AFP Archives - Page 1208 of 1373

Texas law against blocking online posts on hold for now

31 May 2022 2 Jun 2022

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday put back on hold a controversial Texas law barring social media platforms from “censoring” posts based on viewpoints.

The law threatens to essentially make it a crime for social media platforms to curb hate speech or bigoted tirades, or even point out when posts are demonstrably false.

Political conservatives have accused Facebook, Twitter and other social media giants of stifling their voices, providing no evidence to support the claims.

Social media platforms have consistently defended themselves against such accusations, saying content moderation decisions are based on factors such as risk of real-world harm.

Former US president Donald Trump was booted from Facebook and Twitter after a group of his supporters attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021 in an attempt to prevent his rightly elected successor Joe Biden from taking office.

People died during the attack, and there were concerns Trump would use social media to incite further violence.

The Texas law bars social media platforms with more than 50 million users from banning people based on their political viewpoints.

NetChoice trade association, whose members include Amazon, Facebook and Google, challenged the law and convinced a federal court in Texas to stop it from being enforced until it was resolved whether it runs afoul of the US Constitution’s First Amendment.

An appeals court later sided with Texas, saying the state could go ahead with the law, prompting the matter being taken to the Supreme Court.

The top court in the United States on Tuesday backed the original decision to put Texas law HB 20 on hold while the question of whether it should be tossed out completely is resolved.

“Texas’s HB 20 is a constitutional trainwreck — or, as the district court put it, an example of ‘burning the house to roast the pig,'” NetChoice counsel Chris Marchese said in a release.

“Despite Texas’s best efforts to run roughshod over the First Amendment, it came up short in the Supreme Court.”

NetChoice welcomed the decision, which sends the case back to a district court in Texas to hear arguments regarding the law’s constitutionality.

In its original decision about the stay, the district court said social media platforms have a right to moderate content disseminated on their platforms, and that a provision against putting warning labels on misinformation even risked violating the free speech rights of internet firms.

“Texas’s law violates the First Amendment because it compels social media companies to publish speech they don’t want to publish, and because it prevents them from responding to speech they disagree with,” said attorney Scott Wilkens at Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute.

“In addition, the theory of the First Amendment that Texas is advancing in this case would give government broad power to censor and distort public discourse.”

14 miners trapped in Colombian coal mine

31 May 2022 3 Jun 2022

Fourteen miners are trapped in a coal mine in northern Colombia after an underground explosion, the mayor of the town said on Tuesday.

A miner who was above ground at the time was injured by the explosion Monday afternoon, sustaining “burns all over his body,” according to mayor Manuel Pradilla of Zulia, near the Venezuelan border.

The man was in a stable condition in hospital.

“We are not losing hope, we hope that the 14 trapped people can be found alive,” Pradilla told Colombian TV.

Family members of the missing miners gathered at the site, many in tears, waiting for news from rescue workers searching for survivors.

The cause of the blast was as yet unknown.

Mining and crude oil represent Colombia’s main exports.

Latin America’s fourth largest economy recorded 148 fatalities in mining accidents in 2021.

14 miners trapped in Colombian coal mine

31 May 2022 1 Jun 2022

Fourteen miners are trapped in a coal mine in northern Colombia after an underground explosion, the mayor of the town said on Tuesday.

The man was in a stable condition in hospital.

“We are not losing hope, we hope that the 14 trapped people can be found alive,” Pradilla told Colombian TV.

Family members of the missing miners gathered at the site, many in tears, waiting for news from rescue workers searching for survivors.

The cause of the blast was as yet unknown.

Mining and crude oil represent Colombia’s main exports.

Latin America’s fourth largest economy recorded 148 fatalities in mining accidents in 2021.

K-pop supergroup BTS 'devastated' by US hate crimes

31 May 2022 1 Jun 2022

South Korean K-pop sensations BTS didn’t sing a word but in a White House visit Tuesday to meet President Joe Biden the supergroup’s message against anti-Asian racism came loud and clear.

