[News] Around The Rest of World

A posting place for news from places around the globe, outside of the US/Europe.

Wow. That is definitely not a development I expected.

mudbunny wrote:

So, about a month ago, a number of indigenous tribes in Nova Scotia decided to take advantage of their treaty rights (which were confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada) to make a "moderate living" (direct quote from Supreme Court) catching lobster year-round. As you can imagine, the commercial fisheries took great exception to this and decided some good, old-fashioned terrorizing was due.

A number of Mi'gmaw (the indigenous tribe in question) boats were burned to ashes, a couple of vans were firebombed, some people got roughed up and a storage unit (where the lobster are stored after being caught and before shipping) was also burned to the ground.

Welp, it looks like the Mi'gmaw (with another partner) just bought Clearwater, the commercial fishery that employed all the lobstermen.

https://www.newswire.ca/news-release...

So a round of layoffs incoming I presume?

Upsettlers' latest catch: a metric tonne of irony

Said a local man who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces party, "I didn't know Indigenous people could even buy leopards!"

Total miss on my part to not have posted about the protest in Thailand. They have an interview with a Monarchist in here, and I know I must be an American because it makes absolutely zero sense.

(Also, this king is, reportedly, a fairly significant tit.)

There are monarchist Americans too. They're Trump supporters.

I know an honest-to-god isolationist libertarian. Full stop: no immigration into the US, no international aid from/to either end, cutting ties with most countries unless we get the better end of the deal. He's a nice enough guy, but man he's a living relic. I have stopped discussing politics with him as we just can't really agree on anything except that we need stronger social security and a well fare system, as well as the need to focus on improving the lives of all Americans. The few political conversations I had with him were just weird over all. Edit #2, this post is just meant to further Quintin's point as I understand it (there are still many people who support antiquated political belief systems) and yeah this guy voted Trump first time around, but I'm not 100% certain who he did this time because we haven't talked politics since like late 2018 and I can never pin him down politically without actually talking to him.

At least the guy has a good stance on social security and welfare.

mudbunny wrote:

So, about a month ago, a number of indigenous tribes in Nova Scotia decided to take advantage of their treaty rights (which were confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada) to make a "moderate living" (direct quote from Supreme Court) catching lobster year-round. As you can imagine, the commercial fisheries took great exception to this and decided some good, old-fashioned terrorizing was due.

A number of Mi'gmaw (the indigenous tribe in question) boats were burned to ashes, a couple of vans were firebombed, some people got roughed up and a storage unit (where the lobster are stored after being caught and before shipping) was also burned to the ground.

I'm a fisherman about an hour from where this has been taking place. It's a very very complicated issue. Much more complicated than has been reported by the CBC.

Before I even start I want to give my opinion on this. The Canadian Federal Government is the cause of this all. We, as Canadians, need the "moderate livelihood" to be defined in the courts. Until it is defined, there will be conflict. Our gov't will not bring this to the courts because as soon as they do, it is beyond their control. They'd rather have either commercial fishers OR native fishers be to blame for the troubles happening here.

A plant was burned down. We still don't know who burned it. Rumors are a lifelong criminal from a nearby town was hired to do it, but we don't know who he was hired by and we don't even know if he did it. The van was burned on a different night by someone long associated with native troublemakers. Again, we don't know details. The boat that burned was a derelict boat almost certainly burned for insurance.

OTOH, commercial fishers have been spouting racist crap non-stop which is awful. This is a case of a few bad apples, but they are certainly there in plain view doing what idiots do. As a commercial fisherman, I am ashamed to be associated with some of my peers right now.

To the issue itself. We have an indigenous band 300km away from the St Mary's bay fishing during the summer, which is a closed time. Lobsters breed during this time in this very small bay. Mike Sack, the chief, has decided to have his band fish this during the summer months. It must be noted that Mr. Sack has a history of defrauding people both within and outside of his band. Other bands (Acadia, Annapolis) are getting screwed over as they fish this area in season with the commercial fishers and have done so peacefully and happily for decades. These bands have issued a statement saying they do not agree with Mike Sack's fishery. The commercial fishery in this area has taken a nosedive. There's no science as to why, but if it looks like a duck...

There are laws preventing commercial buyers from buying lobsters caught out of season. These moderate livelihood lobsters are being sold under the table to local interests operating outside of the law. There have been 3 separate occasions when thousands of lbs of lobsters have been dumped in roadside dumps because they couldn't be sold.

Lobster traps have an escape hatch to prevent ghost fishing. We use thin iron rings to attach this hatch. If the trap is lost they rust out and let lobsters escape. The moderate livelihood traps has been using steel rings. The moderate livelihood traps have been baited with undersized lobsters (!) and female crabs. Both of these are not legal. DFO landed about 1000 traps about 2 weeks ago. They left any legal traps in the water. They stated that they only checked a small area of St. Mary's Bay. 1000 traps is a LOT of fishing. Mike Sack has stated that only 250 traps were being fished. There are still 1000's of traps out there.

In Nova Scotia, we have a lobster season open somewhere in the province 50 weeks of the year, but Mike Sack's band chooses to fish in the protected St. Mary's Bay breeding ground during the summer breeding time. He could fish anywhere else with an open season without any pushback, as other native bands do. This doesn't even take into consideration the boats and licenses that were given to native bands in the 90's. These were to be fished by native crews and captains. They are mostly now leased to non-natives on a year by year basis. The band councils and chiefs control the leasing and most times regular members see no benefit from them.

