Trump, Canada PM strike positive note after call
US President Donald Trump said he had an “extremely productive” first call Friday with Canada’s new Prime Minister Mark Carney, after soaring tensions over tariffs and Trump’s wish to annex his northern neighbor.Trump added that the two planned to meet soon after Canada’s April 28 general election in which Carney — who took office two weeks ago — has made standing up to the US president the focus of his campaign.”I just finished speaking with Prime Minister Mark Carney, of Canada. It was an extremely productive call, we agree on many things,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.Trump said they would be “meeting immediately after Canada’s upcoming Election to work on elements of Politics, Business, and all other factors, that will end up being great for both the United States of America and Canada.”Typically, a new Canadian leader makes a phone call with the US president an immediate priority, but this was Trump and Carney’s first contact since the Canadian was sworn in on March 14.Carney’s office said the pair had a “very constructive conversation” and agreed to begin “comprehensive negotiations about a new economic and security relationship immediately following the election.”It added, however, that Carney told Trump his government will impose retaliatory tariffs on American goods from April 2, when sweeping US levies are set to come into place.”We’re not going to back down, we’re going to respond with force,” Carney said at an afternoon press conference.”What is clear is that the relationship between Canada and the United States has changed. And we’re not the one’s who changed,” he added, confirming that Canada needed to look to Europe “to strengthen ties with reliable partners.””Over the coming weeks, months and years, we must fundamentally reimagine our economy.”Trump’s glowing post was still a dramatic change in tone from recent rhetoric between Washington and Ottawa, who are NATO allies and long-standing economic partners.The US president has sparked fury in Canada by repeatedly insisting that it should become the 51st US state and by slapping or threatening tariffs on the country.His post on Friday was notable for its diplomacy, as Trump gave Carney his official title of prime minister and made no reference to his annexation drive.In contrast, Trump would often belittle Carney’s predecessor Justin Trudeau, with whom he had a long-standing rivalry, as “governor” in a reference to his calls for Canada to join the United States.- ‘Just don’t have the cards’ -Canada’s new prime minister — who is in a tight election race to stay in the job — was chosen by Canada’s centrist Liberal Party to replace Trudeau but has never faced the country’s electorate.Just a day before the call, Carney said he would not participate in substantive trade negotiations with Washington until the president shows Canada “respect,” particularly by ending his repeated annexation threats.US Vice President JD Vance maintained a combative stance on Friday, repeating Trump’s past comment that Canadians “just don’t have the cards” on tariffs.”There is no way that Canada can win a trade war with the United States,” he said during a visit to Greenland.Trump’s planned 25 percent levy on vehicle imports to the United States is to come into force next week and could be devastating for a Canadian auto industry that supports an estimated 500,000 jobs. The 78-year-old Republican is also set to impose reciprocal tariffs on all countries that put levies on US exports, and Canada is to be in the firing line for those too.Trump has warned Canada against working with the European Union to counter upcoming reciprocal tariffs on all imports.If they did so, they would face “large-scale tariffs, far larger than currently planned,” Trump has said.Trump’s threats have impacted Canadian polls, with Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives seen as election favorites before Trudeau dropped out.Since Trump’s threats to Canada, the polls have spectacularly narrowed in favor of Carney’s Liberals, who hold a minority in parliament.
