Turkey black rose producers chase sweet smell of success

AFP - Yesterday
© Ozan KOSE

To the naked eye, the delicate velvet roses in southeastern Turkey appear black and overwhelm the senses with their irresistible sweet smell.

The rosebuds are just as dark, and when fully developed, the flower takes on the colour of an intensely rich red wine.

These black roses, known as "Karagul" in Turkish and thornier than others, can only grow in the town of Halfeti with soil that has distinctive features including a special PH level.

The unique colour cannot be preserved elsewhere, experts say.


© Ozan KOSEBy the shores of the dam, a few amateur gardeners promote the black rose to tourists alongside boat tours to see the caves

Now Halfeti's residents want to transform the rose into a brand since Turkey's rose sector is a blooming business.

The industry is currently dominated by the western province of Isparta, known as Turkey's "rose garden".

Today, Turkey and Bulgaria make up around 80 percent of the world's rose oil production.

But Halfeti resident Devrim Tutus, 28, has already seen business flourish.

After coming up with a business plan to promote the black roses, he now supplies Istanbul with petals for colognes, Turkish delight and ice cream.


© Ozan KOSE

Halfeti's residents want to transform the black rose into a brand since Turkey's rose sector is a blooming business

Demand is already outgrowing supply.

That doesn't stop Tutus who already has his next plan: Karagul wine.

"There's a huge market out there in Istanbul. It's all about Isparta roses. Why not the same here?" he said.

- Roses rescued -

The black rose's fortunes were not always so sweet.

It once aroused only indifference among residents, said a local official in charge of preserving the roses.

"They were everywhere in the gardens but nobody paid attention to them," said his friend who only gave his name as Bulent.

"Locals had no idea the roses were unique. We transported some to higher ground and started production in greenhouses," said the official, who did not wish to be named.


© Ozan KOSE

Halfeti is also home to the peculiar green rose that has the appearance of a weed

In upper Halfeti, one greenhouse operated by the town's agriculture department is home to 1,000 roses.

But the town's residents rallied to rescue the rose after a dam on the Euphrates River flooded the region in the early 2000s, threatening to bury the flower like dozens of archaeological sites from ancient Mesopotamia.


© Ozan KOSE

Today, Turkey and Bulgaria make up around 80 percent of the world's rose oil production

The construction of the Birecik dam in 2000 was part of a series of controversial development projects in southeast Turkey.

Today, 20 variants of black roses have been identified worldwide -- including sixteen in Turkey, said botanist Ali Ikinci.

"Karagul is not an endemic species in Halfeti," Ikinci, a professor at Harran University in Sanliurfa province, said.

"But the particular ecology, climate and soil cause it to bloom darker there. If you plant that rose somewhere else, it won't be as dark or black."

- A French connection? -

The professor insisted Halfeti's rose was "unique".

The colour of the rose darkens, becoming more black and the scent is stronger as one moves from Sanliurfa -- where Halfeti is -- towards Syria, which is 60 kilometres (38 miles) to the south, Ikinci said.

The Halfeti official explained the rose blossoms on higher ground because the soil close to the dam is more acidic because of the Euphrates' waters.

Ikinci believes the origins of Karagul could be the "Louis XIV" black rose, grown in France in 1859 and named after the French king.

But for Frederic Achille, deputy director of the Botanical Gardens of the Museum of Natural History in Paris, it's much ado about nothing.

"'Louis XIV' could really be transformed by the waters of the Euphrates... and bogus communication," he said with a smile.

- Green rose -

Halfeti is also home to the peculiar green rose that has the appearance of a weed, but it is real and not just photoshopped by avid Instagram users.

"It remains mysterious. Some locals had it in their gardens. But because it's odourless, it failed to attract attention," Ikinci said.

Achille was blunter about why: "It's quite ugly."

The green flower was "just a curiosity in rose gardens" after it was introduced in Europe in 1856 by British nurseries, he added.

But that won't stop Halfeti taking advantage of its real, hidden treasures.

By the shores of the dam, a few amateur gardeners promote the black rose to tourists alongside boat tours to see the caves, now underwater.

ach/fo/raz

Workers recall rape, beatings at VW Brazil unit: prosecutor

Tue, 31 May 2022, 



Victims forced to work in slave-like conditions at a Brazilian property owned by Volkswagen during the country's dictatorship recount "grave and systematic" abuses, including rapes, beatings and being tied to trees, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

The German carmaker is facing legal action in Brazil over allegations of rampant human-rights violations at a large farm it ran in the Amazon rainforest basin in the 1970s and '80s under the country's then military regime, media in Germany reported Sunday.

