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| ===== Target is ending its diversity goals as a strong DEI opponent occupies the White House ===== | ===== International Women's Day protests demand equal rights and an end to discrimination, sexual violence ===== |
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| By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO AP Retail Writer | By MEHMET GUZEL and ANDREW WILKS Associated Press |
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| NEW YORK (AP) — Discount store chain Target said Friday that it would join rival Walmart and a number of other prominent American brands in scaling back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that have come under attack from conservative activists and, as of this week, the White House. | ISTANBUL (AP) — Women took to the streets of cities across Europe, Africa, South America and elsewhere to mark International Women's Day with demands for ending inequality and gender-based violence. |
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| The Minneapolis-based retailer said the changes to its "Belonging at the Bullseye" strategy would include ending a program it established to help Black employees build meaningful careers, improve the experience of Black shoppers and to promote Black-owned businesses following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020. | On the Asian side of Istanbul, Turkey's biggest city, a rally in Kadikoy saw members of dozens of women's groups listen to speeches, dance and sing in the spring sunshine. The colorful protest was overseen by a large police presence, including officers in riot gear and a water cannon truck. |
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| Target, which operates nearly 2,000 stores nationwide and employs more than 400,000 people, said it already had planned to end the racial program this year. The company said Friday that it also would conclude the diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, goals it previously set in three-year cycles. | The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared 2025 the Year of the Family. Protesters pushed back against the idea of women's role being confined to marriage and motherhood, carrying banners reading "Family will not bind us to life" and "We will not be sacrificed to the family." |
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| The goals included hiring and promoting more women and members of racial minority groups, and recruiting more diverse suppliers, including businesses owned by people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, veterans and people with disabilities. | Critics have accused the government of overseeing restrictions on women's rights and not doing enough to tackle violence against women. |
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| Target has long been a fierce corporate advocate for the rights of Black and LGBTQ+ people. In a memo to employees, Kiera Fernandez, Target's chief community impact and equity officer, described the DEI decisions as a "next chapter" in the company's decades-long process to create "inclusive work and guest environments that welcome all." | Erdogan in 2021 withdrew Turkey from a European treaty, dubbed the Istanbul Convention, that protects women from domestic violence. Turkish rights group We Will Stop Femicides Platform says that 394 women were killed by men in 2024. |
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| "Many years of data, insights, listening and learning have been shaping this next chapter in our strategy," Fernandez wrote in the memo, which Target shared Friday. "And as a retailer that serves millions of consumers every day, we understand the importance of staying in step with the evolving external landscape, now and in the future." | "There is bullying at work, pressure from husbands and fathers at home and pressure from patriarchal society. We demand that this pressure be reduced even further," Yaz Gulgun, 52, said. |
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| There's no doubt the U.S. civil rights landscape has undergone a massive transformation in the five years since much of corporate America adopted DEI goals in response to the Black Lives Matter protests that followed Floyd's death in Minneapolis. | **Women across Europe and Africa march against discrimination** |
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| A 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision that outlawed affirmative action in college admissions emboldened conservative groups to bring or threaten lawsuits targeting corporate initiatives such as employee resource groups and hiring practices that prioritize historically marginalized groups. | In many other European countries, women also protested against violence, for better access to gender-specific health care, equal pay and other issues in which they don't get the same treatment as men. |
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| Walmart, McDonald's, Ford, Harley-Davison and John Deere are among the well-known consumer brands that reduced or phased out their DEI commitments in recent months. | In Poland, activists opened a center across from the parliament building in Warsaw where women can go to have abortions with pills, either alone or with other women. |
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| President Donald Trump this week signaled his administration's agreement with conservatives who argue that policies designed to increase minority representation by considering factors such as race, gender and sexual orientation are unconstitutional. | Opening the center on International Women's Day across from the legislature was a symbolic challenge to authorities in the traditionally Roman Catholic nation, which has one of Europe's most restrictive abortion laws. |
