TO LOOT ANGOLA MORE

The daughter of Angola’s former president José Eduardo dos Santos considers running for president

Isabel Dos Santos, daughter in exile of the recently deceased former president of Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos, has announced that she does not rule out the possibility of running for the country's presidency.


Archive - Angolan businesswoman Isabel dos Santos, daughter of former Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos, is the daughter of Angola's President José Eduardo dos Santos. -

 PEDRO GRANADEIRO / ZUMA PRESS / CONTACTOPHOTO© Provided by News 360

In an interview granted to the German channel Deutsche Welle, Dos Santos emphasized that she wants to "serve" her country and that if she ever had "the possibility" to put Angola "in a better place" and give it "the focus it needs", she would be willing to take that step.

"If someday I have the opportunity to return to my country, a better country, and help my country to have the vision it needs, to build, yes, I will take that step and I believe that many people will be with me because we are another Angola, we have other ambitions and we need another political future," Dos Santos said.

Dos Santos has become one of the main targets of the judicial authorities of the country her father once presided over. However, she considers that it is nothing more than a "commission" from the State for "political reasons".

"I am not the target of several judicial processes in several countries as it is being said. That statement is not correct", said Dos Santos, who accused the government of Joao Lourenco of "manipulating" and "placing in the hands" of the press "information that was not true".

Dos Santos referred to the investigation known as 'Luanda Leaks' as a "gross manipulation" of the State against her. According to this information, the daughter of the former Angolan president, as head of the state-owned Sonagol, obtained lucrative contracts from the oil, diamond and telecommunications industries during the presidency of her father Dos Santos.

The Prosecutor's Office accuses Dos Santos, who became the richest woman in Africa according to 'Forbes', of causing losses to the State amounting to more than 5 billion dollars during the 38 years of her father's government. As a consequence of these investigations, her assets in Angola and Portugal have been frozen.

Dos Santos' statements come a few days after Interpol allegedly issued an arrest warrant for her, according to the Portuguese news agency Lusa, for crimes of embezzlement of public funds, although sources close to the businesswoman denied that they were aware of this warrant.

NIMBY
Boyle Street Community Services relocation plan halted by development appeal board

Story by CBC/Radio-Canada •

A plan by Boyle Street Community Services to move to a new facility two blocks north of its current home in the city's core has been halted by Edmonton's subdivision and development appeal board.


A rendering of a new home for Boyle Street Community Services. A renovation is planned to turn a property two blocks north of its current site into a built-for-purpose space for the organization that serves vulnerable Edmontonians.© Boyle Street Community Services

In a decision issued Friday, the board revoked the development permit for the facility, citing zoning issues.

"The board is of the opinion that the proposed development does not conform with the use prescribed for the site," the decision says.

Boyle Street wants to move from its current location in a former banana-ripening warehouse to a vacant building at 10010 107A Ave.

Once renovated, the $28.5-million facility would serve as a new headquarters for the social agency, which serves homeless Edmontonians and other vulnerable populations in the city.

In a statement, Boyle Street staff said Friday's decision was deeply disappointing.

Arguments made by the appellants to the development board intentionally "mischaracterized the services provided by Boyle Street and vilified those they serve," the statement said.

'Desperately needed'

Boyle Street said that in the the last year, it has provided mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health services to more than 7,000 people, the majority of whom are experiencing homelessness.

"This decision will result in a delay in the construction of okimaw peyesew kamik — King Thunderbird Centre and will mean that lifesaving services desperately needed in the core of Edmonton will be impeded," the social services agency said in the statement.

The proposal to move the facility has faced vocal opposition from some residents, business owners and community groups who say the McCauley neighbourhood is already at a tipping point due to a high concentration of social services in the area.

Proposed use doesn't conform with zoning, board says

In its decision, the development appeal board said the proposed facility, which would include a day shelter and cultural services, does not conform with the prescribed land uses for the property.

The facility would have a much broader service model than what is allowed under the current zoning for the property, the board said.

"The proper characterization of the activities that will occur on the site include recreational, social, arts, and other multi-purpose cultural activities intended for local community purposes," the decision says.

"This is not to say that these activities are not essential to the well being and health of the public. On the contrary, these are instrumental activities to every person's well-being.

"However, these activities do not fit the definition of health services in the bylaw and that use definition should not be expanded so liberally to encompass these activities. To do so would render entire other classes of uses within the bylaw irrelevant."