The lead prosecutor on the case, Rafael Garcia, told AFP that investigators had collected depositions from victims who were lured to the farm with false promises of lucrative jobs, then forced to cut down the jungle under grueling conditions against their will to make way for Volkswagen's cattle ranch, which became the biggest in the northern state of Para.

"Workers who tried to escape were beaten, tied to trees and left there for days," he said.

"Those who tried to slip into the forest never came back -- there were simply stories that they had been killed. Workers were systematically, physically abused."

Garcia said a task force of investigators had spent three years assembling evidence in the case, after a local Catholic priest came forward with horrifying accounts of abuse at the property he had compiled over the years.

The task force's report contains a chilling series of allegations from former workers at the farm in southern Para, known as Fazenda Vale do Rio Cristalino, where armed guards reportedly kept violent watch over a workforce that prosecutors estimate numbered in the hundreds.

"One worker tried to escape, but the gunmen caught him. As punishment, they kidnapped his wife and raped her," it says, citing three witness' testimony.

"Another worker tried to flee and was shot in the leg. Yet another was left bound and naked."

The workers were kept in "debt-slavery" by being forced to buy food and supplies from the farm store at exorbitant prices, and some died of malaria with no access to medical care, Garcia said.

Prosecutors have summoned Volkswagen for an initial audience on June 14, where they will attempt to reach a settlement, he said.

If that fails, the company could face charges.

In 2020, Volkswagen agreed to pay 36 million reais ($6.4 million at the time) in compensation for collaborating with Brazil's secret police during the dictatorship (1964-1985) to identify suspected leftist opponents and union leaders, who were then detained and tortured.

jhb/bfm

Vocal critic of Liberals' online streaming bill partly funded by YouTube and TikTok


OTTAWA — An outspoken critic of the Liberal government's online streaming bill received funding from two of the biggest digital platforms in the world.

Scott Benzie, founder of Digital First Canada, told a parliamentary committee on Monday that his organization, which advocates for online creators, is partly funded by YouTube and TikTok.

The revelation prompted Liberal MP Chris Bittle, parliamentary secretary to Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, to accuse Benzie of having an "extreme conflict of interest."

The MP said representing digital first creators while taking money from the platforms was "almost like starting a union and taking money from management."

Bittle also accused Benzie of concealing that he was funded by the platforms when he appeared before the committee previously.

Benzie, also the executive director of Digital First Canada, told the committee he had informed the Heritage Department he had received funding from platforms.

In an interview on Tuesday, Benzie said he had not tried to conceal that his organization received private funding. He said the money came from a store and the two platforms and totalled "less than $100,000."

"Mr Bittle took that time to attack the organization for something that he already knew and wasn't a secret," Benzie said in an interview. "It's not something that we were trying to hide."

He argued that the MP could have spent the time asking about the content of the bill instead.

Benzie said he set up Digital First Canada before receiving funding earlier this year from the platforms and was "going to do it anyway" and would be "doing this without them."

The advocate has been one of the most vocal critics of Bill C-11, which aims to modernize the Canadian Broadcasting Act to include streaming platforms such as Netflix and YouTube.

He has expressed concerns that the bill and its predecessor, known as C-10 and which failed to pass before the 2021 election, could apply to user-generated content, such as amateur videos posted on YouTube.

His opinions have been cited in the House of Commons by MPs, and the issue of user-generated content has become a central issue in debates about the bill, including in the heritage committee, which is currently scrutinizing C-11.

Benzie is registered to lobby the Heritage Department on legislation that would affect online content creators.

Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said Canada's online creators are "incredibly talented."

"Most of them are self-employed independent workers. Sadly, their livelihoods are in the hands of tech giants, who can deplatform, demonetize, demote or censor their content at will."

Benzie told the committee that most of the advocacy group's funding comes from the Toronto-based Buffer Festival, an annual event showcasing online video creators.

He said he disagreed with tech giants on various issues, including on the topic of more transparency of platforms' algorithms.

Both YouTube and TikTok said Digital First Canada has given a voice to online content creators.

"In both the C-11 and C-10 debate, digital creator voices were barely consulted or considered. Digital First Canada provided a forum to defend and raise their voices," said Lauren Skelly, YouTube spokesperson. "We support their efforts in defending Canadian creators during this critical time."

A spokesperson for TikTok said: "We're proud to support Digital First Canada's advocacy on behalf of independent online creators whose interests aren't otherwise represented by existing guilds or associations."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 31, 2022.

Marie Woolf, The Canadian Press

Jury finds Alberta men guilty of murder, manslaughter in shootings of Métis hunters

EDMONTON — The family of two Métis hunters who were shot to death on a rural road in Alberta say they would have liked harsher convictions for the men who killed their loved ones but are satisfied those responsible will be behind bars.