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| On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order aimed at ending DEI programs across the federal government. The order calls for revoking all DEI mandates, policies, preferences and activities, along with the review and revision of existing employment practices, union contracts, and training policies or programs. | From Athens to Madrid, Paris, Munich, Zurich and Belgrade and in many more cities across the continent, women marched to demand an end to treatment as second-class citizens in society, politics, family and at work. |
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| Still, some prominent companies have resisted public pressure to retreat from their diversity plans. On Thursday, Costco shareholders rejected a proposal urging the wholesale club operator to evaluate any risks posed by its diversity, equity and inclusion practices. | In Madrid, protesters held up big hand-drawn pictures depicting Gisele Pélicot, the woman who was drugged by her now ex-husband in France over the course of a decade so that she could be raped by dozens of men while unconscious. Pélicot has become a symbol for women all over Europe in the fight against sexual violence. |
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| According to preliminary results shared by Costco executives, more than 98% of shares voted against the proposal submitted by a conservative think tank based in Washington. Costco's board of directors had recommended a no vote. | Thousands of women marched in the capital Skopje and several other cities in North Macedonia to raise their voices for economic, political and social equality for women. |
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| Apple's board and the CEO of JPMorgan bank also have expressed a commitment to preserving their companies' DEI activities. | Organizers said only about 28% of women in the country own property and in rural areas only 5%, mostly widows, have property in their name. Only 18 out of 100 women surveyed in rural areas responded that their parents divided family property equally between the brother and sister. "The rest were gender discriminated against within their family," they said. |
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| Unlike some of the companies retooling or retiring their diversity initiatives, Target's work to build a more inclusive workforce predated 2020, and the company also was long seen as a trailblazer with respect to LGBTQ+ inclusion. | In Nigeria's capital, Lagos, thousands of women gathered at the Mobolaji Johnson Stadium, dancing and signing and celebrating their womanhood. Many were dressed in purple — the traditional color of the women's liberation movement. |
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| But the employee memo shared Friday said Target no longer would participate in surveys designed to gauge the effectiveness of its actions, including an annual index compiled by the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ+ rights organization. Target said it would further evaluate corporate partnerships to ensure they're connected directly to business objectives, but declined to share details. | In Russia, the women's day celebrations had a more official tone, with honor guard soldiers presenting yellow tulips to girls and women during a celebration in St. Petersburg. |
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| Getting corporations to withdraw from the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index and to stop sponsoring Pride activities have been goals of DEI opponents. | **German president warns of backlash against progress already made** |
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| Steering clear of a backlash from conservative customers and organizations is something that Target has tried to navigate for a while. As transgender rights became a more prominent issue in 2016, the company declared that "inclusivity is a core belief at Target" and said it supported transgender employees and customers using whichever restroom or fitting room "corresponds with their gender identity." | In Berlin, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for stronger efforts to achieve equality and warned against tendencies to roll back progress already made. |
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| But after some customers threatened to boycott Target stores, the company said that more stores would make available a single-toilet bathroom with a door that could be locked. | "Globally, we are seeing populist parties trying to create the impression that equality is something like a fixed idea of progressive forces," he said. He gave an example of " large tech companies that have long prided themselves on their modernity and are now, at the behest of a new American administration, setting up diversity programs and raving about a new 'masculine energy' in companies and society." |
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| In 2023, Target removed some of its Pride Month merchandise after online complaints and in-store confrontations that the retailer said threatened employees' well-being. The company decided last year not to stock Pride Month products at every U.S. store. | **Marchers in South America denounce femicides** |
| ===== Poland wants the EU focused on security. Its border with Belarus highlights the challenges ===== | |
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| ---- | In South America, some of the marches were organized by groups protesting the killings of women known as femicides. |
