Swedish film festival puts audiences under hypnosis

Fredrik Praesto and his hypnotic spiral at the Gothenburg Film Festival 

(AFP/Valeriia Altareva)


Mon, January 31, 2022, 12:13 PM·2 min read

To add another dimension to the cinematic experience, Scandinavia's largest film festival introduced 20 minutes of hypnosis ahead of the featured movies.

"We have built this hypnotic cinema to experiment with the film experience, to challenge our ideas about how to watch a film," Jonas Holmberg, director of the Gothenburg Film Festival in southwest Sweden, said.

The first experimental session took place on Sunday evening in front of just a few dozen people -- due to Covid-19 restrictions.

In lieu of trailers the audience got a live session with hypnotist Fredrik Praesto, before a viewing of "Land of Dreams", by the Iranian-American director Shirin Neshat.

Standing on stage in front of a large hypnotic spiral, Praesto began with physical exercises - such as asking audience members to bringing their hands together as if they were magnets and to close their eyes.

After a 20-second countdown, the audience reopened their eyes and the film began. After the credits started rolling, there was another countdown for the audience to break the hypnosis.

The viewers said the sensations they experienced ranged from a form of stupor to a much stronger concentration, the volunteers reported.

"You get rid of all the noises and the distractions and all of that and also with the sound you really get into the movie," Jonna Blumborg, a young audience member, said.

"I tried to do those things that he told us, like feel the textures of fabrics, skin, hair and so on and it was easier to focus because of the environment, total black, just the light screen," her friend Louise Nilsson added.

Another spectator, Fredrik Sandsten, explained it as entering "a sort of very pleasant state of mind.

The Gothenburg Film Festival has made a habit of offering unusual experiences to its audiences.

Last year, to follow Covid rules, it offered a week of screenings to just one person, in the lighthouse of a deserted island off the coast.

A nurse exhausted by work during the pandemic was selected as the lone viewer.

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US lacks moral authority to criticize rights abuses: Cuba

Katell ABIVEN
Mon, 31 January 2022

Cuba's Deputy Minister of Foreign Relations, Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, hit out at what he described as US cruelty and immorality in an interview with AFP 

(AFP/ADALBERTO ROQUE) 

Cuba, marking six decades under American sanctions this week, has lashed out at US "cruelty" against the island nation and said Washington lacked the moral authority to criticize rights violations in other countries.

Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, in an interview with AFP, said the effects of the US blockade against communist Cuba were now "greater than ever."

"The United States has a disastrous record in terms of human rights, it has a disastrous record in terms of its people's democratic rights, and the United States has no right to give lessons to anyone," he said.

"Above all, it doesn't have the right to manipulate a subject as sensitive as human rights to attack countries it doesn't agree with," added Fernandez de Cossio, while conceding that "all countries, Cuba included, have much to improve in the area of human rights."

The deputy minister's comments come on the eve of the 60th anniversary of Washington's embargo against Cuba, announced on February 3, 1962, after the revolution that gave rise to a communist regime.

It also comes as the United States has ramped up criticism of Cuban authorities following the arrest of hundreds of people for taking part in anti-government protests last July.

Last week, Cuban authorities acknowledged for the first time that more than 700 people had been charged over the protests, and 172 already convicted.

- 'We are hungry' -

Washington has been vocal in its condemnation of the crackdown.

"Freedom of expression & the right to a fair trial are universal human rights that all countries should protect & uphold," Brian Nichols, the US Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, wrote on Twitter.

Fernandez de Cossio, who is in charge of relations with Washington, retorted that Nichols' criticism was based on "false pretenses" being used "to justify a policy that the international community and a significant part of the people of the United States reject."

Thousands of protesters turned out countrywide, shouting "Freedom" and "We are hungry" in July's unprecedented, spontaneous demonstrations.

The government response left one person dead, dozens injured and 1,300 arrested.

Havana says all defendants had access to defense lawyers but critics, including Human Rights Watch, say the attorneys were not independent and decry the proceedings as sham trials.

Havana blames the United States and its sanctions for the misery of the Cuban people, who have to stand in long queues daily for food and other essentials, always with the risk of leaving empty handed.

Former US president Donald Trump ramped up financial and diplomatic sanctions during his four-year term, putting Cuba back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

- 'Cruel and immoral' -

Hit by a sharp drop in tourist numbers due partly to the blockade and partly to the coronavirus pandemic, Cuba recorded an 11 percent economic decline in 2020, followed by a modest two percent recovery last year.

It recorded an official inflation rate of 70 percent in 2021 amid its worst economic crisis in almost three decades, with food imports slashed due to dwindling government reserves.