En Albanie, les déchets de la dictature empoisonnent encore Elbasan
Le complexe sidérurgique d’Elbasan, jadis fierté du régime communiste albanais avec ses usines et ses milliers d’ouvriers, est aujourd’hui l’un des lieux les plus pollués du pays, qui produit des centaines de tonnes de déchets, dont certains dangereux.Construit dans les années 1970, ce géant industriel a fermé ses portes en 1990, à la chute de la dictature, pour les rouvrir quelques années plus tard lorsqu’une partie des usines ont été privatisées. Des 500 usines qui tournaient sous la dictature d’Enver Hoxha, il n’en reste qu’une cinquantaine, où travaillent 1.500 ouvriers, au cœur d’un site de 160 hectares en plein centre du pays.Des usines désaffectées, tout ce qui pouvait être récupéré, démonté, a été revendu, ne laissant derrière les pillages que des murs décrépis et des tas de déchets dangereux.Malgré les risques, tout le monde peut entrer, et nombreux sont ceux qui gagnent leur vie en fouillant dans les déchets à la recherche des métaux à revendre, enveloppés d’un air lourd et nauséabond.”C’est une zone où sont stockées, depuis plus de 35 ans, 1,5 à 2 millions de tonnes de déchets dangereux qui polluent l’eau, l’air et le sol”, résume Beqir Kila, ingénieur et militant écologiste connu en Albanie.Les résultats des analyses réalisées par différents groupes d’experts indépendants montrent des taux de plomb, de nickel et de chrome au moins trois fois supérieurs aux normes européennes.Situé à cinq kilomètres à peine de la ville d’Elbasan, 115.000 habitants, le complexe industriel est en tête des “sites à risque, à fort potentiel de pollution provenant des déchets de métaux lourds comme le ferronickel et le ferrochrome. Un héritage qui continue de polluer les eaux du fleuve de Shkumbin”, a reconnu dans un rapport publié en janvier l’Agence nationale de l’Environnement.Si les autorités connaissent la situation, elles ne proposent aucune solution, ni le moindre début d’investissement, accusent les écologistes. “Stockées plein air, à la merci des conditions atmosphériques, ces déchets subissent des modifications et tous les éléments dangereux et toxiques qu’ils contiennent s’infiltrent dans la terre et dans l’eau”, affirme M. Kila en montrant ses mains couvertes de poussière noire.- Catastrophique -“Nous considérons que la pollution dans la zone industrielle de l’ancien complexe sidérurgique d’Elbasan est catastrophique”, abonde Ahmet Mehmeti, un expert d’environnement.Aux problèmes créés par les déchets hérités des vieilles usines s’ajoutent les polluants et les émissions des nouvelles usines. Nombre d’entre elles ne s’embarrassent pas de filtres, ou bien ne les activent que de temps, sans trop se soucier des lois.Les chiffres officiels sur la pollution de l’air autour d’Elbasan sont de toute façon inexistants : l’évaluation de la qualité de l’air est confiée à chacune des entreprises qui y exerce.”Un jeu de cache-cache avec les autorités qui convient parfaitement aux entreprise”, explique M. Mehmeti, plus intéressées selon lui à “réduire aux maximum les coûts”.Sur place, il n’est pas difficile de voir en plein jour d’immenses cheminées – dont une crache une fumée noire comme la suie. La présence d’une équipe de journalistes coupe comme par magie l’émission de fumée.Contactée, l’entreprise qui exploite cette usine n’avait pas répondu.”Les déchets contiennent du chrome, du nickel, du zinc… les rejets passent dans l’eau, coulent dans le fleuve à côté qui sert à l’irrigation des terres et se retrouve avec les fruits et les légumes dans nos assiettes”, explique M. Mehmeti, abattu et soucieux.Depuis des années, les signalements de maladies génétiques et de cancers sont en hausse dans la région, affirme-t-il.”Les émissions de plomb ont provoqué des défaillances cérébrales, surtout chez les enfants mais aussi des problèmes génétiques sur les bétails et les volailles”, reconnait M. Kila.Quant aux déchets qui ne sont pas laissés à l’air libre, l’Albanie, qui n’a pas les capacités de traitement nécessaires, en exporte.”L’Albanie dispose d’une loi sur l’exportation des déchets dangereux et non dangereux, mais le problème se trouve dans le manque de contrôle des procédures”, explique Lavdosh Ferruni, un autre militant écologiste.A l’été 2024, 102 conteneurs de déchets sont ainsi partis d’Elbasan vers la Thaïlande, où ils devaient être recyclés. Mais après le signalement d’un lanceur d’alerte soupçonnant que ces déchets étaient dangereux et n’avaient pas été enregistrés comme tels, ils ont dû faire demi-tour.Le parquet de la ville de Durres, en coopération avec l’Office européen de lutte antifraude (OLAF), a ouvert une enquête, mais pour l’instant, les déchets sont toujours en Albanie.Contacté, le ministère de l’Environnement et du Tourisme n’a pas répondu à l’AFP.