A jury found Anthony Bilodeau, 33, guilty of manslaughter in the death of Jacob Sansom on Tuesday and guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Maurice Cardinal, who was Sansom's uncle.

Anthony Bilodeau's father, 58-year-old Roger Bilodeau, was found guilty of two counts of manslaughter.

"It's time to heal," Sarah Sansom, wife of Jacob Sansom, said outside the Court of Queen's Bench in Edmonton.

She said the family was hurt throughout the court process when defence lawyers and media reports focused on her husband and Cardinal's drinking.

"Are we back in the 1800s? Is this cowboys against Indians?" Sarah Sansom said. "The things that they were saying and the lies, for us, it was frustrating because we know them so well and we're like, 'they would never say things like that.'"

She said her husband didn't have a drinking problem when they were married and it didn't cause problems in their marriage.

"He has never been violent, he has always been a wonderful man, he has always treated me and my kids with love and respect," Sarah Sansom said. "He is the love of my life."

Anthony and Roger Bilodeau were charged with two counts of second-degree murder and pleaded not guilty. Their lawyers had argued the shooting was in self-defence.

The Crown argued the father and son took the law into their own hands when they chased down Sansom and Cardinal because they believed the hunters had been at the family's farm earlier and were trying to steal.

Jurors heard that Sansom, 39, and Cardinal, 57, had been moose hunting before they were found dead on the side of a road near Glendon, Alta., on March 28, 2020.

Sansom was shot once in the chest and Cardinal was hit three times in the shoulder.

Court heard that on the night of March 27, 2020, Anthony Bilodeau got a call from his father and younger brother, who were pursuing a white Dodge pickup they suspected had been on the family farm earlier in the day.

Roger Bilodeau told his older son to meet up with them and to bring a gun for protection, court was told.

Anthony Bilodeau testified that his phone was still connected to his father's Bluetooth speaker when he heard thuds and cracking glass before his brother screamed for someone not to kill or hurt his father.

Court heard that Sansom smashed the passenger window of Roger Bilodeau's Ford F-150 with his bare fists and then allegedly attacked Joseph and Roger Bilodeau in the truck.

When he arrived, Anthony Bilodeau said, he shot Sansom because the man had charged toward him. He also said he heard Sansom call out to Cardinal to get a gun so they could kill him.

Anthony Bilodeau said he shot Cardinal after the hunter came at him with a large gun. He said Cardinal told him he was going to kill him in retaliation for shooting Sansom.

Anthony Bilodeau testified he could see Cardinal's gun had a magazine attached and he feared for everyone's safety. He said he shot Cardinal another two times in the back of the shoulder.

Showing surveillance footage from a nearby gas plant the night of the shooting, prosecutors argued that Anthony Bilodeau did not need to shoot Cardinal another two times because he was injured and a distance away by the side of the Dodge pickup.

Prosecutors said Roger Bilodeau had turned his truck around at that point and Anthony Bilodeau could have left the scene, but instead went over with the intention to kill Cardinal.

Court also heard that after the shooting, Anthony Bilodeau cut up his gun and threw it in a dump. He also disposed of lights from his bumper at another dump. He testified that he did it because he was in shock and didn't want to go to jail for protecting his family.

Court heard that a toxicology report showed Sansom's blood-alcohol level was nearly three times over the legal driving limit, while Cardinal's was nearly twice over the limit.

Brian Beresh, Anthony Bilodeau's lawyer, said outside court Tuesday that he always asks witnesses about alcohol, regardless of their background.

"We know that alcohol affects a whole bunch of issues that are important in a trial, like perception, judgment and response," Beresh said.

He said he and his client were disappointed with the verdict and that the shooting was not racially motivated.

"I think that this was a misunderstanding in rural Alberta," he said. "It wasn't about vigilantism at all, there was no suggestion of that and I think some people blew that out of proportion."

Andrea Sandmaier of the Métis Nation of Alberta said Sansom and Cardinal were important members of the Métis community and their deaths were "a huge loss."

"You can't even imagine the strength this family has and what they have endured — the ugly, ugly, ugliness of the keyboard warriors out there," Sandmaier said Tuesday outside court. "Shame, shame, shame on you."

Debbie Baptiste, the mother of Colten Boushie, was also outside the courthouse in support of Sansom and Cardinal's family.

Boushie, a young Cree man, was killed in 2016 after an SUV he was in went onto a Saskatchewan farm. Gerald Stanley testified that he thought the people in the SUV were trying to steal his all-terrain vehicle and that his gun accidentally went off. He was acquitted of second-degree murder.

A date for a sentencing hearing for Anthony and Roger Bilodeau is expected to be set on June 17.