There were hopes of a change of direction when President Joe Biden entered the White House, but not one sanction has been lifted during his first year in office.

During his presidential campaign, Biden had promised a "new policy towards Cuba" and the lifting of certain restrictions.

"The Cuban government had reason to believe that... the president would carry out what he promised," said Fernandez de Cossio.

But "life has shown us that it wasn't the case."

He said the United States was either unable or unwilling to change its "failed" policy towards Cuba.

"If there is something that demonstrates the cruel and immoral nature of the embargo, it is that in 2020 and 2021, the toughest period of the Covid-19 pandemic when the whole world was calling for solidarity and support, the United States government decided to ramp up sanctions," said Fernandez de Cassio.

This "cruelty," he added, was "something that for several generations of Cubans will be difficult to forget."

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More than 9,000 tree species still undiscovered: study

Agence France-Presse
Posted at Feb 01 2022

Photo by Aldino Hartan Putra on Unsplash

WASHINGTON, United States - Researchers estimate there are significantly more species of trees on Earth than currently known, with more than 9,000 species yet to be discovered, according to a study published Monday.

"Estimating the number of tree species is essential to inform, optimize, and prioritize forest conservation efforts across the globe," said the study, which was published in the US National Academy of Sciences journal PNAS and involved dozens of scientists.

About 64,100 tree species have already been identified.

But according to the study, which is based on a more complete database and uses a more advanced statistical method than previous ones, the total number of tree species is about 73,300 -- 14 percent more.

That means about 9,200 species have not yet been discovered.

Overall, the study said that "roughly" 43 percent of all tree species are found in South America, followed by Eurasia (22 percent), Africa (16 percent), North America (15 percent) and Oceania (11 percent).

Half to two-thirds of all known species are found in tropical or subtropical rainforests on five different continents, the researchers estimated.

A large proportion of the species yet to be discovered should therefore be found in these same regions, where fewer surveys are conducted.

Additionally, nearly a third of the world's tree species are scientifically classified as rare, with low populations in limited regions. These species are therefore more vulnerable to the threat of extinction.

Only 0.1 percent of species are found in all five of the regions identified by the study.

South America also has the highest proportion of endemic species, or species only present on that continent, at 49 percent.

"These results highlight the vulnerability of global tree species diversity," the study authors said, especially in the face of changes to the land due to human activity, and "future climate."

"Losing regions of forest that contain these rare species will have direct and potentially long-lasting impacts on the global species diversity and their provisioning of ecosystem services."

Species surveys are very time-consuming and present many challenges, including lack of access to certain areas and consistency of identification, and several botanists may characterize the same species slightly differently.

la/to/st

UPLB professor, Australian researcher find new tree species endemic to PH

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Green gold: EDC races to save endangered native trees

770-km US megaflash sets new lightning record: UN

The technology used to detect the length and duration of lightning flashes has improved dramatically in recent years, enabling records far greater than what was once the norm. (File photo: AFP/Pascal Pochard-Casabianca)

01 Feb 2022 

GENEVA: A single flash of lightning in the United States nearly two years ago cut across the sky for nearly 770km, setting a new world record, the United Nations said on Tuesday (Feb 1).

The new record for the longest detected "megaflash", measured in the southern US on Apr 29, 2020, stretched a full 768km, across Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

That is equivalent to the distance between New York City and Columbus, Ohio, or between London and the German city of Hamburg, the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) pointed out in a statement.

That lightning bolt zig-zagged about 60km further than the previous record, set in southern Brazil on Oct 31, 2018.

The WMO's committee of experts on weather and climate extremes also reported a new world record for the duration of a lightning flash.

A single flash that developed continuously through a thunderstorm over Uruguay and northern Argentina on Jun 18, 2020, lasted for 17.1 seconds - 0.37 seconds longer than the previous record set on Mar 4, 2019, also in northern Argentina.

Related:


Lightning strikes kill 27 during India monsoon storm

"EVEN GREATER EXTREMES"

"These are extraordinary records from single lightning flash events," Randall Cerveny, the WMO rapporteur of weather and climate extremes, said in the statement.

"Environmental extremes are living measurements of the power of nature, as well as scientific progress in being able to make such assessments," he said.

The technology used to detect the length and duration of lightning flashes has improved dramatically in recent years, enabling records far greater than what was once the norm.

The previous megaflash records, from 2018 and 2019, were the first verified with new satellite lightning imagery technology, and were both more than double the prior records using data collected from ground-based technology.

"It is likely that even greater extremes still exist, and that we will be able to observe them as lightning detection technology improves," Cerveny said.

