Canada halts import of goods linked to forced labour from China, Malaysia
Caitlin Taylor, Katie Pedersen, Eric Szeto 

© Canada Border Services Agency In a first, the Canada Border Services Agency intercepted a shipment of women's and children's clothing from China under a trade tariff that prohibits goods 'mined, manufactured or produced wholly or in part…

The federal government has stopped two separate shipments of goods linked to forced labour from entering Canada — a move that has some advocates pleased but still pushing for more.

A shipment of women's and children's clothing from China was intercepted in Quebec and held by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) sometime between Oct. 11 and Nov. 3.

The clothing was held under a trade tariff that prohibits goods "mined, manufactured or produced wholly or in part by forced labour" from entering Canada.

It marked the first time the federal government has implemented this tariff, which was brought into effect on July 1, 2020, after the ratification of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).

In another move, a major supplier of nitrile gloves to the Canadian government was asked by Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) to cease shipments until the company proves there is no forced labour in its supply chain.

"It's about time," Independent Sen. Julie Miville-Dechêne said of the halted shipments.

She has been fighting for tougher Canadian laws against forced labour and modern slavery for years, introducing transparency legislation around the issue in the Senate.
'Transparency problems'

CBSA would not provide information about which company imported the clothing nor details about the Chinese manufacturer.

"We have to name those companies. We don't know where this merchandise was going to go, and for me, that's a transparency problem," said Miville-Dechêne.

A recent CBC Marketplace investigation found Canadian retailers had brought hundreds of shipments of clothing into Canada from a Chinese factory suspected of secretly using North Korean forced labour.

Malaysian subsidiary has $220M PPE contract

Meanwhile, Supermax Healthcare Canada — a subsidiary of Malaysian glove manufacturer Supermax Corporation — was asked by the federal government to withhold all deliveries until it had passed a social responsibility audit proving that the company doesn't use forced labour.

The audit is already underway and the results are expected in mid-November, said PSPC.

Supermax has come under fire in recent months after a BBC investigation in February revealed many forced labour indicators were present at their Malaysian factories.

In October, U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped all disposable gloves produced by Supermax Corporation and its subsidiaries from entering that country.

Supermax Healthcare Canada currently has a contract with the federal government valued at more than $222 million to provide Canada nitrile gloves amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

"That's a big contract," said Andy Hall, a workers' rights advocate based in Asia, who has spoken out for years on the issues migrant glove workers face in Malaysia.

"These purchasing practices are contributing to modern slavery practices in Malaysia."

While Ottawa has paused the shipments that fall under its contract, nitrile gloves from Supermax are still permitted to enter Canada.

Since February, shipping records show that Supermax Healthcare Canada imported more than 370,000 kilograms of nitrile gloves from another company subsidiary, Supermax Global Ltd. (HK) into Canada. The most recent shipment — on Nov. 5 — was for 47,434 kilograms of gloves.
Not doing enough,' advocate says

In a statement, Supermax Healthcare Canada said if the audit substantiates the recent allegations of forced labour, the company will "explore all possible options to address the situation and take swift action to ensure that workers' rights are respected in its supply chain."

Last January, a CBC Marketplace investigation found that several Canadian companies with millions of dollars worth of federal contracts for personal protective equipment (PPE) were connected to imported goods from Malaysian manufacturers with allegations of forced labour in their factories.

Despite these two actions, Hall said the Canadian government should be doing more.

"I see companies that have systemic forced labour issues that are still exporting to Canada," he said

"This has been highlighted to [the Canadian government] and they are not addressing the issue, so I think definitely they are not doing enough."

Faculty association holds rally as bargaining stalemate with University of Lethbridge continues
By Danica Ferris Global News
Posted November 17, 2021 9:04 pm

 Faculty at the University of Lethbridge have been without a contract for more than 500 days, and on Wednesday, held an information rally as the bargaining impasse rolls on. As Danica Ferris reports, staff say they’re concerned about the impact of further cuts.

Dozens rallied on the edge of the University of Lethbridge campus on Wednesday afternoon in support of faculty, who have been without a contract for more than a year.

University of Lethbridge Faculty Association president Dan O’Donnell says the effects of the bargaining impasse are being felt on multiple levels.

