean that electronic cigarettes are subject to the same rules and regulations as regular tobacco products.

Generic packaging
Spain plans to follow in the footsteps of countries such as France and Australia by implementing generic packaging for all cigarette brands, as well as banning flavouring additives in tobacco and related products.

In addition, the government plans to crack down on the “advertising, promotion and sponsorship” of tobacco and the covert advertising and promotions on social networks.

Objective
With this proposal, “Spain plans to reach the goal established by the WHO of a relative reduction of 30% in tobacco consumption by the year 2025” while reducing its environmental impact by prohibiting smoking on beaches.

Overall, this country wants to follow the European recommendation of lowering daily smoking rates by 5% by 2040 in general and by 7% for those aged between 14 and 18.

Source: Murcia Today

UK ‘open to influence’ from world’s kleptocrats

by Arshiya Jahanpour
December 8, 2021


LONDON — The U.K. should clamp down on money laundering by kleptocrats from post-Soviet republics, who have become increasingly influential donors to the Conservative party, a leading foreign affairs think tank warned.

In a report published Wednesday, Chatham House said Westminster — and Boris Johnson’s Conservative parliamentary party in particular — “may be open to influence from wealthy donors who originate from post-Soviet kleptocracies and who may retain fealty to these regimes.”

According to the report, the Conservative Party received £3.5 million from naturalized British citizens of Russian and Eurasian backgrounds between 2010 and 2019 — and the volume of donations appears to have increased ever since.

The authors argue regulatory failures and a lack of enforcement make it easy for kleptocrats from countries including Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan to launder money and their reputations in the U.K. The think tank calls on the government to come up with a new anti-kleptocracy strategy.

“The situation is materially and reputationally damaging for the U.K.’s rule of law and to the U.K.’s professed role as an opponent of international corruption,” the report states. “It demands a new approach by the U.K. government focused on creating a hostile environment for the world’s kleptocrats.”

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss did not comment when asked during an event Wednesday whether the government is doing enough to restrict the access of Russian and Eurasian finance to the City of London to launder cash.

The report warns that after securing residency and moving their capital to the U.K., kleptocrats often try to gain traction in British society by hiring public relations agents; forging ties with political and business leaders; creating charitable foundations; seeking the support of think tanks and elite universities; or buying prestigious commodities such as football clubs.

British universities and think tanks should be part of any future strategy, the report argues, because unlike U.S. institutions they are not required to make their donors, amounts of money handed over or any conditions attached public. Only seven out of 24 leading research universities in the U.K. have established public ethical guidelines and a dedicated and independent gifts committee, according to a survey carried out by Chatham House.

Source: Politico

Bionic eyes gives hope to the blind
by Arshiya Jahanpour
December 8, 2021


The Phoenix99 Bionic Eye is an implantable system, designed to restore a form of vision to patients living with severe vision impairment and blindness caused by degenerative diseases, such as retinitis pigmentosa. The device has two main components which need to be implanted: a stimulator attached to the eye and a communication module positioned under the skin behind the ear.

Published in Biomaterials, the researchers used a sheep model to observe how the body responds and heals when implanted with the device, with the results allowing for further refinement of the surgical procedure. The biomedical research team is now confident the device could be trialled in human patients.

The team will now apply for ethics approval to perform clinical trials in human patients, as they continue to develop and test advanced stimulation techniques.

The Phoenix99 Bionic Eye works by stimulating the retina – a thin stack of neurones lining the back of the eye. In healthy eyes, the cells in one of the layers turn incoming light into electrical messages which are sent to the brain. In some retinal diseases, the cells responsible for this crucial conversion degenerate, causing vision impairment. The system bypasses these malfunctioning cells by stimulating the remaining cells directly, effectively tricking the brain into believing that light was sensed.

Source: Healthcare in Europe

Russian diplomat suspected of being a spy found dead outside embassy in Berlin | DW News

by Arshiya Jahanpour
December 8, 2021
in Videos

Germany’s Foreign Ministry on Friday confirmed the death of a diplomat outside the Russian Embassy in Berlin last month, but did not offer any further details.

