After Nonprofits Protest at ICANN, California's Attorney General Steps Into the .ORG Battle

BY JASON KELLEY AND MITCH STOLTZ JANUARY 31, 2020


Once appearing to be a done deal, the sale of the .ORG registry to private equity is facing new delays and new opposition, after a successful protest in front of ICANN last week by nonprofits and an intervention by the California Attorney General. Private equity firm Ethos Capital’s proposed $1.1 billion purchase of the Public Interest Registry (PIR) has raised nearly unanimous opposition from the nonprofit world, along with expressions of concern from technical experts, members of Congress, two UN Special Rapporteurs, and U.S. state charities regulators. ICANN, the nonprofit body that oversees the Internet’s domain name system, has found itself under increasing pressure to reject the deal.
“ICANN, You Can Stop The Sale!”

Last Friday’s protest at ICANN’s Los Angeles headquarters was the culmination of two months of intense backlash to the sale by nonprofits from around the globe, from The Girl Scouts of America, Consumer Reports, and the YMCA to Wikimedia and Oxfam. Nonprofit professionals and technologists gathered to tell ICANN their concerns in person: a private equity–owned firm running the .ORG registry would have strong incentives to undermine the privacy and free speech rights of nonprofit organizations, and to exploit them financially, in pursuit of new revenue streams for its investors. Besides potentially raising annual registration fees, PIR could censor nonprofit organizations at the request of powerful corporations or governments, or it could collect and monetize web browsing data about the people who visit .ORG websites.

The day before the protest, ICANN and PIR agreed to extend the contractual deadline for ICANN’s review of the sale by nearly a month, until February 17th. Although ICANN initially demanded transparency from PIR; its owner, the Internet Society (ISOC); and Ethos Capital around the details of the sale and the legal framework of PIR’s new for-profit status, very little of this information has been released to the public. ICANN even seems to be ignoring a formal request [.pdf] for information by the Address Supporting Organization, part of the “Empowered Community” that was created to oversee ICANN after its independence from U.S. government control. Despite its initial lack of transparency, ICANN now seems to be feeling pressure from the public not to rubber-stamp the acquisition.

The protest was organized by EFF, NTEN, Fight for the Future, and Demand Progress. Shortly before it started, ICANN staff seemed ready to talk to the protesters, reaching out to the organizers and offering to meet with them in person after the event. The organizers agreed, and suggested ICANN staff and the board join during the protest as well—standing with protesters, if they’d like, or observing, to learn more about the coalition and their concerns. But on the day of the protest, ICANN staff canceled the in-person meeting.





As ICANN’s board of directors met inside, EFF’s Elliot Harmon explained to the crowd outside what was at stake: the .ORG ecosystem is "not a product to be sold. It's not this asset that you can let acquire a bunch of value over 16 years and then sell it to a private equity firm. It's something special. It's part of the infrastructure that the global NGO sector relies on.” Supporters joined in chants of “1,2,3,4, profit’s not what .ORG’s for!” and “ICANN, you can stop the sale!” As Amy Sample Ward, CEO of NTEN, said, “This is [ICANN’s] job. This is their responsibility… if we were to make a decision about who could own and manage the .ORG domain that truly had nonprofits and the public's interest at heart it would not be a private equity firm. So we understand the role that ICANN has apparently more than they seem to, and we are calling on them to step in, stop the sale, and to immediately open up a multi-stakeholder process.”

At the end of the rally, surprising the protestors, the entire ICANN board came out to meet them in person. Organizers handed copies of two petitions, signed by 34,000 individuals and over 700 nonprofit organizations, to Board President Maarten Botterman, in a powerful moment that signaled ICANN’s willingness to consider the protesters’ concerns.



