#letter to Agriculture Minister

[wileycap]

Selected Excerpts From The Fire Nation Royal Palace Servants' (Unofficial) Handbook

Or: Revisions To Normal Protocol After The Ascension Of Agni's Exalted Flame, The Dragon Of The Sun, et cetera, Fire Lord Zuko

1. Agni's Exalted Flame, The Dragon Of The Sun, et cetera, Fire Lord Zuko should not be referred to by his full titles and styles, no matter the context. This appears to annoy him. "Fire Lord Zuko" and "Lord Zuko" are acceptable, as well as "your majesty" and "my Lord".

1.1 "Lord Hotman", however, is unacceptable.

1.2. Even if the Avatar specifically requests you to address Fire Lord Zuko as that.

1.3. In fact, any attempts by the Avatar, the Lady Beifong, the honorable Tribesman Sokka or even Master Katara to get you to address Fire Lord Zuko by anything other than his proper title should be disregarded.

1.4. Referring to Ozai of the Fire Nation (titles rmvd, dishon.) as "The Loser Lord", however, is acceptable.

2. Fire Lord Zuko is aware of the concept of mortality, but does not seem to understand how it relates to His Majesty. Following activities should be discouraged: Free climbing, glider usage, contact with exotic animals larger than a turtleduck (or smaller, if the animal is known to be venomous), amateur theatre productions, cooking, sailing, spelunking, botany, please see full list in the Matron's office.

2.1. It should be noted that His Majesty's belief that mortality does not apply to him does not appear to be completely unfounded. After several "close calls", it has been decided that upon his demise, Fire Lord Zuko should lie in state for at least two weeks.

2.1.1. We do not want another incident.

3. The turtleducks in the Western Pond do not need to be fed by the servants any more.

3.1. However, the turtleducks should be rotated out at regular intervals in order to prevent overfeeding.

4. At any official social functions, at least three servants should be vigilant in case His Majesty tries to tell a joke.

4.1. It should be noted that there is no concern for His Majesty's jokes being offensive, crass or otherwise contrary to good taste. They are simply very bad. His Majesty always ends up embarrassed.

5. Any children left unattended in the Royal Palace for more than 15 degrees can be retrieved from the Fire Lord's office.

6. Should His Majesty go missing, the following places should be searched: roofs and any high places, cellars and secret passages, the fur of the Avatar's sky bison (which is surprisingly deep), and every place that an ordinary five-year-old would think to hide in during a game of "Hide and Explode."

6.1. All of the Imperial Firebenders as well as any soldier who wears a mask during the course of their duties should be questioned.

6.1.1. Important note: Some of the soldiers who are especially close to His Majesty can perform a passable imitation of him. Efforts should be made to prevent an uneducated soldier from, say, conducting a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture.

6.2. After the recent incident, that list is expanded to include the Kyoshi Warriors and any other groups that might wear concealing full face paint.

6.3. If all of these measures prove ineffective, a letter should be sent to The Dragon of the West, Prince Iroh, asking His Highness to return His Majesty.

6.4. If a ransom note is delivered, it should be immediately checked against the handwriting samples from the honorable Tribesman Sokka as well as Avatar Aang, before any other actions are taken.

6.4.1. Replying "Good luck, he's your problem now" to a ransom note is absolutely unacceptable.

6.4.1.1. To further drive home the point, the Royal Archives are required by law to preserve every single piece of royal correspondence. That thing will end up in a museum.

This handbook will be updated should it prove necessary.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

A major Ontario farming group said Tuesday that the Greenbelt doesn't need to be developed to solve the province's housing crisis.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) shared a statement to its members as political leaders from all provincial parties attended the annual International Plowing Match in Bowling Green, Ont. 

The OFA, which represents more than 38,000 farmers and industry workers, previously said in a 2021 open letter to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing that "the province should take a holistic, systematic, province-wide approach that identifies the most appropriate areas for growth."

In a statement released Tuesday, the OFA said it wanted to clarify the organization's stance on the controversial Greenbelt land swap.

"Ontario's farmland must be protected," the statement said. [...]

Continue Reading.

[fatehbaz]

The SAWP is a temporary labour program that brings foreign workers to Canada for periods between six weeks and eight months annually [...], paving the way for the recruitment of Jamaican workers as well as workers from other Caribbean countries like Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados [beginning] in 1968. [...] The SAWP has been a resounding success for Canadian growers because offshore indentured workers enable agribusiness to expand and secure large profits. Being indentured means that migrant farm workers are bound to specific employers by contractual agreements [...]. First, they are legally prevented from unionizing. [...] Additionally, because they are bound to specific employers, they must ensure that the employer is happy with them [...]. For instance, migrant farm workers are forced to agree to growers’ requests for long working hours, labour through the weekend, suppress complaints and avoid conflicts, if they want to stay out of “trouble” [...]. In “Canada’s Creeping Economic Apartheid”, Grace Galabuzi shows that the Canadian Government’s immigration policy is, in reality, a labour market immigration policy [...].

[Text by: Julie Ann McCausland. "Racial Capitalism, Slavery, Labour Regimes and Exploitation in the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program". Caribbean Quilt Volume 5. 2020. Paragraph contractions added by me.]

---

A big finding that came out of the oral history interviews was a much richer tapestry of worker protest than has previously been documented. Speaking with workers – including former workers back in their home countries of Jamaica and Barbados – allowed me to hear the types of stories that often don’t make it into archives or newspapers. Interviewees told me stories about wildcat strikes, about negotiating conditions with employers, and also about protesting their home governments’ role in organizing the migrant labour program. [...] [T]hings did not have to be this way; our current world was anything but inevitable. [...] [But] economic forces transformed tobacco farming (and agriculture writ large), [...] leaving mega-operations in their wake. [...] [L]arge operations could afford [...] bringing in foreign guestworkers. The attraction of foreign workers was not due to labour shortages, but instead in their much higher degree of exploitability, given the strict nature of their contracts and the economic compulsion under which they pursued overseas migrant labour. [...] Ontario’s tobacco belt (located in between Hamilton and London, on the north shore of Lake Erie), was from the 1920s to 1980s one the most profitable sectors in Canadian agriculture and the epicentre of migrant labour in the country [...]. In most years, upwards of 25,000 workers were needed to bring in the crop. [...]