The minimum sentence for second-degree murder is life in prison with no parole eligibility for 10 years. Sentences can be as long as life in prison without parole eligibility for 25 years.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 31, 2022.

Daniela Germano, The Canadian Press

Conservatives blame everything but guns for mass shootings

Tom Mockaitis, opinion contributor - The Hill

As shock and grief over the Robb Elementary School massacre give way to anger, people are demanding that something be done to curb the gun violence plaguing the country. While most Americans want reasonable gun control laws, conservative politicians have touted a range of explanations to deflect attention from that demand.

They blame a lack of mental healthcare, absent fathers, poor school security and the decline of religion — anything but unfettered access to firearms.

Governor Greg Abbott (R) of Texas offered the most disingenuous explanation for the tragedy.

At his May 25 press conference, Abbott stated: “There is no known mental-health history of the gunman.” In the next breath, however, he declared, “We, as a state, we, as a society, need to do a better job with mental health,” adding, “Anybody who shoots somebody else has a mental-health challenge, period.”

So, the perpetrator wasn’t mentally ill, but lack of mental healthcare caused him to shoot up a school? Abbott also fails to realize that the vast majority of people who suffer from mental illness never become violent. Stigmatizing them as potential mass murders is hurtful and unjust.

Not to be outdone, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) focused on doors. He wants schools to have only one point of entrance protected by an armed guard. Using only one door could make it even easier for an active shooter to kill children. It would create a bottleneck for students entering the building each morning and leaving each afternoon. The concentrated mass of people would be an easy target.

Armed guards will not guarantee the safety of children any more than locked doors. The guard at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., did not engage the gunmen who killed 17 students in 2018. An armed security guard (a retired police officer) at the Tops supermarket in Buffalo did exchange fire with the assailant, hitting him in the chest, but his bullet failed to penetrate the shooter’s body army. In Uvalde, police have come under increasing criticism for their hour-long delay in entering the classroom where the shooter was killing children.

Other Republicans have offered even more far-fetched explanations for the massacre. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) suggested that “fatherless” families might contribute to gun violence. The 15-year-old who killed four students in Oxford, Mich., lived with both of his parents, who bought him the gun used in the attack. The 15.3 million children being raised by single mothers are no more likely to engage in violence than anyone else.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) also jumped on the mental health bandwagon but added her own bizarre twist to the debate. “We don’t need more gun control,” Greene tweeted after the shooting. “We need to return to God.” Apparently, no one told her that Texas is one of the most religiously observant states in the country with 69 percent of its residents professing belief in God “with absolute certainty” and 63 percent saying they pray daily.

These responses to the Robb Elementary School massacre make clear that Republican politicians will do anything to avoid confronting the real cause of mass shootings: unfettered access to firearms. They ignore one glaring, incontrovertible fact: our country leads the world in school shootings and gun ownership (120.5 firearms per 100 people). From 2009 to 2018, there were 288 school shootings in the United States. Mexico came second with just 8; Canada and France had 2; Germany 1; the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, 0. There have been 27 school shootings in the United States so far this year.

Every country with low rates of gun violence has people who suffer from mental illness, alienation and social pathology. They also have stringent gun control laws that make it far more difficult for unstable people to obtain firearms.

The 2014 attack on the Canadian War Memorial illustrates how reasonable restrictions can save lives. Canadian law banned the shooter from purchasing a gun because of his criminal background. It also restricted magazine capacity and imposed a stiff penalty for illegally providing someone with a gun. As a result, he could only get a Winchester hunting rifle holding eight rounds. Its lever-action reloading mechanism restricted its rate of fire, so he killed only one person. In 2020, Canada went a step further banning 1,500 assault-style firearms (including the AR-15) after just one mass shooting in Nova Scotia, even though some of the guns used in that attack were purchased in Maine. In contrast, the assault weapon ban passed by the U.S. Congress in 1994 lapsed in 2004. Mass shootings have been on the rise ever since.

Everyone wants better healthcare for those suffering from mental illness, although the same politicians who call for such care refuse to fund it. We all support making school buildings more secure. However, these measures are not a substitute for reasonable restrictions on the right to bear arms.

Polling data on support for stricter gun laws has varied over time, increasing in the aftermath of mass shootings but declining as the emotional impact of those events fades. According to Gallup polls, 67 percent of Americans surveyed in 2018 following the Parkland shooting favored stricter gun control laws, but support fell to 52 percent in 2021.

However, polling data on specific measures paint a very different picture. Quinnipiac University polls found that 89 percent of Americans support required background checks for all gun buyers; 74 percent agree with “red flag” laws allowing police and family members to petition judges to confiscate guns from individuals at elevated risk of violent behavior and 52 percent want to ban assault rifles. Another survey found that 85 percent of non-gun owners and 74 percent of gun owners support a waiting period for firearm purchases.