The WMO highlighted that the new record strikes happened in the Great Plains in North America and the La Plata basin in South America, known as hotspots for so-called mesoscale convective system thunderstorms, which enable megaflashes.

It stressed that the flashes that set the new records were not isolated events, but happened during active and large-scale thunderstorms, making them all the more dangerous.

"Lightning is a major hazard that claims many lives every year," WMO chief Petteri Taalas said in the statement.

"The findings highlight important public lightning safety concerns for electrified clouds where flashes can travel extremely large distances."

WMO pointed out that the only lightning-safe locations are big buildings with wiring and plumbing, or fully enclosed, metal-topped vehicles.

The UN agency maintains official global records for a range of weather- and climate-related statistics, including temperature, rainfall and wind.

All such records are stored in the WMO Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes.

The archive currently includes two other lightning-related extremes.

One is for the most people killed by a single direct strike of lightning, when 21 people died in Zimbabwe in 1975 as they huddled for safety in a hut that was hit.

The other is for an indirect strike, when 469 people died in Dronka, Egypt, when lightning struck a set of oil tanks in 1994, causing burning oil to flood the town.

Source: AFP/kg

Rescuers Dig Desperately In Mud For Brazil Flood Survivors

By Florence GOISNARD
01/31/22 

Knee-deep in the mud left by a horrific landslide in southeastern Brazil, dozens of rescue workers and volunteers raced Monday to find any remaining survivors before it was too late.

Floods and landslides triggered by torrential rains have killed at least 24 people, including eight children, since Friday in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil's industrial hub and home to 46 million people.

In the city of Franco da Rocha, where a landslide killed at least eight people, residents said they could still hear victims stuck in the mud calling out for help Sunday.

Floods and landslides triggered by torrential rains have killed at least 24 people, including eight children, in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil's industrial hub and home to 46 million people Photo: AFP / FILIPE ARAUJO

But their cries could no longer be heard on Monday, turning the search for 10 people who are still missing increasingly desperate.

"We've managed to pull out 13 people. Unfortunately, only five of them were still alive," said rescue officer Alessandro da Silva, as his team dug through the abyss left by a tidal wave of brown and ochre mud that wiped out everything in its path in Franco da Rocha, located 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Sao Paulo city.

"We'll keep up the search until all the missing are found," he told AFP.

Rescue workers and volunteers search for survivors of a deadly landslide in Franco da Rocha, Brazil Photo: AFP / FILIPE ARAUJO

The disaster zone was strewn with red bricks, corrugated-metal roofs and other remains of overturned and eviscerated houses.

Above, other houses were perched precariously at the edge of the newly formed abyss.

As a dozen rescue workers in helmets and yellow uniforms shoveled through the ruins, volunteers formed a long chain to carry out buckets filled with mud.

Rescue workers in helmets and yellow uniforms shovel through the ruins left behind by a landslide in Franco da Rocha, Brazil Photo: AFP / FILIPE ARAUJO

"There are three bodies by my neighbor's place, in a ravine behind a wall. There's a father clutching his child. They'll have to break the wall to get them out," said resident Julio Bezerra da Silva, speaking before rescue workers extracted the bodies.

"The rescue workers think there are still more people in the mud. I pray to God there are survivors," said Da Silva, a 57-year-old resident of Parque Paulista, the working-class neighborhood hit by the tragedy.

"Yesterday, we could still hear people calling for help. But not today."

Deadly landslides are a frequent occurrence in Brazil during the rainy season.

As in Franco da Rocha, they often hit shoddily built hillside houses that are the homes of the poor.

Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria released 15 million reais ($2.8 million) in emergency funds to help the state's 10 hardest-hit cities.

Brazil has been swept by heavy storms since the rainy season started in October, notably in the northeastern state of Bahia, where 24 people died, and in Minas Gerais, in the southeast, where at least 19 were killed and thousands forced from their homes.

Experts say the heavy rains are being caused by La Nina, the cyclical cooling of the Pacific Ocean, and by the impact of climate change more broadly.

ECOCIDE
Oil spill pollutes nature reserve in Ecuadoran Amazon

Neither the Ecuadoran government nor OCP Ecuador have quantified the extent of the spill (AFP/Handout)

Mon, January 31, 2022

An oil spill in eastern Ecuador has reached a nature reserve and polluted a river that supplies water to indigenous communities, the country's environmental ministry said Monday.

Nearly two hectares (five acres) of a protected area of the Cayambe-Coca national park have been contaminated, as well as the Coca river -- one of the biggest in the Ecuadoran Amazon, the ministry said in a statement.

The park of some 400,000 hectares is home to a wide variety of protected animals and holds important water reserves.