The seven stars, dressed in matching dark suits and ties, with white shirts, joined White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at the briefing room podium — a tiny, but powerful stage.

The singer Park Ji-min, better known as Jimin, said through a translator that the group is “devastated by the recent surge of hate crimes” in the United States.

Another member, Suga, appealed for tolerance, saying, “It’s not wrong to be different. I think equality begins when we open up and embrace all of our differences.”

Group members did not take questions from reporters before going into a meeting with Biden and, according to the White House, recording “digital content.”

Outside the mansion’s grounds on the other side of a tall black fence, fans who dub themselves the “Army” gathered in hopes of a glimpse.

The brief appearance before journalists itself reportedly garnered more than 300,000 viewers on the White House’s YouTube channel, more than 10 times the traffic on a day when the only people watching events in the briefing room are mostly media or political professionals.

It was certainly something new for economic policy advisor Brian Deese, who had been scheduled to brief reporters on Biden’s fight against US inflation right after the group left.

“I get to go home and tell my kids that BTS opened for me,” he said to laughter.

– ‘Youth ambassadors’ against hate –

Biden issued the invitation to “discuss the need to come together in solidarity, Asian inclusion and representation, and addressing anti-Asian hate crimes and discrimination, which have become more prominent issues in recent years,” the White House said.

Anti-Asian sentiment and violence in America have grown during the coronavirus pandemic in a phenomenon many blame on fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Biden’s Republican predecessor Donald Trump often blamed the pandemic, which originated with an outbreak in Wuhan, China, as “the China virus” and also mocked the deadly virus as “kung flu.”

Just in 2021, hate crimes against Asians shot up 339 percent, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.

The trend stands out within a general rise in violent crime, with the ugliest incident taking place in the Atlanta area, where a man shot dead eight people at massage spas, six of them Asian women.

The White House praised BTS’s floppy haired, stylish stars as “youth ambassadors who spread a message of hope and positivity across the world.”

Band members, all in their 20s and who frequently appear wearing earrings and lipstick, have given a voice worldwide to a generation comfortable with gender fluidity.

They are credited with generating billions for the South Korean economy, and their label enjoyed a surge in profits despite holding fewer concerts during the pandemic.

Biden, who at 79 is the oldest person to become president, has often reached out to young celebrities and social media influencers to try and inject some glamor into his team’s messaging on social and health issues.

These included pop singer Olivia Rodrigo and the Jonas Brothers in campaigns to persuade young Americans to get their Covid-19 vaccines.

Eurozone stocks sink as inflation accelerates to record high

31 May 2022 1 Jun 2022

Global stocks mostly fell Tuesday with Wall Street failing to extend a rally and Eurozone bourses tumbled on news that the region’s inflation rate hit another record high in May.

Consumer prices in the eurozone rose by 8.1 percent in May, compared with 7.4 percent in April, official data showed, with energy surging the fastest.

The uninterrupted rise in prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has heaped pressure on the European Central Bank to speed up interest rate increases, as it prepares to raise borrowing costs for the first time in over a decade.

Adding to the woes: Monday’s agreement by the European Union late Monday for a partial embargo of Russian oil imports pushed Brent oil prices, the European benchmark, worsening inflation worries.

“Higher inflation rates will raise serious question marks about the ECB’s viewpoint on whether gradual rate increases will be enough to deal with such high price growth,” market analyst Fawad Razaqzada from City Index and FOREX.com said.

“Investors are starting to project a faster pace of tightening from the ECB, which could be another factor holding stocks back.”

Bourses in Paris and Frankfurt both dropped more than one percent.

Wall Street also retreated following a lackluster session, the first in a holiday-shortened week.

US shares spent most of the day in the red as investors digested data showing consumer confidence slipped in May as Americans expressed greater unease about the job market, though they remained relatively upbeat even as high inflation bites.