The proposed use is more appropriate for land zoned for community centres, the board said.

The city approved the development permit in September. However, 15 appellants challenged the city's decision. The appeal was heard Nov. 10.

Opponents of the project include the Chinatown and Area Business Association, the Chinese Benevolent Association and parents of children who attend the Victoria School of the Arts, located nearby.

Agency vows to explore 'all avenues'

Boyle Street said it plans to proceed with construction of the new facility and will be "exploring all avenues" to ensure renovations proceed.

Decisions issued by the development board can be contested at the Alberta Court of Appeal.

"Over the 50-year history of our organization, we have experienced numerous challenges. This decision represents another challenge which we will undoubtedly overcome," executive director Jordan Reiniger said in a statement.

"We owe it to those we serve, our countless supporters, and our city to make sure this delay does not prevent us from moving forward in creating a purpose-built facility for those we serve who are put at the most risk in our society."

Boyle Street's current facility functions as a community centre where people can access housing specialists, counsellors, family services and medical care. The centre also provides street outreach services, mobile addictions treatment and mental-health outreach workers.

The agency has been searching for a new home for about seven years and the new site was prompted as a much-needed upgrade to the current site.

It recently held a news conference to announce that it has raised more than 75 per cent of its $28.5-million fundraising goal for the new space.

The new 2.5-acre property, purchased in a deal with the Edmonton Oilers, has a main building with 75,000 square feet of space and an existing 38-unit apartment building where suites rent at below-market rates.

The proposed centre has an Indigenous-informed design, a ceremonial space and a private courtyard would allow clients to gather inside the facility, instead of on the street outside.

Renovations were expected to start next month. The new centre was expected to open in October 2023.

REACTIONARY PARLIAMENT VS CASTILLO
Pedro Castillo swears in Betssy Chávez as Peru’s new prime minister

The President of Peru, Pedro Castillo, has sworn in Betssy Chávez as the country's new Prime Minister on Friday, replacing Aníbal Torres, who resigned from the post after the failure of a question of confidence in the Andean Parliament.


Peru's Prime Minister, Betssy Chávez - MINISTERIO DE CULTURA© Provided by News 360

Chávez, until now Minister of Culture, will thus serve as the fifth Peruvian head of government under Castillo, who took the reins of the presidency just over 16 months ago, in July 2021.

Castillo will have to appoint in the next hours the rest of the ministerial Cabinet in what is already a new change of course of a particularly convulsed national politics, marked in the last months by the incessant motions of censure and voluntary departures of ministers.

Even the president himself has the Peruvian Justice and Public Prosecutor's Office behind him, the latter a body that accuses him of leading a criminal organization for alleged corruption.

The latest episode of Peruvian political instability occurred on Thursday night when Torres resigned after the Congress refused to modify the law limiting referendum calls in the country.

"After this express refusal of confidence, with the expression of 'full rejection', and having accepted the resignation of the 'premier', whom I thank for his concern and work for the country, I will renew the Cabinet," Castillo reiterated in a televised speech.

With just over nine months in office, Aníbal Torres has been the longest-serving prime minister of the Peruvian Executive since Pedro Castillo was sworn in as president. He was preceded by Guido Bellido, with a little more than two months at the head of the government; Mirtha Vásquez, prime minister for almost three months; and Héctor Valer, who was in office for barely a week.

Chile's Atacama Desert is a graveyard for the world's junk

Story by Stacy Liberatore For Dailymail.com • 

Chile's Atacama Desert is a barren landscape that has become a graveyard for the world's garbage, and the mountains of clothes, cars and shoes could hinder scientific advances in space.

This is one of the Earth's driest regions, but scientists have found microorganisms adapting to the near waterless world that could provide clues on how to find life on similar planets, specifically Mars.

This research is endangered because Atacama is a hub for secondhand and unsold clothing from the United States, Europe and Asia - more than 46,000 tons of clothes were dumped in the desert last year.

Used cars also flood the country from the free trade zone only to be stacked in the desert, while piles of abandoned tires are scattered across the landscape.

'We are no longer just the local backyard, but rather the world's backyard, which is worse,' Patricio Ferreira, mayor of the desert town of Alto Hospicio, told AFP.