READ MORE: U of L board of governors, faculty association heading for mediation

“We’re 500-odd days in without a contract, there’s been very little progress at the table, and we think that that’s coming across everywhere at the university,” O’Donnell said.

“The University of Lethbridge is the second-largest employer in the town. It’s professors, faculty and the students that we bring — from overseas, from elsewhere in the country — who supply the business to the tradespeople, to the businesses, to the shops, to the landlords.”

Bargaining for a new agreement began in January. ULFA recently published an open letter on its website, available for anyone to send to the U of L board.

Health science associate professor Julia Brassolotto says she and her colleagues are feeling the uncertainty more than anything.

“We’re not sure what it’s going to look like, if we’ll end up having to take a pay cut. We’re not sure about the supports that will be there for students and for research going forward,” she said.

“All of that is unsettling, and just not having a contract, in general, is a bit uneasy. But I also think the people who are impacted most are all of our sessional lecturers and contract instructors because they’re the most precariously employed of us all.”

READ MORE: Open letter calls for flexibility in University of Lethbridge course delivery

O’Donnell says his group has been asked to take a 4.5 per cent wage rollback retroactive to July 2020 when they already get paid 10 to 15 per cent less than faculty at similar universities.

He says the cuts are bound to affect the quality of education that they’re all so proud to provide.

“The University of Lethbridge has always punched above its weight in terms of its impact, in terms of the quality of its research, the quality of its teaching, and we believe that’s in real danger now,” he said.

Brassolotto says she fears cuts will eliminate the things that set the school apart.

“I think one of the things the U of L is really proud of is how small our classes are, how well we get to know our students, the kinds of research opportunities and experiential learning opportunities that they get,” Brassolotto said.

READ MORE: Lethbridge post-secondary schools say enrollment is ‘steady’

“Making them bigger and having staff who are burnt out, who have increased workloads, who are struggling with mental health stressors as a result of that, it’s going to make for bad learning conditions for students.”

The University of Lethbridge responded to Wednesday’s rally with a statement: “By the end of 2022-23, the government of Alberta’s operating support for the university will have been reduced by over 21 per cent since 2019-20.”

“Advocating for ongoing public support for post-secondary education is an important activity, and like ULFA, the University of Lethbridge continues to make the case to the government of Alberta that investments in post-secondary education will help our city, region and province grow, diversify our economy and improve the quality of life of Albertans and beyond,” the university said.


READ MORE: University of Lethbridge named second-best primarily-undergraduate school by Maclean’s


The statement added that last month, the board’s negotiating team applied for informal mediation under the Alberta Labour Relations Code.

“Informal mediation is an established, positive and constructive tool for collective bargaining, which supports both parties in reaching mutually acceptable agreements through a neutral third party. The board negotiation team believes the assistance of an objective third-party mediator is necessary to achieve a resolution,” the university said.

The two sides — along with the mediator — are set to meet next in late November.
© 2021 Global News, a division of Co

Couple's $86M reward in Monsanto pesticide case stands

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California's highest court rejected on Wednesday a challenge by Monsanto Co.'s to $86.2 million in damages to a couple who developed cancer after spraying the company's Roundup weed-killer in their yards for three decades.

The state Supreme Court's denial of review upholds an appeals court's ruling in favor of Alva and Alberta Pilliod.

The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco found in a 2-1 ruling in August that Monsanto was at fault for knowingly marketing a product whose active ingredient, glyphosate, could be dangerous.

Monsanto’s parent company, Bayer, said it disagreed with the high court's decision.

"We continue to stand strongly behind the safety of Roundup, a position supported by assessments of expert regulators worldwide as well as the overwhelming weight of four decades of extensive science,” the company said in a statement.

Brent Wisner, a lawyer for the Pilliods, told the San Francisco Chronicle the verdict “was based on solid science and unanimous law” and the company should halt its “frivolous appeals.”

Bayer announced over the summer that it would stop selling the current version of Roundup for home and garden use in U.S. stores, starting in 2023.

Bayer said it would replace the herbicide’s main ingredient, glyphosate, with an unspecified active ingredient, subject to federal and state approval, while continuing to sell Roundup with glyphosate for farm use.