[The words of Edward Dunsworth. Text is a transcript of Dunsworth's responses in an interview conducted and transcribed by Andria Caputo. 'Faculty Publication Spotlight: Ed Dunsworth's "Harvesting Labour"'. Published online at McGill Faculty of Arts. 15 December 2022. At: mcgill.ca/arts/article/faculty-publication-spotlight-ed-dunsworths-harvesting-labour. Some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

---

Jamaican agricultural workers say they face conditions akin to “systematic slavery” on Canadian farms, as they call on Jamaica to address systemic problems in a decades-old, migrant labour programme in Canada. In a letter sent to Jamaica’s minister of labour and social security earlier this month [August 2022], workers [...] said they have been “treated like mules” on two farms in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province. [...] The workers [...] are employed under [...] (SAWP), which allows Canadian employers to hire temporary migrant workers from Mexico and 11 countries in the Caribbean [...]. “We work for eight months on minimum wage and can’t survive for the four months back home. The SAWP is exploitation at a seismic level. Employers treat us like we don’t have any feelings, like we’re not human beings. We are robots to them. They don’t care about us.” Between 50,000 and 60,000 foreign agricultural labourers come to Canada each year on temporary permits [...]. Canada exported more than $63.3bn ($82.2bn Canadian) in agriculture and food products in 2021 – making it the fifth-largest exporter of agri-food in the world. [...]

[Text by: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours. "Jamaican farmworkers decry ‘seismic-level exploitation’ in Canada". Al Jazeera (English). 24 August 2022.]

---

In my home country, St. Lucia, we believe in a fair day’s pay [...]. In Canada, we give more than a fair day’s work, but we do not get a fair day’s pay. [...] I worked in a greenhouse in [...] Ontario, growing and harvesting tomatoes and organic sweet peppers for eight months of the year, from 2012 to 2015. [...] In the bunkhouse where I lived, there were typically eight workers per room. Newly constructed bunkhouses typically have up to fourteen people per room. [...] I also received calls from workers (especially Jamaicans) who were either forbidden – or strongly discouraged – from leaving the farm property. This outrageous overreach of employer control meant that workers had difficulty sending money home, or buying necessary items [...]. [O]n a lot of farms, [...] workers’ movement and activity is policed by their employers. The government knows about this yet fails to act.

[Text are the words of Gabriel Allahdua. Text from a transcript of an interview conducted by Edward Dunworth. '“Canada’s Dirty Secret”: An Interview with Gabriel Allahdua about migrant farm workers’ pandemic experience'. Published by Syndemic Magazine, Issue 2: Labour in a Treacherous Time. 8 March 2022. Some paragraph contractions added by me.]

---

The CSAWP is structured in such a way as to exclude racialized working class others from citizen-track entry into the country while demarcating them to a non-immigrant status as temporary, foreign and unfree labourers. The CSAWP is [...] a relic of Canada’s racist and colonial past, one that continues unimpeded in the present age [...]. [T]he Canadian state has offered a concession to the agricultural economic sector in the way of an ambiguous legal entity through which foreign agricultural workers are legally disenfranchised and legally denied citizenship rights.

[Text by: Adam Perry. "Barely legal: Racism and migrant farm labour in the context of Canadian multiculturalism". Citizenship Studies, 16:2, 189-201. 2012.]

---

Other publications:

Smith. 'Troubling “project Canada”: the Caribbean and the making of “unfree migrant labour”’. Canadian Journal of Latin American Studies Volume 40, number 2. 2015.

Choudry and Thomas. "Labour struggles for workplace justice: migrant and immigrant worker organizing in Canada". Journal of Industrial Relations Volume 55, number 2. 2013.

Harsha Walia. "Transient servitude: migrant labour in Canada and the apartheid of citizenship". Race & Class 52, number 1. 2010.

Beckford. "The experiences of Caribbean migrant farmworkers in Ontario, Canada". Social and Economic Studies Volume 65, number 1. 2016.

Edward Dunsworth. Harvesting Labour: Tobacco and the Global Making of Canada’s Agricultural Workforce (2022).

Edward Dunsworth. “‘Me a free man’: resistance and racialisation in the Canada-Caribbean Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program,” Oral History Volume 49, number 1. Spring 2021.

[beardedmrbean]

On July 2, Qu Dongyu, a former Chinese government minister, was reelected to a second term as director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Qu was the only candidate in the election. One of the United Nations’ largest and most influential agencies, the FAO is tasked with overseeing international efforts to defeat hunger and achieve food security globally. Two days prior to the FAO leadership election, a German investigative report accused Qu of corrupting the U.N. food agency and deviating from its policy of reducing farmers’ dependency on pesticides. The investigation revealed that under Qu’s leadership, the FAO approved, facilitated and funded providing poor African and South Asian countries with pesticides banned in Europe for their high toxicity.

When asked about the accusation against Qu, China’s Foreign Ministry responded: “…[H]is [Qu Dongyu] reelection with a big majority fully shows that his work over the past four years has been highly recognized by the international community, and the argument you just cited is totally unacceptable to the international community,” ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on July 3. That is misleading. Under Qu, the FAO has deviated from its longtime policy of reducing global reliance on pesticides and entered into partnership agreements with agrochemical industry lobbying groups and firms, including those linked with the Chinese government. When it comes to crop health, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization states that its policy is to promote a method called Integrated Pest Management, which emphasizes the least possible disruption to agroecosystems and encourages natural pest control mechanisms. Formally, the FAO recommends judicious use of pesticides “only as a last resort” when there are no adequate alternatives.