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| {{:en:ecrit:ap25017591117710.jpg?300 |}} | Hundreds of women in Ecuador marched through the streets of Quito to steady drumbeats and held signs that opposed violence and the "patriarchal system." |
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| By LORNE COOK Associated Press | "Justice for our daughters!" some demonstrators yelled in support of women slain in recent years. |
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| | In Bolivia, thousands of women began marching late Friday, with some scrawling graffiti on the walls of courthouses demanding that their rights be respected and denouncing impunity in femicides, with less than half of those cases reaching a sentencing. |
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| | Kirsten Grieshaber contributed to this report from Berlin. |
| | ===== How a canoe helped turn Hawaiian culture into a source of pride and even influenced Hollywood ===== |
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| POLOWCE, Poland (AP) — Poland's six-month presidency of the European Union is firmly focused on security. As Europe's biggest land war in decades rages, fewer places highlight the challenges and contradictions of defending the bloc and its values more starkly than the border with Belarus. | {{:en:ecrit:ap25068028178507.jpg?300 |}} |
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| Some 13,000 border guards and soldiers protect around 400 kilometers (250 miles) of border. It's become a buffer zone since Belarus' ally, Russia, invaded neighboring Ukraine three years ago. Similar fortifications farther north line Poland's frontier with the Russian region of Kaliningrad. | By AUDREY McAVOY Associated Press |
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| Poland is Ukraine's top logistical backer. Most of the Western-supplied arms, ammunition and equipment helping to keep Ukraine's armed forces afloat transit through. Russia, meanwhile, uses Belarus as a staging ground for its invasion. | KANEOHE, Hawaii (AP) — Hawaii's American colonizers once banned the Hawaiian language in schools. Some Native Hawaiians tried to lighten their skin with lye. Many people believed Polynesian voyagers had simply lucked into finding the islands by drifting on logs. |
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| At the border near the town of Połowce, a 5.5-meter (18-foot) steel barrier strung with razor wire and topped by security cameras separates once-friendly communities that war has turned into wary rivals. Drones, helicopters and armored vehicles keep watch. | But a canoe launched half a century ago helped turn Hawaiian culture from a source of shame to one of pride, reviving the skill of traveling the seas by decoding the stars, waves and weather. That vessel — a double-hulled sailing canoe called the Hokulea, after the Hawaiian name for the star Arcturus — would even influence the Disney blockbuster "Moana" decades later. |
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| The border crossing is closed. Around 40 border guards and troops could be seen on Jan. 16, when the Polish EU presidency invited 60 reporters from international media to witness the security effort. | To mark the anniversary, the Hokulea's early crew members gathered Saturday for ceremonial hula and kava drinking at the Oahu beach where the canoe launched on March 8, 1975, and where they began their first training sails. |
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| The road was strewn with layers of concrete obstacles and concertina wire likely to dissuade an advancing army. Border guards peered into Belarus. | "It's a vehicle of exploration. It's a vehicle of discovery," Nainoa Thompson, the CEO of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, said in an interview. "It's also been our vehicle for justice as Native Hawaiians, as Pacific Islanders, as a very unique, special culture of the Earth." |
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| It's needed, the government in Warsaw says, because Russia and Belarus are waging a particular kind of hybrid warfare: helping groups of migrants — mostly from Africa or the Middle East — to break through the border to provoke and destabilize Poland and the rest of Europe. | In 1980, Thompson became the first Hawaiian in six centuries to navigate to Tahiti without a compass or other modern instruments — a span of about 2,700 miles (4,300 kilometers). |
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| "We have tightened our visa policy, and above all we have decided to suspend the right to asylum wherever we are dealing with mass border crossings organized by Belarus and Russia," Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters on Friday. | **Hawaiian culture had long been repressed** |
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| **When migrants are equated with danger** | Thompson, 71, remembers stories from his grandmother, born less than a decade after the U.S.-backed overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893. Teachers beat her for speaking Hawaiian, and her uncle tried to wash the brown off his skin with lye. |
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| Almost 30,000 attempted border crossings were spotted last year. Most are young men, often from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. Polish authorities say they arrive in Belarus on tourist or student visas and are helped across for a fee ranging from $8,000 to $12,000. | When she had children, she didn't teach them Hawaiian. |
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| Poland says they're assisted by the Belarus security services and other "organizers." They're mostly Ukrainians, perhaps fallen on hard times since fleeing the war. They can earn $500 for each person they help, border officials say. | "If her children tried to be Hawaiian, they would get hurt in the new society," Thompson said. "And so you have to become something else." |