‘Jail or death’: migrants expelled by Trump fear for their fate
Marwa fled Taliban rule in Afghanistan because she wanted to study, work, wear jeans and go to the park without a male chaperone. Now she is under lock and key in Costa Rica, along with hundreds of other migrants expelled by the United States to third countries in Central America.Costa Rica is one of three Central American countries, along with Panama and Guatemala, that have agreed to receive migrants from other countries and to detain them until they are sent to their home nations or other host countries. A fourth country — El Salvador — took a group of Venezuelans and jailed them in a maximum-security prison after the United States claimed, without providing evidence, that they are gang members.AFP spoke to several migrants from a group of about 200 people, including around 80 children, detained at a facility near Costa Rica’s border with Panama.All said they feared for their lives in their homeland. Marwa, 27, said she was terrified at the thought that she, her husband and two-year-old daughter could be sent back to Afghanistan.Her husband Mohammad Asadi, 31, who ran a construction company back home, was threatened by the Taliban for selling materials to American companies.”I know if I go back I will die there. I will be killed by the Taliban,” Marwa told AFP in English, in an interview conducted through the center’s perimeter fence.Alireza Salimivir, a 35-year-old Iranian Christian, said he and his wife face a similar fate.”Due to our conversion from Islam to Christianity… it’s jail or the death penalty for us,” he said.- Tropical limbo -On his return to office in January, US President Donald Trump launched what he vowed would be the biggest migrant deportation wave in American history and signed an order suspending asylum claims at the southern border.Citing pressure from “our economically powerful brother to the north,” Costa Rica said it had agreed to collaborate in the “repatriation of 200 illegal immigrants to their country.”But only 74 of the migrants have been repatriated so far, with another 10 set to follow, according to the authorities.The rest are in limbo.They refuse to be deported to their homelands, but no other country — including Costa Rica itself, which has a long tradition of offering asylum — has offered to take them in.”We can’t go back, nor can we stay here. We don’t know the culture and don’t speak Spanish,” said Marwa, who said she wanted to be close to relatives “in Canada, the United States or Europe.”- Prison or war -German Smirnov, a 36-year-old Russian former election official, said he fled to the United States with his wife and six-year-old son after flagging up fraud in last year’s presidential election.He said his request for asylum in the United States was “totally ignored, like it had never existed.”If returned to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, he said: “They will give me two options, sit in prison or go to war (in Ukraine).”Marwa and her husband also said they wanted to seek asylum in the United States when they arrived at the US-Mexican border earlier this year after a grueling overland journey through 10 countries, starting in Brazil.But they were never given the chance to file an asylum claim. Instead, they were detained and flown to Costa Rica 18 days later.Asadi said an immigration official verbally abused Marwa for wearing a hijab and singled her out to pick up trash, alone.Smirnov said they treated the migrants, including women and children, “like scum.”- Costa Rica policy change -At the Costa Rican facility, the group said they were well fed and allowed to use their cell phones, but their passports had been seized by the police.”There is a systematic pattern of human rights violations in a country that has always prided itself on defending them,” said former Costa Rican diplomat Mauricio Herrera, who has filed a legal challenge to the migrants’ detention.”This is a very serious setback for Costa Rica,” he told AFP.Michael Garcia Bochenek, children’s rights counsel at Human Rights Watch, warned Costa Rica in a statement against being “complicit in flagrant US abuses.”
‘Jail or death’: migrants expelled by Trump fear for their fate
Marwa fled Taliban rule in Afghanistan because she wanted to study, work, wear jeans and go to the park without a male chaperone. Now she is under lock and key in Costa Rica, along with hundreds of other migrants expelled by the United States to third countries in Central America.Costa Rica is one of three Central American countries, along with Panama and Guatemala, that have agreed to receive migrants from other countries and to detain them until they are sent to their home nations or other host countries. A fourth country — El Salvador — took a group of Venezuelans and jailed them in a maximum-security prison after the United States claimed, without providing evidence, that they are gang members.AFP spoke to several migrants from a group of about 200 people, including around 80 children, detained at a facility near Costa Rica’s border with Panama.All said they feared for their lives in their homeland. Marwa, 27, said she was terrified at the thought that she, her husband and two-year-old daughter could be sent back to Afghanistan.Her husband Mohammad Asadi, 31, who ran a construction company back home, was threatened by the Taliban for selling materials to American companies.”I know if I go back I will die there. I will be killed by the Taliban,” Marwa told AFP in English, in an interview conducted through the center’s perimeter fence.Alireza Salimivir, a 35-year-old Iranian Christian, said he and his wife face a similar fate.”Due to our conversion from Islam to Christianity… it’s jail or the death penalty for us,” he said.- Tropical limbo -On his return to office in January, US President Donald Trump launched what he vowed would be the biggest migrant deportation wave in American history and signed an order suspending asylum claims at the southern border.Citing pressure from “our economically powerful brother to the north,” Costa Rica said it had agreed to collaborate in the “repatriation of 200 illegal immigrants to their country.”But only 74 of the migrants have been repatriated so far, with another 10 set to follow, according to the authorities.The rest are in limbo.They refuse to be deported to their homelands, but no other country — including Costa Rica itself, which has a long tradition of offering asylum — has offered to take them in.”We can’t go back, nor can we stay here. We don’t know the culture and don’t speak Spanish,” said Marwa, who said she wanted to be close to relatives “in Canada, the United States or Europe.”- Prison or war -German Smirnov, a 36-year-old Russian former election official, said he fled to the United States with his wife and six-year-old son after flagging up fraud in last year’s presidential election.He said his request for asylum in the United States was “totally ignored, like it had never existed.”If returned to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, he said: “They will give me two options, sit in prison or go to war (in Ukraine).”Marwa and her husband also said they wanted to seek asylum in the United States when they arrived at the US-Mexican border earlier this year after a grueling overland journey through 10 countries, starting in Brazil.But they were never given the chance to file an asylum claim. Instead, they were detained and flown to Costa Rica 18 days later.Asadi said an immigration official verbally abused Marwa for wearing a hijab and singled her out to pick up trash, alone.Smirnov said they treated the migrants, including women and children, “like scum.”- Costa Rica policy change -At the Costa Rican facility, the group said they were well fed and allowed to use their cell phones, but their passports had been seized by the police.”There is a systematic pattern of human rights violations in a country that has always prided itself on defending them,” said former Costa Rican diplomat Mauricio Herrera, who has filed a legal challenge to the migrants’ detention.”This is a very serious setback for Costa Rica,” he told AFP.Michael Garcia Bochenek, children’s rights counsel at Human Rights Watch, warned Costa Rica in a statement against being “complicit in flagrant US abuses.”
‘Jail or death’: migrants expelled by Trump fear for their fate
Marwa fled Taliban rule in Afghanistan because she wanted to study, work, wear jeans and go to the park without a male chaperone. Now she is under lock and key in Costa Rica, along with hundreds of other migrants expelled by the United States to third countries in Central America.Costa Rica is one of three Central American countries, along with Panama and Guatemala, that have agreed to receive migrants from other countries and to detain them until they are sent to their home nations or other host countries. A fourth country — El Salvador — took a group of Venezuelans and jailed them in a maximum-security prison after the United States claimed, without providing evidence, that they are gang members.AFP spoke to several migrants from a group of about 200 people, including around 80 children, detained at a facility near Costa Rica’s border with Panama.All said they feared for their lives in their homeland. Marwa, 27, said she was terrified at the thought that she, her husband and two-year-old daughter could be sent back to Afghanistan.Her husband Mohammad Asadi, 31, who ran a construction company back home, was threatened by the Taliban for selling materials to American companies.”I know if I go back I will die there. I will be killed by the Taliban,” Marwa told AFP in English, in an interview conducted through the center’s perimeter fence.Alireza Salimivir, a 35-year-old Iranian Christian, said he and his wife face a similar fate.”Due to our conversion from Islam to Christianity… it’s jail or the death penalty for us,” he said.- Tropical limbo -On his return to office in January, US President Donald Trump launched what he vowed would be the biggest migrant deportation wave in American history and signed an order suspending asylum claims at the southern border.Citing pressure from “our economically powerful brother to the north,” Costa Rica said it had agreed to collaborate in the “repatriation of 200 illegal immigrants to their country.”But only 74 of the migrants have been repatriated so far, with another 10 set to follow, according to the authorities.The rest are in limbo.They refuse to be deported to their homelands, but no other country — including Costa Rica itself, which has a long tradition of offering asylum — has offered to take them in.”We can’t go back, nor can we stay here. We don’t know the culture and don’t speak Spanish,” said Marwa, who said she wanted to be close to relatives “in Canada, the United States or Europe.”- Prison or war -German Smirnov, a 36-year-old Russian former election official, said he fled to the United States with his wife and six-year-old son after flagging up fraud in last year’s presidential election.He said his request for asylum in the United States was “totally ignored, like it had never existed.”If returned to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, he said: “They will give me two options, sit in prison or go to war (in Ukraine).”Marwa and her husband also said they wanted to seek asylum in the United States when they arrived at the US-Mexican border earlier this year after a grueling overland journey through 10 countries, starting in Brazil.But they were never given the chance to file an asylum claim. Instead, they were detained and flown to Costa Rica 18 days later.Asadi said an immigration official verbally abused Marwa for wearing a hijab and singled her out to pick up trash, alone.Smirnov said they treated the migrants, including women and children, “like scum.”- Costa Rica policy change -At the Costa Rican facility, the group said they were well fed and allowed to use their cell phones, but their passports had been seized by the police.”There is a systematic pattern of human rights violations in a country that has always prided itself on defending them,” said former Costa Rican diplomat Mauricio Herrera, who has filed a legal challenge to the migrants’ detention.”This is a very serious setback for Costa Rica,” he told AFP.Michael Garcia Bochenek, children’s rights counsel at Human Rights Watch, warned Costa Rica in a statement against being “complicit in flagrant US abuses.”
Un juge fédéral suspend le démantèlement de Voice of America
Un juge fédéral a freiné vendredi le démantèlement des médias publics américains à l’étranger initié par le président Donald Trump en suspendant les mesures visant Voice of America (VOA).A la mi-mars, Donald Trump a signé un décret classant parmi les “éléments inutiles de la bureaucratie fédérale” l’USAGM, l’agence gouvernementale chapeautant les médias publics américains à l’étranger.Des centaines de journalistes ont été mis en congé administratif depuis.Un juge fédéral de New York a fait droit vendredi à la demande de l’association Reporters sans frontières (RSF), des syndicats et des journalistes de VOA de geler les actions en vue du démantèlement de ce fleuron des médias publics américains à l’étranger.”Le combat pour sauver VOA, et en réalité, la presse libre, continue alors que l’administration Trump s’active à priver le monde d’une source d’information fiable”, a réagi dans un communiqué Clayton Weimers, directeur du bureau de RSF aux États-Unis.”Nous exhortons l’administration Trump à débloquer immédiatement le financement de VOA et à réembaucher ses employés sans nouveau délai”, a-t-il ajouté.Le gouvernement du milliardaire républicain a procédé ce mois-ci à des limogeages massifs à VOA, Radio Free Asia et Radio Free Europe.Voice of America, créée pendant la Seconde guerre mondiale, Radio Free Europe, formée pendant la Guerre froide et Radio Free Asia, créée en 1996, visaient à porter la “voix de l’Amérique” à travers le monde et notamment dans les pays autoritaires.Moscou et Pékin ont salué la décision de l’administration Trump de réduire au silence ces médias vus pendant des décennies comme des piliers du soft power américain.Radio Free Europe avait déjà obtenu cette semaine une victoire judiciaire contre son démantèlement, quand un juge de Washington a décidé de suspendre provisoirement l’arrêt de son financement.