The losses were a disappointment after US stocks last week finally mustered weekly gains after about a month of losses.

“US stocks declined as investors stared at an inflation wall of worry and uncertain Fed tightening path,” said Oanda’s Edward Moya. “In the US, it is too early to be confident in saying that the peak of inflation is in place.”

This week’s economic calendar includes surveys with readings on the American manufacturing and services sectors, as well as the May government jobs report.

– Brent oil tops $124 –

In reaction to the EU’s partial embargo, Brent oil briefly broke above $124 per barrel and WTI crude breached $119.

European chiefs said the latest sanctions would ban purchases of Russian oil delivered by sea, though there would be a temporary exemption for crude received by pipeline.

While widely expected, the agreement adds further upside to crude just as China begins to ease Covid restrictions in Shanghai and Beijing, raising the likelihood of a jump in demand from the world’s number-two economy.

– Key figures at around 2040 GMT –

New York – Dow: DOWN 0.7 percent at 32,990.12 (close)

New York – S&P 500: DOWN 0.6 percent at 4,132.15 (close)

New York – Nasdaq: DOWN 0.4 percent at 12,081.39 (close)

Frankfurt – DAX: DOWN 1.3 percent at 14,388.35 (close)

Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 1.4 percent at 6,468.80 (close)

London – FTSE 100: UP 0.1 percent at 7,607.66 (close)

EURO STOXX 50: DOWN 1.4 percent at 3,789.21 (close)

Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.3 percent at 27,279.80 (close)

Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 1.4 percent at 21,415.20 (close)

Shanghai – Composite: UP 1.2 percent at 3,186.43 (close)

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.0739 from $1.0779 on Monday

Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.2603 from $1.2652

Euro/pound: DOWN at 85.18 pence from 85.20 pence

Dollar/yen: UP at 128.72yen from 127.59 yen

Brent North Sea crude: UP 1.0 percent at $122.84 per barrel

West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.3 percent at $114.67 per barrel

burs-jmb/hs

Brazil storm death toll rises to 106

31 May 2022 2 Jun 2022

Flooding and landslides triggered by torrential rain have now killed at least 106 people in northeastern Brazil, officials said Tuesday as emergency workers continued a desperate search.

The force of the landslides ripped apart houses in neighborhoods including Jardim Monteverde, a poor community just outside the city of Recife. Locals have likened the roaring surge of mud to a tsunami.

“It was a tragedy. I lost a lot of friends,” 49-year-old resident Maria Heronize told AFP on the verge of tears.

Rescue teams have found dozens of bodies buried after floodwater tore through the neighborhood on Saturday.

Six more bodies — the last of those reported missing in the neighborhood — were recovered Friday, bringing the search there to an end, the Pernambuco state government said.

Elsewhere, at least eight people remain missing, said disaster management officials for the state, scene of the latest in a series of deadly weather disasters to hit Brazil in recent months.

Crews are using dogs trained to sniff for people and planes to locate the missing.

At least 24 municipalities in Pernambuco have declared a state of emergency and more than 6,000 people have lost their homes or been forced to flee.

President Jair Bolsonaro posted a video on Twitter on Monday that showed him flying in a helicopter over the disaster zone, where brown flood water inundated large areas and gashes of mud scarred hillsides where houses once stood.

“I tried to land, but the pilots’ recommendation was that, given the instability of the soil, we could have an accident. So we decided against it,” the far-right president told a news conference.

He recalled a string of devastating floods in Brazil that have killed hundreds of people in recent months, and which experts say are being aggravated by climate change.

– ‘So much rain in so little time’ –

The rains began last week but intensified over the weekend. Overnight Friday into Saturday, the rain that fell in some parts of Pernambuco was 70 percent of what would be normal for the whole month of May.

“We never saw so much rain fall in so little time,” said 60-year-old retiree Mario Guadalupe.