The Atacama Desert is drowning in the world's garbage. There are mountains of unsold or secondhand clothes piled up across the dusty landscape© Provided by Daily Mail


Used cars also flood the country from the free trade zone only to be stacked in the desert. Scientists are not only concerned about the damage to the environment, but the trash could destroy research© Provided by Daily Mail

The Atacama Desert is nestled between the Andes and the Chilean Coast Range, which blocks moisture from traveling inland from the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

And although it is one of the driest places on Earth, one million people call the desolate landscape home.

But Chile's massive Atacama Desert is a unique and fragile ecosystem that experts say is being threatened by piles of trash dumped there from around the world.

The fast fashion industry is a primary culprit in the mountains of clothes sprawling over the once barren hills.

Full of chemicals and taking up to 200 years to biodegrade, activists say the clothing pollutes the soil, air and underground water.

'The material is highly flammable. The fires are toxic,' said lawyer and activist Paulin Silva, 34, who has filed a complaint at the country's environmental court over the damage caused by the mountains of trash and clothing.

'It seems to me we need to find those responsible,' she said, standing amid the discarded items which she said were 'dangerous, an environmental risk, a danger to people's health.'



There are microorganisms that have adapted to the harsh environment, and scientists believe these lifeforms could help them find life on Mars, which has a similar landscape. But the thousands of tires could suffocate any life in the desert© Provided by Daily Mail


Pictured is lawyer and activist Paulin Silva, 34, who has filed a complaint at the country's environmental court over the damage caused by the mountains of trash and clothing. Here she is, rummaging through a dusty mountain of clothes© Provided by Daily Mail


This research is endangered because Atacama is a hub for secondhand and unsold clothing and shoes from the United States, Europe and Asia - more than 46,000 tons of clothes were dumped in the desert last year© Provided by Daily Mail

Combined with the heaps of cars and tires, the environment is drowning in trash.

Ferreira lamented a 'lack of global awareness, ethical responsibility and environmental protection' from 'the unscrupulous of the world.'

'We feel abandoned. We feel that our land has been sacrificed,' she said.

The driest part is the Yungay district in the city of Antofagasta, and while plants and animals are scares, scientists have found microorganism thriving.

These tiny life forms have evolved to adapt to a lack of water, high levels of solar radiation and nearly no nutrients.

To the average person, their ability to survive may not be interesting, but to scientists, these life forms could harbor secrets to evolution and survival on Earth and other planets.

NASA considers the Yungay district Earth's most similar landscape to Mars and uses it to test its robotic vehicles.



'We are no longer just the local backyard, but rather the world's backyard, which is worse,' Patricio Ferreira, mayor of the desert town of Alto Hospicio, told AFP © Provided by Daily Mail


Chile's massive Atacama desert is a unique and fragile ecosystem that experts say is being threatened by piles of trash dumped there from around the world© Provided by Daily Mail

In 2017, the American space agency tested an early model of its Perseverance rover, which is currently searching for ancient signs of life on the Red Planet.

Because the landscape is similar to Mars, the drilling capabilities of the rover were tested in the desert to ensure they would work on the Martian planet.

And the UV exposure in the Atacama is also closely matched to what the rover is enduring.

While the desert does not receive much rain, large banks of fog roll across the desert, allowing some plants -- and some of the world's hardiest lichens, fungi, and algae --to grow.

Scores of brightly colored wildflower species bloom when it gets above-average rain in a spectacular display that happens every five to seven years, most recently in 2021.

It is an ecosystem that is 'very fragile because any change or decrease in the pattern of precipitation and fog has immediate consequences for the species that live there,' said Pablo Guerrero, a researcher at the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity and expert in desert cactus.

'There are cactus species which are considered extinct' due to pollution, climate change, and human settlement.

Montreal hate-speech trial hears debate on whether Nazism directly caused Holocaust

Story by Erika Morris • 

What started as a hate-speech trial of alleged Montreal neo-Nazi recruiter Gabriel Sohier-Chaput turned into a debate on whether knowledge of the Holocaust is beyond reasonable dispute Friday.

Gabriel Sohier-Chaput walks the halls of the courthouse in Montreal on Monday, Feb.28, 2022

.© Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press

On July 8, defence lawyer Hélène Poussard argued people now throw around the word Nazi outside of its original meaning, and "genocide wasn't originally central to Nazism."

She doubled down on the argument today, saying the prosecution should have brought forward witnesses and experts to define Nazism.

