Tag: cold

  • Kohler Kitchen Faucet, Wall Mount, Cold Only, Brass, SIlver Colour (25418IN-4-CP)

    Kohler Kitchen Faucet, Wall Mount, Cold Only, Brass, SIlver Colour (25418IN-4-CP)

    31zI54YUdAL51UhnmEKI4L41q83cni kL41CYB0+3wGL31vqk22yV+L51Dw4IqE9vL414lXIviXjL
    Price: [price_with_discount]
    (as of [price_update_date] – Details)

    ISRHEWs
    [ad_1]
    From the manufacturer

    KohlerKohler

    Kitchen_Faucetin-1Kitchen_Faucetin-1

    Kitchen_FaucetKitchen_Faucet

    BeamBeam

    Kitchen_FaucetKitchen_Faucet

    Excellent Ergonomics: This Beam kitchen faucet is ideal for washing purpose in Indian environment with higher reach and deck clearance. The aerator flow and angle minimize splashing
    Swing Spout :Spout pivots from side-to-side to reach either sink basin or to be moved out of the way; may also include side spray for additional functionality
    Combining an aerodynamic profile with sleek contours, the Beam faucet collection is an eye-catching blend of function and fashion
    KOHLER finishes resist corrosion and tarnishing
    Material: Brass, premium metal construction
    The versatile, modern design of Beam faucets complements a variety of decors
    Warranty: 10 years for residential use, 5 years for commercial use

    [ad_2]
    #Kohler #Kitchen #Faucet #Wall #Mount #Cold #Brass #SIlver #Colour #25418IN4CP

  • What cold war? U.S. trade with China hits new high

    What cold war? U.S. trade with China hits new high

    [ad_1]

    While some of the increase in last year’s trade figures may be a result of historic levels of inflation, the figures remain eye opening, particularly considering the years-long U.S. tariff campaign on Chinese imports and new efforts to stop the flow of U.S. tech to Beijing. And they demonstrate just how intertwined the U.S. and China remain, commercially at least, despite efforts to effectively “decouple” their economies.

    The decisions of consumers and businesses so far have been more powerful than governments,” said Ed Gresser, former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics. “Tariffs are basically a form of taxation. They have an influence on trade flows, but they don’t have the overwhelmingly powerful influence, or at least they haven’t so far.”

    After years of steadily rising imports from China, former President Donald Trump launched a tit-for-tat trade war in 2018 that led to tariffs on more than $300 billion worth of Chinese goods. That was driven initially by concerns over Chinese trade practices that forced American companies to turn over valuable intellectual property, but the original purpose was soon lost.

    Beijing retaliated by hitting around $100 billion of U.S. products, and most of the duties imposed by both sides still remain in place two years into the Biden administration.

    Trump justified a number of his trade actions in the name of national security, a trend that has continued during the Biden administration, especially in the form of export controls aimed at keeping the most sensitive U.S. technology away from China’s military.

    That reflects concern over Chinese President Xi Jinping’s goal of reuniting China and Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing has long viewed as part of its territory and whose strategic position would help the Chinese military dominate the region.

    Still, despite talk of “decoupling” from China, U.S. imports of Chinese goods increased to $538.8 billion in 2022, only slightly less than the record set in 2018. The U.S. also exported a record $153.8 billion worth of goods to China last year.

    The gap between exports and imports in trade with China was $382.9 billion in 2022, which was also the second bilateral trade deficit highest on record.

    A large share of the U.S. exports to China are agricultural goods, putting farmers on the frontline of any efforts to sever or scale back trade relations.

    “I think decoupling from China would be a terrible mistake,” John Bode, president & CEO of the Corn Refiners Association and a member of the Farmers for Free Trade Coalition, told reporters recently. “What needs to happen is a strategic approach to managing the relationship so that strategically sensitive information is protected.”

    That seems the more likely course at the moment, despite the current diplomatic uproar over a Chinese spy balloon discovered flying over U.S. territory and similar episodes — former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan in August — that have strained the relationship.

    A recent report by the Boston Consulting Group forecasts trade between the U.S. and China to decrease by $63 billion, or just about 10 percent, through 2031, as companies look to avoid supply chain disruptions by shifting production to less geopolitically risky places such as Mexico, India and countries in Southeast Asia.

