ANOTHER REASON TO SUPPORT PROTESTERS

King Charles III visit to France postponed over protests

Issued on: 24/03/2023 - 

02:00
A planned visit to France from Sunday by King Charles III has been postponed due to ongoing protests over pension reform, the French presidency announced. FRANCE 24's Bénédicte Paviot reports from London.

'Not the moment': French protests stall landmark UK royal visit


Issued on: 24/03/2023


London (AFP) – It was meant to be Charles III's first major foray on the international stage as king, a prestigious celebration of historic cross-Channel relations before he is officially crowned in May.

But the 74-year-old monarch will now have to wait a bit longer to visit France, after widespread street protests over unpopular pension reforms forced its postponement.

Charles and Queen Consort Camilla, who had been due in Paris on Sunday, "greatly look forward to the opportunity to visit France as soon as dates can be found", Buckingham Palace said.

The UK government said President Emmanuel Macron had requested the postponement, as tensions spilled over on the streets, and protesters fought running battles with security forces in some cities.

But with royal visits carefully choreographed for the maximum positive exposure, officials will likely be relieved.

The UK's former ambassador to France, Peter Ricketts, said the postponement would have been a "difficult decision but understandable".

"State visits are a time for celebration and this was not the moment," he wrote on Twitter.

The postponement avoids a situation of the royal couple being caught up in demonstrations, and even protocol faux pas, after striking workers threatened to withhold red carpets for the tour.

On the French side, too, Macron will have been mindful of the public relations implications of wining and dining a high-profile foreign dignitary as tear gas and smoke choke French cities.

Charles, 74, and his wife, 75, had been due to tour Paris and Bordeaux before heading to Germany.

The German leg of the tour is still going ahead as planned.

Entente

Macron first invited Charles last September, after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, a fluent French speaker who made five state visits to France during her 70-year reign.

The trip was designed as the "soft-power" follow-up to a visit by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak earlier this month, with London keen to rebuild bridges with Paris after a tumultuous few years.

During Boris Johnson's premiership from 2019 to last year, the UK left the European Union, with wrangling over a Brexit trade deal souring ties.

His short-lived successor Liz Truss, failed to reverse the mistrust in Paris after declaring that the "jury's out" on whether Macron was a "friend or foe" of the UK.

But Sunak's arrival in Downing Street last year has changed the dynamic: he and Macron are of a similar age and share a finance background, with a close sartorial style.

Their new-found partnership has even been dubbed "le bromance".

Germany

In Paris, Charles and Camilla had been due to join Macron for a ceremony of remembrance and wreath laying at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, where household waste has been piling up since early March due to a refuse collectors' strike.

Charles -- a French-speaker since the age of seven and a frequent visitor -- was to have addressed the Senate, and been hosted at a state banquet before heading southwest to Bordeaux.

According to the initial programme, he was to have toured areas devastated by last year's wildfires as well as visit an organic vineyard.

The focus will now switch to Germany next week, where he will receive a ceremonial welcome at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, meet Ukrainian refugees and address the Bundestag.

In northern city of Hamburg, he will be told about the port's adoption of green technologies -- an issue close to his heart as a lifelong environmentalist.

The state visits had been meant to take the focus away from blanket coverage of Charles's youngest son Prince Harry's autobiography and his Netflix docuseries with his wife, Meghan, both of which criticised royal life.

Charles, who was heir to the throne for 70 years, is less popular than his mother in opinion polls and has faced anti-monarchy protests since coming to the throne.

© 2023 AFP

Rights groups accuse French police of brutality in pension protests

Issued on: 24/03/2023 

France has been rocked by mass protests and strikes since mid-January over the pensions overhaul 

© CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP

Paris (AFP) – Criticism from human rights groups mounted on Friday over the alleged brutality of French police in handling protests opposed to President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform.

French authorities arrested more than 450 people on Thursday in the most violent day of demonstrations since the start of the year against the bill to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.

In the days leading up to Thursday's protests, rights watchdogs had expressed worries over what they termed "arbitrary" detentions and the police's excessive use of force.

But security officials have defended their actions, saying they are responding to violent rioters and anarchist groups which frequently infiltrate French demonstrations to provoke clashes.

The French Human Rights League has accused the authorities of "undermining the right of citizens to protest by making disproportionate and dangerous use of public force".

"The authoritarian shift of the French state, the brutalisation of social relations through its police, violence of all kinds and impunity are a major scandal," the league's president Patrick Baudouin said on Friday.

Hundreds have been detained by police  © Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP

Rights groups have raised concerns over the police's repeated use of "kettling", also called "trap and detain" in the United States, a crowd-control tactic consisting of cordoning off protesters in a small area.