Any of these reasonable measures could save the lives not only of school children but of murder and suicide victims. In aggregate, they might prevent tragedies like Sandy Hook Elementary, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and Robb Elementary. We should also ban the sale of body armor to anyone without a professional need for it (such as police security guards). The Second Amendment says nothing about Kevlar vests, which did not exist when it was adopted in 1791.

Staunch gun-rights activists oppose any regulation of firearms, insisting that even reasonable measures the vast majority of Americans want are a slippery slope to a complete ban. Some politicians, like Gov. Kay Ivey (R-Alabama), call the Second Amendment “sacred.”

What is sacred are the lives of our children. Until we put their safety ahead of the right to bear arms, we can expect more massacres like the one that befell the innocent victims of Robb Elementary.

Tom Mockaitis is a professor of history at DePaul University and author of “Violent Extremists: Understanding the Domestic and International Terrorist Threat.”

Teachers union plans gun control protests at GOP senators' offices

Jeremiah Poff - WASHINGTON EXAMINER

The American Federation of Teachers has organized protests to demand more gun control legislation outside the state offices of Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) and says more protests are coming.


© Provided by Washington ExaminerTeachers union plans gun control protests at GOP senators' offices

The first rallies are slated to take place Tuesday afternoon and come in the aftermath of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last week, in which a lone gunman killed 19 students and two teachers.

The shooting has renewed calls for Congress to pass legislation curtailing gun ownership and expanding background check requirements for firearm purchases. Toomey, who backed expanded background checks for gun purchases in 2013, has reiterated his support for the measure in recent days.

PROPOSAL TO ARM SCHOOL STAFF RECEIVES HOSTILE RESPONSE FROM TEACHERS UNIONS

"The school shootings in Uvalde, Texas, have laid bare the crisis we’re facing here in America — again. We can’t allow these preventable mass murders to keep happening," the American Federation of Teachers said in the announcement of the two Tuesday rallies.

"Students deserve safe and welcoming schools, and parents need to know their children are safe," the announcement continued. "Educators deserve to be able to teach; they should not be forced to be human shields to protect their students. Community members deserve to know their schools, stores and places of worship are safe; and they must not be scared to live their values. This is a public health crisis."

The protests are planned to take place outside the Pittsburgh office of Toomey, who is retiring at the end of the year, and outside the Austin office of Cruz.

But the AFT says it is also planning protests at other senators' offices as well as events for the weekend.

David Hogg, a gun control activist and former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a school shooting took place in 2018, promoted the protests on Twitter and called on educators to join the union's protests.

"Attention educators," Hogg wrote. "I told you I would have a direct way you can help us fight for gun safety. March For Our Lives worked with the president of NEA and AFT your marching orders are below. Let’s get to work."

Hogg's tweet came in response to AFT President Randi Weingarten, who expressed support for the Pittsburgh rally, saying, "We need Senator Toomey to do the right thing."

John DiMaggio Failed to Get Pay Raise for ‘Futurama’ Revival: ‘Getting Money Out of Disney’ Is Impossible

Zack Sharf 
Variety
© Courtesy of Comedy Central

John DiMaggio and Hulu jointly announced March 1 that the original Bender voice actor would return for the show’s upcoming revival. DiMaggio’s involvement was in question after he originally refused to join the revival because he felt the cast was not being paid enough. If you assumed DiMaggio’s return meant he was able to get his desired pay raise, then you’d be wrong, according to the actor.

“People are like, ‘I’m so glad you got more money!’ I didn’t get more money,” DiMaggio recently revealed at Phoenix Fan Fusion (via /Film). “But what I did get was a lot of respect, and a lot of head nods from people who are like, ‘Yo bro, I see you and thank you.'”

DiMaggio called it “quite rewarding” to be praised by colleagues for speaking out about unfair pay, adding, “Trying to get money out of Disney is like trying to get blood from a stone — you ain’t gonna get it!”

“But listen, this was the best thing about that fight: I had Disney, Hulu, I was holding on to their collective testicles so hard that they couldn’t, y’know, there was nowhere for them to go,” the voice actor added. “But there was also nowhere for me to go, and who wants to hold on to those for that long?”

Variety reached out to Disney for comment, but the studio does not comment on matters of compensation.

Hulu announced the “Futurama” reboot on Feb. 9, with DiMaggio sitting out but original cast members Billy West, Katey Sagal, Tress MacNeille, Maurice LaMarche, Lauren Tom, Phil LaMarr and David Herman all returning. Variety reported at the time that DiMaggio’s role of Bender would be recast if he didn’t figure out a deal to return. The actor said at Phoenix Fan Fusion that Hulu was “planning on using guest stars, [and] they were going to replace Bender’s voice each episode” if he did not return.