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| Border guards claim to be routinely attacked. One guard was killed last year and several injured. | A resurgence of Hawaiian pride and identity starting in the late 1960s and 1970s set off a cultural renaissance. Artist Herb Kane began painting ancient canoes based on drawings from European explorers and got the idea to build a double-hulled canoe with tall, triangular sails similar to those his ancestors had used hundreds of years earlier. |
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| They say that migrants shoot slingshots, throw small explosives or rocks, or use pepper spray on guards. More than 400 incidents were recorded last year in this section of the border, with 307 people hospitalized. | **Debunking the drifting log theory** |
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| The deputy commander of the Podlaski border guard division, Col. Andrzej Stasiulewicz, said the migrants are hard to discourage. "Warning shots don't work, so force is needed," he said. Reporters were shown video and photos purported to show migrants assailing the border. | At the time, many people accepted the notion that Polynesians settled islands by accident. |
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| Stasiulewicz said their actions are "very unpredictable, and very precise and coordinated." | Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl had theorized that Polynesians arrived from South America, pushed west by the prevailing winds and currents. In 1947, he set out to prove it by floating from Peru on a log raft. He landed in the Tuamotu Islands north of Tahiti and wrote a best-seller. |
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| Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders paints a different picture. The charity says it's treated more than 400 people since November 2022, "many of them stranded for weeks in uninhabitable forests and exposed to violent practices at the border." | Heyerdahl's theory took hold even though Hawaiians for generations had passed down stories of people who traveled from the distant lands -- including Kahiki, possibly what is today known as Tahiti — by canoe, bringing with them edible plants such as ulu, or breadfruit. |
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| People suffered from exhaustion, hypothermia, dehydration and mental health issues. Last year, it noted "a sharp increase in people carrying the scars of physical assaults, including bruises and dog bites." | Kane, University of Hawaii archaeologist Ben Finney and Honolulu surfer Tommy Holmes wanted to challenge the drifting log concept. They started the Polynesian Voyaging Society, intent on sailing a canoe to Tahiti without modern instruments. |
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| It's almost impossible to independently verify such reports. The area is off limits. NGOs and media must apply for a permit to enter. EU and international agencies that work with migrants are not invited either, although migrants are provided with their contact details should they want to complain. | They needed a navigator. Traditional long-distance voyaging skills had all but disappeared, but a Peace Corps volunteer on the isolated atoll of Satawal in Micronesia told them about Pius "Mau" Piailug, who had been taught navigation from childhood. Over about a month in 1976, Piailug guided the Hokulea from Hawaii to Tahiti — about the same distance from Hawaii to California. |
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| **"Turnbacks" not "pushbacks," Poland insists** | Some 17,000 people thronged the Tahitian shore to greet them and witness what one crew member called "the spaceship of our ancestors." |
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| Stasiulewicz said those who force their way in "are sent back to Belarus, which is in line with our legal framework." | Former Hawaii Gov. John Waihe'e was in his 20s then, and a delegate to the 1978 state Constitutional Convention. The Hokulea's success spurred delegates to make Hawaiian an official state language even though few residents still spoke it, he said. They also created the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to improve the well-being of Native Hawaiians. |
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| The Norwegian Refugee Council, a migrant aid charity, has another take. It said that nearly 9,000 "violent pushbacks " have been reported by NGOs in what it describes as "Europe's death zone" since 2021. | "It helped us believe in everything that we were doing," Waihe'e said. |
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| Pushbacks – depriving someone who may be in fear for their safety of their right to apply for asylum – are illegal under international law. | Today, two dozen schools have Hawaiian language immersion programs, and Census data show more than 27,000 people in Hawaii, and 34,000 in the U.S., speak Hawaiian at home. |
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| Polish Undersecretary of State Maciej Duszczyk rejects the pushback allegations. He prefers "turnbacks." The rationale is that migrants are obliged to apply for asylum in good faith at open border points, not force their way in. | **Bringing dignity to the elders** |
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| The nearest place they can do that is in Terespol, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Połowce. | In 1978, an ill-prepared crew set out for Tahiti in poor weather, and the Hokulea capsized just hours after leaving port. Crew member Eddie Aikau paddled his surfboard to get help. The Coast Guard rescued the canoe, but Aikau was never found. |