Reports have emerged that police have detained foreign schoolchildren and other innocent bystanders, fired teargas at protesters in closed-off areas, and even hurt a man so badly he had to have a testicle amputated.
Teenagers, jogger detained

Macron's government on Thursday last week used a controversial executive power to adopt the pensions bill without a parliamentary vote, fuelling outrage and spontaneous protests in major cities.

In the days since, videos have appeared on social media appearing to show police knocking over or hitting demonstrators.

Human Rights Watch told AFP it was very concerned about "what appears to be abusive police practices".

It said they echoed similar "abusive crowd control and anti-riot tactics" during the anti-government "Yellow Vest" movement in 2018-2019 during Macron's previous term in office.

"The French authorities have apparently not drawn lessons from this or reviewed their police crowd control policies and practices," HRW's France director Benedicte Jeannerod said.

France has raised the retirement age from 62 to 64 © LOIC VENANCE / AFP

Critics have denounced police carrying out sweeping "preventive" detentions, saying even blameless passersby have been caught up in their dragnet.

In one instance on Thursday night last week, two 15-year-old Austrians on a school trip were among those kettled by police, Liberation newspaper reported.

The two teenagers, who had been trying to find their host families, spent the night in jail before their embassy intervened.

A man out jogging was detained the same night.

He told France Inter radio he was booked on allegations ticked at random on the charge sheet, and was not released until the following afternoon.

Security forces detained 292 people that night, but 283 of them were freed without charge.

'View to commit violence'

Macron on Friday condemned the violence overnight and said security forces had worked "in an exemplary manner".

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the police had responded to "troublemakers, often from the far left", who had caused 441 police to be injured.

AFP saw suspected anarchists and other protesters setting fire to rubbish, smashing shop windows and launching stones and fireworks at security forces.

Darmanin said that 11 internal inquiries had been opened into alleged police brutality in the past week.

"It is possible that, individually, police, often because they are tired, commit acts inconsistent with what they were taught," he said.

Paris police chief Laurent Nunez has said the BRAV-M motorbike unit is 'particularly well adapted to dispersing' protesters © Thomas SAMSON / AFP

In one such case, a woman had complained that a member of a motorbike unit beat her with a truncheon while she was caught against a wall in Paris on Monday, a source following the file told AFP.

In another, earlier this year, police on January 19 beat a man so hard with a truncheon that he had to have a testicle amputated, his lawyer told AFP.

Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said earlier this week said there were "no unjustified arrests", and that security forces detained people from "gatherings with a view to commit violence".

He defended the police's motorbike unit, known as BRAV-M, which critics have called to be disbanded, as being one "particularly well adapted to dispersing" groups.

Right groups have long accused French police of brutality and racism in the force, but say internal investigations seem to result in few sanctions.

burs-ah/adp/fb

© 2023 AFP

At least 457 people arrested, 441 security forces injured in violent French pension protests

Issued on: 24/03/2023 - 

A protester clashes with riot police during a demonstration on the ninth day of nationwide protests against the French government's pension reform, Paris, France, March 23, 2023. 

© Nacho Doce, Reuters

Text by:NEWS WIRES

A total of 457 people were arrested and 441 security forces injured on Thursday during nationwide protests against French President Emmanuel Macron’s pensions reform, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said.

Speaking to the CNews channel on Friday morning, Darmanin also said that there had been 903 fires lit in the streets of Paris during by far the most violent day of protests since they began in January.

“There were a lot of demonstrations and some of them turned violent, notably in Paris,” Darmanin added, saying the toll was “difficult” while praising the police for protecting the more than million people who marched around France.

Police had warned that anarchist groups were expected to infiltrate the Paris march and young men wearing hoods and facemasks were seen smashing windows and setting fire to uncollected rubbish in the latter stages of the demonstration.

Darmanin, a rightwing hardliner in Macron’s centrist government, dismissed calls from protesters to withdraw the pensions reform which cleared parliament last week in controversial circumstances.

“I don’t think we should withdraw this law because of violence,” he said. “If so, that means there’s no state. We should accept a democratic, social debate, but not a violent debate.”

Elsewhere on Thursday, the entrance to Bordeaux city hall was set on fire during clashes in the southwestern wine-exporting hub.

“I have difficulty in understanding and accepting this sort of vandalism,” the mayor of Bordeaux, Pierre Hurmic, told RTL radio on Friday.

“Why would you make a target of our communal building, of all people of Bordeaux? I can only condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”

British King Charles III is set to visit the southwestern city next Tuesday, and had been expected to visit the city hall and meet with Hurmic.