Protesters gather at ICANN in support of nonprofits and .orgs


ICANN's board receives the petition


Also last week, well-known international NGO’s including Amnesty International, Access Now, and the Sierra Club held a press conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to tell world leaders that selling .ORG puts civil society at risk. Numerous recent stories in the press have covered nonprofits’ concerns as well, from the lack of transparency in the process and the failure of ICANN to consider alternatives to the danger the sale could represent to ICANN’s own governance.
California Attorney General Asks for Unredacted Financial Info On Sale, Questions ICANN’s Authority

The California Attorney General’s Office has also reached out to ICANN, according to correspondence published on the ICANN website [.pdf], and asked for in-depth information on the sale. Some of its questions overlap with the questions ICANN has asked of PIR. According to ICANN, the Attorney General’s request constitutes an order that overrides confidentiality agreements which previously let ICANN hold back information, and requires them to respond with the confidential documents. On account of that request, ICANN has asked PIR for two more months to review the sale, meaning that the sale cannot be completed before April. In the meantime, the Attorney General’s office will be “analyz[ing] the impact to the nonprofit community, including to ICANN.”

Among the documents requested are not only the financial agreements, meeting minutes, documentation, and correspondence related to the transfer itself, but also:
Detailed information about the removal of domain price caps, which occurred just months before the sale was announced, and which ICANN, ISOC, and PIR have continuously (and curiously) claimed was unrelated to the sale.
Detailed information about ICANN staff and ICANN’s conflict-of-interest policy, indicating the Attorney General’s concern that at least some of those involved in the sale are self-dealing.
Historical information about ICANN’s own authority to manage the top-level domains, which could mean the Attorney General’s office is concerned enough about this transfer to put its trust in ICANN’s governance ability at risk.

We’re glad to see the Attorney General investigating the sale on behalf of nonprofit organizations. In addition to answering the Attorney General, ICANN should also respond to the many questions posed by the nonprofit community itself, many of which overlap. Three big questions the nonprofit community continues to ask of ICANN and PIR: How does Ethos plan on paying back the debt it will accrue in the purchase of PIR, without negatively impacting .ORGs? What “new products and services” does Ethos intend to offer to the .ORG ecosystem that makes this sale necessary? And will those new products and services serve the needs of nonprofits, or exploit them?

People who work on Internet governance issues get nervous when governments throw their weight around, and for good reason: ICANN volunteers have worked hard to keep the domain name system and other parts of the Internet’s governance structure out of government hands. Since 2016, ICANN is no longer formally supervised by the U.S. Department of Commerce, and no national government can dictate policy there, as much as some may want to. Instead of answering to governments, ICANN is supposed to answer to the community of Internet users. ICANN’s independence is an important check against censorship and government surveillance through the DNS. But that independence is fragile. It depends on ICANN maintaining legitimacy through good processes for public input and by being responsive to the concerns of Internet users who are most in need of protection, such as nonprofit users. If ICANN can only give rubber-stamp approval to billion-dollar deals that don’t protect Internet users from surveillance and censorship, then why does ICANN exist?

To avoid government intervention here, and the dangerous precedent it would set, ICANN needs to insist on more transparency around the sale of PIR, and to actively solicit public input through a multi-stakeholder process. Over the last few months, it’s been increasingly obvious that the public needs to be involved. That’s why EFF thanks each of the 34,000 individuals and over 700 organizations who signed a petition to ICANN, all who expressed their fears or requested more information about this sale, and those who helped rally in support of their favorite nonprofits at ICANN. The nonprofit and .ORG community have been united in their concern that this deal presents to civil society since it was announced, and we’re glad to see the Attorney General join us in questioning the value that this sale supposedly brings to the nonprofit ecosystem.




The sale of the .ORG registry will impact the nonprofits we all care about. Please take a moment to add your name to the petition demanding a stop to the sale. If you represent an organization that would be affected by the sale, then you can find instructions there for adding your organization’s name to our coalition letter.

Thank you to our friends at NTEN, Fight for the Future, and Demand Progress—and especially to NTEN CEO Amy Sample Ward—for your work in organizing the protest.