News magazine Der Spiegel reported the 35-year-old was found early on October 19 after having fallen from an upper floor of the embassy.

Police in Berlin declined to comment and referred questions to the public prosecutors.

The Russian Embassy had not agreed to an autopsy, according to sources in the security services cited by Der Spiegel. It was therefore unclear how the reported agent died.

The man was officially serving at the Russian Embassy in the capacity of second secretary. Der Spiegel reports the embassy would only call it “a tragic accident” and said it would refrain from further comment “for ethical reasons.”

Bellingcat reports that the diplomat is the son of Gen. Alexey Zhalo, the deputy director of the FSB’s Second Directorate and head of the FSB’s Directorate for Protection of Constitutional Order, which handles terrorism cases. Officers from the latter directorate shadowed Alexei Navalny prior to his poisoning and are linked to the poisoning of another opposition figure, Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Christo Grozev of Bellingcat told DW the diplomat’s death created “some confusion within the German security apparatus as to what this meant,” whether it was an accident or due to some internal power struggle or purge.

“It took the German authorities some time to figure out whether it was something to even talk about,” Grozev said.

New Caledonia vote on independence from France to go ahead Sunday

by Arshiya Jahanpour
December 8, 2021



Issued on: 08/12/2021 

The Pacific territory of New Caledonia goes to the polls on Sunday for a third and final referendum on independence from France with campaigning marked by angry demands to call off the vote because of the Covid pandemic.

The territory, some 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles) east of Australia, was allowed three independence referendums under a 1988 deal aimed at easing tensions on the island group.

Having rejected a breakaway from their French former colonial masters in 2018 and then again last year, the territory’s 185,000 voters will be asked one last time: “Do you want New Caledonia to accede to full sovereignty and become independent?”

The vote comes against the backdrop of increasingly strained ties between Paris and its allies in the region.

France regards itself as a major Indo-Pacific power thanks to overseas territories like New Caledonia.

Australia infuriated France in September by ditching a submarine contract in favour of a security pact with Britain and the United States.

Behind the recent spat looms China’s growing role in the region, with experts suspecting that an independent New Caledonia could be more amenable to Beijing’s advances, which are partly motivated by an interest in the territory’s mining industry.

China is already the biggest single client for New Caledonia’s metal exports, especially for nickel.

China’s ‘pearl necklace’

“If the French safeguard disappears, all elements would be in place for China to establish itself permanently in New Caledonia,” said Bastien Vandendyck, an international relations analyst specialising in the Pacific.

Other nations in the Melanesia region, which also includes Fiji, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, had already become “Chinese satellites”, Vandendyck told AFP.

“All China needs now to complete its pearl necklace on Australia’s doorstep is New Caledonia,” he said.

Pro-independence campaigners are boycotting Sunday’s vote, saying they want it postponed to September because “a fair campaign” is not possible while coronavirus infection numbers are high.

New Caledonia’s 270,000 inhabitants were largely spared Covid infections during the first phase of the global pandemic, but have suffered close to 300 Covid deaths since the appearance of the Delta variant in recent months.

The French government has rejected the demand, saying the virus spread had slowed down with the infection rate down to a relatively modest 80 to 100 cases per 100,000 people.

The pro-independence movement has still threatened non-recognition of the referendum outcome, and vowed to appeal to the United Nations to get it cancelled.

The French minister in charge of overseas territories, Sebastien Lecornu, said that while it was “a democratic right” to refuse to vote, the boycott would make no difference to the referendum’s “legal validity”.

‘Declaration of war’

The pro-French camp, meanwhile, has called on its supporters to turn out in numbers, fearing that the boycott by the pro-independence parties may prompt them to stay at home since victory may look like a foregone conclusion.

“It is important that the mobilisation of the no-independence supporters remains absolute, to show that they are in a majority and united in their wish for New Caledonia to remain part of the French Republic,” Thierry Santa, president of the conservative Rassemblement-LR party, wrote in a letter to voters.