When DiMaggio originally spoke out about his pay issues with the reboot, he also championed his co-stars to receive higher salaries. “I’ve been thinking about everything that’s been going on these past months and just to be clear, I don’t think that only I deserve to be paid more. I think the entire cast does,” DiMaggio wrote on Twitter. “Negotiations are a natural part of working in show business. Everyone has a different strategy and different boundaries… Some accept offers, some hold their ground.”

Production on Hulu’s “Futurama” reboot kicked off in February with an eye toward a 2023 premiere.

US Health and Human Services announces new office focused on the environmental risks to underserved communities

Ella Nilsen -CNN

The Department of Health and Human Services announced on Tuesday it is establishing an Office of Environmental Justice, putting a spotlight on environmental inequities in health.

The new office will be led by interim director Sharunda Buchanan, a former official at the Centers for Disease Control specializing in environmental health issues like lead exposure.

While there are other federal offices, including the White House Council on Environmental Quality, that focus on environmental justice, Buchanan told CNN she hopes the HHS office will bring new resources to communities, especially low incomes communities and communities of color dealing with elevated lead exposure or inadequate waste water treatment.

“My goal for this office is to serve as a resource for communities, I want to work alongside these communities,” Buchanan told CNN in an interview Tuesday. “I like to say that environmental justice and health equity are inextricably linked. If you find an environmental justice issue, you’re going to inevitably find a health issue.”

The office will be responsible for creating and implementing a department-wide strategy on environmental justice and health and taking the lead on annual HHS environmental justice reports, among other tasks.

In addition to Buchanan, the new office is staffed with three detailees from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other offices in HHS.

“We believe this will be a longstanding office,” Buchanan said. “They are already ready and willing and raring to go.”

In a statement, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said many communities across the country “continue to bear the brunt of pollution from industrial development, poor land use decisions, transportation, and trade corridors” and that meeting their needs “requires our focused attention.”

Environmental justice has been a high priority for the Biden administration. Early in his term, President Joe Biden pledged 40% of federal funds for climate and clean energy initiatives would be prioritized for underserved communities, and CEQ announced in February 29% of the US population was eligible for those funds.

Buchanan told CNN Tuesday she was “elated” to be leading the office.

“I am so passionate about this work; this is actually my life’s work,” she said. “My goal for this office is to bring solutions to communities.”

When is a species really extinct?

Dodos have been extinct for centuries, but it’s not a simple matter to definitively designate a species as extinct. (Shutterstock)


THE CONVERSATION
Published: May 23, 2022

As the saying goes: “extinction is forever.” The list of extinct animals, like Steller’s sea cow, the Tasmanian wolf and the dodo, is depressing. And despite various efforts, extinction seems final.

But when does extinction start? That would seem like an easy question to answer. In the dry prose of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), extinction has occurred when “there is no reasonable doubt that the last individual of a species has died.”

And as we know from watching courtroom dramas, the concept of “no reasonable doubt” is a high bar, meant to protect the innocent in society. In conservation, it is to guard against crying wolf.
No longer extinct

In the 1980s, it was suggested that an extinction should be declared if a species was not observed for 50 years. That seems like a long time, but it wasn’t long enough. Many species have been rediscovered decades or even centuries after their last observation.

Read news coverage based on evidence, not alarm.Get newsletter

For example, the black-browed babbler was recently recorded in the jungles of Borneo for the first time in 170 years!

And indeed, extinction need not technically be forever: some rediscovered species had been formally declared extinct. These species are referred to as Lazarus species — for instance, the Miles’ robber frog was brought back from the dead after it was located in a Honduran cloud forest in 2008

The Miles’ robber frog was once thought extinct, but was rediscovered in Honduras. (Tom Brown), Author provided

Read more: Meet the Lazarus creatures – six species we thought were extinct, but aren't
Premature declarations

Incorrectly declaring a species extinct can have serious consequences. Potentially urgent conservation actions for the species in question stop, and in some cases, those conservation actions can help protect entire ecosystems.

Perhaps more importantly, crying wolf undermines the credibility of extinction as a label.

Beyond reasonable doubt is a conservative position, but it leaves us in a bit of a pickle. With our colleague, Andrew Fairbairn, we recently documented that surprisingly many species have not been seen in over 50 years, and remain in a sort of limbo between extant (species that are currently living) and extinct.

Putting species in limbo is not helpful. A 2019 report by the United Nations suggested that a million species are threatened with extinction (roughly 12 per cent of all species). The actual number of species that have been declared extinct by the IUCN seems, on the face of it, much less dramatic: only 85 mammals or less than 2% of that group, for instance.