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In election news, presidential candidate Senator Amy Klobuchar is facing calls to suspend her campaign over the case of Myon Burrell, an African-American teenager who was sentenced to life in prison over the 2002 murder of 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards. Klobuchar led the case against Myon Burrell when she was Hennepin County’s district attorney. But a new Associated Press report says she may have mishandled the case and that Burrell could be innocent. The Associated Press report shows how prosecutors had no DNA or fingerprints tying Burrell to the murder and that they relied on jailhouse informants, some of whom have since recanted their testimonies. Burrell has always maintained his innocence. The Minneapolis NAACP, Black Lives Matter Twin Cities and other racial justice groups are calling on Klobuchar to suspend her presidential campaign.

Protests over NYC transit fares may make for a rough commute home

Friday Jan 31, 2020

By Larry Higgs | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Commuters might be in for a rougher ride home than usual on Friday afternoon if they use public transit in New York City due to protests.

A group called Decolonize This Place has called for a fare strike on MTA subways and buses and protests on those transit systems Friday afternoon that could also affect PATH.

The group protested at 5 p.m. at Grand Central Terminal, which draw large crowds. That led Suburban Transit to issue an alert to commuters riding its Crosstown buses that there may be heavier traffic due to delays from a demonstration on 42nd Street.

As of 6:20 p.m., the protest was moving west on 42nd Street toward Times Square, causing rolling street closures, and some protests were happening at penn Station and the Port Authority Bus Terminal, WCBS Newsradio 880 reported. Meanwhile MTA officials denounced vandalism to turnstiles and fare equipment.

A giant gathering at Grand Central right now demanding free transit in NYC, and cops out of our subways.

Police just arrested one man for unknown reasons and the crowd surged forward, chanting:

“THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING!” pic.twitter.com/H13UYHUdcH— Joshua Potash (@JoshuaPotash) January 31, 2020

The protests were sparked by the MTA’s ramped up fight against fare evasion and New York Gov. Mario Cuomo’s decision to hire 500 additional police officers at a cost of $250 million which protest organizers said on social media targets the poor and people of color. Those officers were deployed on Friday.

Organizers of the protest did not respond to an email seeking comment. The group also favors free transit fares.

Demonstrators unfurled a giant banner calling for a fare strike and hung it from an upper level of the World Trade Center transit hub Friday morning.

The group also called for a protest at 5 p.m. at Grand Central Terminal.

How this will affect commuters’ trips home is unclear. Actions posted on Twitter show emergency exits being zip-tied open in some subway stations, some riders “swiping it forward” and graffiti.

Now || We are receiving reports “Chained open + superglue in the swipes” on #J31 #FTP3 pic.twitter.com/qneyxY5XFJ— DecolonizeThisPlace (@decolonize_this) January 31, 2020

One Twitter user posted a notice from an employer sending workers home two-hours early so they could avoid any transit trouble from the protests.

We have eyes and ears. This is a movement and our demands are clear.👇🏽 pic.twitter.com/WPWicefpmQ— DecolonizeThisPlace (@decolonize_this) January 31, 2020

The group has called for non-violent protests. Including fare evasion, “swipe it forward” where riders pay for another riders fare with a Metrocard and other acts of non-violent protest.

Other actions reported on Twitter included putting glue on OMNY fare readers on some turnstiles and putting superglue in MetroCard swipe readers. Those actions were denounced by MTA officials.

“This demonstration activity follows the dangerous pattern of previous activities that have resulted in vandalization and defacement of MTA property – clearly violating laws," said Patrick Warren, MTA Chief Safety Officer. “Those actions divert valuable time, money and resources away from investments in transit services that get New Yorkers to their jobs, schools, doctors and other places they need to go.”

The MTA is monitoring conditions and cooperating with the NYPD and MTA PD to maintain service while ensuring everyone’s safety, he said.

ORDER FROM CHAOS

The irresistible resiliency of Iraq’s protesters

Ranj Alaaldin
Visiting Fellow - Brookings Doha Center
 January 31, 2020

Iraq’s protest movement has been remarkably resilient. For months now, tens of thousands of Iraqis across Baghdad and the south have mobilized against the government, demanding better services, accountability, and wholesale reform of the Iraqi state. Since the protests erupted, more than 600 have been killed and thousands more have been injured, according to human rights organizations. The fallout over Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani’s assassination was expected to signal the death-knell of the movement, but even that has failed to decisively end what is arguably Iraq’s biggest grassroots socio-political mobilization in history.