The treaty itself (Marshall Decision 1 and 2) specifically states that native fishing can be regulated for conservation and social purposes. Both come into play here. Sadly the public has only seen the national news broadcasts and not the whole story. Mike Sack and a few local (non-native) lobster buyers are using this whole thing to enrich themselves and using the media as a smokescreen.

Unfortunately I'm not the best with words, but I would invite anyone interested in this to read the Marshall Decisions. I guess what I'm trying to say is that all fishermen aren't racists. Most are happy to fish along side of native in season and we have always gotten along. Some fishermen are racists and they are who you're going to see on the news for sure. Most natives are trying to get ahead just like non-natives are. Most are doing it legally and we're working together to make it work. Some are doing it illegally and using the media to deflect the real concerns of people who are affected by out of season fishing. Some don't know if they're doing what they're doing legally or illegally because our courts won't tell them and they're the ones hurt most by this mess.

Regarding the Clearwater thing: This is just another way for the N.S. Government to put money into Risley's pocket. He's been our pet welfare project since before I was born.

To put into perspective how little info a news clip can give you here is how Clearwater factors into the N.S. Lobster fishery. Clearwater has one boat fishing lobster. One. There are almost 2000 boats in my district alone (LFA 34/33). Each boat employs from 2-4 people. There are countless plants that employ many many workers. There are truckers, welders, boatbuilders, fuel businesses, bait businesses as well. Clearwater doesn't factor into any of these businesses. This end of Nova Scotia runs on one industry. Clearwater could vanish from lobstering and nobody would ever know. The only issue with Clearwater is that Risley (the owner) was given exclusive rights to a huge offshore area to fish. Maybe if Clearwater was to go out of business that resource could be given to native bands to fish. Why would you think from the article that fishermen would be out of work? My local McDonalds employs more people than Clearwater in SouthWest N.S.

Thanks for the inside info Homard! I appreciate it.

Sorry for the ramble. I am not directly affected by what is happening, but it is an issue I'm very close to. I have a lot of native and non-native friends who have been hurt by what is going on and I wish our government would define the rules so everyone can play by them. We're all trying to play a game right now where livelihoods and the relationships between native and non-native nations are the stakes and nobody knows the rules. It's hard.

That is what the War on Drugs is doing. It needs to stop.

I’m enjoying this.

Higgledy wrote:

I’m enjoying this.

I hope he makes an audio version of his book, it would be so comforting and great for commutes.

Google threatens to withdraw search engine from Australia

f*ck 'em. This is why organisations like the EU are so important. Who else has the power to reign in these monsters?

It would set a horrible precedent in Australia gave in.

Seems like killing the goose, to me. Google is literally driving traffic to those sites, which is revenue for them. Why would they want that to go away? What am I missing here?

How is Google harming news sites? (If it's copywrite-related, what about all the other copywrited stuff that shows up in search results, do they have to pay for that too? What about if the news companies just set up bots to generate revenue by running searches?)

Robear wrote:

Seems like killing the goose, to me. Google is literally driving traffic to those sites, which is revenue for them. Why would they want that to go away? What am I missing here?

How is Google harming news sites? (If it's copywrite-related, what about all the other copywrited stuff that shows up in search results, do they have to pay for that too? What about if the news companies just set up bots to generate revenue by running searches?)

Google has killed their ad revenue.

The government has argued that because the tech platforms gain customers from people who want to read the news, the tech giants should pay newsrooms a "fair" amount for their journalism.

In addition, it has argued that the financial support is needed for Australia's embattled news industry because a strong media is vital to democracy.

Media companies, including News Corp Australia, a unit of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, have lobbied hard for the government to force tech firms to the negotiating table amid a long-term decline in advertising revenue.

LOL, the only thing that could make me suddenly rethink my position on this.

Kind of sounds like the double dipping broadband providers try to do.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Google has killed their ad revenue.

How?

Robear wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:

Google has killed their ad revenue.

How?

when was the last time you or anyone you know put an ad in a local paper? It's all online now, and the tech companies own most of the ad inventory.

Google/FB get 80% of the ad revenue but contribute basically nothing to cost of running the news organisation.

Prederick wrote:
The government has argued that because the tech platforms gain customers from people who want to read the news, the tech giants should pay newsrooms a "fair" amount for their journalism.

In addition, it has argued that the financial support is needed for Australia's embattled news industry because a strong media is vital to democracy.

Media companies, including News Corp Australia, a unit of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, have lobbied hard for the government to force tech firms to the negotiating table amid a long-term decline in advertising revenue.

LOL, the only thing that could make me suddenly rethink my position on this.

The reason News Corp is one of the last ones standing is in large part due to this problem. The little guys go first. Goodbye news diversity.

Chairman_Mao wrote:
Robear wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:

Google has killed their ad revenue.

How?

when was the last time you or anyone you know put an ad in a local paper? It's all online now, and the tech companies own most of the ad inventory.

Craigslist is the primary responsible party for the demise of newspapers. Advertising was never a huge part of their budgets. It was all about the classified section, to the point that the rest of the newspaper existed to sell you the classifieds.

Craigslist (and eBay, to a lesser extent) killed the classifieds, and that's what killed newspapers.

If all search engines disappeared tomorrow, newspapers would be in much worse shape than they are with free traffic being sent to them.

Malor wrote:

If all search engines disappeared tomorrow, newspapers would be in much worse shape than they are with free traffic being sent to them.

Source?

Spain. Google pulled out of Spain, and the local newspapers saw an enormous drop in traffic.