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| **Halting asylum in the name of security** | The voyaging society overhauled itself in response, setting clear goals and training requirements. Thompson studied at a Honolulu planetarium and spent over a year under the tutelage of Piailug. In 1980, he navigated to Tahiti. |
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| As far as the Polish authorities are concerned, their methods are working. The number of people arriving in Połowce has dropped significantly. Around 670 people applied for asylum there last year, and none to mid-January. The Office for Foreigners was empty when reporters visited. | Thompson said he felt a deep obligation to fulfill Aikau's wish to follow the path of his ancestors and "pull Tahiti out of the sea." But he didn't celebrate when the Hokulea got there. |
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| To keep numbers down, the government intends to suspend asylum applications in times of crisis. | "I just went into a quiet, dark place and just told Eddie we pulled it out of the sea," Thompson said. "There's no high fives. It's too profound." |
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| A draft law winding its way through parliament would see the border shut for 60 days if Warsaw suspects that migrants are being "weaponized" — should they approach the border in large groups, try to intimidate Polish officers or damage border infrastructure. | In decades since, the society has sailed the canoe around the Pacific and world, including New Zealand, Japan, South Africa and New York. |
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| "If anyone uses violence against the border guards, we close the border," Duszczyk said. | It inspired other Pacific Island communities to revive or newly appreciate their own wayfinding traditions. |
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| Doctors Without Borders says this could have "dramatic consequences." It's urged Poland "to drastically change course of action" and do all it can to protect migrants and refugees. | In Rapa Nui, Chile — also known as Easter Island — islanders have embarked on long-distance canoe voyages. The University of Guam has a navigation program. Similar trends have surfaced in the Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Samoa and Tonga, said Mary Therese Perez Hattori, the director of the Pacific Islands Development Program at the East-West Center. |
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| But EU leaders signed off on Poland's actions at a summit last month. Countries on Europe's eastern flank received a greenlight to suspend the right to protection when they believe that Belarus and Russia are " weaponizing" migrants. | "We come from very, very ancient societies," said Hattori, who is Chamorro, the Indigenous people of the Mariana Islands. "Hokulea sort of helped us remind the world of this." |
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| **When security and migration get political** | **Hollywood makes a blockbuster** |
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| Ultimately, security and migration policies are highly politicized. Tusk has been in power for more than a year but his party's candidate in a presidential election in May faces a strong challenge from a nationalist opponent. | Hokulea's influence spread in 2016 when Disney released "Moana," an animated film about a 16-year-old girl who learns wayfinding about 3,000 years ago. |
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| The EU shifted further right in June after elections to the European Parliament, with nationalists and populists shaking Europe's foundations, particularly in major powers France and Germany. Tusk believes that tough migration policy can win back voters. | Thompson spoke to hundreds on the movie's creative team about wayfinding and the importance of canoes to Pacific culture, said Aaron Kandell, a Hawaii-born writer who worked on the movie. |
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| "If we do not want to hand over these matters to radicals, extremists, populists, we must find the right answers so that no one in the world doubts that democratic states are able to effectively defend themselves against illegal migration," he said on Friday. | Kandell, who is not Native Hawaiian, spent a year studying navigation with the Polynesian Voyaging Society during his 20s and incorporated that into the script, including where Moana learns to use her outstretched hand to track the stars and runs her hand in the ocean to feel the currents. |
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| He described the "tough protection" of borders as a "sacred duty." Poland's borders also make up the 27-nation EU's external frontier. For Tusk, his country's security is Europe's security. It's a similar argument made by Hungary's staunchly nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán. | Crew members taught animators about coconut fiber ropes so they would look right when Moana pulls on them, Kandell said. |
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| Associated Press writers Monika Scislowska and Vanessa Gera in Warsaw contributed to this report. | The Polynesian Voyaging Society's initial plan was to sail to Tahiti once, supporting a documentary, book and research papers. Thompson remembers pushing Hokulea's hull into the water with the crew back in 1975. |
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| Follow AP's coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration | "It was really a moment — I didn't recognize it — but this was going to change everything," he said. |
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