Iraqis cannot be blamed for wanting more from their government. Their country is on the brink of a socio-economic implosion as a result of a youth bulge, economic degradation, and dilapidated infrastructure. The country’s population of more than 30 million is expected to reach 50 million in a decade. More than 60% of Iraqis are under 24, and 700,000 require jobs every year. Iraq’s ruling class has failed to respond to the demands of the population and simply no longer has the credibility, much less the capacity, to assuage its population despite the hundreds of billions of dollars that has been expended over the past decade.

Iraq’s ruling class crudely assumed the threat of terrorism, the war on ISIS, and sectarian strife could deflect focus from their governance failures and the endemic (politically sanctioned) corruption in perpetuity. The political class has also capitalized on and exploited a powerful narrative that has been forged among its supporters — and indeed some policy circles in Washington and other Western capitals — that has measured the grievances and calamities of the country against the extremes of civil war or Baath-era rule. This sensationalist narrative propagated the notion of a revived Iraqi state and government and it took hold particularly under the previous Iraqi government of Haidar al-Abadi, yet it ignored underlying, deep-rooted issues that have galvanized an entire generation of Iraqis longing for a better future.

But the odds are against Iraq’s protesters. The environment is not conducive to a wholesale deconstruction (followed by a reconstruction) of the state or its political system, and there are very few, if any, major actors internally in Iraq and externally that want a revolutionary change that effectively upends the post-2003 political order in its entirety. Iraq’s protesters may have to also come to terms with the reality that the international community is actually much more aligned with the Iraqi ruling class (even the militias brutally suppressing them) than they think: There is far too much at stake and far too many dangerous uncertainties in a post-war climate in Iraq and the region for any major external actors to seriously contemplate backing or actively supporting an attempt to overhaul Iraq’s political system.

A large part of the challenge for the protesters is that the Iraqi political system is designed in a way that makes it impervious to a major restructuring. There is a whole host of formal and informal, state and para-state actors that dominate, shape, and manage the structures of governance and power. The country suffers from the inexorable accumulation of weapons and armed groups, the absence of viable institutions, and multiple alternative authorities that supplant the Iraqi state. Many areas are beyond the influence and control of the government, areas where power is distributed diffusely among parties, militias, tribes, and clerics.

Iraq’s ruling elites are likely to stay in power even if the protests reach critical mass.

As a consequence of these dynamics, and unlike protests in Algeria or Sudan, Iraq’s ruling elites are likely to stay in power even if the protests reach critical mass. In other words, save for its destruction by way of an external invasion, a country-wide civil war (which itself requires a decisive victor), or another dictatorship that is brought about through a coup, for example (and even then, Iraqis may be worse off than they currently are), the current system will prevail.

What makes the situation particularly perilous for the protesters is the impunity with which militia groups and state-sanctioned security forces are able to crack down on civilians. Iraq is dominated by unaccountable militia groups that wield substantial power and influence, in large part because these groups have exploited the fragility of the Iraqi state, have amassed considerable weapons and other resources, benefited from external patronage from Iran, and capitalized on all this to acquire political superiority.

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The 100,000-strong Popular Mobilization Force (PMF), for example, was formed in response to the collapse of the Iraqi army, when ISIS seized Mosul in 2014. It is led and dominated by Iran-aligned groups that have been at the forefront of the violent crackdown against protesters. The power of the PMF is such that it has subsumed Iraq’s conventional army; where it may have once been conceivable that the army would protect protesters from the atrocities of Shiite militias, that is evidently no longer the case.

The popular wisdom before the current crisis was that the PMF was not a homogenous force and included nationalist or state-aligned groups that will prevent Iran’s proxies from monopolizing power within the organization, groups who will operate as a buffer that insulates the Iraqi population from their violence and atrocities. There were misplaced hopes in the multi-layered characteristics of the PMF. The reality is that Iran’s proxies have been unmatched in their sheer resolve and ruthlessness to instrumentalize and appropriate powerful institutions like the PMF, and this has been grossly underestimated in the analysis of these groups.