Heavy rains caused a mudslide in the eastern Napo province on Friday, during which a rock struck and ruptured a pipeline owned by private company OCP Ecuador.

Neither the government nor OCP Ecuador have quantified the extent of the spill, but the environmental authority has described it as a "major" pollution event.

"Our staff are monitoring 210 kilometers (130 miles) of the Coca River and its tributaries and coordinating containment and remediation where traces of hydrocarbon are identified," the ministry said.

Emergency committees, it added, were deployed to Napo province and neighboring Orellana to "guarantee safe water for consumption of the population".

- 'Water cannot be used' -

OCP Ecuador said Monday that "small traces" of oil had reached water sources.

"We are in the process of remediation of the affected soil and also of the vegetation, as well as those small traces that remained in the watercourse," OCP president Jorge Vugdelija said.

The company had built retention pools in which to collect the spilled oil, and managed "to contain the vast majority," he added.

The recovered crude was transported in tankers to storage warehouses elsewhere.

OCP's pipelines can transport up to 450,000 barrels a day from the Amazon to ports on the Pacific coast, although the company only extracted 160,000 barrels between January and November 2021.

In May 2020 in the same area, a mudslide damaged pipelines, resulting in 15,000 barrels of oil polluting three Amazon basin rivers, affecting several riverside communities.

Indigenous organizations and environmental NGOs insist on more information.

"We demand to know the number of barrels spilled and what the process of delivery of water and food will be for the communities," the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (Confeniae) said on Twitter.

"It is clear that the river water cannot be used or consumed," it added.

OCP said it had begun providing clean water to affected communities, and would follow up with food and medical care shortly.

Crude petroleum is Ecuador's biggest export product. Between January and November 2021, the country extracted 494,000 barrels per day.

The oil leak is the second to mar South American ecosystems in two weeks, after nearly 12,000 barrels of crude spilled into the sea off Peru on January 15.

The spill, described as an "ecological disaster" by the Peruvian government, happened when a tanker was unloading oil at a refinery owned by Spanish company Repsol.

It polluted beaches, killed wildlife and robbed fishermen of their livelihood.

On Monday, the government in Lima ordered Repsol to freeze the transfer of oil between ships and the refinery "until technical guarantees are given that no other damage will occur in the Peruvian sea."

On Friday, the Peruvian justice system banned four Repsol executives from leaving the country for 18 months and ordered the seizure of the tanker involved.

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Lebanon power cuts turn cafes into co-working spaces

Clara Guillard
Mon, 31 January 2022

Beirut's cafes now serve as substitute workplaces for people grappling with drastic electricity shortages and internet cuts (AFP/JOSEPH EID)


Cafes are among the few businesses to have largely bucked the wider meltdown driven by corruption, capital flight and would-be donors' reluctance to throw good money after bad (AFP/JOSEPH EID)

The power cuts, extending to 23 hours a day, have left many already deprived of an office by Covid restrictions with no option but to plant themselves in cafes all day (AFP/JOSEPH EID)


For many patrons filling Beirut's cafes these days, the most important things are good lighting and stable wi-fi (AFP/JOSEPH EID)

The music is often hushed and the atmosphere studious -- for the patrons filling Beirut's cafes these days, the most important things are good lighting and stable wi-fi.

That's because they now serve as substitute workplaces for people grappling with drastic electricity shortages and internet cuts stemming from Lebanon's unrelenting economic crisis.

Aaliya's Books, in the heart of the capital's once-fabled nightlife spot of Gemmayzeh, is one such sanctuary.

"Most of the time, if I come here, it's because I don't have electricity at home," said Maria Bou Raphael, nestled on a sofa.

The power cuts, extending to 23 hours a day, have left many already deprived of an office by Covid restrictions with no option but to plant themselves in cafes all day, especially as the quality of many internet connections has also plummeted.

Generators -- the only way to keep devices charged and connected -- are too expensive for many Lebanese, as they grapple with an economic crisis that has seen the local currency lose more than 90 percent of its black market value in recent years.

Cafes are therefore among the few businesses to have largely bucked the wider meltdown driven by corruption, capital flight and would-be donors' reluctance to throw good money after bad.

Aaliya's Books manager Niamh Flemming Farrell said that on weekdays her establishment feels more like a co-working space, with some customers staying for a full day.

The sense of community created by the service that she provides to the neighbourhood is reviving a cafe culture that had faded in recent years.

Doubling up as a bookshop, the cafe takes its name from Aaliya Saleh, the central character in "An Unnecessary Woman", a novel by acclaimed Lebanese-American author Rabih Alameddine.

The narrative focuses on a 72-year-old who lives secluded in her Beirut flat, in the sole company of her books while the 1975-1990 civil war rages outside.

