Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- en:ecrit:articles-en [2025/02/18 09:16] – [Trump's AI ambition and China's DeepSeek overshadow an AI summit in Paris] natasha
+++ en:ecrit:articles-en [2025/03/12 07:58] (current) – [Trump signs order designating English as the official language of the US] natasha
@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
 {{ :en:ecrit:newspaper_held.jpg?nolink&400 |}}
-===== Roses are red, violets are blue, 940 million flowers are traveling (through Miami) to you =====
+===== International Women's Day protests demand equal rights and an end to discrimination, sexual violence =====
 ----
-{{:en:ecrit:ap25041557820031.jpg?300 |}}
+{{:en:ecrit:ap25067480946823.jpg?300 |}}
-By DAVID FISCHER Associated Press
+By MEHMET GUZEL and ANDREW WILKS Associated Press
-MIAMI (AP) — If any husbands or boyfriends mess up Valentine's Day this week, it's not because of a shortage of flowers.
+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.
-In the run up to Feb. 14, agricultural specialists at Miami International Airport have processed about 940 million stems of cut flowers, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Around 90% of the fresh cut flowers being sold for Valentine's Day in the United States come through Miami, while the other 10% pass through Los Angeles.
+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.
-Roses, carnations, pompons, hydrangeas, chrysanthemums and gypsophila arrive on hundreds of flights, mostly from Colombia and Ecuador, to Miami on their journey to florists and supermarkets across the U.S. and Canada.
+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."
-Miami's largest flower importer is Avianca Cargo, based in Medellín, Colombia. In the past three weeks, the company has transported about 18,000 tons of flowers on 300 full cargo flights, senior vice president Diogo Elias said during a news conference last week in Miami.
+Critics have accused the government of overseeing restrictions on women's rights and not doing enough to tackle violence against women.
-"We transport flowers all year round, but specifically during the Valentine's season, we more than double our capacity because there's more than double the demand," Elias said.
+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.
-Flowers continue to make up one of the airport's largest imports, Miami-Dade chief operation officer Jimmy Morales said. The airport received more than 3 million tons of cargo last year, with flowers accounting for nearly 400,000 tons, worth more than $1.6 billion.
+"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.
-"With 1,500 tons of flowers arriving daily, that equals 90,000 tons of flower imports worth $450 million just in January and February," Morales said.
+**Women across Europe and Africa march against discrimination**
-It's a big job for CBP agriculture specialists, who check the bundles of flowers for potentially harmful plant, pest and foreign animal diseases from entering the country, MIA port director Daniel Alonso said.
+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.
-"Invasive species have caused $120 billion in annual economic and environmental losses to the United States, including the yield and quality losses for the American agriculture industry," Alonso said.
+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.
-Colombia's flower industry was recently looking at a possible 25% tariff, as President Donald Trump quarreled with the South American country's leadership over accepting flights carrying deported immigrants. But the trade dispute came to a halt in late January, after Colombia agreed to allow the flights to land.
+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.
-Colombian President Gustavo Petro had previously rejected two Colombia-bound U.S. military aircrafts carrying migrants. Petro accused Trump of not treating immigrants with dignity during deportation and threatened to retaliate against the U.S. by slapping a 25% increase in Colombian tariffs on U.S. goods.
+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.
-Officials at Friday's news conference declined to answer any questions about politics or tariffs.
+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.
-===== Trump's AI ambition and China's DeepSeek overshadow an AI summit in Paris =====
+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.
+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.
+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.
+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.
+**German president warns of backlash against progress already made**
+In Berlin, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for stronger efforts to achieve equality and warned against tendencies to roll back progress already made.
+"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."
+**Marchers in South America denounce femicides**
+In South America, some of the marches were organized by groups protesting the killings of women known as femicides.
+Hundreds of women in Ecuador marched through the streets of Quito to steady drumbeats and held signs that opposed violence and the "patriarchal system."
+"Justice for our daughters!" some demonstrators yelled in support of women slain in recent years.
+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.
+Kirsten Grieshaber contributed to this report from Berlin.
+===== How a canoe helped turn Hawaiian culture into a source of pride and even influenced Hollywood =====
 ----
-{{:en:ecrit:ap25048627735669.jpg?300 |}}
+{{:en:ecrit:ap25068028178507.jpg?300 |}}
+By AUDREY McAVOY Associated Press
+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.
+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.
+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.
+"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."
-By SYLVIE CORBET and RAF CASERT Associated Press
+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).
-PARIS (AP) — European leaders insisted Monday they must have a say in international talks to end the war in Ukraine despite the clear message from both Washington and Moscow that there was no role for them as yet in negotiations that could shape the future of the continent.
+**Hawaiian culture had long been repressed**
-Three hours of emergency talks at the Elysee Palace in Paris left leaders of Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, NATO and the European Union without a common view on possible peacekeeping troops after a U.S. diplomatic blitz on Ukraine last week threw a once-solid trans-Atlantic alliance into turmoil.
+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.
-U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for U.S. backing while reaffirming he's ready to consider sending British forces on the Ukrainian ground alongside others "if there is a lasting peace agreement."