(AFP)

France's Macron says he will not yield to violence after pensions reform protests

Issued on: 24/03/2023 

04:07 Video by: Armen GEORGIAN

French President Emmanuel Macron strongly condemned violence that erupted in Thursday's demonstrations against raising the French retirement age and said he would not give in to it."We will yield nothing to violence, I condemn violence with the utmost strength," Macron told a news conference, after an EU Summit in Brussels, on Friday. FRANCE 24's European Affairs Editor Armen Georgian reports from Brussels.

Violence flares as French protesters vent fury at Macron reform

24 Mar 2023,  AFP

Protesters run in tear gas smoke next to a street fire on the sidelines of a demonstration as part of a national day of strikes and protests, a week after the French government pushed a pensions reform through parliament without a vote (AFP)

Almost 150 police were injured and scores of protesters arrested nationwide, the government said, as a day of protests descended into chaos in several cities including Paris, where protesters lit fires in the historic centre of the city

Protesters clashed with French security forces Thursday in the most serious violence yet of a three-month revolt against President Emmanuel Macron's hugely controversial pension reform.

The uproar over the imposition of the reform -- which the government chose to push through without a parliamentary vote -- has turned into the biggest domestic crisis of Macron's second term in office.

It also threatens to cast a shadow over King Charles III's visit to France next week, his first foreign state visit as British monarch. Unions have announced fresh strikes and protests for Tuesday, the second full day of his trip.

In the southwestern city of Bordeaux, which King Charles is due to visit on Tuesday, the porch of the city hall was briefly set on fire.

Trash set alight

The numbers in Paris and other cities were higher than in previous protest days, given new momentum by Macron's refusal in a TV interview Wednesday to back down on the reform.

Police and protesters again clashed on the streets of the capital during a major demonstration, security forces firing tear gas and charging crowds with batons.
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Some protesters lit fires in the street, setting ablaze pallets and piles of uncollected rubbish, prompting firefighters to intervene, AFP correspondents said.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that across France, 149 members of the security forces had been injured and at least 172 people arrested, including 72 in Paris.

Around 140 fires were set alight in Paris, said Darmanin, blaming "thugs" for the violence, who had come to Paris "to have a go at the cops and public buildings".

Some 1.089 million protesters took part in demonstrations across France, the interior ministry said, putting the Paris turnout at 119,000, the highest for the capital since the movement started in January.

The nationwide figure still fell short of the 1.28 million people who marched on March 7, according to the government figures.

Unions claimed a record 3.5 million people had protested across France, and 800,000 in the capital.

- 'Until the end' -

In Paris, several hundred black-clad radical demonstrators were breaking windows of banks, shops and fast-food outlets, and destroying street furniture, AFP journalists witnessed.

In the northeastern city of Lille, the local police chief Thierry Courtecuisse was lightly injured by a stone.

In Paris, a video went viral of a police officer in helmet and body armour being knocked unconscious and plunging to the ground after being hit on the head by a stone.

The garbage that has accumulated in the streets due to strikes by refuse collectors proved an appealing target, protesters setting fire to the trash piled up in the city centre.

"It is a right to demonstrate and make your disagreements known," Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Twitter, but added: "The violence and destruction that we have seen today are unacceptable."

Unions again appealed for peaceful protests. "We need to keep public opinion on side until the end," said Laurent Berger, leader of the moderate CFDT.

Protesters briefly occupied the tracks at the Gare de Lyon train station in Paris, and some blocked access to Charles de Gaulle airport.

Anger surged after a defiant Macron said on Wednesday he was prepared to accept unpopularity over the pensions reform which he said was "necessary".

Even before then, a survey on Sunday showed Macron's personal approval rating at just 28 percent, its lowest since the anti-government "Yellow Vest" protest movement in 2018-2019.

Mountains of rubbish have formed across the French capital, sometimes echoing the barricades of past revolutions. © Benoît Tessier, Reuters

Rubbish collectors and sewage workers gather at Place de la Bastille in Paris for the start of Thursday's rally. © Benjamin Dodman, FRANCE 24

Élisabeth Borne's use of Article 49.3 of the French constitution to force Macron's pension reform through parliament without a vote has incensed the president's opponents. © Benjamin Dodman, FRANCE 24

'Excessive force'

Acting on Macron's instructions, Borne last week invoked an article in the constitution to adopt the reform without a parliamentary vote. That sparked two no-confidence motions in parliament, which she survived -- but one by a narrow margin.