- 'Relaxed spot' -

"We noticed that... our customers started working additional hours in our branches, fancying the locations that provide a higher level of comfort," said a spokesman for Cafe Younes, a roastery with 10 coffee shops mostly in the capital.

Cafe Younes opened a new large branch in Beirut's central Hamra district a year ago that includes a multi-purpose study room with large desks each equipped with power sockets.

Barzakh is another multi-purpose cafe that opened recently on the first floor of a busy building on the Hamra thoroughfare.

Hamra used to epitomise a Beirut cafe culture that had its heyday in the 1960s but was gradually wiped out by bars conducive to more boisterous socialising.

"I can see people running and yelling (outside) but I'm sitting here quietly in a relaxed spot," said fashion design student Mustafa al-Sous said, sitting beside a large window.

The young man sees Barzakh as a haven from the doom and gloom that has been so pervasive across Lebanon in recent years, but also as a place where he can work.

Notebooks and laptops clogged the tables in this cafe, while tangled charger cables strewn across the floor threatened to trip waiters.

"Originally we wanted to ban laptops," Mansour Aziz, the founder of the cafe-cum-library, which also hosts live shows in the evenings, recalls with a disbelieving smile.

Many here, dragged out of their homes by the electricity crisis, now rely on the cafes for their social life, especially those who can no longer afford to party in the evenings.

At Barzakh, patrons will often greet each other with a nod from across the room and come to know each other gradually.

"I'm a very sociable person," Mustafa said. "I like it when people walk over to ask me what I'm working on."

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One year on, justice on hold for slain Lebanese activist Lokman Slim

AFP -


A year after the murder of Lebanese intellectual and Hezbollah critic Lokman Slim, his family is still searching for accountability in a country where crimes often go unpunished.

"We really need justice for Lokman," his widow Monika Borgmann told AFP from their home in the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut, days before the first anniversary of his killing.

If his murder goes unpunished, it would be like "giving the green light to the killers, whoever they are, to continue" their crimes, she said, amid stalled investigations into his murder.


© ANWAR AMRO

Lebanese activists hold placards bearing the portrait of Lokman Slim with the slogan in Arabic "zero fear", days after his killing in February 2021

A secular activist from a Shiite family, 58-year-old Slim was found dead in his car on February 4 last year, a day after his family reported him missing.

His body was found in southern Lebanon -- a stronghold of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement -- but the culprits have yet to be identified.

An outspoken activist and a researcher passionate about documenting the civil war that raged from 1975-1990 in Lebanon, Slim was a divisive figure. His sway over foreign diplomats in Lebanon often sparked the ire of Hezbollah and its loyalists.


© HASAN TRAD

Lokman Slim, seen here in an undated photograph, was found dead in his car on February 4, 2021

In several televised interviews, Slim accused the group of taking Lebanon hostage on behalf of its Iranian patrons.

In one of his last TV appearances, he accused the Syrian regime of having links to the ammonium nitrate shipment that caused the catastrophic explosion at Beirut's port in August 2020.

Slim's family has received no updates from the authorities since investigations into his murder started.

This is not unusual for a country where even investigations into the Beirut port blast have yet to identify a single culprit -- a year and a half after the explosion destroyed swathes of the city.


© JOSEPH EID

Gonika Borgmann, widow of slain Lebanese activist Lokman Slim, stands by his grave on January 26

- 'Information-gathering' -

The judiciary is still working on gathering evidence from security agencies over Slim's murder, said a judicial source, explaining that investigations are still at an "information-gathering phase".

They are yet to reach any key conclusions because not all security agencies have provided investigators with the necessary information, the same source added.

Borgmann, Slim's widow, said that the family has been left in the dark.

"We don't really know where we are going," she said, expressing doubts over whether any progress will ever be made.

Slim's family has called for an independent, international probe into his murder. It is a demand that Borgmann said is within reach after United Nations experts last year called for a credible and impartial investigation.

"The government should consider requesting international technical assistance to investigate the killing of Mr. Slim," UN human rights experts said in March.

Lebanese politicians and media personalities have suspected Hezbollah's involvement in his murder, but Slim's family has never publicly accused the party of his killing.

"Of course, I have my opinion who is behind (the murder)," said Borgmann, a film director, originally from Germany.

"But for me it's not really enough to point the finger at anybody and... stop there," she added.

"We need proof and we need accountability," she said, expressing hopes his killers will be jailed.

Borgmann said Hezbollah had threatened Slim several times, most notably in December 2019.

A group of people attacked his home in the southern suburbs of Beirut, plastering Hezbollah slogans and messages on the walls, calling him a traitor and warning that his "time will come".