The odds moved further against the protesters because they have arguably lost their single most important buffer against the militia groups that have been responsible for killing and injuring civilians. Muqtada al-Sadr and his Sadrist movement have been critical to protecting them from these groups, but a deal struck last week between al-Sadr, the Iraqi government and Iran’s proxies has resulted in the cleric withdrawing his support. The amorphous nature of the protest movement means its ranks will continue to swell, even without the support of a major socio-political force like the Sadrists; but the notion that the movement can still survive and sustain itself without the protective cloak of at least one of the major political actors in the country is both extremely dangerous and implausible.

That said, the protesters may have some of their fortunes revived. Iraq is infamous for its fragile political deals and coalitions, and so if there is one thing the protesters can bank on, it is the opportunities that might be thrown their way as a result of the fractious nature of the political landscape. The protesters need to urgently mobilize support from at least one major Iraqi political actor in the wake of Sadr’s withdrawal of support. That might also include key institutions like the U.S.-trained Iraqi army, which has fought Iran’s proxies in the past. Although it is still unlikely that the army will intervene, it is not improbable — particularly if there is some active support from external actors like the U.S.


The zero-sum approach from the movement…makes them their own worst enemy.

But the zero-sum approach from the movement — calling for the entire overhaul of the political system — makes them their own worst enemy. The absence of a concerted effort to mobilize significant support within the Iraqi political arena makes them extremely vulnerable and exposed to malign forces. Moreover, the protests are not disconnected from other domestic and regional dynamics, including tensions between the U.S. and Iran. The rocket attack on the U.S. embassy by militia groups last week was immediately followed by a vicious crackdown against protesters. A broader conflict between the U.S. and Iran, or some other conflagration, could gift Iran’s proxies with the perfect smokescreen for launching an expanded violent campaign that looks to decisively end the protests. The fate of the protesters may also be decided away from the glare of the media: the backroom deals, the assassinations, kidnappings, and the occasional attacks launched in total darkness.

The coming weeks will be critical for determining whether Iraq’s protest movement can sustain itself and, more importantly, yield at least some objectives focused on improving governance and reforming the state. The government may increasingly turn to violence, but case studies from around the world and the scholarly literature on protest movements show that while coercion might decrease protest temporarily, it far from neutralizes them; in the longer run, coercion increases the dissidence that enables protest movements to revive themselves. On every occasion the Iraqi government relies on coercion, the protesters are likely to adapt their strategies accordingly and reinforce their resiliency as a result.

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'We're opening everything': Scientists share coronavirus data in unprecedented way to contain, treat disease The current climate of sharing data is unusual for scientists, says researcher


Kelly Crowe · CBC News · Posted: Feb 01, 2020 

Medical staff in protective suits treat a patient with pneumonia 

caused by the coronavirus at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan 

University in Wuhan, China, on Tuesday. (China Daily/Reuters)

This is an excerpt from Second Opinion, a weekly roundup of eclectic and under-the-radar health and medical science news emailed to subscribers every Saturday morning. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here.

When the story of the coronavirus (2019-nCOV) is finally written, it might well become a template for the utopian dream of open science — where research data is shared freely, unrestrained by competition, paywalls and patents.

Already the world knows more about the early days of this outbreak than it did when SARS first appeared in China in 2002, as scientists unite in unprecedented scientific collaboration aimed at containing and treating this disease.

As detailed accounts of the first cases have been published in prominent medical journals, it's clear that scientists were among the first responders at hospitals in Wuhan, China, the epicentre of the outbreak.

One patient, a 49-year-old woman, was a merchant at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. In late December, she developed a fever and a cough and had an uncomfortable sensation in her chest. After four days, the cough became serious enough that she went to the hospital where a CT scan revealed she had pneumonia.

The same day that she was admitted to a Wuhan hospital, a 61-year-old man arrived with similar symptoms. He was a frequent visitor to the Huanan market and had been suffering from a fever and a cough for a week before showing up at the hospital. He was so sick that he needed mechanical ventilation to breathe.

As doctors struggled to treat what was still an unknown illness, a team of scientists arrived from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

They collected fluid from deep in the patients' lungs and carefully placed them in sterile cups to begin the process of isolating the unknown virus believed to be causing this atypical pneumonia.

WHAT ON EARTH?Infectious diseases and climate change: Is there a connection?
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The woman survived, and she has been released from hospital. The man died. But their lung samples provided some of the earliest glimpses of a new and deadly human pathogen.

The ultrastructural morphology exhibited by the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which was identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan, is seen in an illustration released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta on Wednesday. (Alissa Eckert/Dan Higgins/MAM/CDC/Reuters)

Within days, those scientists and several others had sequenced the viral genome, deciphering the virus's genetic code — a vital key to diagnosing and ultimately treating the disease. They immediately shared that critical genetic roadmap with researchers all over the world.

That early collaboration allowed doctors in other countries to be ready when the first cases appeared outside China. 

Watching the virus mutate in real time

Because the viral genomes had been publicly released, when a 65-year-old man and his 27-year-old son were admitted to a hospital in Vietnam on Jan. 22, doctors there were able to identify the virus, isolate the patients, backtrack their travel history and monitor 28 close contacts, none of whom have developed symptoms.

By then evolutionary biologist Trevor Bedford had already used the growing database of viral genomes to conclude this virus made the leap from animals to humans sometime in mid-November, an astonishingly precise estimate that helped scientists understand how long the virus had been infecting people.

"In looking at the genomes that were coming in from Wuhan, we could see that there was very little genetic diversity," said Bedford, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington in Seattle, Wash.

The low number of mutations not only told him the virus was new in humans, it also corrected an early misunderstanding and revealed that the virus was spreading easily between humans.

"As soon as the first genomes were coming in, it became clear that there's lots of human-to-human spread," he said.
The availability of having a full genome sequence of a novel virus available to the public to be able to develop diagnostics, to be able to diagnose patients in other countries is unprecedented.- Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO infectious disease epidemiologist

The genome data also allowed some groups to quickly zero in on the animal source, by using the genetic data to link this virus to one found in Chinese horseshoe bats.

Just three weeks after the first viral sequence was published, more than 42 different genomes are available on Nextstrain, an open source viral genome database that continues to grow as scientists diagnose patients and publish the viral genomes in just a few days.

Evolutionary biologist Trevor Bedford used the growing database of viral genomes to conclude the coronavirus made the leap from animals to humans sometime in mid-November, an astonishingly precise estimate that helped scientists understand how long the virus had been infecting people. (Robert Hood/Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center)

That data is allowing Bedford to watch the virus mutate in real time, making it possible to identify how people became infected and which cases are linked. It also provides critical data to allow other scientists to estimate the size of the epidemic.

Other groups are using the genetic data to develop rapid diagnostic tests and begin working on antiviral drugs. And already at least five different groups have started working on a possible vaccine, including one from Saskatchewan. 

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"The availability of having a full genome sequence of a novel virus available to the public to be able to develop diagnostics, to be able to diagnose patients in other countries is unprecedented," said Maria Van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the World Health Organization (WHO) news conference on Wednesday.
Sharing virus samples 'essential': WHO

On Tuesday, Australia announced that its scientists are the first outside China to grow the novel virus and will share it with the world.

"It is essential that viruses are shared so that the further development of diagnostics and serologic assays — so that the further development of vaccines — can continue," said Van Kerkhove.

 

Part of the first genetic sequence of the coronavirus was released to the world on Jan. 10. (GenBank by Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center and School of Public Health, Fudan University)

To keep on top of the rapidly breaking science, medical and scientific journals agreed to send copies of coronavirus papers to WHO before publication, with the authors' permission. WHO announced this development in a tweet with the headline, "Great news!"

"That is a little different," said Edward Campion, executive editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. "The WHO wants to know what's going on in China and have asked us to help in getting information."

The journal also announced that it is speeding up its peer review.