Thursday's protests were the latest in a string of nationwide stoppages that began in mid-January against the pension changes.

The ministry of energy transition on Thursday warned that kerosene supply to the capital and its airports was becoming "critical" as blockages at oil refineries continued.

Since the government imposed the reform last Thursday, nightly demonstrations have taken place across France, with young people coordinating their actions on encrypted messaging services.

There have been hundreds of arrests and accusations of heavy-handed tactics by police.

Amnesty International has expressed alarm "about the widespread use of excessive force and arbitrary arrests reported in several media outlets".

King Charles is due to arrive Sunday, with a trip scheduled on the new strike date of Tuesday to Bordeaux.

The fire at the entrance to the city hall in Bordeaux damaged its massive wooden door and was put out after 15 minutes, mayor Pierre Hurmic said.

French public sector trade unionists have warned they will not provide red carpets during the visit, but non-striking workers are expected to roll them out.

French garbage crisis: Trash pile up in Paris as collectors continue strike

Issued on: 24/03/2023 - 

01:18

Paris municipal garbage collectors have pledged to uphold a rolling strike until Monday, as thousands of tonnes of rubbish linger in the streets.

‘Democracy at stake’: French protesters vent fury at Macron over pension push

Benjamin DODMAN

FRANCE24
Thu, 23 March 2023 

© Benjamin Dodman, FRANCE 24

French protesters downed their tools and marched once again in Paris and other cities on Thursday, galvanised by President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to ram his deeply unpopular pension reform through parliament without a vote, in what critics have branded a “denial of democracy”.

More than two months into a bitter battle that has roiled the nation, opponents of Macron’s plans to raise the retirement age showed no sign of relenting, with the number of protesters on the rise again after dipping in recent weeks.

The rallies marked the ninth day of nationwide strikes and protests, and the first since Macron ordered his prime minister to use special executive powers to bypass parliament, turning an already festering dispute into a political and institutional crisis.

In the French capital, several hundred thousand protesters turned out, setting off from the symbolic protest hub of Bastille. Many held posters with a montage of Macron dressed in full regalia in the manner of “Sun King” Louis XIV, accompanied by the slogan “Méprisant de la République” (contemptuous of the Republic).

“We’re fed up with a president who thinks he’s Louis XIV, who doesn’t listen, who thinks he’s the only one to know what’s good for this country,” said Michel Doneddu, a 72-year-old pensioner from the Paris suburbs.

How Vietnam is trying to stop rice warming the planet

Issued on: 24/03/2023

High levels of methane are generated by bacteria that grow in rice paddies and thrive if leftover straw rots in the fields after harvest 

Can Tho (Vietnam) (AFP) – As a child, Dong Van Canh watched while the rice fields of Vietnam's Mekong Delta were set alight to make way for the next crop, blackening the sky and flooding the air with potent greenhouse gases.

Rice -- Asia's principal staple -- is to blame for around 10 percent of global emissions of methane, a gas that over two decades traps about 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide.

Usually associated with cows burping, high levels of methane are also generated by bacteria that grow in flooded rice paddies and thrive if leftover straw rots in the fields after harvest.

The message from scientists is: rice cannot be ignored in the battle to cut emissions.

In the Mekong Delta, Canh, now a 39-year-old rice farmer, does not leave straw out to decay on the paddies -- nor does he burn it, as his parents did before him.

Motivated by the memory of being forced inside his home on days the smoke was thick -- sometimes so acrid it made him choke or faint -- he joined an initiative that removes straw from the fields and turns it into mushrooms and organic fertiliser, earning a small income on the side.

Farmers drive a truck carrying rice bags in a field in Can Tho 

"If we can collect the straw and make money, all of us benefit," he told AFP, running his fingers through a large, soft mound of straw, cow dung and rice husks that will soon become nutritious food for Mekong crops.
Shrinking emissions

The programme -- organised by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) -- is one of a handful across Vietnam and the region trying to steadily shrink methane emissions from rice production.

Many of the initiatives are not new but have been spotlighted since around 100 countries signed the Global Methane Pledge two years ago, agreeing to reduce emissions by 30 percent from 2020 levels by 2030.

Several of the world's biggest rice producers, including Indonesia, Bangladesh and Vietnam, are on board -- although the two largest, China and India, failed to sign.

A farmer holds a basket of straw mushrooms in Can Tho 

In Vietnam, as the harvesting season draws to a close, farmers push carts overflowing with straw bales that will later be soaked and laid out to grow straw mushrooms.

Once the fungi are ready they will be sold before the farmers take back the straw and funnel it into a composting machine. Two months later it will be ready -- and can be sold for around 15 cents a kilogram (2.2 pounds).