Bayer has agreed to pay $10 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits that have already been filed in state and federal courts and has sought, unsuccessfully so far, to resolve future lawsuits with a settlement fund of up to $2 billion, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Associated Press, The Associated Press

ADF: What is the group is behind the deadly bombings in Uganda?

"Islamic State" claimed responsibility for the triple suicide bombing in Kampala and have named the attackers. Police have linked them to a little-known extremist group that operates along the Uganda-DR Congo border.

    

Bomb explosion in Uganda's capital Kampala: The Islamic State claims responsibility

The triple suicide bombing in the heart of Uganda's capital Kampala on Tuesday killed several people and injured scores more.  Two blasts happened three minutes apart and sent terrified residents rushing for cover as cars burst into flames.

Police blamed the attacks on Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a local Islamist extremist group with ties to the so-called "Islamic State" (IS). IS meanwhile took credit for the attack via its Amaq news agency on Telegram.

'Islamic State' names bombers 

IS identified the bomber that carried out the first attack at a police checkpoint as Abu Sabr al-Ugandi, and gave the names of the two others who carried out a separate bombing together near the National Assembly as Abu Shahid al-Ugandi and Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Ugandi.

The Ugandan government said three civilians and three bombers were killed and 33 people were injured in the blasts.

Ugandan explosives experts secure the scene of an explosion in a Kampala suburb in October

The attacks follow two recent bombings in Kampala. Last month a number of people were wounded in a blast on a long-distance bus in Mpigi District and a woman was killed in a bombing at a roadside eatery in Komamboga.

Police said the explosions were connected and carried out by the ADF.

ADF is little understood

The blasts in Kampala shocked a nation that is known as a bulwark against violent Islamist militants in East Africa, and whose leader, Yoweri Museveni, has spent years cultivating Western security support.

But Uganda was not spared: The al Qaeda-linked Somali insurgent group al Shabaab has carried out deadly attacks there in the past, including a 2010 attack that killed 70 people.

Who is now behind the ADF group and what do they stand for? Analysts and UN experts disagree on how closely local ADF fighters actually work with the international IS network.

United Nations peacekeepers secure streets in Ochia in DRC after a terror attack by ADF

Ben Shepherd, an expert on African politics and conflict at the London-based think tank Chatham House, says the ADF is poorly understood. "There have been claims made from within the group that they are part of the IS, but we do not really know if that is true," Shepherd told DW.

There is no hierarchical leadership representing the group. The IS taking responsibility for the attacks certainly aids their propaganda war, he added.

The extent of local support for the ADF in Uganda, or the nature of its ties to the group may have across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are unclear. "It is one of the least understood armed groups operating in the Great Lakes," Shepherd said.

A hybrid group embedded in DRC

The ADF has been active since 1996, formed initially as a sort of joint operation between disaffected Islamic youth who had fallen into a dispute with the Ugandan government and were pushed out of the country after trying to mobilize support.

The ADF — historically a Ugandan rebel group — became embedded in places such as North Kivu in Congo and engaged with other armed groups. The group came to be treated as one of the perhaps 120 armed groups active in eastern Congo, Shepherd said.

The group has operated alongside fighters from groups supportive of the former regimes from Milton Obote and Idi Amin who felt sidelined by Museveni's politics. ADF members have also been linked to rebels engaged in a drawn-out fight for greater independence for communities on the borders between Uganda and the DRC.

In the nearby Rwenzori Mountains, they've have been blamed for thousands of civilian deaths.

According to Shepherd, the ADF is hybrid in character: It is motivated by a Salafist and ethno-nationalist ideology and the needs of desires of the cross-border community.

Soldiers in DRC patrol in villages near Beni after an attack of the rebel group Allied Democratic Forces

It faced pressure attacks, opposition against it by the Congolese government and by UN and the Ugandan government periodically.

Why is Kampala targeted? 

In recent years, the ADF has become much more of a threat to Conoglese communties, as a serious rise in violence continues. When its leader, Jamil Mukulu, was arrested in Tanzania in 2015, he was extradited to Uganda and put on trial for terrorism. The group was reduced to a few hundred fighters. Since 2019, the ADF, led by Mukulu's successor Musa Baluku, has displayed a more Islamist character.