    Instead of abandoning China completely, many companies and countries are developing “a China-plus-one strategy” to diversify their options, Nikolaus Lang, a managing director and senior partner at Boston Consulting Group, said in an interview.

    Vietnam, in particular, has benefited as American companies seek to hedge their reliance on the Chinese supply chains in a trend that predates Trump.

    Two-way trade between the United States and Vietnam has more than tripled over the past 10 years, reaching a record $127.5 billion in 2022. Most of the growth has been in U.S. imports from Vietnam as companies have shifted production out of China. That has resulted in a U.S. trade deficit with Vietnam that also set a record last year at $116.1 billion.

    U.S. trade with the rest of the world also hit a record high in 2022, despite a new wave of protectionism at home and across the globe. It’s a reminder that even as Covid-19 severed supply chains and geopolitical tensions prompted talk of “near-shoring,” the end of globalization may not be as definitive as some have suggested.

    “You can see some shifting of sourcing — a little bit less from China and somewhat more from some other sources,” Gresser said. “But you haven’t seen that show up as the U.S. trading less than it used to be. In dollar terms, we’re trading more than we did in the past.”

    The 2022 numbers include record imports of $553.3 billion from the European Union, which has complained loudly about new U.S. clean energy and technology subsidies that they fear will hurt their sales to the United States and siphon investment out of Europe.

    That could be the case in the future, but it’s still too early to see the impact of the new U.S. policies on the trade data, Lang said.

    In fact, imports have also risen as a percentage of the overall U.S. economy in recent years, while exports have dipped in those terms. That may be because companies have had less incentive to export because of strong domestic demand, or it could be that Trump’s tariffs boosted the cost of inputs and made U.S. products more expensive, Gresser said.

    The strong U.S. dollar, which increases the costs of American goods for foreign buyers, also is a drag on exports, he added.

    Despite that, the United States still had record exports to a number of trading partners, including the EU, China and more than 70 others.

    One obvious exception was Russia, which the United States and its allies hit with a number of sanctions after Moscow’s further invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022. Two-way U.S.-Russia trade was less than half of the 2021 level, with both imports and exports down sharply from pre-war volumes.

    [ad_2]
    #cold #war #U.S #trade #China #hits #high
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Forced to study on mats in cold weather, students of Kathua school demand reading desks

    Forced to study on mats in cold weather, students of Kathua school demand reading desks

    [ad_1]

    Jammu: Forced to sit on mats in icy cold weather, students of a Kathua-based government school on Monday urged the Jammu and Kashmir administration to provide them reading desks and fix the broken windows of their school building.

    The government primary school in Parnooh village in Banyari panchayat of Marheen tehsil have no desks for students. Broken window panes of the school building add to the woes of the students, who are forced to study out in the open under extreme cold conditions.

    “We appeal to the administration to provide us reading desks as it is very difficult for us to study on mats in the cold weather condition here,” a student Khushi Kumari said.

    The students said sitting on mats on the cold floor is unbearable.

    A villager Sat Paul said the school building does not have window glasses and grills to prevent cold waves from entering classrooms, and appealed to authorities to take action in this regard.

    Subscribe us on The Siasat Daily - Google News

    [ad_2]
    #Forced #study #mats #cold #weather #students #Kathua #school #demand #reading #desks

    ( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

  • The Cold Calculus Behind the Shrinking GOP Presidential Field

    The Cold Calculus Behind the Shrinking GOP Presidential Field

    [ad_1]

    Palin, though, is more likely to belt out another rendition of “Baby Got Back” on The Masked Singer than be the Republican standard bearer in 2024.

    That the GOP primary is developing more slowly this election, a departure from the accelerated trajectory of recent nominating contests, is by now plain to see.

    What’s even more striking three months after the midterms, though, is just how many Republicans are planning to sit out the White House race or remain on the fence about whether to run at all.

    For all the preemptive Republican panic about a 2016 replay, and Trump claiming the nomination again thanks to a fractured opposition, the 2024 GOP field is shaping up to be smaller than expected.

    “I would’ve told you last fall that there would be five senators in the race,” Ward Baker, a Republican strategist, told me, recalling a presentation he put together for lawmakers and donors projecting at least a double-digit sized group of contenders.