Dans les Alpes, la drogue aussi monte en station
“Je me suis fait avoir, c’est le jeu”, admet un skieur tout juste contrôlé par des gendarmes avec un joint de cannabis, en sortant éméché d’un bar en haut des pistes de Val Thorens.Comme dans toutes les Alpes, deux types de consommateurs de drogues coexistent dans cette station savoyarde: les touristes et les saisonniers, unis dans leur envie de faire la fête.Pour freiner leurs consommations, les gendarmes mènent régulièrement des opérations de contrôle en haut des pistes, accompagnés de chiens cynophiles.En ce jour de mars, l’adjudante Lucie Torresan travaille avec la chienne Olympe, qui renifle les skieurs. “S’il y a quelque chose qui l’intéresse, elle marque, c’est-à-dire qu’elle va s’asseoir”, explique-t-elle.En un après-midi, trois personnes ont été mises à l’amende ce “qui reste dans les standards”, d’après le major Frédéric Gentil en charge des opérations. Selon lui, sur les pistes on retrouve en majorité du cannabis, sous la forme d’herbe ou de résine, mais aussi de la cocaïne.Lors d’un festival, début janvier, “des groupes de tour-opérateurs anglais venus avec leurs dealers consommaient directement sur des clés de voiture” décrit-il, évoquant un usage plus “décomplexé” de la part des touristes.Mais ils ne sont pas les seuls consommateurs. “Pour preuve”, souligne le major, “quand on fait des dossiers stupéfiants, il y a deux tarifs différents, un tarif pour les saisonniers, plus alléchant, et un tarif pour les touristes”. L’an dernier, le gramme de cocaïne coûtait 70 euros pour les premiers, 100 pour les seconds.- Vulnérable -Ziani Lahrache, 22 ans, saisonnier originaire d’Avignon, confirme: “Ca arrive quand même assez fréquemment qu’il y ait des gens qui consomment de la cocaïne. Après, je vais dire que ce n’est pas autant répandu que le cannabis”.”Quand on est en saison, le mot tourne vite” et un ou deux dealeur fournit toute la station, ajoute le jeune homme qui avoue consommer de temps en temps du cannabis.Au delà des contrôles inopinés, les forces de l’ordre mènent des opérations ciblées contre ces vendeurs. En février, un dealeur a ainsi été arrêté à Chamonix et a été condamné à huit mois d’emprisonnement ferme.Les trafiquants ciblent le public saisonnier parce qu’il présente “une somme de vulnérabilités qui va le rendre plus fragile”, explique Camille Fauchet, 37 ans, chef de service dans un centre de soins d’accompagnement et de prévention à l’addictologie (CSAPA) à Annecy.Parmi ces facteurs: la précarité des contrats, l’intensité du travail, les difficultés liées au logement, l’environnement festif et l’isolement géographique.Cela fait écho à l’explosion de la consommation de drogue en France. Selon le dernier rapport de l’Observatoire français des drogues et des tendances addictives (OFDT), 1,1 million de personnes déclarent avoir consommé de la cocaïne au moins une fois en 2023, soit deux fois plus qu’en 2021. Et les travailleurs, notamment dans le domaine de la restauration, sont particulièrement concernés. Ils en consomment “pour supporter des cadences intensives”, expliquait récemment à l’AFP Ivana Obradovic, directrice adjointe de l’OFDT.- Ambiance festive -Autre difficulté dans les stations de ski, l’accès aux soins qui reste compliqué, puisqu’elles se situent en moyenne à “1H30 de route” des premiers CSAPA et les médecins en altitude “sont prisonniers de la traumatologie”.”Pour quelqu’un qui va vouloir amorcer des soins, c’est-à-dire d’honorer un minimum de rendez-vous par semaine, c’est compliqué”, souligne Camille Fauchet.”Dans nos stations où le milieu est un peu festif, c’est sûr que ça existe” déplore Claude Jay, maire des Bellevilles, dont dépend la station de Val Thorens. Pour tenter de juguler le phénomène, la municipalité a mis en place une “Maison des saisonniers” avec des actions de sensibilisation menées par des associations ou des entreprises, cherche à améliorer leurs conditions de logement et à stabiliser leurs contrats.Grâce à ces efforts, “certains s’installent et sortent de l’ambiance festive”, se satisfait le maire.Les saisons peuvent, d’ailleurs, fournir l’occasion de se sevrer, souligne Camille Fauchet. Selon elle, certains utilisateurs “ont trouvé un autre rythme, en coupant avec un milieu” qui les freinait.