"In the past a few farmers did this manually but it took too much manpower and the cost was high. Now we've cut costs by half and we will expand to meet the demands of the market," said Le Dinh Du, a rice farmer who also heads the local district's plant protection department.

"The rice goes on a nice journey. We don't waste anything."

Methane-producing bacteria

Vietnam's environment ministry says irrigated rice accounted for almost half of methane emissions in 2019.

Climate-friendly straw management has been introduced and spread "widely to farmers and local agricultural officials" throughout the country, according to CGIAR, an international agricultural research centre.

How many practise what they have learned is unclear. Last year the World Bank said that more than 80 percent of rice straw in the Mekong Delta is still burned in the fields after harvest.

The need to find solutions is pressing.

Unlike other crops, rice paddies have a layer of standing water, so there is no exchange of air between the soil and the atmosphere, explained Bjoern Ole Sander, a senior scientist at the IRRI in Hanoi.

These conditions mean different bacteria are active in rice, compared to wheat or maize fields.

Farmers use a roller to collect straw in a field in Can Tho 

"And these bacteria eat organic matter and produce methane," he said.

As well as straw management, IRRI says another scheme called Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD), which involves breaking up standing water to replenish oxygen and reduce methane-producing bacteria, could also help cut emissions.

Practised on more than 200,000 hectares (494,210 acres) of rice-growing land in the Mekong delta's An Giang province, CGIAR says it has made a significant difference.

For Mekong farmers that have taken the leap, there is pride in contributing to more sustainable farming while getting the most out of their crops.

"We lived hard lives," said Canh. "But once we realised how to take advantage of the straw, things have gotten easier."

© 2023 AFP

PHOTOS © Nhac NGUYEN / AFP

China in 1000 CE
The Most Advanced Society in the World

Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Map showing both Northern and Southern Song dynasties
See China dynasty maps at “The Art of Asia” website

In 1000, 1100, 1200, and 1300, China was the most advanced place in the world. Marco Polo (1254-1324) recognized this when he got to China in the late 13th century after traveling through much of Asia. In what is now Europe, this was the period now referred to as the “high” Middle Ages, which fostered the Crusades and witnessed the rise of Venice, the mercantile center that was Marco Polo’s home.

View the scroll »

A magnificent picture scroll painted by a Chinese artist in the 12th century provides us with a look at society and urban life in China during this time.

For several centuries the Chinese economy had grown spectacularly: “Between ... 960 and ... 1127, China passed through a phase of economic growth that was unprecedented in earlier Chinese history, perhaps in world history up to this time. It depended on a combination of commercialization, urbanization, and industrialization that has led some authorities to compare this period in Chinese history with the development of early modern Europe six centuries later.” (1)During the Song (Sung) Dynasty (960-1276), technology was highly advanced in fields as diverse as agriculture, iron-working, and printing. Indeed, scholars today talk of a Song economic revolution.
The population grew rapidly during this time, and more and more people lived in cities.
The Song system of government was also advanced for its time. The upper-levels of the government were staffed by highly educated scholar-officials selected through competitive written examinations.

Why else is the Song Dynasty so significant?

Many ways of living and acting that are now seen as most “Chinese,” or even characteristically East Asian, did not appear before the Song.

Rice and tea are historically important crops/staple foods in China; but most Chinese during the previous Tang dynasty and before ate wheat and millet and drank wine. Rice and tea became dominant food and drink in the Song.

China’s population is large, and tends to “explode” in certain periods; its first explosion occurred in the Song.

Many Chinese are “Confucians”; but the kind of Confucianism that served as government orthodoxy throughout late-imperial times was a Song reinvention.

Chinese women are known to have bound their feet; but they did not bind them until the Song.

Even the “Chinese” roof with its turned-up corners is by origin a Song Chinese roof. (2)

Yet, despite its political and economic strengths, Song China was not able to dominate its neighbors militarily. Central to its engagement with the outside world were efforts to maintain peace with its powerful northern neighbors and extend its trading networks.

The Song Dynasty in China | Asia for Educators (columbia.edu)

Iran mother's pain and hope in film on daughter's execution

ParisUpdated: Mar 24, 2023

Seven Winters in Tehran tells the story of a woman wronged by system. Photograph:(AFP)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Reyhaneh Jabbari was 26 when she was hanged for murder in 2014, 

having become an international symbol of injustice in Iran. 

She had spent seven years in prison for stabbing to death an 

ex-intelligence ministry official, 

Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi.