    Now, Baker and other well-connected Republicans believe the ultimate field may be closer to seven or eight serious candidates with an even smaller number still standing by the time the first votes are cast in the kickoff states a year from now.

    This is partly because of what those RNC members found in California last week.

    Trump has already declared for a third consecutive run and his imprint was all over the meeting and remains all over the party. Until he declared his candidacy, the RNC was still covering some of his legal bills. And the race for party chair was mostly notable for the fact that neither major candidate was willing to acknowledge the culprit for a disappointing midterm, largely because the committee members would rather focus on nefarious claims about Democratic ballot harvesting than the role of Trump, the man Democrats have organized, mobilized and fundraised off of for six consecutive elections.

    So, yes, a number of would-be Republican candidates this time see the party still in the former president’s grip, cast an eye at his preemptive attacks on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and say: who needs it, I’ll check back in 2028 when, one way or another, Trump is out of the picture.

    However, it’s not only Trump who’s causing the Great Deep Freeze of 2023.

    “They don’t have a Trump problem, they have a DeSantis problem,” explains Scott Jennings, a GOP strategist, of the potential field. “It’s going to be hard fighting for the other 60 to 70 percent of the vote [not going to Trump] when another guy could get 90 percent of it.”

    DeSantis has, thanks to Covid and his ubiquity on right-wing media, become a “national conservative celebrity,” said Jennings, and the other would-be contenders are not likely to claim that status “by giving a bunch of speeches.”

    Republican officeholders and their advisers see the polling, public and private, demonstrating just how formidable DeSantis already is with Republican primary voters, who typically wouldn’t even know the name of another state’s governor this early in a race.

    That DeSantis has already burned in the conservative psyche was on display this week in Mississippi, where far-right State Sen. Chris McDaniel — whose proto-Trump 2014 primary nearly toppled then-Sen. Thad Cochran — opened a campaign for lieutenant governor by asking Republican voters: “Do you want a Trump or DeSantis, or do you want a Mitt Romney or a Liz Cheney?”

    That an undeclared Florida governor is already receiving equal billing on the conservative seal of good housekeeping with a former president and worldwide household name explains a great deal about how this contest is getting underway.

    Now, to be sure, it’s early and initial frontrunners can, and often do, fall.

    However, the history most on the minds of the Republicans considering the race, who are not named Trump or DeSantis, is what happens when there’s a bloody battle between top contenders. Spoiler: It augurs well for a third candidate.

    This is what’s giving hope to the other Republicans most likely to run. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who’s ready to announce later this month, hopes voters will turn to a younger, female alternative when the going gets rough between Trump and DeSantis. And older figures like former Vice President Mike Pence and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson have told people they’re counting on a frontrunner food fight to create an appetite for a so-called adult in the race.

    Where it gets complicated for the would-be third option candidates is when it comes to money. As in: how will they raise it?

    And this question, as much as Trump’s grip or DeSantis’s strength as an alternative, is what’s giving (or what gave) a number of potential candidates pause.

    Among the party’s top contributors, as well as with many small-dollar givers, there’s simply no appetite for a prolonged, fractured primary that could pave the way for another Trump nomination-by-plurality.

    In this sense, the 2024 GOP donor is a lot like the 2020 Democratic primary electorate: They have one criteria and it’s who’s the safest bet to beat Trump. And the bundler bed-wetting about whether a larger field will merely open a path for Trump puts the onus on most every non-Trump candidate to demonstrate why they won’t just siphon votes from a single alternative.

    “The mega donors are going to keep their checkbooks in the desk for a while because they saw what happened in ’16,” said Dave Carney, a longtime GOP consultant.

    This will hurt Trump and DeSantis the least, in part because they’re already sitting on tens of millions of dollars that can likely be used for Super PACs and in part because they’re sure to be the most formidable online fundraisers.

    “If he runs that takes a lot of the oxygen out for others,” Carney said of DeSantis.

    The only other potential candidate even close to Trump and DeSantis on money is Sen. Tim Scott, who has over $21 million in his Senate account that he can transfer to a presidential campaign.