However, the investigation titled “Food.Power.China”, produced by German public broadcasters Bavarian Broadcasting, Central German Broadcasting, RBB Fernsehen and SWR Fernsehen, revealed how the FAO under Qu’s leadership has facilitated and funded the increased use of pesticides in Africa’s and Southeast Asia’s poorest countries. In 2020, one year after he took over as FAO head, Qu signed a letter of intent to explore a new partnership with CropLife International, the agrochemical industry’s largest lobbying group.

[grandmaster-anne]

Court Circular | 15th March 2023

Buckingham Palace

His Excellency Mr Aly Diallo was received in audience by The King today and presented the Letters of Recall of his predecessor and his own Letters of Credence as Ambassador from the Republic of Guinea to the Court of St James’s. Ms Marie Savane was also received by His Majesty. His Excellency Mr El Hadji Alhousseini Traore was received in audience by The King and presented the Letters of Recall of his predecessor and his own Letters of Credence as Ambassador from the Republic of Mali to the Court of St James’s. Sir Philip Barton (Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs) was present. His Majesty this afternoon visited members of the United Kingdom’s Sudanese community at Abrar House, 45 Crawford Place, London W1, and was received by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London (Sir Kenneth Olisa). Later Dr Richard Montgomery was received in audience by The King upon his appointment as British High Commissioner to the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP (Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury) subsequently had an audience of His Majesty. The Queen Consort, Honorary Member, the Jockey Club, today attended the Cheltenham Festival at Cheltenham Racecourse and was received by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Gloucestershire (Mr Edward Gillespie).

Kensington Palace

The Princess of Wales, Joint Patron, the Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales, this morning held an Early Years Meeting at Windsor Castle.

St James’s Palace

The Duke of Edinburgh, Patron, The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, this morning visited Portland College, Nottingham Road, Mansfield, and was received by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire (Sir John Peace).

St James’s Palace

The Princess Royal, Colonel-in-Chief, Intelligence Corps, this morning visited Government Communications Headquarters, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Her Royal Highness this afternoon opened Dransfield Properties Limited’s Number 1 King Street Five Valleys Medical Centre, NHS Facilities and Library Services, King Street, Stroud, and was received by Mr Roger Deeks (Vice Lord-Lieutenant of Gloucestershire). The Princess Royal, accompanied by Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, this evening attended the Gloucestershire and District Agricultural Valuers Association’s Centenary Dinner at the Royal Agricultural University, Tetbury Road, Cirencester, and was received by Mrs Jane Jenner-Fust (Deputy Lieutenant of Gloucestershire).

Kensington Palace

The Duke of Gloucester, Vice President, Lepra, this morning received Mrs Suzanne McCarthy (Chairman of Trustees) and Mr James Innes (Chief Executive).

St James’s Palace

The Duke of Kent, Grand Master, United Grand Lodge of England, this afternoon attended a Rulers’ Luncheon at Freemasons’ Hall, 60 Great Queen Street, London WC2.

[arcstral]

📔- A memory from a journal/diary entry

     (  📔  ;  memory from a journal/diary entry  )

               His boyhood journal outlives the Dolhrian occupation where few others have. Recovered in one piece albeit not in the stateliest of single pieces. Having survived the agonies of war, the pages now reek with mildew for it; with the filthy incense of something wet that were improperly dried after being doused by the outdoor elements. It hardly means a thing to Marth. One can only recognize a miracle for what it is and, naturally, it strikes his wonder.

               When he asks they tell of its refuge beneath the floorboards. Tucked away by the petty servants who had found it first rotting, forgotten, under several layers of sewage; likely fallen out of the wagon meant to convey the castle’s documents to the rubbish fires. Either that or labelled so innocently unimportant that it were scarcely worth the oil used to burn more important witches at the stake. History books and government memorandum. The Dolhrians made certain, of course, that even if the Alteans were to reclaim their unfortunate kingdom, they would be searching the ashes on their hands and knees for even a single piece of paper and pen. So he’s grateful for the wry twist of fate.

               Surrounded by the silence and privacy of the castle’s newly rebuilt parlor, Marth sifts through the pages, and then through the words. Patches of the ink have faded to damages. Like mouthfuls of missing teeth some entries miss sentences and some words miss letters, but nevertheless his mind struggles diligently to discover one that can be read. So determined to bring something of his old life into view, until there is one piece that he finds. Excitedly, he reads.

Tuesday. The flowering season. Year 594 of the Archanean Calendar.

Today I went swimming in the lake on the fringes of the royal property. Mother, father, and Elice were with me. I’d asked for Merric’s company but they spoke of it as a ‘family venture’ with only our immediate fellows and the household servants.

I didn’t dare complain with father in so sore a mood. Only this morning, he’d paid out five silver to the minister of agriculture after failing to shoot a quail. I hear they had a terrible boyhood rivalry as hunting mates. It is not really something I understand well.

After swimming alone, and playing tennis together with Elice, pork sandwiches with white crustless bread were plated for us for lunch. Blackberry compote for afternoon dessert. The weather was sunnier than yesterday but there was a grey tinge to the clouds, and a thickly smell to the air, like a rain would be soon to fall.

When I spoke of it to Elice, she assured that mother and father would never plan a trip that could be soiled by rain. I reported as such to mother as well, and she continued chatting to her ladies-in-waiting as if she hadn’t heard a thing. An hour later and rain did fall! A right storm that uprooted the parasols and blew mother’s hat off her head. Really, people ought to listen to me...

               Silence hangs after the final childish note of his past complaints and the entry ends there. As does his desire to continue. A smothering weight upon his chest, something wet and indiscernible—unwelcome—welling in the eye, the prince touches his lips together tightly. Filled with old memories that still felt too painfully new, the open halves of the journal are soon to follow.

[reasoningdaily]

On January 12, 2010, the Caribbean nation of Haiti experienced a devastating earthquake, which took more than 100,000 lives and left 200,000+ injured and 900,000+ homeless — about 10 percent of the country’s population.

It was one of the Western hemisphere’s greatest natural disasters, and nations like the United States rushed to the aid of Haiti — one of the world’s poorest nations — to help the country’s citizens recover and rebuild.

The Obama administration, working via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, appointed former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush coordinators of U.S. relief efforts. Bill Clinton specifically was put in charge of billions of dollars that flowed from the U.S. and other nations to Haiti.

To date, the U.S. alone has given over $3.1 billion via its United States Agency for International Development (USAID) organization — which works out to more than $300 for each Haitian citizen.

Who benefited from all this aid? Perhaps unsurprisingly, almost no Haitians.

More than six years after the disaster, much damage and ruin from the calamity are still in evidence. Many of those made homeless are still without permanent housing.

Almost none of the money given in aid ended up going to the people who need it the most — instead, it went to foreign governments, private companies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Red Cross.

The Red Cross alone took in as much as $486 million for relief efforts yet ended up building a mere six homes in its relief efforts, as a recent audit of that organization’s efforts discovered. (It should be noted that the CEO of the American Red Cross, Gail McGovern, receives a salary of more than $1,000,000 per year.)

One-third of each of the USAID dollars went to reimbursing the U.S. military for its intervention actions. More than $220 million went to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, about $150 million went to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and $350 million went straight back to USAID. By some estimates, only one cent of every dollar made it to the government of Haiti.

For other countries helping with relief efforts, the split was similar. After accounting for militaries, civilian entities, NGOs, private contractors and the Red Cross, as little as one percent of the money made it to the Haitian government.

In the wake of the disaster, the government of Haiti set up the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), co-chaired by Bill Clinton and former Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive. Nearly 1500 government contracts were awarded to companies providing relief aid.

The U.S. Ambassador to Haiti at the time, Kenneth Merten, sent a cable to Hillary Clinton’s State Department entitled, “The Gold Rush Is On.” Out of the nearly 1500 contracts, just 23 were awarded to Haitian companies — nearly 40 percent of the contracts were awarded to companies in the Washington, D.C. area.

A number of members of the IHRC later wrote a letter saying that it was Clinton and Bellerive who made many of the most important monetary decisions early in the recovery process, effectively shutting them out.

A number of Haitian groups even had trouble getting into the meetings where discussions about the aid were ongoing; most of the meetings were not held or translated into Creole, one of the two national languages of Haiti.

Many claimed that numerous decisions were not made in Haitians’ best interests. Many groups further claimed that the Clintons were closely connected to individuals who benefitted highly from government contracts following the earthquake.

One of those close connections was Irish billionaire Denis O’Brien, the founder of cellphone company Digicel, which set up an emergency method for Haitians to transfer money via their cellphones. Digicel received millions of dollars in money from USAID for this effort.

Clinton appointed O’Brien the chairman of the Haiti Action Network, an outreach program of the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative. In a cover story in Esquire magazine, Bill Clinton was quoted as saying, “Wouldn’t it be great if [Haiti] became the first [100%] wireless nation in the world? They could, I’m telling you; they really could.”

While the former president’s vision did not effectively come to pass, Digicel was able to earn a tidy $50 million from their disaster-recovery efforts in just six months. By 2012, the company had managed to take over 80 percent of the country’s cellphone market and made more money in Haiti than in any of the firm’s other global divisions.

In the meantime, Bill Clinton gave a $225,000 speech at an event Digicel sponsored in Jamaica while O’Brien made multimillion-dollar donations to the Bill and Hillary’s Clinton Foundation.

In an article on the earthquake by reporter Janet Reitman of Rolling Stone, it was reported that another contractor in Haiti was New York-based consulting firm Dalberg Global Development Advisors.

Reitman’s article found that Dalberg’s staff “had never lived overseas, didn’t have any disaster experience or background in urban planning… never carried out any program activities on the ground…” and only one of the team spoke French, the other official language of Haiti. USAID looked at their work and “it became clear that these people may not have even gotten out of their SUVs.”

In Peter Schweizer’s best-selling book-turned-film Clinton Cash, it was revealed that Hillary Clinton’s brother Tony Rodham received one of only two rare gold mining permits granted by the Haitian government in the last 50 years.

Rodham’s tiny company, VCS Mining (which at the time had scant mining experience), had a heavyweight board that included — surprise — Bill Clinton and the IHRC’s Jean-Max Bellerive. VCS received a sweetheart deal from the Haitian government, to whom it would only owe royalties of 2.5 percent, a rate that’s less than half of a standard contract, according to many in the mining industry.

Not only that, but VCS received the right to renew its contract for 25 years. In court testimony published by The New York Times, Rodham was quoted as saying, “I deal through the Clinton Foundation. That gets me in touch with Haitian officials. I hound my brother-in-law [Bill Clinton] because it’s his fund that we’re going to get our money from. And he can’t do it until the Haitian government does it.”

Yet another deal the Clintons made was for a Korean manufacturer named Sae-A to set up factories in a business zone called the Caracol Industrial Park. The opening of Caracol was a splashy event, with both of the Clintons in attendance along with fashion designer Donna Karan and celebrities Ben Stiller and Sean Penn.

As it turns out, Sae-A manufactures apparel for U.S. brands (such as Donna Karan’s) who happen to be big supporters of the Clintons. At the time, the State Department said that Caracol would provide 65,000 jobs to the Haitian community; to date, only 5,000 of those jobs have materialized.

As Schweizer points out, nearly all of the contracts that the Haitian government approved in the wake of the disaster touched the Clintons in some way; without a relationship with the couple, a company or organization was virtually guaranteed to be shut out of being able to provide goods or services.