Dino Mahtani, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the ADF's focus had once been on settling local scores and controlling local war economies. "With the more recent affiliation of its main faction to ISIS [Islamic State], a number of foreigners from across East Africa with more globalist jihadist agendas have been arriving into its camps," he said.

In April 2019, IS began to claim some ADF attacks on social media, presenting the group as its regional branch — the Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP), which is said to stretch from Somalia to Mozambique and Congo.

In March 2021 the United States officially linked the ADF to IS. "Until we understand who the ADF are at present it is very hard to understand the motivations for the attacks that took place," analyst Ben Shepherd said.

Cambodia targets Mother Nature group in latest crackdown on dissent

The NGO's efforts to highlight environmental issues in the country have come to the attention of authorities. 

While six members were released from jail last week, they still face charges and official harassment.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is stamping out dissenting voices

Though founded less than a decade ago, Mother Nature Cambodia has quickly become a major nuisance for Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's government.

The NGO's efforts to shed light on environmental issues that are threatening the Southeast Asian country's diverse ecology, as well as its dwindling natural resources, has prompted the Cambodian government to take action.

While six Mother Nature activists were released last week on bail after spending up to 14 months in jail, they still face criminal charges and constant harassment from the Cambodian authorities and judiciary. Some of the charges carry up to 10 years in prison.

"They are a thorn in the side of powerful business interests and corrupt government officials as they leverage social media to keep Cambodians informed about what's happening to their natural landscape," Ming Yu Hah, Amnesty International's deputy regional director for campaigns, said of the environmental activists in an interview with DW.

"Cambodian authorities have repeatedly targeted Mother Nature Cambodia because of the group's fearless and relentless activism against destructive development projects, illegal mining, pollution, and deforestation," she added.

The group's campaigns have included efforts to overturn a planned hydropower project in the remote Areng Valley and expose the mining and export of sand from coastal areas. The Cambodian government had been forced to act regarding the latter when, in 2016, Mother Nature's activism led to a total export ban on coastal sand.

Exposing human rights abuses

Their work has, predictably, attracted the attention of Cambodia's authorities, which have jailed several members of the group for their advocacy as part of a wide crackdown on all forms of dissent.

Mother Nature's founder Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, who was deported from Cambodia in 2015, told DW that the arrests and charges of the group's activists are aimed at stopping their documentation of "the systematic destruction of the environment," which in turn has exposed alleged corruption and human rights abuses.

"In Cambodia, the moment any individual or group becomes effective at protecting the environment, human rights, or especially in inspiring other people to speak out, the regime will place as many obstacles as possible to hinder their work," said Gonzalez-Davidson.

The six activists released on bail are still subject to various probationary conditions, such as judicial supervision, which limits their freedom of movement and requires monthly check-ins with local authorities.

"These tactics are merely an illustration of the precarious environment in which human rights defenders in Cambodia operate, and of the Royal Government of Cambodia's relentless efforts to stifle opinions," Chak Sopheap, executive director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, told DW.

Who are the activists?

Thun Ratha, Long Kunthea and Phuon Keoraksmey were sentenced in May to between 18 and 20 months in prison, along with Gonzalez-Davidson and Chea Kunthin, two other activists, who were convicted in absentia.

The three environmentalists had been held in pre-trial detention since September 2020 before being convicted of incitement over attempts to organize a peaceful one-woman protest march to Hun Sen's residence to rally against the filling-in of Phnom Penh's largest lake.

Although they saw their sentence in their incitement case reduced on November 5 after over 14 months in prison, the trio still faces plotting charges on a separate case, which carries a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in jail.

Three other Mother Nature activists, Sun Ratha, Ly Chandaravuth and Yim Leanghy, were arrested in June after documenting wastewater being discharged into Phnom Penh's Tonle Sap river.

Apart from plotting charges, two of them were also charged with insulting the King, along with Gonzalez-Davidson, who was charged in absentia.

The royal insult charges correspond to remarks made in private online discussions, according to the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO).

Crackdown on environmentalists

Amnesty's Ming Yu Hah says that instead of celebrating Mother Nature's work, the government "is imprisoning its members as part of a broader crackdown on any form of dissent in an increasingly repressive environment under Prime Minister Hun Sen."

Others have endured intimidation, or worse, according to the latest UNHCR report.