While Sohier-Chaput, 36, scrolled on his phone in the prisoner's box, his lawyer argued the prosecution had put forward a dozen inflammatory headlines as proof, but not the articles themselves, making the proof incomplete.

Sohier-Chaput, who has admitted to writing between 800 to 1,000 articles for the far-right online publication the Daily Stormer under the pseudonym Zeiger, has pleaded not guilty to a single count of wilful promotion of hate propaganda against Jewish people.

If convicted, he could face up to two years in jail.

'Non-stop Nazism everywhere'

The case hinges on a single article entitled "Canada: Nazis Trigger Jews By Putting Up Posters On Ch--k Church," using a racial slur to refer to the Asian community.

Using antisemitic memes and editorial comments, the article celebrated neo-Nazi posters pasted on a bus stop in British Columbia and insulted a Holocaust survivor who had been interviewed about the incident.

"We need to make sure no SJW [social justice warrior] or Jew can remain safely untriggered," Sohier-Chaput wrote in the article.

"Non-stop Nazism, everywhere, until the very streets are flooded with the tears of our enemies."

Testifying in his own defence on March 1, Sohier-Chaput said he was using satire that young people familiar with online culture would understand. His goal, he said, was to use humour to end political correctness.

The Crown had argued the phrase "non-stop Nazism everywhere" was inciting violence against Jewish people since Nazism led to the Holocaust. It also argued the Daily Stormer was a neo-Nazi publication, pointing to images of Adolf Hitler and Swastikas pasted all over its homepage.

Poussard pointed to various dictionary definitions of Nazism, which she says aren't precise enough to support the argument that her client was inciting hatred. She said no clear evidence was brought forward to prove Nazis saw Jewish people as inferior.

"What we need to analyze is words and be careful of exact definitions," said Poussard. "To me saying Nazis exterminated six million Jews is not precise enough."

Quebec court Judge Manlio Del Negro responded by saying that if a reasonable and educated person knows these facts, which are easy to verify, a judge can take judicial notice — meaning no proof is needed to support it.

Poussard insisted she is not contesting that the Holocaust took place, but is opposed to the judge taking judicial notice of the facts rather than having them submitted as evidence in the context of the 2017 article.

Holocaust is a fact

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) says Poussard's arguments highlight the need for awareness of antisemitism and mandatory Holocaust education in Quebec.

"The Holocaust [has] been recognized by Canadian jurisprudence as a fact," said Emmanuelle Amar, CIJA's director of policy and research, who was at the hearing.

"The Holocaust is the most documented genocide in the world. It's been documented by its perpetrators, by their victims, by bystanders so it is a fact."

In a statement, CIJA called the discussion a "frivolous interlude."

"We really hope we can put this conversation to rest and that we can go back to the proceedings and have Sohier-Chaput be judged for the hate he was promoting online and the impact he has had on the Jewish community," said Amar.

The judgment will be rendered by Del Negro on Jan. 23, 2023.

 

UTAH
The Mysterious Dog-Killing Bacteria Plaguing a Popular National Park

Story by Daniel Modlin • 



Zion National Park is one of the country’s, if not the world’s, natural wonders. In Eastern Utah, the park is the 10th most visited national park according to the National Park Service (NPS), and throughout the pandemic continually struggled with overcrowding, with many hikers flooding in to cram themselves onto one hiking trail in particular: the Narrows.


National Park Service© Provided by The Daily Beast

The Narrows, aptly named, is the narrowest part of Zion Canyon. Hiking through it involves sloshing through the Virgin River, surrounded by huge rock faces on either side.

But a few weeks ago, the park was forced to warn visitors against the Narrows along with another popular hike, due to a toxic bacteria spreading through the park's waterways.

In a statement, the NPS wrote, “Toxin producing cyanobacteria has been detected in the North Fork of the Virgin River which will remain at a Warning Advisory.” It added: “During Warning and Health Watch advisories, recreators should avoid primary contact recreation such as swimming or submerging the head. During Danger advisories, recreators should consider avoiding all direct contact with the water.”

This isn’t the first national park or national recreation area to deal with a water problem. Earlier this year at the Grand Canyon 202 visitors got sick with norovirus, which lived in the river’s tepid water, and the Everglades have consistently struggled with algal blooms, otherwise known as red tides.