The Clintons’ eponymous Foundation was one of the first organizations to commit to helping to rebuild in Haiti. However, much of their multimillion-dollar relief efforts amounted to little more than assisting with (and in some cases donating money directly to) the construction of luxury hotels in the country, including at least one Marriott franchise operation owned by the aforementioned owner of Digicel, Denis O’Brien.

Very recently, the former president of the Haitian Senate, Bernard Sansaricq, issued a statement blasting the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation. It reads:

Sadly, when an earthquake rocked the nation of Haiti in 2010, corruption moved in faster than the help so desperately needed. Today, the people of Haiti are still suffering despite the billions of dollars that have flowed into the Clinton Foundation.

The Clintons exploited this terrible disaster to steal billions of dollars from the sick and starving people of Haiti. The world trusted the Clintons to help the Haitian people during their most desperate time of need and they were deceived.

The Clintons and their friends are richer today while millions still live in tents. The world deserves to know where the money went and why help was never sent.

Sansaricq further went on to say that Bill Clinton had attempted to bribe him prior to the 1994 U.S. military invasion of Haiti. Sansaricq was strongly against the planned invasion, and then-President Clinton sent former Congressman Bill Richardson of New Mexico to talk to Sansaricq.

When Sansaricq refused to back down, the American Embassy in Haiti dispatched an anonymous messenger to Sansaricq with a message that if Sansaricq were to side with Bill Clinton, he would be made “the richest man in Haiti.” When Sansaricq refused the bribe, his U.S. visa was revoked.

Sansaricq has subsequently called for an audit of the Clinton Foundations’ efforts in Haiti.

In addition to these operations, the United Nations was also involved early on in the struggle to rebuild Haiti. While much of its work was helpful, the organization’s endeavors were blamed for an outbreak of cholera in October of 2010, nine months after the earthquake.

The cholera plague lasted for years amidst relief and vaccination efforts and ultimately was one of the most horrific outbreaks of the scourge in the last 40 years, infecting more than 780,000 Haitians. To date, nearly 10,000 Haitians are estimated to have died as a direct result of the epidemic.

Initially, the UN denied responsibility, but investigators from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), Doctors Without Borders and Harvard University all confirmed the septic waste of the UN mission as the original source of the disease; even Bill Clinton confirmed the UN link.

For its part, the UN tried to downplay the former president’s statements, saying, “In relation to former President Clinton’s reported remarks to the press this week in Haiti, we note that he emphasized the importance of focusing on improving Haiti’s sanitation system and the fact that the United Nations and others are working hard to do this.”

Cholera epidemics such as the one that has afflicted Haiti are often multi-year incidents that do not go away; they resurge and can kill dozens more people year after year without heavy-duty treatment and repairs to an area’s plumbing infrastructure.

It’s essential that this critical infrastructure be repaired or installed, but even prior to the earthquake, only one in five Haitians had access to a real toilet, and two in five did not have access to clean water. After Clinton connected the UN to the cholera outbreak, the Clinton Global Initiative committed to building a multi-billion dollar Permanent Diarrhea Training and Treatment Center for Haiti. As of February 2015, the Center remained unbuilt.

In 2016, a bipartisan committee in Congress led by Republican Representative Mia Love of Utah (who is herself of Haitian descent) wrote a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry criticizing the slow U.S. response to the cholera outbreak. More than 150 members of Congress signed the letter.

In the meantime, the UN has stated it will not pay damages, accept lawsuits or trials for its actions due to the cholera epidemic in Haiti, claiming it is protected under a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) it signed with corrupt and brutal former Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

An examination of the Clinton Foundation’s website today shows no updates on Haiti since July 2015 and the total amount raised for Haiti as just $30 million. Perhaps the Clintons are too busy waiting for the world’s next disaster while Hillary Clinton courts more money for her campaign to be president.

[hardynwa]

Tinubu submits FCTA 2024 budget, seeks Reps consideration

President Bola Tinubu, on Tuesday, submitted the 2024 budget for the Federal Capital Territory Administration to the House of Representatives for consideration and passage. The letter seeking the passage of the budget was read on the floor of the House during plenary session on Tuesday. It was, however, silent on the estimates. The letter reads: “In line with the provisions of Sections 121 and 299 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, the Honourable Minister of the Federal Capital Territory has prepared the 2024 budget proposal of the FCT, which is here before you for consideration and approval by the National Assembly. “The proposal has been prepared on the basis of the FCTA revenue and expenditure focus and is in line with the fiscal and development policy of the federal government and the Renewed Hope Agenda. “In addition, the budget proposal takes into consideration the 2024–2026 economic recovery and growth plan as well as key assumptions in the 2024 budget. “The FCTA is prioritising improvement in health care services, job creation, youth empowerment, and increased productivity in agriculture in order to lift many citizens as much as possible out of poverty. “I hereby forward the 2024 statutory budget proposal of the FCTA, and I trust that it will receive the kind consideration and expeditious approval of the House of Representatives. Please accept the assurances of my highest regards. After reading the letter, the Speaker, Abbas Tajudeen, who presided over plenary, directed that the request be forwarded to the Committee on Appropriation for deliberation ahead of its budget passage. Read the full article

[head-post]

Czech farmers continue to protest against EU agricultural policy

Hundreds of tractors blocked a road in Prague on Monday during a protest by farmers against the EU agricultural policies.

Traffic was not stopped, but the council warned people to limit their travelling to Prague on Monday.

The protesters planned to deliver a letter to Agriculture Minister Marek Vyborny with their demands. In particular, they oppose the EU’s Green Deal, which calls for curbing the use of chemicals and greenhouse gas emissions, and want the country to withdraw from it. Some protesters demanded the resignation of the government.

Other farmers’ groups said they planned to hold separate demonstrations on Thursday along with colleagues from neighbouring and other countries.

Read more HERE

[college-girl199328]

Day after day, the water trucks rolled into the southwest Alberta communities of Cowley, Lundbreck, and Beaver Mines. Due to severe drought conditions, that's how residents and businesses got their water supply between last August and late August, normally getting water piped in from the nearby Oldman Reservoir. But its water levels became so low that the intake pipes were suddenly sucking in prairie air instead, requiring a desperate (and costly) truck solution.

Engineers have figured out a pumping solution to stop the need for daily trucks, but sometimes they still have to haul when the pipes pick up too much silt and sediment from the parched reservoir's bed, says David Cox, reeve of the Municipal District of Pincher Creek.

Water issues have become most of what he talks about — with residents facing sharp usage restrictions, with fellow municipal leaders and farm groups, with provincial officials on a now-regular basis.

As bad as last year's drought situation was--water trucks to Cowley, feed crunches for cattle farmers, lawn-sprinkler limits in Calgary--many indications show that this year threatens to be even worse in much of Alberta and the rest of western Canada.

The Alberta government's creeping sense of urgency showed up on Wednesday. Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz sent a letter to all 25,000 holders of water licenses in Alberta, launching negotiations to get users to reach water-sharing agreements. The name carries some gravitas, doesn't it?--will work with major water users in sectors like agriculture and industry to "secure significant and timely reductions," the minister's letter states.

A day earlier, Schulz and other top officials held a telephone town hall with a wide range of Albertans from water commissions, local councils, oil companies, and the golf course association.

Stacey Smythe, an assistant deputy minister with Alberta Environment, put forth many grim stats: west of Fort Macleod, it is at 28 percent capacity, compared to a normal range between 62 and 80 percent around now. St. Mary's Reservoir is at 15 percent, when it should be between 41 and 70.

Before freeze-up, Willow Creek near Claresholm logged its lowest monthly flow since 2000. And while northern Alberta watersheds mostly aren't as bad, up at the town of Peace River the namesake river has also logged its lowest average flow this century bodies mostly get recharged from melting mountain snowpack, and the accumulation in this mild, dry winter is lower than last year's.

Shortages could force more ranchers to downsize their cattle herds. Some oil and gas companies have begun facing crackdowns on their water use, and more may come as sharing negotiations pick up on that town hall call, predicting that trucked-in water will likely be necessary again into 2024. Ditto for urban water restrictions.

In Edmonton, a water treatment pump issue prompted a citywide alert this week to limit business and household water use, including a plea for short showers instead of baths. That could be a dress rehearsal for what much of Alberta, especially in southern communities, could be asked to comply with later this year.

The worst could be prevented by some heavy snow later this winter or the sort of springtime downpour that some rural folk call "trillion-dollar rain."

But an El Niño system such as this year's, coupled with the chronic heating effects of climate change, do not bode well, says John Pomeroy, the Canada Research Chair in water resources and climate change.

Groundwater by Kananaskis' Marmot Creek is at its lowest levels in more than a half-century, he said; and tracking of the Bow River at Calgary last summer showed it lower than ever measured, back to chinooks were warm enough to melt snow above the mountain treeline.

It's encouraging, the veteran water scientist says, that provincial officials are talking about it seriously early in the year, rather than getting caught off-guard later when (or if) disaster strikes officials have thus far avoided drawing links between worsening drought and climate change, given how Premier Danielle Smith and many on her team are uneasy talking about climate change and its consequences.

But this could be the sort of crisis year when symptoms become so acute that discussion of causes may appear more secondary.

Smythe, the senior civil servant, echoed some of Schulz's own rhetoric in saying that, on water, "we're all in this together. This situation has never been truer than it is today, and it echoes something else, too: the message from now-former chief medical officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw in the early stretches of the COVID pandemic. It caused citizens and businesses alike to restrain and compromise their own activities and freedoms for the betterment of the whole.

Those exhortations and orders to reduce and restrict everyone's well-being will make a comeback if the severe drought scenarios materialize. Schulz and Smith will face pressure to declare a new provincial state of emergency.

During her largely dire presentation on the state of dry Alberta, Smythe also made an optimistic point about the public's willingness to comply. While Calgary imposed water restrictions, Red Deer didn't, she noted--but because its residents consume Calgary media, the messages put a dent in that central Alberta city's water use, too, and parched fields may demand Albertans to all be in this together in 2024, to share, to compromise. That collective spirit didn't always work so well throughout the pandemic, and our current premier was among those who pushed back, but this time is necessarily different.

Smith leads a government that must steward a public resource we all use, and the consequences could be dire and wide-ranging if the collective fails to do so.

[cyberbenb]

Five EU members sign letter to Brussels demanding customs duties on Ukrainian food products

The EU members bordering Ukraine appealed to Brussels to impose customs duties on Ukrainian agricultural products, claiming local farmers are suffering significant losses, Hungary’s Agriculture Minist Source : kyivindependent.com/five-eu-m…

[beardedmrbean]

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has taken part in a solemn wreath-laying ceremony to mark Italy's National Liberation Day, which commemorates the end of fascism and Nazi occupation in 1945.

Liberation Day normally brings Italians together and it is marked with parades.

But for the first time since World War Two, Italy is led by a party whose origins lie in the country's post-fascist past.

And this year's commemorations have been riddled with controversy.

Among those taking part in Tuesday's Rome ceremony was a collector of fascist memorabilia, Senate Speaker Ignazio La Russa, who holds Italy's second-highest office of state.

A few days ago, he was quoted as saying: "There is no reference to anti-fascism in the Italian constitution".

His comments sparked a barrage of criticism from the centre-left, and calls for him to resign. Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein reacted by insisting that "anti-fascism is our constitution".

The furore was not the first time that Mr La Russa's links to Italy's fascist past had caused controversy.

He was filmed in 2018 escorting reporters around his house, showing busts and mini-statues of Benito Mussolini, along with fascist memorabilia.