She was executed for killing the man who was trying to rape her. Now the subject of a devastating documentary, her mother says there are seeds of hope in her terrible story.

Reyhaneh Jabbari was 26 when she was hanged for murder in 2014, having become an international symbol of injustice in Iran.

She had spent seven years in prison for stabbing to death an ex-intelligence ministry official, Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi. 

Despite being offered a reprieve if she retracted her rape allegation, she refused to lie -- even at the cost of her life. 

Her courageous story and poetic diaries from prison are the subjects of a new documentary, Seven Winters in Tehran, which played at the Berlin Film Festival last month. 

Somehow, Jabbari found the strength to forgive those who destroyed and ultimately took her life -- something her mother has never been able to do. 

"Reyhaneh asked me to forgive the people who tortured her, and I tried for many years, but to this day, I cannot," her mother, Shole Pakravan, told AFP ahead of the film's release in France. 

- 'Piece of hope'-

But unlike previous generations in Iran, too fearful to speak out, she has managed to use the tragedy to raise awareness. 

"When I was young, I didn't know about the violence and executions in my country. It was hidden," said Pakravan, who now lives in exile in Germany. "Now with this movie, we are able to speak about these things and show it to the world." 

The film's director, Steffi Niederzoll, said she was deeply inspired by the family's strength. 

"They have fought to break the circle of violence in Iran," she said. "Reyhaneh forgave even the people who did this to her. She stayed with her truth, her dignity and asked her family to do the same. This creates a piece of hope in this very sad story."

The film was almost finished when protests broke out around the country in September over the death in custody of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly breaching its strict dress code.

Red carpet protest for Iran at the Berlin Film Festival, where 'Seven Winters in Tehran' was premiered © John MACDOUGALL / AFP

- 'Won't be silent' -

"I have hope in the people in these demos because the new generation are really fighting -- not like my generation," said Pakravan. 

"Before people went to jail and came out and stayed silent. Now young girls are going to jail and being raped, and they still won't be silent." But she also fears for what comes next. 

"I fight against execution and torture so when I see protesters calling for mullahs (religious leaders) to be hanged, it makes me worry," she said. "I don't know what system will come after this one, but I don't want it to use execution or torture."

Completing the film, and an accompanying book, has given her some relief after so many years of pain. "I did my responsibility to Reyhaneh, and it has made me free. I can see the world around me again."

Raccoon dog data sparks new debate about Covid origins

Daniel Lawler and Julien Dury, 

Agence France-Presse
Posted at Mar 24 2023

View of a raccoon dog or Tanuki (Nyctereutes procyonoides) at the Chapultpec Zoo in Mexico City . A month ago nine raccoon dog pups were born. This species is native from Japan and China, and the parents of the cubs were donated by Japan. AFP PHOTO / ALFREDO ESTRELLA

PARIS, France - New evidence that raccoon dogs were at the Chinese market where Covid is suspected to have first infected humans has reignited debate over the origin of the pandemic.

The researchers who unexpectedly stumbled over the genetic data say that it supports -- but cannot definitively prove -- the theory that the virus originated in animals, possibly first jumping over to humans at the market in the city of Wuhan. 

Expert wants conclusive report on raccoon dog link to COVID-19

The issue has proved divisive for the scientific community and even different US government agencies, with some maintaining that the virus likely leaked from a Wuhan lab -- a claim that China has angrily denied.

The COVID lab leak theory: Who says what?
TIMELINE: Key moments of COVID-19 pandemic
Pair of new studies point to natural COVID-19 origin

Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization's technical lead on Covid, said the new data "doesn't give us the answer of how the pandemic began, but it does provide more clues".

The data comes from swabs collected by a Chinese team in January and February 2020 at the Huanan Seafood Market, the site of one of the earliest Covid clusters, before it was shut down and cleared of animals.

International researchers including Florence Debarre, an evolutionary biologist at France's CNRS research agency, were surprised to come across the data on the GISAID global science database earlier this month.

They managed to download the data before it was removed from GISAID at the request of the Chinese researchers who first posted it.

Debarre and colleagues informed the WHO about their discovery last week, when some media outlets started reporting on the data's existence.

'Piece of the puzzle'

This week the researchers published a report, which has not been peer-reviewed, saying that DNA from the samples shows that raccoon dogs, palm civets, Amur hedgehogs and bamboo rats were present at the market.

Thousands of wild animals sold in Wuhan markets months before COVID-19 outbreak -report
Chinese scientists say wild animals should be screened for coronavirus

Raccoon dogs, whose closest relatives are foxes, are in particular known to be able to carry and transmit viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2, which causes the Covid disease.

That means they could have acted as an intermediary host between humans and bats, in which Covid is suspected to have originated.

Some of the samples containing raccoon dog DNA were also positive for SARS-CoV-2.

However because the samples were taken from sites at the market and not directly from the animals, it was not possible to prove the raccoon dogs had Covid.

Notably, there was very little human DNA in one of the positive samples, raising the likelihood that it was the raccoon dog that had the virus.

"We cannot rigorously demonstrate that the animal was infected, but it is a plausible explanation," Debarre told AFP.

Even if it could be proved that the raccoon dogs were infected, it would be difficult to show they gave Covid to humans -- and not the other way around.

The data is "one additional piece of the puzzle that supports an origin of the pandemic linked to Wuhan's animal trade," said virologist Connor Bamford of Queen's University Belfast.

But "it is unlikely to provide irrefutable evidence," he said on The Conversation website.

Data still missing

There have been increasing calls for all information on the origins of Covid to be publicly released.

US President Joe Biden signed a law earlier this week declassifying intelligence material on the subject, after his energy department concluded with "low confidence" that the virus probably came from a lab.

That assessment contradicted the conclusion of several other US agencies -- but not the FBI.

After being informed of the new Huanan samples, the WHO again called on China to release all its data from the early days of the pandemic.

"These data could have -- and should have -- been shared three years ago," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said late last week.

Alice Hughes, an expert in biodiversity analytics at the University of Hong Kong, said that some researchers in China had known about the existence of the samples since April 2020.

Hughes told AFP this "critically important" information should have been made public earlier, adding that she believed it was "very likely that this is the source of spillover of SARS-CoV-2".

The authors of the new report said that more data was still missing.

There is "absolutely crucial data which sheds light on the start of the pandemic" that the researchers "cannot share because it's not ours," Debarre said.

"The more people who look into it, the more we will be able to extract information," she added.

dl/ea

© Agence France-Presse

Dominican government razes homes to erect wall on Haiti border

Esteban ROJAS
Thu, March 23, 2023 

Leocadio Guzman is one of dozens of residents of La Mara in the Dominican Republic whose house was torn down by the military.

Like many others in this impoverished neighborhood, his house stood in the way of an anti-migrant wall his government is erecting along the border with Haiti -- a country with which the Dominican Republic shares an island but very little else.

Where Guzman's house once stood there is now only a wooden plank on the ground with the code "MF 011-5" painted on it in red.

Locals presume the MF stands for "muro fronterizo" or border wall -- it is an abbreviation spray painted onto dozens of homes still in the crossfire of a mass demolition that started last November.

"When the military came, I was at work. I returned and found the house marked," the 41-year-old told AFP.

Guzman packed up his belongings, took his pregnant wife, and rapidly got out of the way -- moving to a small wooden shack he had built himself in preparation for this very day.

Like Guzman, about 30 families of the La Mara and La Bomba neighborhoods of Dajabon province have been uprooted by the state.

Another 50-odd households in the neighboring province of Monte Cristi are next in line to make way for the wall that is President Luis Abinader's signature project.

Abinader was elected in 2020 on a promise to curb immigration from Haiti -- a problem-laden neighbor with whom the Dominican Republic has a complicated relationship also tainted by xenophobia.

Some half-a-million Haitians live in the Dominican Republic, a nation of some 11 million.

- 'By the grace of God' -

The cross-border migrant flow has increased with criminal gangs increasingly taking control of neighborhoods in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.

On Abinader's watch, the Dominican Republic deported 171,000 Haitians in 2022 -- up from 85,000 a year earlier, according to the Support Group for Returnees and Refugees (GARR).

Seeking to stem the flow altogether, the government is now building a wall that will run along nearly half of the 380-kilometer (236-mile) border between the two nations on the island of Hispaniola.

The defense ministry, put in charge of the operation, announced in November that 79 million pesos (some $1.4 million) was available for compensation for people who had their homes or farmland expropriated in Dajabon and Monte Cristi.

"The money they gave me is not enough to get another house," Lidna Dorfinis, a 38-year-old Haitian who lives in La Mara, told AFP.

"Now I live by the grace of God," Dorfinis, who has a 12-month-old daughter, said through a translator.

She said she received the equivalent of about $4,500 for her house -- which was barely enough to buy a piece of land.

With no money left to buy materials for a new house, Dorfinis now has to pay rent of $60 a month to someone else -- a heavy blow for someone living in poverty.

- 'Had to accept it' -

Guzman, for his part, said he received about $4,200 from the government, which he used to build his new wooden shack.