“I saw the landslide happen. First part of the hill gave way, then it was just a tsunami of mud. It nearly took out my house.”

Weather-related tragedies are becoming a familiar script in Brazil. They tend to hit hardest in poor neighborhoods, especially hillside favelas, or slums.

“Climate change could be responsible for the rise in extreme, violent rain that is being detected not only in Brazil but around the world,” Jose Marengo, research coordinator at the National Center for Natural Disaster Monitoring and Alerts, told AFP.

In February, 233 people were killed in floods and landslides in the historic southeastern city of Petropolis, in Rio de Janeiro state.

In January, torrential rains claimed at least 28 lives in southeastern Brazil, mostly in Sao Paulo state.

Bolsonaro drew criticism for sounding dismissive after saying “unfortunately these tragedies happen, a country the size of a continent has its share of problems.”

Workers recall rape, beatings at VW Brazil unit: prosecutor

31 May 2022 1 Jun 2022

Victims forced to work in slave-like conditions at a Brazilian property owned by Volkswagen during the country’s dictatorship recount “grave and systematic” abuses, including rapes, beatings and being tied to trees, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

The German carmaker is facing legal action in Brazil over allegations of rampant human-rights violations at a large farm it ran in the Amazon rainforest basin in the 1970s and ’80s under the country’s then military regime, media in Germany reported Sunday.

The lead prosecutor on the case, Rafael Garcia, told AFP that investigators had collected depositions from victims who were lured to the farm with false promises of lucrative jobs, then forced to cut down the jungle under grueling conditions against their will to make way for Volkswagen’s cattle ranch, which became the biggest in the northern state of Para.

“Workers who tried to escape were beaten, tied to trees and left there for days,” he said.

“Those who tried to slip into the forest never came back — there were simply stories that they had been killed. Workers were systematically, physically abused.”

Garcia said a task force of investigators had spent three years assembling evidence in the case, after a local Catholic priest came forward with horrifying accounts of abuse at the property he had compiled over the years.

The task force’s report contains a chilling series of allegations from former workers at the farm in southern Para, known as Fazenda Vale do Rio Cristalino, where armed guards reportedly kept violent watch over a workforce that prosecutors estimate numbered in the hundreds.

“One worker tried to escape, but the gunmen caught him. As punishment, they kidnapped his wife and raped her,” it says, citing three witness’ testimony.

“Another worker tried to flee and was shot in the leg. Yet another was left bound and naked.”

The workers were kept in “debt-slavery” by being forced to buy food and supplies from the farm store at exorbitant prices, and some died of malaria with no access to medical care, Garcia said.

Prosecutors have summoned Volkswagen for an initial audience on June 14, where they will attempt to reach a settlement, he said.

If that fails, the company could face charges.

In 2020, Volkswagen agreed to pay 36 million reais ($6.4 million at the time) in compensation for collaborating with Brazil’s secret police during the dictatorship (1964-1985) to identify suspected leftist opponents and union leaders, who were then detained and tortured.

K-pop super band BTS says 'devastated' by US hate crimes

31 May 2022 31 May 2022

South Korean K-pop supergroup BTS used a White House visit Tuesday to call out a growth in anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States.

The singer Park Ji-min, better known as Jimin, said through a translator ahead of a meeting with President Joe Biden that the group is “devastated by the recent surge of hate crimes.”

Another member, Suga, appealed for tolerance, saying, “It’s not wrong to be different. I think equality begins when we open up and embrace all of our differences.”

All seven members of the K-pop sensation took to the White House briefing room podium, briefly addressing reporters who were assembled for the daily back-and-forth with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

Dressed in matching dark suits and ties, with white shirts, the boy band came to the White House with a serious message.

Anti-Asian sentiment and violence in the US have grown during the coronavirus pandemic in a trend many blame on fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The trend stands out within a general rise in violent crime, with the ugliest incident taking place in the Atlanta area, where a man shot dead eight people at massage spas, six of them Asian women.