In early February, five activists were detained while investigating illegal logging in Prey Lang and were only released after thumb printing documents pledging not to return there without official permission.

A month earlier, an indigenous rights activist was found guilty of public defamation over comments published on social media which criticized the government's approach to the country's forests and other environmental issues.

Another case has seen an activist go into hiding since July last year after a timber trader filed criminal charges against him.

Prominent activist Leng Ouch, who received the world's leading environmental prize for his work exposing illegal logging, has also been arrested and detained at least twice in the past two years.

Even in cases where activists have been freed from detention, "most are subject to judicial supervision — which in cases like these is just another form of judicial harassment," said Pradeep Wagle, representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia.

'Regime is sending a message'

Persecution and judicial harassment of environmental and human rights activists has dramatically increased recently.

In just the last 18 months, 25 human rights campaigners have been arrested and charged, according to the United Nations Human Rights Cambodia Office. Some have already been convicted while others have been detained and are awaiting trial.

"Imprisonment has become a common price to pay by those who speak out for human rights in Cambodia, made possible by the use of the subservient judiciary," Sopheap told DW.

Mother Nature's Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson said: "The regime is trying to send a message to the Cambodian population, and particularly the youth, that telling the truth and being active in the protection of the environment and human rights, can carry very negative consequences."

Edited by: John Silk

Austrian city swears in first-ever communist mayor

The Austrian Communist Party came in first in Austria's second-largest city, Graz, a surprise win in municipal elections. Newly elected Mayor Elke Kahr said she would focus on housing and social policies.


Elke Kahr had served as Graz councilor for the past 16 years

The city council in the Austrian city of Graz voted to elect Elke Kahr as its mayor on Wednesday, officially becoming the first communist leader of a major city in Austria.

The previous mayor of Graz, Siegfried Nagl, was a member of the People's Party and had held the post for 18 years. On Wednesday, Graz's city council elected Kahr with 28 of 46 votes.

Kahr is a member of the Austrian Communist Party, which unexpectedly won the municipal election in Graz, with 28.9% of the vote, ahead of the center-right People's Party, with 25.7%.

Graz is Austria's second-largest city after the capital, Vienna, and its government has a proportional representation electoral system that allows parties with more than 10% in the government.

For decades, the Communist Party has been an important political force at the local level in Austria and Kahr herself has been a member of the party for almost 30 years.

Kahr is the first communist to head a major Austrian city

Kahr pledges new housing policy

Kahr had served as Graz councilor for the past 16 years and had been involved in transportation policy for the city from 2017 until her election as mayor. She has been known to be passionate about housing and social policy.

The 60-year-old said in her first speech as mayor that she would be committed to a new housing plan for the city.

Her party currently leads an alliance with the Greens and the Social Democratic Party. The bloc has already promised to set limits to the profit-driven building activity in the city.

The governing coalition has also said it would strongly support social and environmental measures. One policy they have touted is the pledge that every child in Graz be granted a bicycle, although it is still not clear how the city will provide them.

"Mobility behavior later in life is shaped during childhood," said Manuela Wutte of the Green Party, in support of the measure.

Cuban dissident Yunior Garcia flies to Spain

Days after Cuban authorities thwarted planned protests by the dissident group Archipelago, its most vocal activist has left the island. 

Yunior Garcia Aguilera said he had been incomunicado for several days



Yunior Garcia is the most vocal and known face of the Archipelago movement

A leading activist who had been a vocal backer of anti-government protests in Cuba unexpectedly left the country and flew to Spain, a Spanish government spokesman confirmed on Wednesday.

Yunior Garcia Aguilera and his wife, Dayana Prieto, arrived in Madrid on tourist visas. "We have arrived in Spain, alive, healthy and with our ideas intact. We have many people to thank," Garcia wrote on his Facebook page.

The activist is the most vocal and known face of the Archipelago movement, which was created after rare, spontaneous protests swept the streets in July. Cubans took to the streets to protest power outages, shortages and high prices. They denounced the lack of freedoms on the island.

Cuba has accused the US government of instigating the protests and trying to destabilize the country. Garcia, a screenwriter who is mostly known in Cuba for his plays, as well as his television and movie scripts, has denied being linked to the US.
A 'personal decision'

Garcia's departure from Cuba comes in the wake of a wider crackdown on media and organizers ahead of protests that were planned for November 15. Authorities had targeted Garcia, barring him from leaving his apartment building when he said we would carry on a solo protest walk on Sunday.