"Some of these articles have been reviewed and edited and revised in 48 or even 24 hours, including working overnight and weekends but still going through rigorous peer review to meet the standards that we think are important," said Campion. "We have some peer reviewers who've agreed to work overtime."

On Friday, 67 leading research organizations and scientific journal publishers from around the world announced an agreement to make relevant coronavirus research immediately available and free.

Bedford said the current climate of sharing is unusual for scientists.

"You don't really talk externally that much because you're trying to get your best science so it can't be scooped," he said.

"You only really talk about things once it's all been published. This is flipping that around entirely where people are just being completely open with what they know."

 

University of Montreal researcher Vincent Larivière said the current climate of open science suggests that science-as-usual creates barriers. (Amélie Philibert)

It's a temporary glimpse of a world where science is openly shared. But the measures also raise questions about the way science-as-usual is practised.

Vincent Larivière is an information scientist and professor at the University of Montreal, who studies the way science is disseminated. He said the move to speed up publication and share research is a tacit admission that business-as-usual in research slows down science.

"[They say] we're opening everything because it's important that we advance things fast. Well, the flip side of this argument is that your normal behaviour is to put barriers to science."

"This virus is dangerous and deadly, but there's lots of other diseases that are dangerous and deadly, and for which opening could save lives. So if you really want to go in that direction, just open everything."


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kelly Crowe
Medical science
Kelly Crowe is a medical sciences correspondent for CBC News, specializing in health and biomedical research. She joined CBC in 1991, and has spent 25 years reporting on a wide range of national news and current affairs, with a particular interest in science and medicine.

Collage art as a form of protest: What creators around the world have to say

Collage submissions from around the world will make up the Cut, Paste, Resist art show at UNB

Maria Jose Burgos · CBC News · Posted: Feb 01, 2020 

RM Vaughan, co-curator of Cut, Paste, Resist, a collage art show, pasted posters around UNB asking for collage submissions. The posters themselves feature a collage on top of an image of himself to show students how informal their submissions can be. (Maria Jose Burgos/CBC)


RM Vaughan was walking down a street in Montreal when he saw a protest poster about the climate disaster.

It was a cut-out of a dinosaur flipped up and pasted on an image of a flatbed truck, so it seemed like it was dead. The message, written in French, was "We are next."

"And I thought, of course, protest and collage have always gone together."

Vaughan is an author and video artist from St. Martins who now lives in Montreal. He said he writes journalism for money and writes books "for no good reason."

He's also the writer-in-residence for the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton this winter.

In August, when he came across the poster, he had been pondering how to show students that creativity wasn't something just for special people, but for everyone.

"I thought about collage, which basically everyone does by the time they are three. And we forget how. We forget that moment of making something without consequences," he said.

"I wanted to give students that moment to feel free."

Resistance was chosen as the theme of the art show, but submissions range in topics from climate change to equality. (Maria Jose Burgos/CBC)

Submissions from all over the world

Vaughan and co-curator Ken Moffatt, the Jack Layton chair at Ryerson University, decided to ask students, art enthusiasts online and community members for collage submissions, and put on a show around the theme of resistance.

"Most young people have a lot of things to worry about these days and they might have something to say about the current state of the world," said Vaughan.

As of now, they have received more than 70 collages from students, as well as people from all over Europe, the United States, Asia, India and South America.

They expect to receive around 50 more before the Feb. 7 deadline.

A collage by St. Thomas University student Chloe Rousseau. Students who want their collages back will be able to pick them up after the show. Creators who sent collages from other countries have included return envelopes to get them back. (Maria Jose Burgos/CBC)

Shannon Webb-Campbell, a Creative Writing PhD student at UNB, submitted two collages.

One of them she created with Virginia Woolf's Orlando in mind. The novel, published in 1928, is about the life of a young poet who changes sex from man to woman and lives for centuries.

To create the collage, Webb-Campbell used images she found in an art magazine and an old Harper's Bazaar.

"There was something liberating in the idea of tearing up a book, tearing up a magazine and revisualizing it," she said.

As a poet, Webb-Campbell said she feels an internal pressure to always produce good material.