The White House praised BTS’ floppy haired, stylish sensations as “youth ambassadors who spread a message of hope and positivity across the world.”

Band members, all in their 20s and who frequently appear wearing earrings and lipstick, have given a voice to a generation comfortable with gender fluidity.

They are credited with generating billions for the South Korean economy, and their label enjoyed a surge in profits despite holding fewer concerts during the pandemic.

These included pop singer Olivia Rodrigo and the Jonas Brothers in campaigns to persuade young Americans to get their Covid-19 vaccines.

Brazil facing more deadly storms: expert

31 May 2022 1 Jun 2022

Tragedies like the floods and landslides that killed more than 100 people in northeastern Brazil will likely keep happening as climate change advances unless authorities act to protect poor communities in high-risk areas, an expert said.

Torrential rains over the weekend wrought havoc on the city of Recife and surrounding areas, the latest in a series of deadly storms to hit Brazil in recent months.

Jose Marengo, research coordinator at the National Monitoring and Alert Center for Natural Disasters (CEMADEN), told AFP climate change will continue fueling ever heavier rains — and that “if cities aren’t prepared, we’ll be mourning more and more deaths.”

– Is latest disaster related to climate change? –

“Climate change is a long-term process that is advancing slowly. No one isolated, extreme event can be attributed to it. Rain and disaster are different things.

“In Recife, very intense rains fell on areas near rivers and hills. Any intense rain in places like that will cause similar tragedies in these circumstances, with rivers sweeping away houses and avalanches of mud taking out everything in their path.

“Climate change could be responsible for the rise in extreme, violent rain that is being detected not only in Brazil but around the world. But it can’t be blamed for the fact that governments allow people to build in high-risk areas, or that the poor have nowhere to go and have to live in vulnerable areas. Those are urban planning problems.”

– What do Brazil’s recent storms have in common? –

“In Bahia state (northeast), where 33 people were killed in December, there is a phenomenon called the South Atlantic Convergence Zone that produces rain in the (southern hemisphere) summer. It’s always present in southeastern Brazil, but in December it reached Bahia and caused deadly floods.

“In Petropolis (southeast, where 233 people were killed in February), there was an intense meteorological phenomenon, unusual but not impossible, more similar to what happened now in Recife. In both cases, the rain had been correctly forecast, but the problem was vulnerable populations living in high-risk areas.

“If you look at videos of landslides and flash floods from both Petropolis and Recife, it’s impossible to tell which is which, because they were very similar disasters.”

– How can Brazil, other governments prepare better? –

“Rain is only part of the problem. In Brazil, we’re good at forecasting rain. The problem is the weak link in the chain: the vulnerability of the population.

“It’s a common mistake to say, ‘The rain killed X number of people.’ Rain doesn’t kill people, except when it combines with the problem of people living in high-risk areas.

“Governments need to prevent people from building on areas such as hillsides and evacuate people from existing houses to safer areas — every year, not just when there are disasters.

“And cities need to be better-organized, because we can see looking at the climate that phenomena like these rains are getting more intense and violent.

“If people and cities aren’t prepared, we’ll be mourning more and more deaths. The rainy season is just starting in the northeast, and we may see a lot more such phenomena this year.”

Russia closes in on key city as EU clinches oil deal

31 May 2022 31 May 2022

Russian forces now control “most” of eastern Ukraine’s key city of Severodonetsk, a regional governor said Tuesday, while EU leaders were split over banning gas from Moscow after agreeing to embargo most of its oil.

Ukraine meanwhile pushed on with an investigation into war crimes since the Russian invasion. Officials said thousands had been committed in the eastern Donbas region alone and that it had jailed two Russian soldiers elsewhere in the country.

Severodonetsk is one of the industrial hubs that lie on Russia’s path to capturing the Donbas’s Lugansk region, where Moscow has shifted the bulk of its firepower since failing to capture Kyiv in the war’s early stages.