But, since Monday, no one had heard from him or seen him, prompting members of the Archipelago group to voice concern about his safety.

"I have been without communication for several days and I need to update myself on the situation of other members of the Archipelago. Very soon we will discuss our odyssey," the 39-year-old wrote.

It was not clear if Garcia had fled the country or if he had been forced to leave. But sources from the Spanish Foreign Ministry told newspaper El Pais that it was "a personal decision,” whereby Garcia had requested a visa to Spain and it was granted.

"Obviously, if Cuban authorities were not against it, because if it had been so, he would not have left,” the source is quoted as saying, adding that it was unclear to Spanish authorities whether or not he would apply for political asylum.

jcg/fb (AFP, AP, EFE)

34,000 protest in Greece on anti-junta revolt anniversary
   

Thousands marching towards to US embassy in Athens 

 

(AFP/Louisa GOULIAMAKI)


Wed, November 17, 2021

Tens of thousands of people joined protests in Greece's two largest cities on Wednesday, marking the anniversary of a 1973 student revolt against a US-backed junta, an annual event that often sparks violence.

Twenty thousand turned out in the capital Athens, according to police. Most of the marchers were students, unionists and members of leftist parties. A further 14,000 marched in the second city Thessaloniki.

Police were deployed in their thousands in the capital, supported by drones, a helicopter and water cannon as violence regularly breaks out during the annual protest.

However, both demonstrations remained peaceful into the evening.

In Athens, thousands marched to the US embassy to protest against Washington's support for the Greek military dictatorship during the Cold War.

"No to police violence and suppression", read one banner, "Resistance to fascism" another.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in a statement said, "Let us welcome this great anniversary... without extreme behaviour."

Social discontent has been growing in Greece against the conservative government, which has been criticised for its security crackdown, police violence and alleged control of the media.

- Riot police at US embassy -

The American embassy in Athens was ringed with riot police and police vehicles on Wednesday, with embassy staff sent home early, while central Athens subway stations were closed on security grounds.

"US government personnel have been advised to avoid the downtown areas of Athens and Thessaloniki in the late afternoon and to stay behind police lines until the Greek authorities announce the conclusion of the event," the embassy said ahead of the protests.

Last year, the government tried to ban the protests as the anniversary fell in the middle of a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, before vaccines became available.

But hundreds defied the ban, and police used tear gas, stun grenades and water cannon to disperse the demonstration in Athens.

Due to a vaccination rate of more than 63 percent in Greece, the government did not ban the demonstrations this year.

The annual protests mark the day in 1973 when at least 24 people were killed at the Athens Polytechnic, when the junta sent troops and police against a pro-democracy student uprising.

The brutal crackdown shocked Europe, and is generally considered to have broken the dictatorship's grip on power, leading to the restoration of democracy months later.

The bloodstained Greek flag that flew that night over the polytechnic's iron gate, which was crushed by a tank, was carried at the head of the demonstration in the capital, as it is each year.

A group of students prevented a parliamentary delegation from laying a wreath in the polytechnic on Wednesday morning, chanting "Out with the junta".

There has been additional tension in recent months as a result of a new law that bans demonstrators from streets partially open to traffic.

Many protesters have been ignoring that restriction, and riot police have regularly used tear gas and water cannon to push them back.

jph-hec/chv/pvh/pbr

DR Congo lawmakers urge reparations over illegal mining


Gold is used to fund armed groups and fuel the conflicts that have plagued eastern regions of the DRC for more than a generation (AFP/Guerchom NDEBO)

Wed, November 17, 2021, 2:35 PM·2 min read

Lawmakers probing illegal mining by foreign-owned firms in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday recommended fines and reparations to local communities to compensate for the losses.

Authorities in the eastern region of South Kivu in August suspended the work of half a dozen Chinese-financed companies in its Mwenga territory, after inhabitants accused them of mining for gold without permission and wrecking the environment.

"Most... mining companies have not entered into a contract with the local communities and those that did have never respected it," the lawmakers said in a report presented to parliament.