Such a mismatch can, to put it mildly, sow confusion. And because more and more species are predicted to become extinct, discrepancies between the number of “going extinct” and the number of “gone extinct” species may become more of a problem.

The last confirmed sighting of an Eskimo curlew was in 1963. 

(Arthur Chapman), Author provided

In our study, we found that 562 terrestrial vertebrates — mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles — are currently stuck in lost species limbo, almost twice as many as the number declared extinct.

None of these have been declared extinct, but none have been reliably observed for at least 50 years. The famous ivory-billed woodpecker was last seen in 1944, although purported sightings continue to this day. And the last confirmed sighting of a Canadian species, the Eskimo curlew, was in 1963.

Read more: The 'Lord God Bird' might be extinct, but the story of the ivory-billed woodpecker isn't over yet

While most of these lost species are (or were) found in the tropics, they also hail from the United States, China, Australia and Canada, and include everything from tiny shrews and salamanders to dolphins and wild cattle.
Searching for proof

So what should be done about the confusing problem of lost species? Clearly, the answer is to go looking for them.

That is, of course, easier said than done. Many lost species live in remote ecosystems that are difficult to reach, like inaccessible rainforests or vast tundras. There are plenty of skilled field scientists who would love nothing more than to spend their time in under-studied ecosystems searching for lost animals, but funding to support such fieldwork is becoming increasingly scarce.

Confirming whether or not a species is extinct requires extensive and exhaustive searches of ecosystems that are often difficult to reach and search, like the Lambusango Forest in Indonesia.

 (Tom Martin), Author provided

Securing funding sources to support searches for lost species is therefore important. This could perhaps be helped by better awareness of and management of lost species as a group. While 50 years is an arbitrary measure, it might help focus attention by defining a clear list of candidate species.

We envision a scorecard of lost species, updated as time passes and species go on and come off when rediscovered or declared extinct.

We end with the full and depressing formal definition of extinct:

“a taxon is presumed Extinct when exhaustive surveys in known and/or expected habitat, at appropriate times (diurnal, seasonal, annual), throughout its historic range have failed to record an individual.”

We believe many lost species are not extinct, and so will be rediscovered. Each rediscovery will be cause for minor celebration and, we would hope, renewed attention and interest. But we really need to know, one way or the other.

Tom Martin, a conservation scientist with the Wild Planet Trust, and Gareth Bennett, an undergraduate student in biological sciences at Simon Fraser University, co-authored this article.

Author

Arne Mooers

Professor, Biodiversity, Phylogeny & Evolution, Simon Fraser University
Disclosure statement

Arne Mooers is a member of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, an independent federal body that makes recommendations to the Government as outlined in the Federal Species at Risk Act.

Elections in Brazil: Lula faces many challenges running against Jair Bolsonaro

THE CONVERSATION
Published: May 30, 2022 12.02pm EDT

The Brazilian presidential elections will be held on Oct. 2. With four months to go, the former president and figurehead of the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT), Lula da Silva, who made his candidacy official with great fanfare on May 7, is considered the favourite to defeat the incumbent, President Jair Bolsonaro, according to polls.

Should the vote go to a second-round runoff, polling shows 11 points would separate the two rivals. Lula, who was president from 2002 to 2010, still enjoys a high level of popularity, particularly in Brazil’s northeast. When he was running for re-election in 2018, the former metalworker built his campaign on the positive results of his previous terms in office using the slogan, “Make Brazil Happy Again.”

In the four years since Bolsonaro was elected, his government has had a dramatic effect on Brazilian society. His catastrophic handling of the COVID-19 pandemic made Brazil the world’s second-most bereaved country, with more than half a million deaths. Deforestation and illegal resource extraction in Indigenous territories reached record levels during his term. Bolsonaro’s hostility towards the judiciary and his clientelism, militarism and nepotism have permanently weakened Brazil’s already fragmented democracy.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro greets supporters as he arrives at the Labor Day and Freedom Day rally in Brasilia, May 1, 2022. His four years in power have produced dramatic effects on Brazilian society. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

As a doctoral student in political science specializing in the study of social movements in Brazil, I worked with Workers’ Party activists during the 2018 elections, among others. In this article, I revisit the main challenges Lula and the Workers’ Party face in the run-up to an election that will be decisive for a country that has become an international pariah since Bolsonaro came to power.

Impeachment, imprisonment and corruption scandals

In 2016, in what she would later call a parliamentary coup, President Dilma Rousseff was impeached for manipulating the federal budget deficit to help with her re-election. The Workers’ Party was subsequently pushed out of the executive branch in spite of its victory in the presidential elections two years earlier.

Many experts, both inside and outside Brazil have condemned the procedure as an undemocratic political changeover indicative of a worrying erosion of democracy.

Two years later, Lula ran for a third term in the 2018 presidential elections. but he was imprisoned for corruption only a few months before the election. And due to a dubious judicial process, notable for its speed, timing and lack of tangible evidence, Lula had to sit by and watch as his protégé, Fernando Haddad, qualified for a second round against Bolsonaro.

The judge who sentenced Lula to eight years in prison, Sergio Moro, confirmed his intentions to become a presidential candidate, but then suspended his campaign to join the conservative União Brasil party. Since Lula’s release in November 2019, after 580 days of imprisonment, he is faced with a Workers’ Party leadership that is now firmly associated with corruption and bad governance in the eyes of part of Brazilian society.

An ongoing operation to remove facilities used by the homeless and people addicted to drugs in downtown Sao Paulo, April 4, 2022. Sao Paulo’s homeless population increased by 30 per cent during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Bolsonaro government’s management of the pandemic was catastrophic. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

Loss of the Workers’ Party local base

The Workers’ Party is now deeply dependent on its national leaders, including Lula, who, at 76, is running in his seventh presidential campaign. Although the Workers’ Party still performs well at the national level (with five runoff qualifications, including four victories in presidential elections since 2002) and remains the main force of opposition to the government, the party has seen its local base erode since 2016.

In the October 2016 elections, the Workers’ Party won 254 municipalities, down from 644 in 2012. In 2020, the party won only 183 municipalities and no state capitals, a first since the end of military rule in 1985.

Faced with the loss of its local presence, the Workers’ Party, which is increasingly centralized around its leaders, no longer seems to be rebuilding itself from the bottom up or renewing its administration and supporter base.

A fire burns an area in the Alvorada da Amazonia region of Para state, Brazil, on Aug. 25, 2019. Deforestation has reached record levels during Jair Bolsonaro’s tenure. 

(AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Lula’s conciliatory strategy

Lula hopes to defeat the ex-military officer and far-right President Bolsonaro by building a broad democratic front around him. To that end, the Workers’ Party has renewed dialogue with some members of the Brazilian Democratic Movement, its centre-right ally until 2016 when it suddenly switched alliances.

Lula chose a historical rival, Geraldo Alckmin, as his running mate. Lula had faced Alckmin twice (in 2002 and 2018), when the latter was a member of the right-wing Brazilian Social Democracy Party. This strategy of conciliation with right-wing elites is a sign that the Workers’ Party agenda is becoming more liberal and confirms the party’s repositioning towards the centre of the political spectrum.

The Workers’ Party has also established an alliance with the far-left Socialism and Liberty Party, whose president, Guilherme Boulos, reached the second round of the 2020 municipal elections in São Paulo. On the other hand, no alliance seems possible at this stage with Ciro Gomes, a centre-left candidate who came third in 2018 with 12 per cent of the vote.

Voting intentions in the first round.

Towards a Lula-Bolsonaro polarization

On the opposing side, President Bolsonaro saw his approval rating drop to 19 per cent at the end of November 2021, notably because of his catastrophic management of the COVID-19 health crisis.

Since January 2022, as the pandemic has stabilized, the public’s voting intentions have risen slowly in Bolsonaro’s favour. Despite several setbacks, in particular the rise in fuel prices, the margin between the Bolsonaro and Lula is narrowing. With this in mind, Bolsonaro is rallying support among evangelicals to attract the religious vote.

Voting intentions in case of a second round Lula-Bolsonaro.

Since August 2012, Bolsonaro has repeatedly attacked the electronic voting system, even though it has been used in Brazil for 25 years, raising fears he will refuse to accept the result of the elections if he is defeated.

Analysts test the electronic voting system at the headquarters of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal in Brasilia, Brazil, on May 13, 2022. This year, the tests of the voting system are being closely watched as President Jair Bolsonaro questions the integrity of the system. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

So, despite a seemingly comfortable lead in the polls, five months before the deadline, Lula da Silva’s victory is far from guaranteed. To retain his lead, he will have to consolidate a heterogeneous alliance and constitute a truly democratic front around him, one that will be able to respond to a candidate who publicly criticizes the electoral and democratic processes, themselves. The reconstruction of the Workers’ Party and the renewal of its administration will have to wait.

Author

Jonas Lefebvre
Doctorant en science politique, Université de Montréal
Disclosure statement
Jonas Lefebvre worked with Workers' Party activists during the 2018 election.
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PHOTO Lula with activists of the Landless Movement, March 21, 2022. Though he is leading the incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro in the polls, Lula’s victory is not assured. (LulaOfficial)