+When she had children, she didn't teach them Hawaiian.
-There was a rift though with some EU nations, like Poland, which have said they don't want their military imprint on Ukraine soil. French President Emmanuel Macron was non-committal.
+"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."
-**European call for working with the US**
+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.
-Macron said overnight he spoke by phone to U.S. President Donald Trump and then Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy following the meeting.
+**Debunking the drifting log theory**
-"We seek a strong and lasting peace in Ukraine," Macron said on the social platform X. "To achieve this, Russia must end its aggression, and this must be accompanied by strong and credible security guarantees for the Ukrainians."
+At the time, many people accepted the notion that Polynesians settled islands by accident.
-"We will work on this together with all Europeans, Americans, and Ukrainians," he added.
+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.
-Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof acknowledged the Europeans "need to come to a common conclusion about what we can contribute. And that way we will eventually get a seat at the table," adding that "just sitting at the table without contributing is pointless."
+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.
-Starmer said a trans-Atlantic bond remained essential. "There must be a U.S. backstop, because a U.S. security guarantee is the only way to effectively deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again," he said.
+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.
-Top U.S. officials from the Trump administration, on their first visit to Europe last week, left the impression that Washington was ready to embrace the Kremlin while it cold-shouldered many of its age-old European allies.
+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.
-**The US to leave Europe out of negotiations**
+Some 17,000 people thronged the Tahitian shore to greet them and witness what one crew member called "the spaceship of our ancestors."
-Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump's special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, said Monday he didn't think it was "reasonable and feasible to have everybody sitting at the table."
+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.
-"We know how that can turn out and that has been our point, is keeping it clean and fast as we can," he told reporters in Brussels, where he briefed the 31 U.S. allies in NATO, along with EU officials, before heading to Kyiv for talks on Wednesday with Zelenskyy.
+"It helped us believe in everything that we were doing," Waihe'e said.
-His remarks were echoed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who was equally dismissive about a role for Europe. "I don't know what they have to do at the negotiations table," he said as he arrived in Saudi Arabia for talks with U.S. officials.
+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.
-Last week, Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a flurry of speeches questioned both Europe's security commitments and its fundamental democratic principles.
+**Bringing dignity to the elders**
-Macron, who has long championed a stronger European defense, said their stinging rebukes and threats of non-cooperation in the face of military danger felt like a shock to the system.
+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.
-The tipping point came when Trump decided to upend years of U.S. policy by holding talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in hopes of ending the Russia-Ukraine war.
+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.
-Shortly before the meeting in Paris Monday, Macron spoke with Trump, but Macron's office would not disclose details about the 20-minute discussion.
+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.
-**Europeans stand by their support to Ukraine**
+"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."
-Starmer, who said he will travel to Washington next week to discuss with Trump "what we see as the key elements of a lasting peace," appears to be charting a "third way" in Europe's shifting geopolitical landscape — aligning strategically with the U.S. administration while maintaining EU ties. Some analysts suggest this positioning could allow him to act as a bridge between Trump and Europe, potentially serving as a key messenger to the White House.
+In decades since, the society has sailed the canoe around the Pacific and world, including New Zealand, Japan, South Africa and New York.
-German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters a possible peace agreement with Russia cannot be forced on Ukraine. "For us, it must and is clear: This does not mean that peace can be dictated and that Ukraine must accept what is presented to it," he insisted.
+It inspired other Pacific Island communities to revive or newly appreciate their own wayfinding traditions.
-Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said that any peace agreement would need to have the active involvement of the EU and Ukraine, so as to not be a false end to the war "as has happened in the past."
+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.
-He went on: "What cannot be is that the aggressor is rewarded."
+"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."
-A strong U.S. component, though, will remain essential for the foreseeable future since it will take many years before many European nations can ratchet up defense production and integrate it into an effective force.
+**Hollywood makes a blockbuster**
-**Sending troops after a peace deal?**
+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.
-Highlighting the inconsistencies among many nations about potential troop contributions, Scholz said talk of boots on the ground was "premature."
+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.
-"This is highly inappropriate, to put it bluntly, and honestly: we don't even know what the outcome will be" of any peace negotiation, he added.
+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.
-European nations are bent though on boosting their armed forces where they can after years of U.S. complaints, and most have increased defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product, but the path to reaching 3% is unclear.
+Crew members taught animators about coconut fiber ropes so they would look right when Moana pulls on them, Kandell said.
-"The time has come for a much greater ability of Europe to defend itself," Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk said. "There is unanimity here on the issue of increasing spending on defense. This is an absolute necessity." Poland spends more than 4% of its GDP on defense, more than any other NATO member.
+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.
-Casert reported from Brussels. Associated Press writers Thomas Adamson in Paris, Suman Naishadham in Madrid, Lorne Cook in Brussels, Geir Moulson and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia, Vanessa Gera in Warsaw, Poland, Justin Spike in Kyiv and Karel Janicek in Prague, Czech Republic contributed to this report.
+"It was really a moment — I didn't recognize it — but this was going to change everything," he said.
 ==== Article Archive ====