    Then there’s the matter of what wing of the party is not being represented. Between Trump, DeSantis, Pence, Haley, Scott and an anti-Trump Republican to be named later, most of the modern GOP’s factions are covered (and speaking of that anti-Trump Republican wing — let’s call it the John Kasich lane for the television interview-to-votes-received ratio — I hear New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu is planning to meet with a group of well-connected Republicans about his plans when he’s in Washington later this month.)

    Still, as the current president demonstrates, there’s real value to running and losing because it can double as a vice-presidential tryout.

    But to a whole generation, and then some, of ambitious Republicans even that may not be compelling enough.

    Consider the roster of who’s not running or at least uninclined to run, absent a shift in the fundamentals of the race.

    From the 2016 field there’s former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Ted Cruz (Texas). Also on the sidelines from the Senate: Rick Scott (Fla.), Tom Cotton (Ark.), Joni Ernst (Iowa), Josh Hawley (Mo.). These are people, for the most part, in their 40s and 50s.

    Among the governors, it’s possible that Sununu, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Georgia Gov, Brian Kemp, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and a pair of former governors, Maryland’s Larry Hogan and New Jersey’s Chris Christie, could all run. But it’s more likely they won’t.

    To speak with members of the RNC is to understand why so many Republicans in the prime of their careers are, at the very least, uncertain about running for president.

    It’s not that Trump’s lieutenants, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, were issuing be-with-us-or-else threats alongside some magnificent views of the Pacific or that Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s 2016 campaign chief, used her dinner speech to demand fealty to Trump.

    Yet their presence and the refusal of the two candidates for chair to actually grapple with Trump’s impact on general election voters helps reinforce a sort of code of silence among most of the committee.

    The most frequently cited fig leaf for not offering an opinion on the presidential race is that, as committee members, they’ve taken a vow of celibacy when it comes to primaries.

    What they actually mean is they don’t want to be seen as telling their states’ voters what to do, in part because that could alienate Trump’s diehards, risking their own posts, and in part because Trump could weaponize any such intervention.

    As Luis Fortuño, the former Puerto Rican governor and one of the few RNC members to speak candidly about the committee’s calculations, told me: “There’s a sensitivity to his base in the sense that 30 percent of them will be with him and we need everyone at the end of the day.”

    There were, however, private indications of an eagerness to move on from Trump. While Ronna McDaniel easily won re-election, and with the tacit support of Trump, two candidates for other RNC offices he openly endorsed both lost.

    In the treasurer’s race, Florida GOP chair Joe Gruters was defeated in part because he had Trump’s backing — and trumpeted the endorsement to committee members.

    Gruters’s allies texted committee members the day of the vote with a siren emoji, an all-caps headline: “PRES. TRUMP ENDORSES JOE GRUTERS FOR RNC TREASURER” and a message from Trump about his “Complete and Total Endorsement.”

    However, Gruters told me it was only supposed to go to about 20 Trump diehards on the committee and instead went to the entire 168-member party roster. That, according to Fortuno and other Trump skeptics who want a neutral leadership slate, caused a backlash on the floor and doomed Gruters’ candidacy.

    Not that many potential presidential candidates were there to witness or even hear about what transpired.

    The only likely 2024 contender to show up was Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor, who’s a longshot but would bring perhaps the most sterling resume to the field. Now a certified member of the old guard, he was once a Reagan-appointed U.S. Attorney, House impeachment manager against Bill Clinton and DEA chief and top border official under George W. Bush before serving two terms in Little Rock.

    Hutchinson wasn’t in the actual RNC program, but didn’t ask to be included. Unlike a number of once-hungry Republicans he’s still intent on testing the 2024 waters — he was the only potential candidate to show up for Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’s inauguration and legislative breakfast last month. He believes the case has to be made directly against the former president.

    Citing a much-read Peggy Noonan column from December, Hutchinson told me flatly: “The only way to get rid of Donald Trump is to beat him.”

    [ad_2]
    #Cold #Calculus #Shrinking #GOP #Presidential #Field
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Ukraine to get cold shoulder on rapid EU entry

    Ukraine to get cold shoulder on rapid EU entry

    [ad_1]

    Press play to listen to this article

    Voiced by artificial intelligence.

    Top EU leaders are traveling to Ukraine this week, but they won’t be bringing promises that the war-torn country can join the bloc anytime soon.