"During exploitation... the local communities' fields and fishing ponds have been destroyed" and water resources polluted, they added in the document, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.

They said the mining sector presented "huge potential" for Democratic Republic of Congo, but the country was facing an onslaught of illegal "mining firms and cooperatives" who were "dispossessing the state".

The members of parliament recommended the government "restore order in the South Kivu mining sector", by "suspending all mining activity across the whole province", and "identifying and withdrawing, where appropriate, the rights of irregular mining firms and cooperatives".

They asked the authorities to impose "fines on firms... carrying out illegal mining activities".

The opacity of the exploitation and sale of Congolese gold has long been a source of concern, with UN experts last year noting "volumes of smuggled gold significantly higher than those marketed legally".

Gold, one of the Central African country's abundant mineral resources, is also used to fund armed groups and fuel the conflicts that have plagued eastern regions for more than a generation.

The lawmakers also called on the authorities to create "trading centres for gold transactions" in Mwenga.

They said they hoped parliament would pass a resolution to urge the government to "fully, and jointly with the mining companies and cooperatives, compensate for the prejudices suffered... by the local communities due to the passiveness and/or complicity of the competent authority, both at provincial and national level".

They also called for the army and the police to be banned from mining sites, but said an exception should be made for the so-called "mines and hydrocarbons police".

bmb-at/ah/pbr

Hate speech trial for French far-right pundit Zemmour

His defence lawyer argued that all Zemmour had done was develop a political argument 

(AFP/JOEL SAGET)
Wed, November 17, 2021

French far-right pundit Eric Zemmour, who is widely expected to run for the presidency next year, went on trial Wednesday charged with racist hate speech over a televised tirade against unaccompanied child migrants.

He told the CNews channel in September last year that child migrants were "thieves, killers, they're rapists. That's all they are. We should send them back."

The 63-year-old did not appear in person, saying in a statement that he refused "to accept that a political debate takes place in a courtroom".

Even if he were convicted, he would almost certainly appeal, and his electoral prospects would be unlikely to suffer as his contempt for "politically correct" speech is part of his appeal.

Around 20 members of his "Generation Z" support group gathered in front of the Paris court building and unfurled a French flag.

The case was "nothing other than another attempt to intimidate me", his statement said under the headline "they won't shut me up".

The journalist, author and TV pundit has two previous convictions for hate speech and has been investigated 16 times in total for his incendiary remarks on immigration and Islam.

- Polling strongly -

In court Wednesday, the prosecution denounced what it described as Zemmour's "contemptuous, outrageous" words and called for a 10,000-euro fine.

"The limits of freedom of expression have been crossed," said Manon Adam, calling for the fine to be set at 100 euros a day for 100 days, with the possibility of jail if it was not paid.

For the defence, lawyer Olivier Pardo argued that Zemmour was developing a political argument.

"His thesis, that there must be no immigration", was a political position, he said, calling for Zemmour to be cleared.

The court will hand down its verdict on January 17.

In his initial comments during the debate on CNews, Zemmour referred repeatedly to "all" unaccompanied child migrants as thieves, killers and rapists, but he later conceded that "not all" of them were criminals after prompting from a presenter.

He was talking several days after a Pakistani man attacked two people with a meat cleaver at the former offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, which had recently republished cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

The 25-year-old assailant, who was unaware that the magazine had changed location, had arrived in France with false papers to claim asylum as an unaccompanied minor.

Immigration is a major theme of early presidential campaigning, with Zemmour and other right-wing hopefuls promising to address fraud in the asylum system and the difficulty of returning people if their claims are rejected.

In 2011, he was fined 10,000 euros ($11,300) for claiming on TV that "most drug dealers are black and Arab". In 2018, he was ordered to pay 3,000 euros for stigmatising comments about a Muslim "invasion" of France.

Polls have shown a surge in support for him over the last two months, with some at the end of October putting him ahead of the veteran far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

In the latest surveys ahead of the first round of the election on April 10, he was shown winning 13 to 15 percent, with Le Pen on around 18 percent and President Emmanuel Macron on around 25 percent.

Macron is tipped to win the second-round run-off irrespective of his opponent, but analysts warn that the election remains highly unpredictable.

mdh-nk-adp/jj/dw