And even more surprising is that this isn’t the first time bacteria forced the Narrows to close. Two years ago, a dog died within one hour of swimming in the river and “snapping” at algae growing on the rocks. It couldn’t walk and was having seizures before its death, McClatchy News previously reported.



National Park Service© Provided by The Daily Beast

Dr. Kate Fickas, an aquatic biologist who worked with the U.S. Geological Service in Zion two years ago when this first sprung up but is now focused on South Dakota, said that at first they were baffled at what had caused the death of the dog.

“Oftentimes, dogs just drink water too fast, and so we thought it was just that,” she said.

However, after testing they found the water to contain cyanobacteria, commonly known as blue-green algae, the very same results the park discovered only a couple of weeks ago.

It’s not entirely uncommon. Dangerous blue-green algal blooms sprout up all over the country during higher temperatures. Take the Great Lakes for example, where harmful algal blooms are a common occurrence. Earlier this year, The New Scientist reported that harmful algal blooms are becoming increasingly common, worldwide.

Environmentalists are concerned, arguing that the sheer number of national parks with damaged water sources leaves a lot of questions to be answered. “More than half of the national parks have waters considered impaired” under the Clean Water Act, Sarah Gaines Barmeyer, deputy vice president for conservation programs at the National Parks Conservation Association, told The National Park Traveler, citing pollution coming from outside the parks as a main cause of impaired water quality.

However, there are a few things that make the algae in Zion a stranger case than most. The first is that algal blooms most commonly occur in lakes, large standing bodies of water; but in this case, an algal bloom occurred in a river.

“Algal blooms don’t often happen in rivers,” says Fickas, adding that “they especially don’t happen in pristine rivers.”

One of the biggest causes of algal blooms is runoff from fertilizers in nearby towns. When a large body of water isn’t dispersing these organisms via movement, they accumulate and that’s when you end up with blooms. In Zion, this isn’t a possibility, so scientists knew this algae was slightly out of the norm.

“So we began to hypothesize that the algae was benthic,” Fickas said. Benthic cyanobacteria differ from typical algae insofar as they live closer to the floor of the water body, instead of floating atop the surface. It also implies that the algae has always been a part of the river, they just haven’t bloomed, or been detected and become a source of heath concern, historically.

As for what is causing them to bloom two years ago and just a few weeks ago, scientists have some theories, although not much research has been done on the topic.

“An increase in water temperature would be problematic in theory,” says Dr. Don Bryant, a professor emeritus of biotechnology at Pennsylvania State University. “This problem would be greatest in the summer and in any drought seasons, which of course is continual now in the West.”

Another theory, according to the park, suggests high-flow events might trigger rapid regrowth. A spokesperson for Zion said, “National Park Service scientists have observed that high flow events (e.g., spring snowmelt or flash floods) scour away cyanobacteria. Following high flow events, park scientists have observed cyanobacteria regrowth happen in the following weeks and months.”

But determining the cause of the bacteria is only half the battle, of course. And while the bacteria is likely difficult to get rid of, according to Bryant due to it being part of the natural flora of the river, the National Park Service is instead turning its attention to continual sampling and testing, as well as alerting the public through various means.

In a statement to The Daily Beast, a spokesperson for Zion National Park outlined their efforts.

“In partnership with Utah Department of Environmental Quality (Utah DEQ) and the Utah Department of Health & Human Services (Utah DHHS), we issue health advisories so that visitors can make informed decisions about recreating in the park. We share updates about cyanobacteria on our park website, in social media posts, and in-person at park visitor centers, on trails, and in ranger talks. In all of these updates, we remind visitors not to drink or filter water from the North Fork of the Virgin River, La Verkin Creek, or North Creek.”

But Bryant’s view is that recreators shouldn’t be too worried. At least not yet. “One of the more interesting things to think about,” said Bryant, “is that many of the bacterias we’re finding have always been there. We’ve just gotten more diligent about testing them and telling people where it’s safe to swim.”

“I’ll put it this way,” Bryant continued. “I grew up swimming in lakes and ponds, and I don’t think much has changed about them. But would I swim in them today knowing what I know now? Absolutely not.”

Greta Thunberg sues her native Sweden over climate crisis

Story by Via AP news wire •

Hundreds of activists including Greta Thunberg marched through the Swedish capital to a court Friday to file a lawsuit against the Swedish state for what they say is insufficient climate action.