In June, the various political parties agreed with the French government that Sunday’s referendum, whatever its outcome, should lead to “a period of stability and convergence” and be followed by a new referendum by June 2023 which would decide on the “project” that New Caledonia’s people want to pursue.

But hopes for a smooth transition were jolted when the main indigenous pro-independence movement, the FLNKS, deemed the government’s insistence on going ahead with the referendum “a declaration of war”.

Observers fear that renewed tensions could even spark a return of the kind of violence last seen 30 years ago, before the feuding parties reached successive deals to ensure the island group’s peaceful transition.

The pro-Paris side won the 2018 referendum with 56.7 percent of the vote, but that percentage fell to 53.3 percent in the 2020 election.

The archipelago has been a French territory since 1853.

(AFP)

Dene Nation launches on-the-land wellness camp

The Dene Nation has launched its own on-the-land healing camp, providing a safe space for people experiencing homeless to stay for extended periods.

The camp has been created at Aurora Village, a tourism operator based 20 minutes outside Yellowknife, and is federally funded until the end of January. The Dene Nation hopes to find more cash to extend the camp's life.

The Crazy Indian Brotherhood, Aurora Village, and the Arctic Indigenous Wellness Foundation are partners in the establishment and running of the camp.

Dene National Chief Norman Yakeleya said a camp on the land offers people a chance to heal.

“It’s an easy concept but it’s challenging to do,” he said.

“There are nearly 350 people under-housed in Yellowknife, our own people. These people are beautiful people and they have gotten the rough end of the stick in life. This camp is here to show them they are loved and respected, and they’re special and beautiful.”

Don Morin, the former N.W.T. premier who owns Aurora Village, said the location has never accepted overnight guests but was happy to adapt to the camp's needs.

Aurora Village's tipis, dining hall, kitchen, washrooms, gathering spaces and facilities for laundry and showering are all available to camp guests.

The camp will offer a variety of activities and won’t adhere to a strict schedule.

Michael Fatt, an advocate for Yellowknife's vulnerable people who has lived experience of homelessness, said the opportunity to go to a camp like this would be “unforgettable” for some people and help them make the best of new opportunities.

“This will be impacting all of their lives,” he said. “This is very, very important.”

Wilbert Cook, executive director of the Arctic Indigenous Wellness Foundation, stressed the value of a guaranteed place to sleep, eat, shower, and stay warm.

“We all know first-hand what our friends are going through, our friends on the street," Cook said.

"They wake up in the morning and they’re hungry. They go throughout the day and wonder: ‘Where am I going to sleep tonight? Am I going to be warm? Am I going to go to a place where I feel comfortable, and I’m being cared for?'"

Morin said the camp is a learning experience for everyone involved and a “completely out of the box” approach that he argues governments wouldn’t typically use.

“Our guests will help develop it and shape it, and that’s the most important thing – that you don’t go into something that’s a total tunnel vision of how you’re going to save Indigenous people,” he said.

“It’s our own people, we’ll develop it together, and that’s what makes the biggest difference.”

Trevor Teed, the Dene Nation's lands and environment director, said the goal is to make the camp accessible year-round.

Morin said some people have been at the camp for just over a week and there is already a noticeable difference.

He said his son, who works at the camp, called him and told him: “The ones that arrived a week ago are helping the ones that arrived today.”

“That just about brought me to tears to see it,” Morin said.

Speakers at a news conference on Thursday announcing the new camp expressed disappointment at what they characterize as a lack of territorial government support, for example in provisions of healthcare services for guests.

“We’re not medical people," said Teed, "and we have medical issues in this facility. People don’t want to leave here to go get help.

“They want that help to come to them because they feel safe, secure, and loved here.”

Organizers also worry about the gap once the camp eventually closes.

“The clients, customers here today – where are they going to be in 60 days? Are they going to go back on the street?" Morin asked.

Cook added: “We’re setting them up to get all their hopes up and everything, to let them out the door and say, ‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing else we can do for you.'

“We can’t do that. We wouldn’t do that to ourselves, we wouldn’t do that to our families. Why would we do that to anyone else?"

Sarah Sibley, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Cabin Radio