"At least I had a place to lay my head," he told AFP.

The mayor of Dajabon city, Santiago Riveron, insisted the government had negotiated compensation with affected residents and "it was not traumatic."

People like Guzman disagree.

"I wasn't very happy, but I had to accept it," he said.

The house of a nearby neighbor, Quisqueya Estevez, also carries the dreaded "MF" marking.

For now, the house still stands. Part of it, anyway.

Estevez, 36, claims the section that used to contain her bathroom gave way due to landslides caused by the demolition work.

"We now poop in a bucket. It is not nice," she said.

In the working class sector of Pepillo Salcedo in Monte Cristi, the house Dominga Castillo shares with her mother and two children, is also in the crosshairs.

But the 41-year-old's concerns are not only about the money.

"I came here as a baby, still crawling," she recounted. "Starting all over again is very hard."

erc/jt/mbj/yow/mlr/tjj

The border between Quanamienthe in Haiti and Dajabon in the Dominican Republic bustles with activity 

Quisqueya Estevez and Antonio Ramirez will lose their house too 

Residents are receiving compensation for leaving their homes, but they say it is not enough 

The wall is President Luis Abinader's signature project 

PHOTOS © Erika SANTELICES / AFP

Turkey's pro-Kurdish party will not field candidate in election setback for Erdogan

Issued on: 22/03/2023

Pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) MP Oya Ersoy reacts as riot police prevent her from joining demonstrators being detained as they try to protest the Turkish government's handling of the February earthquakes, Istanbul, Turkey, February 26, 2023. © Dilara Senkaya, Reuters

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party said Wednesday it would not field a presidential candidate in May elections, giving tacit support to Recep Tayyip Erdogan's rival in the crucial vote.

The decision by the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) reduces the possibility of a damaging split of the anti-Erdogan vote, boosting the chances of the opposition alliance's joint candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Winning more than 10 percent of the vote in the past three national elections, the HDP was widely seen as a kingmaker in the tightly contested race.

"We will not field a candidate in the presidential elections," Pervin Buldan, the party co-chairwoman, told reporters.

"We will fulfil our historic responsibility to end one-man rule in the coming elections," she said, condemning Erdogan's consolidation of power over his two decades as prime minister and president.

The HDP's decision strips Erdogan of a key voting bloc in what is widely seen as Turkey's most important election of its post-Ottoman history. Erdogan enjoyed some support from Kurdish voters earlier in his rule.

>> ‘A political quake as well’: Will Turkey’s calamity rattle Erdogan’s rule?

His government once worked with HDP politicians in an effort to put an end to a decades-long fight by Kurdish insurgents for an independent state that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. But he now accuses the HDP -- parliament's third largest party -- of being the political wing of the PKK militants.

The leftist party denies the charges and says it is being singled out for its fierce criticism of the government's social and economic policies. Erdogan and his far-right allies in parliament are now trying to dissolve the HDP over its alleged terror ties.

>> Turkish opposition unites against 'weaker than ever' Erdogan ahead of elections

Turkey's Constitutional Court on Wednesday rejected the HDP's request to delay the outcome of the case until after the May 14 election. The HDP was excluded from a six-party opposition alliance that has rallied around Kilicdaroglu's candidacy.

The anti-Erdogan alliance includes staunchly nationalist parties that refuse to work with the HDP. Meeting with HDP leaders on Monday, Kilicdaroglu promised to remove restrictions on the Kurdish language and address other Kurdish concerns.

Syria's War Shattered Their Lives, Turkey's Quake Crushed Their Hopes - Latest Tweet by Reuters

 Mar 21, 2023 

Unite says BP Petrofac workers to support North Sea strikes over pay

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Bywire News

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

VERIFIED

- UK's Unite the union on Wednesday said that its members at BP Petrofac sites have voted to support a strike over pay at oil and gas facilities in the North Sea.

"The vote will see the BP Petrofac workers join 1,400 others in dispute with their employers meaning 1,500 offshore workers across the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) could be on strike within weeks."

The BP Petrofac installations set to be hit by strike action include Andrew, Clair, Clair Ridge, ETAP, and the Glen Lyon floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility.

"BP is aware of the outcome of this ballot and we continue to liaise with the employing company, Petrofac," the company said.

The union had announced on Monday that operators including BP, CNRI, EnQuest, Harbour, Ithaca, Shell, and Total will be affected by the strikes and apart from Petrofac, it would include workers at Bilfinger UK Limited and Stork construction.

(Reporting by Ashitha Shivaprasad in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Arpan Varghese; editing by Jason Neely, Kirsten Donovan)