Sweden Climate Protest© Christine Olsson

More than 600 young people under the age of 26 signed the 87-page document that is the basis for the lawsuit which was filed in the Stockholm District Court. They want the court to determine that the country has violated its citizen's human rights with its climate policies.

“Sweden has never treated the climate crisis like a crisis,” said Anton Foley, spokesman of the youth-led initiative Aurora, which prepared and filed the lawsuit. “Sweden is failing in its responsibility and breaking the law.”

The action comes as scientists warn that chances are slipping away to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times.

At a recent U.N. climate conference in Egypt earlier this month, leaders tried to keep that goal alive but did not ratchet up calls for reducing carbon emissions.

Another activist, Ida Edling, said that Sweden "is pursuing a climate policy the research is very clear will contribute to a climate disaster in the future.”

Sweden's parliament decided in 2017 said that by 2045, the Scandinavian country is to have zero net emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and is to have 100% renewable energy.

Swedish broadcaster TV4 said the government declined to comment on-going legal actions.

Climate campaigners have launched numerous lawsuits against governments and companies in recent years, with mixed success.

In one of the most high-profile cases, Germany’s top court ruled last year that the government had to adjust its climate targets to avoid unduly burdening the young. The German government reacted by bringing forward its target for ‘net zero’ emissions by five years to 2045 and laying more ambitious near-and-medium term steps to achieve that goal.

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Latin America and the Caribbean recorded more than 4,400 femicides in 2021, ECLAC warns

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has warned in the framework of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women that more than 4,400 women have been victims of femicide in 2021 in 29 countries in the region.


A demonstration against women's violence in Argentina - 

ALEJO MANUEL AVILA / ZUMA PRESS 

Specifically, 4,445 women have been murdered in 18 countries and territories in Latin America, while 28 would have done so in Caribbean territories, representing at least 12 violent deaths per day.

The data place Honduras in the ranking with the highest rate of femicides (4.6 cases per 100,000 women), followed by the Dominican Republic (2.7 cases), El Salvador (2.4), Bolivia (1.8 cases) and Brazil (1.7). Belize and Guyana were the countries with the highest rates of femicide in the Caribbean.

The report of the Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean (OIG) published by ECLAC also warns that the highest rates of femicide are among adolescents and young women between 15 and 29 years of age.

Thus, of the data collected, more than 4 percent correspond to girls under 14 years of age. The text also shows that at least 781 minors lost their parents to violent death, although only 10 countries have records of this data.

"Faced with the statistical silence in most countries, it was feminist organizations and activists who began the process of compiling data and building information on femicides in several countries in the region," reads the report.

The statistics, which reveal "the persistence of patriarchal, discriminatory and violent cultural patterns", give an idea of the situation in the region, but the data, the organization warned, must be used for the "design of comprehensive public policies on violence against women and girls".

"The figures we present today on femicides in Latin America and the Caribbean are unacceptable. Our obligation is to redouble our efforts so that women and girls in our region can truly exercise their right to live a life free of violence and discrimination," concluded the ECLAC Executive Secretariat.

Hiding in plain sight: artefacts seized from display in Italian bank

Story by Federico Maccioni • 

Trafficked archeological artefacts found in Italian bank's headquarters© Thomson Reuters

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian authorities have seized a valuable archaeological collection that had been on display in a meeting hall in the headquarters of an Italian regional bank, police said in a statement on Friday.

The Carabinieri police confiscated pottery artefacts that were kept inside the main branch of Banca Popolare di Bari, in the south-eastern region of Puglia, with the current management blissfully unaware of the items' illicit origins.


Trafficked archeological artefacts found in Italian bank's headquarters© Thomson Reuters

The 103 ceramic artefacts, including vases, plates and jugs, date back to between the 5th century B.C. and the first century A.D., and are of "inestimable cultural-historical worth and an extremely important economic value," police said.


Trafficked archeological artefacts found in Italian bank's headquarters© Thomson Reuters

The collection came into the bank's possession in 2009 after a transaction worth 100,000 euros ($103,640) was sponsored by the then chief executive and backed by the board.

However, the previous owners had never obtained an official property certificate for the collection in spite of declaring part of it to the relevant authorities.



Trafficked archeological artefacts found in Italian bank's headquarters© Thomson Reuters

Four unnamed people are under preliminary investigation for allegedly receiving stolen goods and concealing cultural heritage items, police said.