He recently said he would never get rid of his Mussolini bust, because it was a gift from his father.

The Senate speaker is a founding member of the far-right Brothers of Italy party - and a key ally of Ms Meloni.

She has refused to condemn him, but sought to distance herself from fascism in a letter to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

"For many years, right-wing political parties in Parliament have declared their incompatibility with any nostalgia for fascism," she said.

Calling for the day to be a "celebration of freedom", Meloni wrote that "the fundamental result of 25 April was, and undoubtedly remains, the affirmation of democratic values, which fascism had trampled on and which we find engraved in the republican constitution."

She blamed politicians for using fascism as a "tool for delegitimising political opponents: a sort of weapon of mass exclusion."

But Ms Meloni does lead the most right-wing government since World War Two. Brothers of Italy is a direct political descendant of the Italian Social Movement, which was formed by members of Mussolini's Fascist Party after the war.

When she was 19, Ms Meloni told French TV: "I think Mussolini was a good politician. Everything he did, he did for Italy. And we haven't had any politicians like that in the past 50 years."

She has tried hard to brand herself as a credible leader in Europe, since becoming prime minister six months ago. She has surprised Italians and European allies by displaying a moderate stance on a variety of issues - from the Italian budget to support for Nato and Ukraine.

But she is finding it tricky to keep the more outspoken members of her party in line.

Last week, Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida - one of her closest allies, and her brother-in-law - was accused of white supremacy for saying Italians were at risk of "ethnic replacement."

Liberation Day also marks the victory of the resistance movement of partisans who opposed the fascist regime.

Italy's national partisans association recently criticised Ms Meloni for saying victims of a 1944 Nazi massacre on the outskirts of Rome were murdered "simply because they were Italian". They said those killed were not just Italians but also anti-fascists, resistance fighters, political opponents and Jews.

As the national anthem played on Tuesday, the prime minister and Senate speaker joined President Sergio Mattarella at the Altare della Patria, a national monument in Rome that honours the tens of thousands of lives lost during the war.

The prime minister has said she wants to help make the day a moment of "rediscovered national harmony", but she clearly has some way to go.

[spenceboswell35]

One Surprisingly Efficient Way to Albanian Music 2024

The Prime Minister started a tour of public universities, to talk with college students about their issues. The scholars demanded the abrogation of the law for greater training, contemplating it as the principle supply of most problems they face as we speak. Thousands of scholars across Tirana boycotted the classes and marched from their colleges in the direction of the Ministry of Schooling, Youth and Sports' Building demanding the Ministry to chop of the tuition fees and the annulment of the federal government's decision on the extra payment for resit exams, along with other requirements like better residing circumstances in dormitories and a bigger involvement of students in the choice-making process.

College students from the general public universities in different cities like Durrës, Shkodra, Elbasan and Korça also joined the student protests that started in Tirana by boycotting the lectures and rallying in the streets. He began his tour in the Agricultural College of Tirana. denhambritt.com with the intention to alleviate the high cost of education and enhance the miserable state by which the general public dormitories are established and rest. The protest was also supported by professors of public universities and different public figures. It was the most important protest the country had seen in years. The protest continued in the following weeks and the students, organized through social media, sent an official letter to the federal government with 8 non-negotiable demands.

On the 2nd day of the protest, the Training Minister Lindita Nikolla declared that the government's choice on larger fees can be nullified, however the scholars determined to proceed the protests for their other calls for. In 2019, 5 trains per day ran on the community. Today is honored throughout Western Christendom, in lands comprising both Catholic and Protestant communities (in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Saint's feast date is December 19). On December 5, the eve of St. Nicholas Day, some American boys and women put their sneakers outside their bedroom door and go away a small present in hopes that St. Nicholas soon might be there.

[eatonvillarreal41]

One Surprisingly Effective Technique to Albanian Music 2024

The Prime Minister started a tour of public universities, to speak with college students about their issues. The students demanded the abrogation of the legislation for larger training, considering it as the principle source of most issues they face today. Thousands of students across Tirana boycotted the lessons and marched from their schools in direction of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports activities' Constructing demanding the Ministry to chop of the tuition charges and the annulment of the government's resolution on the extra fee for resit exams, together with other requirements like better living circumstances in dormitories and a much bigger involvement of scholars in the decision-making course of.

College students from the general public universities in different cities like Durrës, Shkodra, Elbasan and Korça additionally joined the pupil protests that began in Tirana by boycotting the lectures and rallying within the streets. denhambritt.com began his tour within the Agricultural University of Tirana. Albanian Scholar Council in an effort to alleviate the excessive cost of education and enhance the miserable state wherein the public dormitories are established and relaxation. The protest was additionally supported by professors of public universities and other public figures. It was the largest protest the nation had seen in years. The protest continued in the next weeks and the students, organized through social media, despatched an official letter to the government with eight non-negotiable calls for.

On the 2nd day of the protest, the Training Minister Lindita Nikolla declared that the federal government's determination on increased charges can be nullified, but the scholars decided to proceed the protests for his or her other demands. In 2019, 5 trains per day ran on the community. At the present time is honored all through Western Christendom, in lands comprising each Catholic and Protestant communities (within the Jap Orthodox Church, the Saint's feast date is December 19). On December 5, the eve of St. Nicholas Day, some American boys and girls put their sneakers exterior their bedroom door and leave a small gift in hopes that St. Nicholas quickly will likely be there.