    Brussels is expected to pour cold water on Ukraine’s hopes that it could swiftly join the EU during a two-day summit in Kyiv, according to a draft statement set to be issued at the event and seen by POLITICO.

    The statement makes no specific mention of the ambitious timeline Ukraine has set out, with the country’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, even telling POLITICO this week that he hopes to join within two years. Instead, the document offers only vague assurances about moving the process forward once all EU-mandated milestones are met.

    “The EU will decide on further steps once all conditions specified in the Commission’s opinion are fully met,” the draft states. “Ukraine underlined its determination to meet the necessary requirements in order to start accession negotiations as soon as possible.”

    The wording follows significant pushback from some EU countries about over-promising Ukraine on its EU membership prospects, a subject Kyiv asked to address at the summit, according to several EU diplomats and officials. Though EU national leaders will not be in attendance at Friday’s summit, officials at the European Council — which includes all 27 EU leaders — have been liaising with EU countries about the final communiqué.

    EU leaders last June granted Ukraine formal candidate status in record time, but that move was much easier than rapidly moving Ukraine through the grueling negotiations required to align a candidate country with the EU’s byzantine systems, rules and regulations. That process typically takes years and years, and often stalls for long periods of time.

    Still, EU countries have split over how quickly the bloc should try to move Ukraine through that accession process.

    “There were clear tensions between Poland and the Baltic states on one hand and other EU countries on the language to EU accession,” said one EU official. 

    The official added that tensions between European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are playing into the debate as well.

    “They are in a race of outbidding each other toward the Ukrainians,” the official said.

    Still, while no breakthroughs are expected in EU accession talks, there is a strong will in Brussels to show solidarity with Ukraine on other issues. 

    “The mere fact that we’re holding a summit in a country at war” is itself significant, said a senior EU official ahead of the meeting.  

    GettyImages 1243251966
    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images

    Indeed, a large gathering of senior EU leaders and commissioners are expected to make the trek to Kyiv this week for meetings with EU officials.

    Progress is expected in certain areas — for example, an agreement on a visa-free regime for industrial goods; the suspension of customs duties on Ukrainian exports for another year; movement on Ukraine joining an EU payment scheme easing bank transfers in euros; and integrating Ukraine into the EU’s free mobile roaming area.

    Also on the summit’s agenda will be Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s 10-point peace plan, the reconstruction challenge facing Ukraine, and food security issues, with the EU set to announce a new €‎25 million humanitarian aid package to address Russian mining in the country.

    Another EU official said that the summit sends “a strong signal that we support a country that is a victim of aggression and we underline the right of Ukraine to have a just peace at the end of this war. Ukraine has been attacked, Ukraine has a right to self-defense which they’re exercising … and only this can be a basis for a just peace.”

    Reform path

    The document also stresses the need for “comprehensive and consistent implementation of judicial reforms” in line with the Venice Commission’s advice, citing, in particular, the need to reform Ukraine’s Constitutional Court.

    Though Ukraine recently announced changes to the court, particularly on how judges are appointed, the Venice Commission — a prominent advisory body featuring constitutional law specialists — still has concerns about the powers and composition of the body that selects the court’s candidates.

    Shmyhal told POLITICO this week that Ukraine will address these questions. Kyiv has been keen to signal it is clamping down on corruption amid concerns in Washington and Brussels. 

     “We are holding consultations with the European Commission to see that all issued conclusions may be incorporated into the text,” he said.



    [ad_2]
    #Ukraine #cold #shoulder #rapid #entry
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

  • Omved BREATHE EASY Cold & Sinusitis Therapeutic Eye Mask & Eye Pillow- Relief from Sinus, Headache, Migraine, Cold & Cough

    Omved BREATHE EASY Cold & Sinusitis Therapeutic Eye Mask & Eye Pillow- Relief from Sinus, Headache, Migraine, Cold & Cough

    41J8bzXHJnL31fVgTz8crL41QZtauGP9S41V8DGpZI0L51ee6jcsNZL514F4Qey+ L51wa0oD9X7L
    Price: [price_with_discount]
    (as of [price_update_date] – Details)

    ISRHEWs
    [ad_1]
    Product Description

    Omved LogoOmved Logo

    Omved Breathe Easy Eye Mask / Sinus Pillow is natural, safe and therapeutic herbal compress inspired by Ayurveda, which helps to decongest, relax and heal effectively. It combines the oil-retaining power of flax-seeds with aromatherapy of decongesting herbs. This eye mask offers you instant relief from the discomfort of migraines, headaches, allergies, cold and sinus pain, and snoring, besides inducing a relaxing effect.