Popolare di Bari, the biggest bank in Italy's disadvantaged south, was bailed out by peers in a government-backed rescue in 2019.($1 = 0.9649 euros)

(Reporting by Federico Maccioni and Alvise Armellini, editing by Keith Weir)

NDP calls out Alberta premier on campaign comments about K-Country pass



Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been leader of the UCP for about six weeks, long enough to act on past comments she made about the Kananaskis Conservation Pass, according to the NDP.

In a Nov. 20 press release, NDP environment critic Marlin Schmidt called Smith out on comments she made in an “Ask Me Anything” video shot during the UCP leadership campaign, where Smith called the K-Country fee “ridiculous” and said she agreed with the opposition’s stance to scrap it.

In response to a question asking what Smith would do about the K-Country pass if elected, she said: “Kananaskis was always supposed to be that open access place for Albertans. The idea that somehow we’re going to improve things and improve the access by charging, what is it, $90 [for a] park pass? That impacts families at a time when everything is going up for families.”

“See, there are areas we can work together with the opposition,” Smith said in the video shot in June 2022.

Schmidt recently sent a joint letter to the Minister of Forestry, Parks and Tourism Todd Loewen and Minister of Environment and Protected Areas Sonya Savage, in response to the video, demanding Smith follow up on her comments to enact legislation removing the pass.

“This is something that could have easily been enacted by now since she was elected,” said Schmidt. “[Smith] hasn’t taken any action and there’s been no response to our letter.”

Schmidt’s letter is the latest in resounding calls from the NDP to scrap the pass – first introduced in 2021 – and make the park more accessible to visitors.

“Albertans are going through the worst affordability crisis in the time that I’ve been alive, and now is the time to help people make ends meet and scrapping the Kananaskis fee is one way to reduce the cost the UCP has piled on Alberta families over the last three years,” said Schmidt.

“The other things that I continue to hear from people is frustration that they don’t see where the money is going. There’s continued frustration in the lack of high quality infrastructure and there doesn’t seem to be any trail maintenance or additional simple things – like repairing picnic tables and making sure garbage is taken care of.”

Overall revenue collected from conservation pass sales last year was around $12 million.

According to the province, $3.5 million from the K-Country pass' 2021-2022 fiscal year was spent on staffing, including more than 30 new seasonal positions; $1.5 million was spent on hiring and supporting conservation officers in K-Country; $1.75 million was spent on operating subsidized facilities including the Canmore Nordic Centre and William Watson Lodge; another $1 million went into planning infrastructure upgrades at the Nordic Centre, and $994,000 was spent on a Town of Canmore regional transit initiative, adding a connection to the Grassi Lakes area.

Another $1.75 million went toward investing in local volunteer organizations, supporting visitor services and information centres, contracting traffic management services, grooming winter trails, and increasing support for search and rescue operations.       

According to the province, prior to the conservation pass, about 65 to 70 per cent of K-Country was subsidized by taxes. Now, K-Country is more in line with other parts of the province that charge a user fee, with 60 per cent financed by user fees and 40 per cent by taxes.

If elected in the next election, the NDP has sworn to abolish the conservation pass and has suggested supporting K-Country and other Alberta provincial parks by way of existing taxes, voluntary contributions and personalized licence plate programs that have seen success in British Columbia.

According to the UCP, all revenue collected from the the pass is being reinvested into K-Country, in some form or another. But the government “ducking and dodging” questions around where exactly revenue is spent does little to reassure Albertans of where their $90 annual or $15 per day spend is going, said Schmidt.

In September, an invoice obtained through a Freedom of Information and Privacy (FOIP) request, revealed the province to be paying Global Traffic Group in St. Alberta $166,666 per month to enforce and monitor compliance with the conservation pass.

The three-year contract with Global Traffic Group is worth $2 million per year, according to the province. Compliance, which is determined through licence plate scans, has been about 74 per cent this year.

“They’re spending $2 million per year enforcing the pass – they never mentioned that,” said Schmidt. “They didn’t tell people when they introduced the fee that a good chunk of it would be going toward paying a private company to enforce the fee.

“If Danielle Smith is intent on going back on her word, then at the very least the UCP can publish a comprehensive budget of how much the government’s collected, how much they spent of the revenue and itemize where every dollar has gone.”

Jessica Lee, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Rocky Mountain Outlook