At the time, Slim said he would lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Shiite Hezbollah and Amal movements should anything happen to him or his family.

"Lokman said it himself," Borgmann said.

- 'Believe in justice' -

There have been at least 220 assassinations and murder attempts since Lebanon's independence in 1943 until Slim's killing last year, according to Beirut-based consultancy firm Information International.

Investigations into these murders have rarely yielded results due to political interference or lack of evidence.

After he was killed, Slim's family launched a foundation in his name that is devoted to studying political assassinations in Lebanon and in the region.

"Political assassinations played a major role in controlling political life in Arab societies," said Hana Jaber, the foundation's director.

They create "imaginary barriers... that deter societies from thinking freely or producing alternative political, societal and cultural projects".

As a result, the foundation created in Slim's honour will work to counter the culture of impunity around political assassinations and "break the isolation of those who are under threat", Jaber said.

For Borgmann, the foundation will serve to preserve Slim's legacy.

"The fight against the culture of impunity has always been at the centre of our work," she said.

"Now we need to do it without him, but for him."

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Myanmar activists vow to defy junta with strike on coup anniversary


A Myanmar soldier looks on as he stands inside city hall after soldiers

 occupied the building, in Yangon

Mon, January 31, 2022

(Reuters) - Myanmar's military rulers have threatened to jail anti-coup protesters who take part in a "silent strike" on Tuesday, a year since the generals seized power, as the United States, Britain and Canada imposed new sanctions.

The Southeast Asian country has been in chaos since Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and other figures from her National League for Democracy (NLD) party were rounded up in raids, accused by the junta of rigging a 2020 election the NLD won.

The overthrow of Suu Kyi's government triggered huge street protests last year and the security forces killed hundreds in crackdowns that ensued leading to the formation of "people's defence forces" to take on the well-equipped army.

In recent days, activists have urged people to stay indoors and businesses to close on Tuesday.

"We might be arrested and spend our life in jail if we're lucky. We might be tortured and killed if we're unlucky," saidyouth activist Nan Lin, who hoped the strike would send a message to the junta.

A spokesman for the ruling military did not respond to telephone calls seeking comment.

State media reported military ruler Min Aung Hlaing had on Monday extended a state of emergency for six months to facilitate promised elections.

"It was necessary to set the right track for the genuine, disciplined multi-party democracy," Min Aung Hlaing said in a report in the Global New Light of Myanmar, where he talked about the threat from "internal and external saboteurs" and "terrorist attacks and destruction".

The state-run newspaper said the military government would strive to hold new elections once the situation was "peaceful and stable", without giving a date.

In the northern city of Myitkyina, a photograph of a sign put up by the military warned residents not to join the silent protest or face jail terms of up to 20 years, though images of the city posted on social media on Tuesday showed largely deserted streets.

In the main city of Yangon, photographs on a social media page put up by strike organisers showed a small protest where people threw red paint on the ground.

The impact of the calls for a nationwide strike was not immediately clear. At least four people were arrested in the central town of Pathein for inciting silent protests on social media, the Ayarwaddy Times reported.

INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in comments ahead of the coup anniversary, urged the junta to allow greater humanitarian access.

The junta has accused the United Nations of bias and interference and is refusing to bow to international pressure, despite a corporate retreat from Myanmar and sanctions, the latest on Monday, when the United States, Britain and Canada blacklisted more individuals linked to the junta.

For ordinary Myanmar people, life since the coup has become a grind with the economy withering, regular power cuts and internet curbs and, for some, a constant fear of being detained.

Security forces cracking down on dissent have killed at least 1,500 people and arrested 11,838 since the coup, according to the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, an activist group cited by the United Nations. The junta disputes the death toll.

Suu Kyi, 76, is on trial in more than a dozen cases that carry a combined maximum sentence of more than 150 years in prison, charges that critics say are designed to ensure she can never return to politics.

In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of countries including Australia, Britain, South Korea, the United States, Canada as well as the European Union urged the international community to cease the flow of "arms, materiel, dual-use equipment, and technical assistance" to the Myanmar military.

An internationally backed diplomatic effort led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has faltered, with the junta's failure to honour its commitment to end hostilities and support dialogue frustrating members, including Singapore.

"Conditions in Myanmar for the people continue to deteriorate," its foreign ministry said in a statement marking the anniversary, which demanded Suu Kyi and all political prisoners be freed.

(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by Martin Petty, Robert Birsel)

Activists launch ‘silent strike’ as Myanmar marks coup anniversary under new sanctions

By

 The Bharat Express News

 -

February 1, 2022

The military takeover ending the Southeast Asian country’s brief democratic interlude has sparked mass protests and a crackdown on dissent with more than 1,500 civilians killed, according to a local watchdog group.

The junta is struggling to contain the backlash unleashed by the coup, with daily clashes and large swathes of the country remaining beyond its control.

In comments published on Tuesday, junta leader Min Aung Hlaing repeated the army’s claim that it was forced to take power following fraud in the 2020 elections won by Aung’s party. San Suu Kyi, which international observers said were largely free and fair.

It would hold “free and fair” polls by August 2023 if stability in the country is restored, he told the official Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

The streets of Yangon’s commercial center were bustling on Tuesday morning, TBEN correspondents said, as residents shopped and met friends ahead of a “silent strike” expected to begin around 10 a.m. local time.

A similar strike in December emptied the streets of cities and towns across the country.

On Tuesday morning, footage released by local media showed a dozen young protesters gathered in a flashmob in Yangon, unfurling a pro-democracy banner and setting off a flare.

Ahead of the anniversary, the junta threatened to seize businesses that close and warned that loud rallies or the sharing of anti-military “propaganda” could lead to charges of treason or terrorism.

Punishments

The United States, Britain and Canada on Monday unveiled coordinated sanctions against Myanmar officials, including officials involved in Suu Kyi’s trial.

Washington has sanctioned Attorney General Thida Oo, Supreme Court Chief Justice Tun Tun Oo and Anti-Corruption Commission Chairman Tin Oo, who it says were closely involved in the “politically motivated” prosecution of Suu Kyi .

“We are coordinating these actions with the UK and Canada…to further promote accountability for the coup and the violence perpetrated by the regime,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Citing “unspeakable violence against civilians”, damage to regional stability and “endemic” corruption, President Joe Biden said in a statement that he was working with allies to “hold accountable” those responsible.

Another trial for Suu Kyi

Suu Kyi has previously been sentenced to six years in prison for illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies, incitement against the military and breaching Covid-19 rules.

The Nobel laureate will face a new trial for influencing the country’s electoral commission in the 2020 election that saw her National League for Democracy (NLD) party defeat a military-aligned rival, a said a source familiar with the matter.

The case should be completed within six months. Former NLD chairman and stalwart Win Myint will face the same charge.

Burmese lawmakers ousted from a shadow “national unity government” spoke to the media in Paris on Monday.

Human rights spokesperson Aung Myo Min has urged the international community to implement an arms embargo and toughen economic sanctions to cut off all trade with the regime.

UN special envoy Noeleen Heyzer has called for a “humanitarian pause” in the violence to allow aid to get through, warning that hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by the conflict.

Following Washington’s lead, Britain imposed sanctions on Thida Oo, Tin Oo and a third person, the chairman of the country’s electoral commission.

“Burma’s military is using increasingly brutal and desperate tactics to try to cling to power,” said Anna Roberts, head of Burma Campaign UK, welcoming the new sanctions.

“The UK government is doing exactly the right thing…however, they need to step up the pace of new sanctions. It is vital to maximize the pressure now when the military is more vulnerable.

(TBEN)

The message Activists launch ‘silent strike’ as Myanmar marks coup anniversary under new sanctions appeared first on TBEN.

 Flunking Sainthood

‘Who Killed Joseph Smith?’ and other amateur-hour conspiracy theories

A new documentary recycles old conspiracies about the murder of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum.

January 21, 2022

By 

Jana Riess

Se

(RNS) — The documentary “Who Killed Joseph Smith?” is now available for streaming for free on Vimeo. It’s an earnest but deeply misleading attempt to understand the assassinations of Joseph and Hyrum Smith on June 27, 1844.

Claiming he has “new evidence” that disproves what prior historians have assumed about the murders, the documentary’s creator, Justin Griffin, puts forward what he claims is a groundbreaking new theory about who really killed the Mormon founder.

Hint: It wasn’t the mob. More on that particular piece of nuttiness in a moment.   

The documentary is long on what it claims to be forensics investigations, challenging the Church’s traditional stories about which weapons were used and at what angle victims were standing when they were shot. There are some obligatory “let’s test out this theory by blowing the head off of a mannequin and splattering fake blood when it explodes!” shots. There is the recreated Carthage Jail set, in which actors portray the contested events and Griffin is filmed speaking ardently about his hypothesis.

Through all of this, Griffin wants to challenge the narrative that the Church has used “for hundreds of years” to describe the Smiths’ murders. No matter that we are talking about murders that happened almost 200 years ago.

Hey, what’s a few centuries, give or take? It’s only history.