“Unfortunately, today, Russian troops control most of the city,” Lugansk governor Sergiy Gaiday said in a video, insisting Ukraine’s military was not in danger of being surrounded.

He added that “90 percent” of Severodonetsk had been destroyed.

Gaiday also warned that Russian forces had hit a tank containing nitric acid at a Severodonetsk chemical plant and called on people to stay in their shelters.

EU leaders meeting for a second day in Brussels were only partly successful in tightening the economic screws on Moscow.

A compromise oil embargo deal reached late Monday, meant to punish Russia for its invasion, cuts “a huge source of financing for its war machine”, European Council chief Charles Michel tweeted.

– Talks on gas embargo –

But the EU remained divided on the issue of gas supplies, and leaders played down the chances of a rapid ban to follow the embargo on two-thirds of oil imports from Russia.

Europe relies on Russian gas for some 40 percent of its supplies, and a ban would add to the existing pain from an energy and inflation crisis.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen suggested Brussels had gone far enough for now against Russian fossil fuels and that it was time to focus more on the “financial and the economic sector”.

The oil ban “will effectively cut around 90 percent of oil imports from Russia to the EU by the end of the year”, she said.

The compromise oil deal exempts deliveries by pipeline, after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban warned halting supplies of cheap Moscow crude would wreck his nation’s economy.

“Families can sleep peacefully tonight, we kept out the most hair-raising idea,” Orban, whose country borders war-torn Ukraine to the west, said in a video message.

Denmark became the latest European country to be targeted by Russia over gas exports in the meantime, following in the footsteps of the Netherlands, Finland, Poland and Bulgaria.

Danish energy firm Orsted said Tuesday that Russian energy monopoly Gazprom Export would cut gas supplies on Wednesday after the Danish company refused to pay in rubles as the Russian government demands.

– ‘Save your lives’ –

The situation on the eastern frontline in Donbas has become increasingly desperate, with Ukrainian towns facing near constant shelling from Russian forces.

“We see some cars driving around with Ukrainian flags, so we figure that means we are still part of Ukraine,” said Yevgen Onyshchenko, a 42-year-old plumber in a powerless apartment in Severodonetsk’s twin city Lysychansk.

“But otherwise, we are in the dark.”

French journalist Frederic Leclerc-Imhoff was killed while covering civilian evacuations in the area on Monday.

An overnight rocket attack killed at least three people and wounded six in the city of Sloviansk, Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said Tuesday on Telegram.

“There are no safe places in the Donetsk region, so I call again: evacuate — save your lives,” he said.

Four more civilians died and seven were injured in Donetsk on Tuesday, he added in a later Telegram post.

Ukraine’s prosecutor general said authorities had identified a “few thousand” cases of war crimes in the Donbas, including murder, torture and the forced displacement of children.

Prosecutor Iryna Venediktova, who met international counterparts in The Hague on Tuesday, said Kyiv was already going to prosecute 80 suspects for alleged war crimes on Ukrainian soil.

A Ukrainian court on Tuesday jailed two Russian soldiers for 11 and a half years for shelling civilian areas. Earlier this month, another was jailed for life for murdering a civilian.

Servicemen Alexander Bobykin and Alexander Ivanov were both convicted Tuesday of firing Grad missiles on two villages in the northeastern Kharkiv region in the early days of the war.

– Odessa blockade proposal –

Russia’s invasion of its pro-Western neighbour is also threatening a global food crisis, with Ukraine’s huge grain harvest effectively taken off the world market.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that he and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had urged Vladimir Putin to end Russia’s blockade of the Ukrainian port of Odessa under the terms of a UN resolution.

Under the proposal, a UN resolution would set up a framework under which mines laid by the port’s Ukrainian defenders could be removed, and grain shipments resume.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it was up to the West and Kyiv to resolve the crisis, starting with the lifting of sanctions.

burs-dk/imm/bp