    This eye mask is to be used as a warm compress for sinus, at room temperature. All you need to do is wrap it around your head for a few minutes to experience instant relief.

    In the swift-paced lifestyles we lead, it’s difficult to stay immune to stress, air pollution and its side effects. Sinusitis and cold are few such side effects that can make us feel heavy and congested around the eyes, temples and nose. They can often lead to headaches too. An over the counter painkiller is the easiest solution to reach out for during a pain or a headache, but consequently in the long term, it can be a harmful for health.

    Breath EasyBreath Easy

    0101

    What’s in the Breathe Easy Eye Mask?

    Proprietary Ayurvedic Formula – Recommended by doctors and therapists

    Filled with aromatic healing herbs like Lavender and Chamomile, carefully selected therapeutic grade essential oils and oil-rich premium quality Flaxseeds.

    Ergonomically Designed

    This herbal compress is designed to rest over your eyes, covering all sinus-prone areas. The adjustable band offers a more customized fit. Crafted in an ultra-soft pure cotton fabric, the outer cover of each Breathe Easy eye mask is completely removable and washable.

    Herbal Therapy may assist in relieving – Cold and Sinusitis Migraines Headaches Allergies Sleep Disorder Stress and anxiety Snoring Dry eyes

    How to Use?

    01

    01

    02

    02

    03

    03

    04

    04

    Step 1

    Remove the eye mask from the sealed pouch.

    Step 2

    Close your eyes and place it comfortably over your eyes using the adjustable strap for 2-3 mins.

    For sensitive people, we recommend placing dry tissue between the mask and eyes, to avoid direct contact.

    Step 3

    Sit back and relax in a comfortable position.

    Take a few deep breaths.

    Remove the eye mask while keeping the eyes closed.

    Step 4

    Sit with your eyes closed for few minutes to experience the deep healing effects. Gently open your eyes after few minutes.

    Put the eye mask back in a sealable pouch.

    omved breathe easyomved breathe easy

    About Omved BrandAbout Omved Brand

    [ad_2]
    #Omved #BREATHE #EASY #Cold #Sinusitis #Therapeutic #Eye #Mask #Eye #Pillow #Relief #Sinus #Headache #Migraine #Cold #Cough

  • ‘Assassinated in cold blood’: the man killed protesting Georgia’s ‘Cop City’

    ‘Assassinated in cold blood’: the man killed protesting Georgia’s ‘Cop City’

    [ad_1]

    Belkis Terán spoke with her son, Manuel, nearly every day by WhatsApp from her home in Panama City, Panama. She also had names and numbers for some of Manuel’s friends, in case she didn’t hear from the 26-year-old who was protesting “Cop City”, a planned gigantic training facility being built in a wooded area near Atlanta, Georgia.

    So by midweek, when she hadn’t received a message from Atlanta since Monday, she began to worry. Thursday around noon, a friend of Manuel’s messaged her with condolences. “I’m so sorry,” they wrote. “For what?” she asked.

    Terán wound up discovering that on Wednesday around 9.04am, an as-yet unnamed officer or officers had shot and killed her son. The shooting occurred in an operation involving dozens of officers from Atlanta police, Dekalb county police, Georgia state patrol, the Georgia bureau of investigation and the FBI.

    The killing has stunned and shocked not only Manuel’s family and friends, but also the environmental and social justice movement in Georgia and across the United States. Circumstances surrounding the incident are still unclear and there are demands for a thorough investigation into the killing and how it could have happened.

    The police apparently found Manuel in a tent in the South River forest south-east of Atlanta, taking part in a protest now in its second year, against plans to build a $90m police and fire department training facility on the land and, separately, a film studio.

    Officials say Manuel shot first at a state trooper “without warning” and an officer or officers returned fire, but they have produced no evidence for the claim. The trooper was described as stable and in hospital Thursday.

    The shooting is “unprecedented” in the history of US environmental activism, according to experts.