Actual professional historians — by which I mean people who have formally studied historical methodology and published peer-reviewed research in academic journals and books by university presses — are conspicuously absent from the scene. The documentary does give us screen shots of articles by both professional and amateur historians, but only so Griffin can dissect their various arguments and find them wanting.

In other words, it’s amateur hour. (Or rather, it’s an hour and 38 minutes, unfortunately.) Griffin analyzes several theories from researchers, including one pair he alternately calls “the Lyon brothers” (correct) or “the Lyons brothers” (oops).

The documentary “Who Killed Joseph Smith?” finds several existing theories only partly true. Video screengrab

Nearly an hour into the documentary, Griffin remarks, “You can’t really call yourself a Carthage researcher until you come up with your own theory about what happened.” Which kind of tells us everything we need to know about his historical method. Actual historians do not demand that their interpretation of an event be unique or iconoclastic. Sometimes their views will support the conventional wisdom and sometimes they won’t. Much of their job is to present the primary sources and allow readers and viewers to draw their own conclusions — something Griffin seems loathe to do.       

Griffin’s particular theory is that Willard Richards and John Taylor, two close associates who were with the Smiths in the jail and survived the attack, were actually — wait for it — the murderers. Even though Taylor was grievously injured himself. And even though members of the mob bragged about their responsibility in the attack.

The insiders’ motive for this? Well, Griffin doesn’t have much on that. A power grab, maybe. Some tensions in the Quorum of the Twelve. But … the ballistics! The bullet sizes! The angle of the shots!

Because the boring truth is never as much fun as a conspiracy theory, am I right?

That’s not to say the documentary doesn’t ask some good questions. He’s right to interrogate the faith-promoting, embroidered stories the Church has told for decades about the murders: like that Hyrum declared “I’m a dead man” after he was first shot, or that Willard Richards was miraculously saved from harm because he was the only one of the four to be wearing his temple garments.

Sigh. There are plenty of pieces of the Church’s conventional “martyrdom” narrative that do not pass the sniff test. Those pieces of the story, added over time, served a purpose, like all martyrdom narratives serve a purpose: to valorize the fallen and coalesce support and obedience among those left behind. It would be shocking if those stories had not been embellished.  

Rather than investigating how such stories develop over years and decades, which is what professional historians would do, or trying to understand the historical context in Nauvoo that led to the mob descending on Carthage in the first place (see here for a terrific book about that), Griffin just serves up a conspiracy theory that it was an inside job.

Along the way he accepts all kinds of things at face value. For example, he does not seem to entertain the possibility that Willard Richards and John Taylor, writing their memories of the assassinations long after the event, just didn’t remember them correctly. Human memories are notoriously unreliable and faulty — even without bullets flying and lives on the line at the time of the event, and even without the sacred importance believers attached to every last detail in the years that followed.

Griffin also sometimes greatly overreaches his evidence. For example, he reveals at the end that Joseph and Hyrum’s sister Katharine had noted some hostility within the Quorum of the Twelve in Nauvoo. Fair enough. But from there he leaps to the conclusion that this means Taylor and Richards murdered Joseph and Hyrum. Um … what? There were plenty of reasons for a member of the Smith family to remark upon the strain present among Church leaders in Nauvoo — especially since Joseph’s death left a serious power vacuum, and the Smiths did not want Brigham Young to step into Joseph’s shoes.

After writing this review, I wondered if I was being too harsh. After all, this documentary is clearly a low-budget effort and a personal passion for the filmmaker, rather than a professional treatment. But then I went to the film’s Facebook page and found this post from yesterday:

A “Who Killed Joseph Smith?” Facebook post from Thursday, January 20, 2022. https://www.facebook.com/whokilledjosephsmith.

So what we seem to have here is that a friend speculates aloud about a far-fetched possibility for why Willard was still wearing his coat, and then suddenly Griffin says “whoa” and considers it “a very interesting detail” to add to his history. 

Ironically, this is exactly what Griffin cautions his viewers not to do. “If you want to prove a certain narrative, then you’ll only see the evidence that proves that certain narrative,” he says near the end of this interminable documentary.

If only he had followed his own advice.

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Related content:

Polygamy, politics and frontier justice: Why Nauvoo still matters

Religious founder Joseph Smith killed by mob - HISTORY

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mormon-leader-killed-by-mob

1844 June 27 Religious founder Joseph Smith killed by mob Joseph Smith, the founder and leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (more commonly known as Mormonism), is murdered...

Why was Joseph Smith Murdered? | Book of Mormon Central

https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/why-was-joseph-smith...

They were shot in Carthage jail, on the 27th of June, 1844, about five o’clock p.m., by an armed mob—painted black—of from 150 to 200 persons. Hyrum was shot first and fell calmly,