[swldx]

BBC 0633 3 Jan 2024

7285Khz 0559 3 JAN 2024 - BBC (UNITED KINGDOM) in ENGLISH from PINHEIRA. SINPO = 55334. English, ID@0559z fb pips and Newsday preview. @0601z World News anchored by Neil Nunes. Israel has insisted the assassination of a Hamas leader in Beirut was not an attack on Lebanon, but neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the drone attack. An Israeli spokesman said Saleh al-Arouri had died in a "surgical strike against the Hamas leadership". Lebanon's prime minister, meanwhile, accused Israel of trying "to drag Lebanon into... confrontation". Lebanese media report that Arouri, a deputy political leader of Hamas, was killed in a drone strike in southern Beirut along with six others - two Hamas military commanders and four other members. Russian missiles have hit Ukraine's biggest cities, leaving at least five dead and dozens hurt, after Vladimir Putin vowed to intensify attacks. Ukrainians have seen in a second new year under some of the heaviest aerial bombardment since Russia's war began. Rescue efforts continue in Japan after at least 62 people were killed in a powerful earthquake that hit the country on New Year's Day. The Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, said that emergency services were locked in a "race against time" to rescue survivors. He also said some 3,000 rescuers were trying to reach parts of the Noto peninsula. Helicopter surveys showed many fires and widespread damage to buildings and infrastructure. The city of Wajima, on the northern tip of Noto, has been cut off from land routes. Claudine Gay's resignation as president of Harvard University is being celebrated as a high-profile victory by conservatives who have objected to her on ideological grounds since shortly after she took the job in July 2023. In her resignation letter, Dr Gay said she was "subjected to personal attacks and threats fuelled by racial animus", adding that the last few weeks had made clear that more must be done to "combat bias and hate in all its forms". North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called for a "radical improvement" in the country's farm machinery sector, state media reported on Wednesday, as the reclusive state pushes for agricultural modernisation to tackle chronic food shortages. Donald Trump has appealed the decision by Maine's top election official to remove him from the ballot in the 2024 presidential election. Mexico's security services successfully liberated five Venezuelans who were kidnapped by gunmen over the weekend, according to local authorities on Tuesday, Reuters reports. This rescue effort is part of an ongoing operation to locate another 26 individuals who were abducted from a bus traveling to the border city of Matamoros. A rare, early medieval cemetery has been unearthed in Wales and it has left archaeologists scratching their heads. It's thought to date to the 6th or 7th Century and 18 of the estimated 70 graves have been excavated so far. Some of the well preserved skeletons have been found lying in unusual positions and unexpected artefacts are also emerging from the site. @0606z "Newsday" begins. Backyard gutter antenna, Etón e1XM. 100kW, BeamAz 335°, bearing 82°. Received at Plymouth, United States, 10777KM from transmitter at Pinheira. Local time: 2359.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 12.12

627 – Battle of Nineveh: A Byzantine army under Emperor Heraclius defeats Emperor Khosrau II's Persian forces, commanded by General Rhahzadh. 1388 – Maria of Enghien sells the lordship of Argos and Nauplia to the Republic of Venice. 1787 – Pennsylvania becomes the second state to ratify the US Constitution. 1862 – American Civil War: USS Cairo sinks on the Yazoo River. 1866 – Oaks explosion: The worst mining disaster in England kills 361 miners and rescuers. 1870 – Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina becomes the second black U.S. congressman. 1901 – Guglielmo Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio signal (the letter "S" [•••] in Morse Code), at Signal Hill in St John's, Newfoundland. 1915 – Yuan Shikai declares the establishment of the Empire of China and proclaims himself Emperor. 1917 – Father Edward J. Flanagan founds Boys Town as a farm village for wayward boys. 1935 – The Lebensborn Project, a Nazi reproduction program, is founded by Heinrich Himmler. 1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: USS Panay incident: Japanese aircraft bomb and sink U.S. gunboat USS Panay on the Yangtze river in China. 1939 – HMS Duchess sinks after a collision with HMS Barham off the coast of Scotland with the loss of 124 men. 1939 – Winter War: The Battle of Tolvajärvi, also known as the first major Finnish victory in the Winter War, begins. 1941 – World War II: Fifty-four Japanese A6M Zero fighters raid Batangas Field, Philippines. Jesús Villamor and four Filipino fighter pilots fend them off; César Basa is killed. 1941 – The Holocaust: Adolf Hitler declares the imminent extermination of the Jews at a meeting in the Reich Chancellery. 1945 – The People's Republic of Korea is outlawed in the South, by order of the United States Army Military Government in Korea. 1946 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 13 relating to acceptance of Siam (now Thailand) to the United Nations is adopted. 1956 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 121 relating to acceptance of Japan to the United Nations is adopted. 1963 – Kenya declares independence from Great Britain. 1969 – The Piazza Fontana bombing; a bomb explodes at the headquarters of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura (the National Agricultural Bank) in Piazza Fontana in Milan, Italy, killing 17 people and wounding 88. The same afternoon, three more bombs are detonated in Rome and Milan, and another is found unexploded. 1979 – The 8.2 Mw  Tumaco earthquake shakes Colombia and Ecuador with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), killing 300–600, and generating a large tsunami. 1979 – Coup d'état of December Twelfth occurs in South Korea. 1985 – Arrow Air Flight 1285R, a McDonnell Douglas DC-8, crashes after takeoff in Gander, Newfoundland, killing all 256 people on board, including 236 members of the United States Army's 101st Airborne Division. 1988 – The Clapham Junction rail crash kills thirty-five and injures hundreds after two collisions of three commuter trains—one of the worst train crashes in the United Kingdom. 1999 – A magnitude 7.3 earthquake hits the Philippines's main island of Luzon, killing six people, injuring 40, and causing power outages that affected the capital Manila. 2000 – The United States Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore. 2001 – Prime Minister of Vietnam Phan Văn Khải announces the decision on upgrading the Phong Nha–Kẻ Bàng nature reserve to a national park, providing information on projects for the conservation and development of the park and revised maps. 2012 – North Korea successfully launches its first satellite, Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 Unit 2. 2015 – The Paris Agreement relating to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is adopted. 2021 – Dutch Formula One racing driver Max Verstappen wins the controversial 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, beating seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton to become the first Formula One World Champion to come from the Netherlands.