    The GBI, which operates under Republican governor Brian Kemp’s orders, has released scant information and on Thursday night told the Guardian no body-cam footage of the shooting exists. At least a half-dozen other protesters who were in the forest at the time have communicated to other activists that one, single series of shots could be heard. They believe the state trooper could have been shot by another officer, or by his own firearm.

    Meanwhile, both Terán and local activists are looking into legal action, and Manuel’s mother told the Guardian: “I will go to the US to defend Manuel’s memory … I’m convinced that he was assassinated in cold blood.”

    The incident was the latest in a ramping-up of law enforcement raids on the forest in recent months.

    Protests had begun in late 2021, after the then Atlanta mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, announced plans for the training center. The forest had been named in city plans four years earlier as a key part of efforts to maintain Atlanta’s renowned tree canopy as a buffer against global warming, and to create what would have been the metro area’s largest park.

    Most of the residents in neighborhoods around the forest are Black and municipal planning has neglected the area for decades. The plans to preserve the forest and make it a historic public amenity were adopted in 2017 as part of Atlanta’s city charter, or constitution. But the Atlanta city council wound up approving the training center anyway, and a movement to “Stop Cop City” began in response.

    A series of editorials and news stories lambasting the activists began in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the area’s largest daily paper. At least a dozen articles in the last year-plus failed to mention that Alex Taylor, CEO of the paper’s owner, Cox Enterprises, was also raising funds on behalf of the Atlanta police foundation, the main agency behind the training center.

    At some point, Kemp and other civic leaders began referring to the protesters as “terrorists”, in response to acts of vandalism such as burning construction vehicles or spray-painting corporate offices linked to the project.

    In an interview with this reporter last fall, Manuel was discussing how some Muscogee (Creek) people interested in protecting the forest as well felt that leaving a burnt vehicle at one of its entrances was not a good idea, and was an alienating presence in nature. The activist seemed understanding of both sides and critical of violence.

    “Some of us [forest defenders] are rowdy gringos,” Manuel said. “They’re just against the state. Still, I don’t know how you can connect to anything if that’s your entire political analysis.”

    Police raids on the forest intensified until 14 December, when a half-dozen “forest defenders” were arrested and charged with “domestic terrorism” under state law – another unprecedented development in US environmental activism, said Lauren Regan, founder of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, who has a quarter-century’s experience defending environmental protestors charged with federal terrorism sentencing enhancements and others.

    Seven more activists were arrested and received the same charges the day Manuel was killed.

    Regan and Keith Woodhouse, professor of history at Northwestern University and author of The Ecocentrists: A History of Radical Environmentalism, both said there has never been a case where law enforcement has shot and killed an environmental activist engaged in an attempt to protect a forest from being razed and developed.

    “Killings of environmental activists by the state are depressingly common in other countries, like Brazil, Honduras, Nigeria,” said Woodhouse. “But this has never happened in the US.”

    Manuel’s older brother, Daniel Esteban Paez, found himself in the middle of this unfortunate historical moment Thursday. “They killed my sibling,” he said on answering the phone. “I’m in a whole new world now.”

    Paez, 31, was the only family member to speak extensively with GBI officials, after calling them Thursday in an attempt to get answers about what had happened. No one representing Georgia law enforcement had reached out to Belkis by Thursday afternoon. “I quickly found out, they’re not investigating the death of Manuel – they’re investigating Manuel,” Paez said.

    A navy veteran, Paez said the GBI official asked him such questions as “Does Manuel often carry weapons?” and “Has Manuel done protesting in the past?”

    The family is Venezuelan in origin, but now lives in the US and Panama, Paez said. Less than 24 hours into discovering the death of his sibling, Paez also said he “had no idea Manuel was so well-regarded and loved by so many”. He was referring to events and messages ranging from an Atlanta candlelight vigil Wednesday night to messages of solidarity being sent on social media from across the US and world.

    Belkis Terán, meanwhile, is trying to get an emergency appointment at the US Embassy in Panama to renew her tourist visa, which expired in November. “I’m going to clear Manuel’s name. They killed him … like they tear down trees in the forest – a forest Manuel loved with passion.”



    [ad_2]
    #Assassinated #cold #blood #man #killed #protesting #Georgias #Cop #City
    ( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )