Wednesday, June 08, 2022

‘It wiped us out’: history of US forest mismanagement fans the flames of disaster

Pola Lopez, with her dog Chiquita, contemplates the remains of a ponderosa pine grove on family property in Tierra Monte. 
Photograph: Michael Benanav/Searchlight New Mexico

Residents of the New Mexico canyon scorched by the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon fires blame the government for the acres they lost


Alicia Inez Guzmán for Searchlight New Mexico
Wed 8 Jun 2022 11.00 BST

The air smells of ash and the landscape is leached of color. Spots of green punctuate the valley floor in places. But along the ridges, the powdery residue of charred trees has fallen like snow, accumulating up to 4 inches deep. These are the slices of forest where the fire burned the hottest, scorching ponderosa pines from crown to root. Once titans, they are now matchsticks.

Pola Lopez gestures in their direction, southward toward Hermits Peak. Before a tsunami of flames ripped through this canyon in Tierra Monte, the canopy was so thick that it was impossible to see the nearby mountain. But two prescribed burns set by the US Forest Service (USFS) – one on Hermits Peak, the other in Calf Canyon to the south-west – have changed all that.

When the blazes merged to form the biggest wildfire in state history, flames engulfed nearly 160 acres (65 hectares) of riparian forest that once belonged to her father. “It wiped us out,” Lopez said.

Like so many in the devastation zone, she squarely places the blame on the USFS, not only for starting a prescribed burn in the windy month of April – when gusts reached 70 mpg – but for a century of conflict with rural communities. Known locally as La Floresta, the USFS is often seen as a feudal lord, a faraway government entity that has accumulated vast holdings with little idea of how to properly steward them or enough funds to do the job.

The community’s fury runs almost too deep for words, says Antonia Roybal-Mack, a Mora native whose family lost hundreds of acres to the fire. “Really pissed off is literally an understatement.”

Antonia Roybal-Mack, a lawyer and Mora native whose family lost hundreds of acres to the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon fires, expects to file a lawsuit on behalf of hundreds of plaintiffs. 
Photograph: Nadav Soroker/Searchlight New Mexico

In nearly two dozen interviews with people affected by the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon fires, the same sentiments emerge: the USFS has a history, locals argue, of mismanaging the forest. In particular, they say the agency has limited or prohibited people from the long-held tradition of collecting firewood and other timber, the kind of maintenance the forest needed. If they had been able to tend to it the way they had for generations, they believe the conflagration would have been far less devastating.

“The prescribed burn was the match,” says Roybal-Mack. “But the fuel was there for decades when they wouldn’t let people into the forest to collect vigas or firewood.”
Centuries-old harms


Embedded in the tension is the history of land grants in New Mexico, a system that allowed Spanish settlers, Indigenous peoples and others of mixed descent to obtain tracts of land at the edge of the northern frontier, during Spanish and Mexican rule. From the late 1600s forward, scores of these settlers were granted ejidos, or wildland and forest commons.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, a mostly Anglo cadre of speculators and profiteers began to claim ownership of the commons, using subterfuge and legal loopholes to essentially transfer the forests to private ownership or the federal government. Well over 1m acres (405,000 hectares) eventually ended up in the jurisdiction of the USFS, the University of New Mexico’s Land Grant Studies Program estimates.

Patrick Griego stands in what used to be a creek bed in the burn area on his property. Photograph: Nadav Soroker/Searchlight New Mexico

In today’s fire zone, the descendants of the dispossessed are among the Forest Service’s sharpest critics. They are joined in their distress by villagers, small-scale farmers, loggers, foragers of traditional food and medicine, Indigenous peoples and acequia parciantes, caretakers of the age-old irrigation ditches now compromised by flames. The USFS has fallen short of its commitment to the land and those who live alongside it, they say.



As the conflagration whips through public and private lands – as of 6 June, burning nearly 500 sq miles – anger, frustration and grief define the tenor at public forums, in evacuation centers and on social media. Some locals say that, if given the chance, they would have practiced far more sustainable forest thinning in partnership with the USFS, thereby lessening the impacts of a catastrophic fire. Others criticize the way fire crews heavily relied on backburning, a fire-suppression tactic that involves starting smaller fires to deprive a larger wildfire of fuel.

The Santa Fe national forest, for its part, is committed to working in tandem with local residents and sustaining “traditional communities, their cultures, traditions and values”, according to spokesperson Julie Anne Overton. “Collaboration and partnerships will continue to be the foundation for our work in managing our public lands,” she says.

But so fierce are the emotions and so profound the losses that Roybal-Mack, a lawyer who now lives in Albuquerque, expects to file a lawsuit on behalf of hundreds of plaintiffs, along with the firm Bauman & Dow.

The forests belong to the people, as San Miguel county commissioner Janice Varela puts it.

“We locals, we feel like, hell yes, it’s our forest,” says Varela, a longtime water activist. “Yeah, we let the forest service manage it and we let everybody in the world come here, but it’s our forest. We have ownership from our proximity to it, from our history and cultural connection to it, from our heart.”

Smoke rises from the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon fires in northern New Mexico. Photograph: Nadav Soroker/Searchlight New Mexico

‘It was Armageddon’


Chaos ensued when villagers from Mora were ordered to evacuate on 2 May, nearly a month after the fire began. “It was Armageddon,” says Travis Regensberg, a general contractor who towed his bulldozer in from Las Vegas to cut fire lines around homes.

The closest command center and evacuation center were 40 minutes away in Las Vegas. Everyone, especially the elderly, felt “defenseless and lost”, Regensberg says. There seemed to be no one in authority on the ground.

Anger reached yet another height in late May, when the forest service released the news that it was responsible for the Calf Canyon fire. A botched prescribed burn in January had turned it into a “sleeper fire” that smoldered for months before leaping to life in April and merging with the Hermits Peak inferno – also ignited by a prescribed burn gone wrong.

Back-burning, however, has caused the greatest enmity. To fight ferocious blazes, wildland firefighters are trained to set small back fires to burn grasses and other tinder, starving the larger blaze of fuel.

In Mora, back-burns were set without private property lines in mind, says Patrick Griego, the owner of a small logging business who stayed behind to protect his property. He saw several of his neighbors’ lands get back-burned and, determined to save his 400 acres (162 hectares) from a similar fate, cut an extensive fire line with his grader. The wildfire was still distant, he says. To his shock, wildland firefighters appeared one night and back-burned a swath of his property anyway. He recalls watching, seething and feeling helpless, as they set his land on fire. The flames shot 30 feet high in places. Forty acres (16 hectares) were gone in 15 minutes, he says.

“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say.” He calls the people who set the back-burn “arsonists”.

A hillside burned by the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon fires in northern New Mexico. Residents say back-burns were set without private property lines in mind.
 Photograph: Nadav Soroker/Searchlight New Mexico

Some residents say they’ve felt like sacrificial lambs, losing their land for what was arguably the greater good. The back-burns, they add, seemed to be excessive.

It’s not that back-burning isn’t helpful, says Isaac Herrera, the Guadalupita volunteer fire department chief, who himself lost 130 acres (53 hectares) to the fire. “It’s a great tool when done responsibly,” he notes. But Herrera believes there were times in recent weeks when it was “done irresponsibly and recklessly”, disregarding the deep knowledge of the terrain that he and other locals possess.

In response, managers of the wildfire-fighting effort say they had to make decisions amid the chaos. “We don’t want to burn up anybody’s timber,” says Jayson Coil, who oversees the Southwest Area Incident management team. “But there’s been a lot of choices that we’ve been forced to make about what’s most important to save.” Their first priority is to save homes, for example.

If the conditions had afforded firefighters more time and resources, Coil says – and if they’d had several choices at hand – “we would pick something different”.
The ever-present past

Recovering from the fire will depend to a certain extent on extinguishing pain from the past. And the past can seem omnipresent in northern New Mexico.

Over the past 60 years, intense conflicts have erupted over how the USFS has managed the forests, limiting people’s ability to graze livestock, hunt for food and repair acequia headwaters. Some of the protests are still talked about.

In 1966, land-grant activists occupied part of the Carson national forest, declaring that the land had been appropriated; a year later, they carried out an infamous armed raid on the Tierra Amarilla Courthouse, attempting to win the release of fellow activists.

Even a casual conversation in the fire zone can suddenly pivot to the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which promised – and failed – to protect the rights of land-grantees and allow them to keep their commons.

Today, almost one-quarter of the Carson and Santa Fe national forests are made up of former land-grant commons. In other parts of the state – in a district of the Cibola national forest, for example – a staggering 60% is made up of these commons, research shows.

Pola Lopez sits by a hole where a ponderosa pine was burned to ash by the fires. Lopez says she is most brokenhearted by the loss of the old-growth ‘grandfather trees’. Photograph: Michael Benanav/Searchlight New Mexico

The forest service has taken local needs into account, spokesperson Overton wrote in an email. For example, people with permits are allowed to cut firewood in designated areas, she notes. Many employees of the Santa Fe national forest are members of the community, she adds. “They grew up here, they have the same ties to community and cultural heritage as their neighbors.”

But today, this offers little comfort. Pola Lopez can still remember how her father, the late state senator Junio Lopez, made it his life’s mission to reunite the dispossessed with their land. He was unable to produce wide-scale change, however, and the purchase of the 157 acres (64 hectares) now blackened by the fire was a kind of consolation prize. That land, his daughter says, “became his sanctuary”.

In 2009, Pola had the property designated a conservation easement, to protect the forest from development for what she thought was perpetuity.

Now, the willows and scrubby oak are razed and the stream that once flooded the banks of the canyon are completely desiccated. But Lopez is most brokenhearted by the loss of the old-growth forest, the “grandfather trees”, as she calls them. Some were scorched so badly that only holes full of ash remain.

This story was originally published by Searchlight New Mexico and is posted here as part of an ongoing collaboration with the Guardian.
Cambodia, China Revamp Naval Base, Stoking US fears
June 08, 2022 
Agence France-Presse
 Cambodian navy personnel walk on a jetty in Ream naval base in Preah Sihanouk province during a government organized media tour, July 26, 2019.

Cambodia and China on Wednesday broke ground on a Beijing-funded project to revamp a naval base that the U.S. fears is intended for Chinese military use.

The Washington Post this week cited unnamed Western officials as saying the new facilities at Cambodia's Ream base -- strategically located on the Gulf of Thailand -- were being built for the "exclusive" use of the Chinese navy.

Both countries deny the allegation, with Phnom Penh saying the base's development is "not a secret."

Cambodian Defense Minister Tea Banh and Chinese Ambassador Wang Wentian were on hand Wednesday to see work commence on the new facilities including a boat maintenance workshop, two piers, a dry dock, slipway, and sand dredging for bigger ships to dock.

Heavy construction machinery was visible at the site.

"It is not targeted at any third party, and will be conducive to even closer practical cooperation between the two militaries, better fulfillment of international obligations and provision of international public goods," Wang said.

The project, paid for with a Chinese grant, also includes upgrading and expanding a hospital as well as donations of military equipment and repair of eight Cambodian warships, Tea Banh said.

"There are allegations that the modernized Ream base will be used by the Chinese military exclusively. No, it is not like that at all," the minister told several hundred people including foreign diplomats at the ceremony.

"Don't worry too much, the Ream base is very small... It won't pose a threat to anyone, anywhere."

The revamp will be finished in two years, another Cambodian official said.

Wang said it would deepen the iron-clad friendship between the two countries and help modernize the Cambodian navy.

The base has been a sore spot in U.S.-Cambodia relations for years, with Washington suspecting it is being converted for use by China as Beijing seeks to buttress its international influence with a network of military outposts.

U.S. embassy spokeswoman Stephanie Arzate said the United States and other countries in the region had "expressed concern about the lack of transparency on the intent, nature, and scope of this project," as well as China's role in its construction.

"An exclusive PRC military presence at Ream could threaten Cambodia's autonomy and undermine regional security," Arzate told AFP.

Concerns about the base go back as far as 2019, when the Wall Street Journal reported on a secret draft deal allowing Beijing to dock warships there.

Cambodia has since dismantled facilities at the base that were built partly with American money and played host to U.S. military exercises.

Cambodia and China deny naval base scheme as Australian PM voices concern

Cambodia says facilities at Ream naval base will not be for exclusive use of Chinese military, while Beijing denounces ‘malicious conjecture’

Satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows a Cambodian naval base in Ream, Cambodia, on 25 April 2022. 
Photograph: Planet Labs PBC/AP


Agence France-Presse
Wed 8 Jun 2022 

Chinese and Cambodian officials attended a ceremony for a controversial naval port expansion on Wednesday, dismissing reports that the base will provide a crucial strategic foothold for Beijing.

Officials broke ground at the Ream naval base, turning over shovels of dirt as work commenced on a China-funded renovation of Ream, Cambodia’s biggest naval base.

The Washington Post reported earlier this week that the new facility was being built for the “exclusive” use of the Chinese navy, citing unnamed western officials.

China has only one other foreign naval base, in the east African country of Djibouti, and a presence in Cambodia would mark a significant expansion of its military influence in the Indo-Pacific.

Both Cambodia and China have denied the reports. The Cambodian defence minister, Tea Banh, said on Wednesday that the base was very small and “won’t pose a threat to anyone, anywhere”.

“There are allegations that the modernised Ream base will be used by the Chinese military exclusively. No, it is not like that at all,” he said.

Washington has long suspected that Beijing will use Ream as a base, allowing it to strengthen its access to the contested South China Sea and expand its clout in the region. Last year, the US accused Cambodia of not being transparent about China’s involvement in the facility.

Australia’s new prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has also raised alarm, describing Cambodia’s reported arrangement with China as “concerning”.

The port expansion, which will reportedly be completed in two years, will include a boat maintenance workshop, two piers, a dry dock, slipway, and sand dredging for bigger ships to dock.

“It is not targeted at any third party, and will be conducive to even closer practical cooperation between the two militaries, better fulfilment of international obligations and provision of international public goods,” said China’s ambassador to Cambodia, Wang Wentian.

Wang added it would deepen the iron-clad friendship between the two countries and help modernise the Cambodian navy.

“China and Cambodia have become ironclad brothers, economical with words but generous in action, treating each other with all sincerity and standing side by side at challenging times,” he said.

The Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen, has for years denied that Cambodia could host a Chinese naval base, stating that the country’s constitution prohibits foreign military facilities.

Hun Sen, who has ruled the country for more than 37 years, has built close ties with China, and accepted billions of dollars in infrastructure loans and business deals with Beijing.

Cambodian warships are docked at Ream naval base in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Photograph: Heng Sinith/AP

Relations between Cambodia and the US, however, have become strained, as Washington has criticised his authoritarian leadership, and crackdown on opposition voices.

After the ceremony, the US embassy in Phnom Penh warned that a Chinese “military presence at Ream could threaten Cambodia‘s autonomy and undermine regional security”.

“The US and countries in the region have expressed concern about the lack of transparency on the intent, nature, and scope of this project as well as the role the PRC military is playing in its construction and in post-construction use of the facility,” an embassy spokesperson told the Associated Press.

The US has more foreign military bases than any other country, with hundreds around the world, including multiple facilities in the Asia-Pacific region.

Joe Ferrari: Ex-Thai police chief convicted of suspect killing




Wed, June 8, 2022

A former Thai police chief has been sentenced to life in jail after being found guilty of murder by torture, in a case that sparked national outrage over police brutality.

Thitisan Utthanaphon was nicknamed Joe Ferrari for his many luxury cars.

In August, he was arrested after a leaked video surfaced showing him and colleagues wrapping plastic bags around the head of a 24-year-old drug suspect during an interrogation.

The suspect later died.

On Wednesday, a Thai court found the 41-year-old guilty of murder by torture and sentenced him to death. However the death sentence was immediately reduced to life imprisonment.

The court cited his attempts to revive the suspect, Jirapong Thanapat, and that he had paid for the funeral expenses for the family.

Five of the six other officers involved in the interrogation were also convicted of murder and given life sentences. A seventh received a smaller sentence due to his testimony.

The father of the victim said he felt "helpless during the ruling, and my wife was crying," AFP news agency reported.

Jakkrit Klandi said outside the court on Wednesday: "All seven officers should learn their lesson and pay for their crime."

'I did not intend to kill him'


Footage of the brutal police interrogation went viral last year, prompting Thitisan to flee his post.

He later surrendered to police, and in a press conference organised by police, he claimed the suspect's death was an accident.

"I did not intend to kill him... I intended to get the information so I can destroy the drug business," he said.

The high rolling ex-police chief accused of torture

He also denied accusations that he had demanded a bribe from the suspect during the encounter.

According to local reports, the alleged torture occurred after the suspect was told to double a bribe that had been agreed for his release and that of his girlfriend.

He was ordered to pay 2 million baht (£46,000; $58,000) to have his charges dropped and was attacked when he refused, according to The Bangkok Post newspaper, which cited a whistleblower's complaint lodged with the police.

The case struck a nerve in Thailand where the police force has been accused of being incompetent and corrupt.

In the investigation into Thitisan after his arrest, authorities found that he lived in a luxury home in Bangkok, and estimated that he had amassed a fortune of at least 42 cars.

One of them was a rare Lamborghini Aventador Anniversario, of which only 100 were made, priced in Thailand at 47 million baht ($1.3m; £1.1m) - about a thousand times more than his monthly salary.

Thailand: Life sentences for police officers involved in torture

A police chief known as "Joe Ferrari" was among six police officers sentenced to life imprisonment for the torture death of a suspect.

The viral video showing the torture of a drug suspect caused outrage in Thailand and highlighted police brutality

A Thai court on Wednesday sentenced six police officers to life imprisonment for torturing and killing a drug suspect during an interrogation last year.

The case caused outrage in Thailand and provided a glimpse of the level of police brutality critics say is carried out on a regular basis.

Among the officers sentenced was police Superintendent Thitisan Utthanaphon, also known as "Joe Ferrari," whose opulent lifestyle is also under investigation.

Viral torture video exposed abuse

Utthanaphon was arrested along with the other officers in August after a video of the interrogation went viral.

The clip showed the interrogation of a 24-year-old drug suspect whose head was wrapped with seven plastic bags while being questioned.

The officers had also tried to extort $60,000 (€54,800) during the interrogation. The man died as a result of the torture.

Human rights groups say that police brutality remains a challenge in Thailand

The court had initially sentenced the policemen to death, but that was commuted to life sentences because attempts had been made to revive the suspect according to court records.

Utthanaphon was a police chief in Nakhon Sawan province and is also under investigation over the extent of his wealth. Luxury cars including a Lamborghini and Ferrari were discovered in a raid at his Bangkok residence.

Human rights observers skeptical of any change

Human rights groups said the verdict was an important development, but that abuse of power remains a significant challenge.

Phil Robertson is the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch and told AFP news agency that the sentencing of the officers was an "exceptional" case in Thailand.

"For every case like this, there are dozens more where police torture is covered up and victims and whistleblowers face retaliation, and police impunity to commit abuses is alive and well," Robertson said.

"This case may have put a temporary dent in the culture of police impunity in Thailand, but you can be sure that the overall system has not changed," he added.

kb/rs (Reuters, AFP)

Japanese man jailed for attacking Thai dissident with tear gas after breaking into his home

Former diplomat Pavin Chachavalpongpun, an associate professor at Kyoto University, suspects the attack was masterminded from Thailand

He writes books about the military and monarchy in Thailand, where criticism of the king is taboo – and his pro-democracy Facebook group has 2 million members

Agence France-Presse
Published 8 Jun, 2022

Thai academic Pavin Chachavalpongpun in a live video call in which he condemned Thailand’s government. Photo: AFP

A Japanese man was jailed for 20 months on Wednesday for attacking a Thai academic in Japan where he lives in self-exile following his vocal criticism of the military and monarchy.

The verdict was confirmed to AFP by the District Court in Kyoto, where former diplomat Pavin Chachavalpongpun has lived for the past decade.

Tatsuhiko Sato, 43, had last month admitted to breaking into Pavin’s home in 2019 and attacking the dissident and another person with tear gas, according to Japan’s public broadcaster NHK and other local media.

Pavin, an associate professor at Kyoto University, said he suspected the attack had been masterminded from Thailand.

“I truly believe that the Thai establishment is behind this because I have no enemies in Japan and have never took part in any political activity on Japanese soil,” the 51-year-old told AFP. “I am satisfied with the court’s verdict... However, the culprits behind this attack will still have to be pursued.”

Pavin has published books and other commentaries about the military and monarchy in Thailand, where criticism of the king is considered taboo. He is also an administrator of a Facebook group with more than two million members who discuss the royal family’s role in the country, as well as a pro-democracy movement’s proposals for reforms.

Thailand’s lese-majesty law is seen as one of the strictest in the world. Offenders can land up to 15 years in jail per charge for defaming, insulting, or threatening the king, queen, heir-apparent or regent.

At Sato’s first hearing last month, prosecutors sought two years in jail and argued it was a planned attack under an order from an accomplice, NHK said. Pavin said he did not know Sato and had not met him before the incident, which left the academic traumatised.

“The man could be linked to organised crime because there was a BMW waiting to pick him up,” he said. “I have had trouble sleeping at night. I also had to install at least five surveillance cameras in my house in addition to extra locks and an antitheft alarm.”


Pavin on a video call condemning the military-aligned government of Thailand’s Prime Minister. Photo: AFP

At least nine Thai dissidents who fled political persecution in Thailand have been forcibly disappeared in neighbouring countries in recent years, according to Human Rights Watch.

One of the most notable cases was the disappearance of pro-democracy activist Wanchalearm Satsaksit, who was abducted by armed men in broad daylight in Phnom Penh in 2020. He remains missing.

Pavin, who has been a thorn in the side of the army since it seized power in a 2014 coup, accused the military in 2016 of harassing his family in Thailand.

EU SOCCER SCANDAL; IN THE WEEDS

Revealed: Uefa safety consultant quit and expressed concerns in February

Steve Frosdick seriously unhappy with department’s direction

Zeljko Pavlica, close friend of Ceferin, took charge last year


Liverpool fans outside the Stade de France before Champions League final against Real Madrid. Photograph: Christophe Ena/AP

Exclusive by David Conn
Tue 7 Jun 2022 

Serious concerns were raised about Uefa’s safety and security department earlier this year when an English safety expert with decades of experience quit his role as a consultant for European football’s governing body.

Steve Frosdick, originally a Metropolitan police officer, has dedicated his career to stadium safety in British and European football since the 1990s and has multiple advanced professional qualifications. He resigned from his Uefa consultancy in February, after 11 years in which he was employed to enhance its expertise, incident monitoring, and development and training programmes.

He is said to have become seriously unhappy with the direction of the department which since last year has been headed by Zeljko Pavlica, a close friend of the Uefa president, Aleksandr Ceferin. Frosdick is said to have believed that Uefa’s professionalism, expertise and development were being undermined, and he rejected a proposal to revise his contract, that would have downgraded his role.

Frosdick’s resignation and criticisms came less than four months before serious safety problems beset Uefa’s two end-of-season showpiece events: the Europa League final, where Rangers fans complained there was no water in the heat of Seville, and the horrific chaos suffered by Liverpool and Real Madrid supporters at the Champions League final in Paris.

The revelation of Frosdick’s departure will add to growing concerns about Uefa’s safety operation, and perceived cronyism in the appointment of Pavlica, which Uefa rejects. The Liverpool supporters’ trust Spirit of Shankly, which is representing fans who suffered the excessive delays, police brutality and violent attacks in Paris yet were officially blamed by Uefa for the problems, has renewed its calls for a fully independent inquiry.

The safety and security department has a responsibility for the safe running of Uefa’s matches including finals, and has a leading role in efforts to strengthen good safety practices across European football. Pavlica, a former top-ranking security officer in his native Slovenia, was appointed to head the department last year after the retirement in February 2021 of the previous head of department for four years, Kenny Scott. A 30-year career officer with Strathclyde police up to the rank of chief superintendent, Scott was then head of security at Rangers from 2007 to 2010 and joined Uefa full-time in 2017.

Ceferin, a lawyer in Slovenia, and Pavlica, a former senior security officer for Janez Drnovsek when he was president of Yugoslavia and Slovenia, are said to have been friends for decades. Ceferin was best man at Pavlica’s 2018 wedding to Brigita, a former Olympic athlete representing Slovenia. Shortly after Ceferin won the election to become president of Slovenia’s football association in 2011, Pavlica was given his first job in football, working for the association as a safety and security officer.

Uefa has denied cronyism in his promotion to head its safety and security department, stressing that Pavlica stepped up from Slovenian national football to working for the Europe-wide confederation in 2014. That was an external, part-time role. Two months after Ceferin won the election to become Uefa president in September 2016, Pavlica was promoted to a permanent role at Uefa, as a security adviser.

A Uefa spokesperson said that Pavlica “is a well-respected name in the security business” and in football, and “had an excellent safety and security record with the Slovenian national team and served Uefa very well for more than eight years”. He was considered the “natural successor” to head the department, the spokesperson said, having worked alongside Scott, including on Uefa’s club and national team competitions.

The head of department vacancy was not externally advertised, nor was a benchmarking assessment carried out of Pavlica’s suitability for the very senior European safety role. The spokesperson explained that Uefa can make direct appointments when there is “an obvious solution internally”, that Pavlica’s promotion was part of “succession plans” and external assessments are not mandatory in Uefa regulations.

Steve Frosdick pictured at Celtic in 2015. He acted as a consultant for the club on their installation of rail seating. Photograph: SNS Group Alan Harvey/SNS Group

Frosdick was substantially involved as a consultant in Uefa’s training and development programmes and its incident monitoring system, which sought to learn detailed lessons from matches where safety had been put at risk and improve best practice. He is understood to have been invited to make a farewell presentation in a video meeting to Uefa colleagues on 18 February, and is said to have outlined criticisms, including alleging a decline in professionalism. Frosdick declined to comment.

Uefa argues that its expertise has improved since Pavlica’s appointment, not been undermined, saying it has hired proven safety and security experts, continued with training programmes despite the pandemic, and is working to improve incident monitoring. However the spokesperson confirmed that its stadium and security strategy programme, which ran from 2017, had not yet been renewed since it finished last year. Uefa’s description of the 2017–21 programme, which is still on its website, stated that it “drives Uefa’s efforts to keep ahead of the risks and incidents”.

Asked why the programme was not currently running, the spokesperson said it had been impossible to implement a new strategy because of the pandemic: “The next edition of the programme is currently under development and subject to approval by the Uefa stadia and safety committee at one of their next meetings.”

Joe Blott, the Spirit of Shankly chair, emphasised the demand for a fully independent investigation, amid questions, also asked directly by Liverpool, about the independence of the review Uefa announced two days after the final. Uefa appointed as chair the Portuguese politician Tiago Brandão Rodrigues, who has worked closely with Tiago Craveiro, a former chief executive of the Portuguese Football Federation, who is a senior adviser to Ceferin at Uefa.

“Liverpool supporters suffered horrendous experiences in Paris, and we are outraged that Uefa instantly, falsely put the blame on us,” Blott said. “It is now truly disturbing to learn of questions about cronyism, professionalism and the culture in Uefa’s safety department, and we need a fully independent investigation, including into Uefa itself and its running of matches.”

To questions about the events in Paris, specifically the apparently negative perception of Liverpool supporters as troublemakers in advance of the match, Uefa’s spokesperson said: “Due to the ongoing independent investigation, Uefa will not be commenting or disclosing any details on the matter for the time being.”
EU agrees ‘landmark’ 40% quota for women on corporate boards

Binding targets for boardroom gender equality come 10 years after proposals first made

The EU is also mandating a minimum 33% share of the ‘underrepresented sex’ in all senior corporate roles.
Photograph: John Fedele/Getty Images/Tetra images RF

Jennifer Rankin in Brussels
Tue 7 Jun 2022 

The EU has agreed that companies will face mandatory quotas to ensure women have at least 40% of seats on corporate boards.

After 10 years of stalemate over the proposals, EU lawmakers hailed a “landmark” deal for gender equality. As well as the legally binding target, companies could also be fined for failing to recruit enough women to their non-executive boards and see board appointments cancelled for non-compliance with the law.

From 30 June 2026 large companies operating in the EU will have to ensure a share of 40% of the “underrepresented sex” – usually women – among non-executive directors. The EU has also set a 33% target for women in all senior roles, including non-executive directors and directors, such as chief executive and chief operating officer.

In 2021 women occupied 30.6% of boardroom positions across the EU, but this varied widely across the 27 member countries. France, which has a 40% women-on-boards quota, was the only EU country to exceed that threshold, with 45.3% of boardroom seats occupied by women, according to the European Institute for Gender Equality.

Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium and Germany were the next best countries, with between 36% and 38% female participation in the boardroom; while fewer than one in 10 non-executive directors were women in Hungary, Estonia and Cyprus.

“All data show that gender equality at the top of companies is not achieved by sheer luck,” said Lara Wolters, the Dutch socialist MEP, who negotiated the law with EU governments. “We also know that more diversity in boardrooms contributes to better decision-making and results. This quota can be a push in the right direction for more equality and diversity in companies.”

National authorities, who are responsible for enforcing the directive, are empowered to impose fines. National courts can annul boardroom selections if a company breaks the law. The measures will not apply to companies with fewer than 250 employees.

The European Commission made its first proposal for a 40% quota on women on boards in 2012, but the plan was blocked by big member states including Germany and the UK.

In the UK, mandatory quotas were opposed by the then coalition Conservative-Liberal Democrat government, which preferred a voluntary approach led by Lord Mervyn Davies. That helped the UK become one of the best performers in Europe, with 39.1% of women sitting on FTSE100 boards by 2022, putting the UK second only to France in one international survey.

The Commission revived the draft law in 2020, after key countries shifted their position. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said: “After 10 years, since the European Commission proposed this directive, it is high time we break the glass ceiling. There are plenty of women qualified for top jobs: they should be able to get them.”
#MeToo film movement shifts from rhetoric to action


Eric RANDOLPH
Tue, June 7, 2022


As the MeToo movement evolves, the film industry is seeking practical ways to ensure its opposition to harassment and abuse is translated into tangible improvements.

Campaign group Time's Up UK is the latest to offer a concrete initiative, announcing plans for a panel of experts to hear complaints, similar to standards authorities for doctors, teachers and other professionals.

Currently, staff on movie productions often fear "that if they make a complaint against a senior figure, they will be devoured", Dame Heather Rabbatts, chair of Time's Up UK, told AFP.

The proposed three-person panel will include experts in harassment and abuse who can offer "help, mediation and investigation", she said.


The idea cuts both ways in the debate, seeking to counter those who say abuse allegations lead to people being "cancelled" before there has been a proper inquiry.

"We want to avoid trial by media. It doesn't help anybody," said Rabbatts.

"The independent standards body would have the highest levels of confidentiality and mitigate the problem of people being treated as though they are guilty until proven innocent."
- 'Profound distrust' -

The Hollywood Commission, set up in 2017 to tackle abuse in the US industry, is working on a similar panel, as well as an anonymous reporting platform to gather complaints.

France has also introduced practical measures, including insurance that covers the cost of a production being halted while a complaint is investigated.

Previously, "people spoke out but nothing happened because there was too much money involved to stop filming", said Iris Brey, a writer specialising in cinema and gender.

Since last year, the Centre National du Cinema has been running training courses in preventing and detecting sexual harassment -- mandatory for any film accessing France's generous subsidies.

Having more women on sets is also a crucial part of the battle.


Some companies, including Netflix and Amazon, now require productions to have diverse heads of department before a project gets green-lit.

But there is a long way to go.

Riley Keough, who happens to be Elvis Presley's granddaughter, won in the newcomer's Un Certain Regard section at last month's Cannes Film Festival with her first film, "War Pony".

She told reporters that, despite her fame, she and co-director Gina Gammell found it very difficult to raise funding.

"Many first-time male filmmakers are getting a lot more money than first-time female filmmakers," she said.

"There's a profound distrust in women being in positions of leadership. Maybe that isn't conscious but I see it happening."
- 'Unacceptable' -

France's prolific industry has a particularly high proportion of women directors but misogyny is still entrenched, said Reine Prat, who writes about gender and culture.

"An exception is made for culture," she told AFP. "Behaviour is permitted in this sector that is unacceptable elsewhere."


She highlighted Roman Polanski's best picture win at the 2020 Cesar Awards -- France's version of the Oscars.

This was despite fresh rape allegations against him, adding to his long-standing conviction for violently raping a 13-year-old girl, for which he remains a fugitive from US justice.

"We talk about separating the art from the artist but they were clearly paying homage to Mr Polanski himself," said Prat. "It was a green light to anyone who behaves that way."

The incident caused uproar, with French actress Adele Haenel -- herself the victim of abuse by a director when she was 12 -- pointedly walking out of the ceremony and the Cesar board resigning en masse in the aftermath.

Prat argues the rot starts at the top of French society, pointing to the three ministers in President Emmanuel Macron's governments who have been accused of rape.

But to complicate matters France's 50/50 Collective, which campaigns for gender parity in the film business, was recently torn apart after a board member was accused of sexually assaulting a woman at one of its meetings.

Real progress requires more fundamental change, says Brey.

"Nothing will change unless we question why desire is so often linked to domination. Questioning our desires is something men and women both need to do," she said.

"The cinema industry forms our images of sex and desire. That's why it's so important to have these conversations on film sets."

er/gil
Colombia's Beloved 'Doña Tuta' Is Shot Dead


Jesusita Moreno "Doña Tuta". | Photo: Twitter/ @AntisanaNews



Published 8 June 2022 

"She was the vindication of the rights of Black and Indigenous communities, which live overwhelmed by the armed conflict," the Inter-Church Justice & Peace Commission stated.

On Tuesday afternoon, Jesusita Moreno "Doña Tuta", a popular and beloved Black leader, was shot to death in Cali city.

RELATED:
Colombian NGO: 903 Leaders Killed During Duque Administration

"Doña Tuta was the vindication of the rights of the San Juan's Black and Indigenous communities, which live overwhelmed by the intensity and degradation of the armed conflict," the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission (ICHPC) stated.

"She received accusations, threats, and stigmas due to her forceful voice demanding respect for the peoples' lifes and territories. She was herself the voice promoting humanitarian agreements... She was the target of judicial set-ups due to to her community role. She managed to save hundreds of lives."

The attack against the 60-year-old Black leader occurred while she was leaving her son's house in the La Floresta neighborhood. Although Doña Tuta managed to be immediately transferred to a hospital, she lost her life due to the seriousness of her injuries.



After the crime, the National Police captured the alleged gunman, who would have a criminal history related to homicide, robbery, and prison escape.

"One day, the material and intellectual authors of her murder will recognize that she was only a concrete and real manager of peace," the ICHPC said, recalling that Doña tuta evidenced the different forms of the Colombian state's complicity in the structural violence against the poor.

"In her honor we continue to encourage and demand a Global Humanitarian Agreement and the construction of a Global Territorial Peace. Doña Tuta is a sign of the peace that the peoples of the Pacific deserve," it added.

 

Shock over murder of social leader Jesusita Moreno Mosquera in Cali‎












   
Jesusita Moreno Mosquera

‎Armed men broke into the house. 

She was a human rights defender in San Juan, in Chocó.‎

CALI
‎June 08, 2022

‎The murder of social leader Jesusita Moreno Mosquera, 60, inside a house in the La Floresta neighborhood‎‎ of ‎‎Cali has ‎‎shocked the community. ‎

‎According to the deputy commander of the Metropolitan Police of Cali, Colonel William Quintero, the case was registered on June 7. ‎

‎In the Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace they reported: "His forceful voice for the demand for respect for the life and territory of his communities ‎‎generated accusations, threats and stigmas against him‎‎. She was, in herself, the voice that led to humanitarian agreements to achieve respect for the Military Forces, gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AGC), and the ELN guerrillas."‎
‎ 
‎The human rights defender, according to the Interclesial Commission, would have been a woman warrior for her people. He saved hundreds of community lives because of his community role. ‎

‎They called her 'Doña Tuta' affectionately and she was part of the Noanamá community, in Itsmina, in Chocó. There he promoted different agreements with settlers. ‎
‎How was the crime that leaves a suspect in detention?‎

‎It was 5:50 p.m. on Tuesday, when ‎‎armed men forcibly broke into the house where the renowned social leader and human rights defender was.‎‎ ‎

‎Doña Jesusita had arrived a month earlier from the neighboring department, north of Valle del Cauca, and was staying at a son's house.‎

‎"Although she was transferred to a hospital, she lost her life due to the severity of her injuries," said the deputy commander of the Cali Police. ‎

‎He said that after the shooting,‎‎ the police in this part of the city activated an operation that allowed the capture of a man as an alleged aggressor. ‎

‎According to Colonel Quintero, the detainee has been investigated in the past for alleged crimes of homicide, qualified and aggravated theft, and escape of prisoners. 

‎But he clarified that, according to verifications carried out by the Judicial Police, "Mrs. Jesusita Moreno is not registered in the Integral System of Human Rights (Sideh)." ‎

‎And added: "The police institution has arranged all its intelligence and Judicial Investigation capabilities for the clarification of this unfortunate fact and the capture of those responsible." ‎

‎CALI‎

Jesusita Moreno, Doña Tuta, social leader of the San Juan River in Chocó murdered‎

Redacción Colombia 
© Provided by El Espectador

Jesusita Moreno "Tuta" was a reference in the San Juan del Chocó River. Since the nineties he showed his leadership in the community of Noanamá, Medio San Juan. During the last months he had been in charge of the humanitarian space in that area to protect the inhabitants from the intensification of the war in the region.

Last Tuesday, June 7, the social and Afro-Colombian leader Jesusita "Tuta" Moreno was murdered in a neighborhood of Cali, while celebrating the birthday of a son of hers with members of her family. Sources said the hitman came to the house and shot Moreno in front of his relatives. Moreno had left Chocó three weeks ago to treat a health problem in Cali, where some relatives live.

Since the nineties Jesusita Moreno was a recognized leader of the San Juan River in southern Chocó, where she lived most of her life. Tuta was a municipal registrar in Medio San Juan and also worked with the Regional Corporation of Chocó (CodeChocó), her parents had also exercised leadership in Noanamá, the corregimiento on the banks of the San Juan River where Jesusita was born and lived almost all her life. In recent years he managed a shop he owned near the village jetty.

In an episode of Travesía, the television program with which the journalist Alfredo Molano toured a good part of the most remote corners of the country, Doña Tuta appears still young, with a fresh and imposing smile, talking about the organizational process of her community and the collaboration between indigenous and Afro-Colombians in the struggle to defend their territory.

Read: Doña Tuta's smile: denunciation from the Middle San Juan

In those years the Peasant Association of the San Juan River (Acadesan) was consolidated, an organization that today has become the second largest community council in Chocó and the country. These were the times when black communities fought for the titling of their ancestral territories and the right to self-determination, as Jesusita Moreno told Alfredo Molano: "We are already aware of the problem we have and we all fight, right now we fight for ours: our territory, which is the most important thing for us."

Just when the black communities began to receive their first collective titles, it was when the invasion of the armed groups into their territories began, first the paramilitary takeover by the Atrato River and the confrontation between the FARC and the self-defense groups in the San Juan River. Now, the dispute over drug trafficking routes and large mining resources, in which criminal groups, rearmed paramilitaries and the last ELN strongholds that still today are present in Chocó intervene.

See also: In Unión Chocó only the dogs remained

Jesusita Moreno worked as an intermediary with the armed groups that occupied the area after 2000 after the arrival of the FARC and paramilitaries in her region, where the ELN had maintained a sporadic presence since the eighties. The leader always acted in defense of the communities and demanding respect for life, that she did until three weeks ago, when she left the San Juan River, where she was leading a humanitarian initiative.

Her work of intermediation was key for the release of former congressman Odin Sanchez, kidnapped by the ELN, as she told journalists of this newspaper in October 2021, when Colombia+20 toured the San Juan River documenting the humanitarian crisis that plagues the region. Tuta also made efforts to reach out for a possible release of Tulio Mosquera, the mayor of Alto Baudó kidnapped by the ELN, efforts that never materialized. Mosquera died in the hands of that guerrilla last year in circumstances that have not yet been clarified.

In recent months, Jesusita Moreno was at the head of the Humanitarian Space in her town of Noanamá, where more than three hundred inhabitants arrived displaced from several hamlets of the river due to the fighting between the Agc and the ELN on February 22, in the midst of an overflowing humanitarian crisis that still continues in southern Chocó.

Colombia+20 covered these events and spoke with Tuta in the last week of February, who assured that the situation was critical and the only hope of the communities was that the bishops of Chocó would hold a frustrated meeting with President Iván Duque. "God willing that there is a solution out there and we can have peace of mind," the leader had told this newspaper.

The fighting between the AGC and the ELN persists in the San Juan River, with a serious toll on Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities. In the last week of May, it emerged that an ELN attack had left a dozen AGC fighters dead in the vicinity of Negria. No institution was present to carry out the lifting of the bodies, which had to be buried several days later by the same inhabitants in a common grave. It was around the same time that Tuta Moreno left the San Juan River for Cali.

The authorities have not yet commented on the motives for his murder. "Very serious, the situation is very hard," said another Chocó leader who prefers to keep her name in reserve, who added: "nobody knows anything." In 2019, Tuta Moreno had denounced threats and fabrications against her for her work of humanitarian intermediation.

These denunciations were published by this newspaper in a profile written by the reporter and photographer Ramón Campos Iriarte, who made one of the last photographs of her, where she is already tanned over the years but with the same joy and powerful laughter with which she received Alfredo Molano on his journey along the San Juan River.

THE RULING CLASS FEAR

Millionaire presidential candidate wary of class war in Colombia

AFP - Yesterday 
© Raul ARBOLEDA

Rodolfo Hernandez, a millionaire businessman and ex-mayor under investigation for corruption, has made poverty and government graft the focus of his campaign for the Colombian presidency.

Hernandez, 77, finished in a surprise second place in a first election round on May 29 and will face leftist former Bogota mayor Gustavo Petro in a runoff on June 19.

At a meeting last week with fellow businessmen in the northeastern city of Bucaramanga, his political stronghold, Hernandez warned that growing inequality could lead to a class war in Colombia.

"If these guys (the poor) one day decide to come for us, there won't be enough trees to hang us from," he told industrial-scale palm growers.

"We need to live as brothers. I am not saying equals, because that we will never be, it is impossible. But yes, we must improve the lot of the poor," he said.

Poverty affects nearly 40 percent of Colombia's 50 million people, who largely blame corruption and nepotism for their plight.

In an interview after the meeting, Hernandez told AFP how he sees the problem and what he intends to do about it with his small Anti-Corruption League party holding only two seats on Colombia's near 300-member Congress.

Q: Is there a class struggle in Colombia?

A: "There is no class struggle, but there could be one.

"In a country where 22 million of our 50 million people live in conditions of poverty and extreme misery, it would not be strange for any given political activist to foment a revolt rather than think about how to bring those 22 million into the economic fold. "

Q: How can it be avoided?

A: "By getting politicians to stop stealing. While people pay taxes (politicians) are increasing the country's debt, doing tax reforms and not solving the problems.

"It means these political administrators must be expelled and imports must be reduced in favor of (domestic) job creation...

"Everything is about (global) competitiveness and that is what we have to do. We have the water, we have the people, we have everything, but these politicians don't give them the chance."

Q: Your rival has also proposed limiting imports. What makes you the man to do it?

A: "The others (politicians) have not worked. When have you ever seen a politician working, producing? The politician is fixated on the payroll, applying a form of bureaucracy called nepotism. That is what has destroyed us. I want to make one proviso: Not all politicians are bad, but almost all."

Q: In your opinion, what caused last year's anti-government protests?

A: "This is not a class struggle but about politicians ignoring the demands of the people. What did the people in Cali ask for? Free, high-quality education and jobs. The government did not listen and was pushed until it all exploded and 100 people died.

"In the end, the president agreed to everything they had asked for, but too late. Why did we not act beforehand? It's like in football: anticipation. The government has to anticipate problems, not wait for them to hatch, because then it hits out, and people die."

(Note: According to the UN, 46 people died during the protests, 28 at the hands of the security forces.)

Q: What will you do if you cannot pass laws through Congress?

A: "That is not important as long as we have public opinion... A democratic debate, that is what we need. No violence, only reason and the law. Politicians who feel watched by citizens will approve everything, they are cowards."

Hernandez: Colombia's Anti-graft Candidate With A Checkered Past

By AFP News
06/08/22

In October 2015, volunteers flooded an impoverished neighborhood of Bucaramanga in northeast Colombia with thousands of pamphlets promising free houses if Rodolfo Hernandez, a millionnaire engineer, were elected mayor.

He won the election, but the free houses never came. Now, Hernandez is running for his country's top job.

"Rodolfo came here with pure lies. And now he wants to be president?" said Paulina Figueroa, a housewife in the targeted neighborhood, El Pablon, shaking her head.

She still holds on to Hernandez's pamphlet, but told AFP that instead of getting a house, she had to take out a loan, which she pays off with half her meager monthly income, to build herself a shack of wood and zinc.

"Just another unfulfilled promise by a cheap politician," added 57-year-old community leader Jaime Nunez, who received the same flyer and voted for Hernandez but continues to pay rent for squalid, crowded lodgings.

Despite failing to deliver on his ambitious promise, Hernandez remains popular among many in Bucaramanga, admired for his brashness and for building sports stadiums in poor areas during his 2016-2019 term.



Rodolfo Hernandez is a millionnaire engineer and former mayor 
Photo: AFP / Raul ARBOLEDA

He donated his mayoral salary to social causes and lived from his self-stated fortune of $100 million.

Hernandez was suspended as mayor for intervening in local elections, and resigned shortly before the end of his term.


In the rest of the country, he is known for another act as mayor: slapping an opposition councilman during a disagreement on camera.

Photos of a smiling Hernandez adorn many walls, cars and even restaurants in Bucaramanga.

Paulina Figueroa said she was promised a free house, but had to take out a loan to build one instead
 Photo: AFP / Raul ARBOLEDA

"Rodolfo faced a corrupt political class that had practically enslaved the city, and defeated it. That's why people love him," said Felix Jaimes, a fellow engineer who was Hernandez's mayoral adviser.

When Hernandez won the mayorship, he unseated a political class that had governed for decades with his anti-elite stance and promises of social upliftment.

He now aims to do the same with the Colombian presidency.

Hernandez, who goes by the moniker "The Engineer," made a surprise second-place finish in a first round of voting on May 29.

He will face leftist Gustavo Petro in a runoff on June 19.

Opinion polls show a tie between the two men, despite Petro having been by far the favorite ahead of the first round and Hernandez a distant third.

Rodolfo Hernandez, 77, has 600,000 followers on TikTok
 Photo: AFP / Juan BARRETO

Jaimes claimed the Bucaramanga city council, where Hernandez had no political majority, blocked his plan to deliver 20,000 free homes.

But not everyone is convinced about The Engineer's good intentions.

In a folder, retired army sergeant Saul Ortiz carries evidence of what he calls a "scam" against hundreds of military families who bought into a housing construction project run by a Hernandez company, before he was mayor.


Ortiz told AFP that in 1995, he began to pay off a house in Bucaramanga, but claimed that over time, the company charged him about 30 percent more than the initial price.

"The majority of homeowners lost their homes as they were unable to pay this overcharge," he said.


Ortiz said he was one of a few to obtain relief from the courts and get the excess payments back. He showed AFP documents backing his claims.

But his house flooded in 2005, the project having been constructed too close to the riverbed, he said -- another allegation for which he holds documented proof.

"The neighborhood was completely flooded, there was tons of mud, cars were damaged; people lost everything... they did not compensate us," he said.

Containment walls are now being constructed at the state's expense.

Hernandez "is not who he claims to be... he is just another corrupt politician, one of those who have Colombia mired in poverty," said Ortiz


Hernandez has focused his campaign largely on combating poverty, which affects some 39 percent of Colombia's 50 million people.

He has vowed not to raise taxes, to cut VAT from 19 to 10 percent and to boost social spending by shrinking bureaucracy.

Hernandez blames government corruption for much of Colombia's deep-seated economic inequality, but is himself under investigation for "undue benefits" given to third parties when he was mayor.

Despite his checkered past, Hernandez appears to have a real shot at the presidency, with traditional parties throwing their weight behind him to defeat Petro in a country deeply suspicious of the political left.

Unlike Petro, Hernandez has made no campaign tours and gives no public speeches.

Instead, the self-proclaimed "King of TikTok" speaks directly to his electorate via the social media platform -- where he has almost 600,000 followers -- and Facebook broadcasts.
Hi-tech herd: Spain school turns out 21st-century shepherds


Diego URDANETA
Tue, June 7, 2022,


Gripping a sheep firmly between her legs, Vanesa Castillo holds its head with one hand while she tries to shear off its thick fleece with electric clippers.

"It's scary!" said Castillo, 37, slightly unnerved by her first attempt at sheep shearing at a school for shepherds in western Spain.

"You have to pull the animal's skin taut, really slowly, so you don't cut it," explained Jose Rivero, the professional sheep shearer giving the course.

Sheep shearing is just one of the classes offered at the school in Casar de Caceres in rural Extremadura to counter the flight from the land that has left large swathes of inland Spain thinly populated.
- ADVERTISEMENT -


Set up in 2015, the idea was "to bring in people who love the countryside", said Enrique "Quique" Izquierdo, who runs the school.


It aims to provide all the training and resources needed to create "a shepherd for the 21st century... with the most up-to-date methods in a sector where the traditional and the cutting-edge merge."

Much of Spain's sheep and goat farming is concentrated in rugged Extremadura. The school at Casar de Caceres is one of several across the country, the first set up in the northern Basque Country in 1997.
- Tech and tradition -

"The traditional image of a shepherd wandering through the fields all day" doesn't exist any more, said Jurgen Robledo, a vet who said the students are taught how to use many hi-tech tools including milk control programmes.


This year, 10 students are taking the five-month course which also includes hands-on experience of working with animals.

Thibault Gohier, 26, is learning how to milk goats and to identify whether any of them are sick, which could affect the quality of their milk.

"You need to use your fingertips as if they were your eyes," said Felipe Escobero, who heads the farm where the school is based, as they feel a black goat's mammary lymph nodes at the top of the udder.

When they're healthy, "they should feel like an almond", Escobero added.

The course also covers financial matters and how to fill out certificates attesting to animal welfare or pesticide use.

Completely free, it is funded by the Cooprado livestock farmers' cooperative.

Vet Robledo said modern hi-tech tools mean shepherds can now "measure the individual (milk) production of each animal.

"Such data can let a farmer see if production has dropped due to a subclinical mastitis infection by detecting a drop in production in a certain number of animals."


Unlike normal mastitis, such infections don’t cause any visible changes to the milk or udder appearance, making them difficult to detect, although they do affect the farmer's bottom line by reducing milk production and quality.
- Different backgrounds -

Some students already work in farming and want to specialise, while others are completely new to the field, such as Vanesa Castillo, who is taking the course with her 17-year-old daughter Arancha Morales.

Originally employed at an old people's home until it shut down two years ago, leaving her scrambling for work, her dream now is to have a sheep farm.

"We're looking for a way to bring home some money," said her daughter, whose father can't work after having an accident.

Both women know they face an uphill battle, above all to find an affordable piece of land for their flock, a common problem across Extremadura.

Thibault Gohier comes from a very different background.


A young Frenchman who loves animals and the countryside, his dream is to have "a bed and breakfast with a small farm attached with about 30 animals" in a mountainous area of France.

As the other students are learning to shear, El Ouardani El Boutaybi is feeding dozens of restless goats who are scampering around a pen.

"I did the shepherds' school and all the practical courses in June 2020... and then they took me on to work with them," said the 20-year-old, who comes from the coastal town of Nador in northeastern Morocco.


He got to Spain in 2017 after crossing the fence into the Spanish enclave of Melilla in North Africa, where he spent time in a centre for unaccompanied minors before being transferred to the peninsula.

"I've got a future working in the countryside," he said proudly.

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