"There was something about collage that I didn't have the attachment to the outcome ... It was just fun, playful. And we don't get to do that a lot as adults."

A collage created by Shannon Webb-Campbell, a PhD student at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, inspired by Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando. (Submitted by Shannon Webb-Campbell)

Common themes not based on location

Vaughan anticipated collage themes might emerge based on location.

"I was wrong. It's all over the map, there's no predicting," he said.

Primarily, issues have been around equality, sexism, climate change and whether it is ethical to eat meat.

People from different countries in Europe, Asia, South and North America have sent their collages in the mail, and some have even decided to do mini collages on the envelopes with stamps. (Maria Jose Burgos/CBC)

Vaughan said getting work from all over makes you feel like you're part of a larger conversation.

"Sometimes when you are a student you can feel very isolated in what you are making and what you are studying, so it builds connections between people."
Collage list: Pizza boxes, magic

A variety of paper and flat surfaces have been used to create the collages, including pizza boxes and glass.

"So much of our lives now are digital that people really want something they can touch and make with their hands," said Vaughan, who has done some collage creations himself for the show.

WATCH: Co-curator of Cut, Paste, Resist art show talks about how art and protest come together in collages

Watch Co-curator of Cut, Paste, Resist art show talks about how art and protest come together in collages
RM Vaughan is the co-curator of Cut, Paste, Resist, a collage art show that features the theme of resistance. 3:40

He uses "good old glue sticks" to paste it all together.

"I found these awesome ones that are purple and then when they dry they go clear. I have no idea how that works but it's magic."

This collage titled Species at Risk was created by RF Côté and sent by mail from Rimouski, Quebec. (Maria Jose Burgos/CBC)

No rules or excuses

Vaughan and Moffatt created an Instagram page in which they'll post photos of all the collages they get so everyone can see the different works.

"They'll see and say 'Oh, I see what people are thinking about in New Brunswick, in Canada,'" said Vaughan.

There are very few rules to participate in the art show.

The collages can be of all sizes and shapes and creators only need to submit their names and their countries when emailing or mailing their collages.

The art show will have a collage-making station as well. People who come to the show will be able to create their own collages and paste them on the walls.

"We don't want anyone to come in and say, I wish I had made something. Well, now you can. It's right there," said Vaughan.

Cristina Holm submitted this collage from Barcelona, Spain. (Maria Jose Burgos/CBC)

The station will have papers, magazines and scissors.

"I'll even have the purple glue stick."

Cut, Paste, Resist opens Feb. 10 from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Student Union Building, Rm 103 in UNB. The show will be up until February 12. It's free and open to the public.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maria Jose Burgos
Reporter
Maria Jose Burgos is a reporter with CBC New Brunswick based in Fredericton. She is a recent graduate of the journalism program at St. Thomas University. She's originally from Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

In Pakistan, keeping lions or tigers at home is a growing trend, flouting rules and safety regulations. The wild animals are seen as a status symbol in the country. Politics and lions often go hand in hand, with politicians buying big cats to symbolise their power. But now, even ordinary citizens are latching onto the craze for keeping wild lions as pets, often putting the animals in cages. Our France 2 colleagues Nicolas Bertrand, Shahzaib Wahlah and Marie Fortunato report.

GUINEA / POLICE BRUTALITY -
Video shows police in Guinea using a woman as a human shield

UPDATED 01/31/2020

Screengrab from a video from Guinea showing police officers apparently using a woman as a human shield.

A concerned citizen filmed police using a woman as a human shield in Conakry, Guinea on January 29. The FRANCE 24 Observers team spoke with a man who cared for the woman after the incident, to find out what happened and how she is doing.

The video, which is just over three minutes long, shows a police officer holding onto a woman and pushing her in front of him as he advances alongside several other officers. The police were facing off with several young men during the latest in a series of protests against the possibility of President Alpha Condé serving a third term.

The three officers push the woman in front of them for several metres, apparently to protect themselves from the rocks that the young men are throwing. Eventually, the scene ends in chaos after one of the officers fires a shot. The police retreat, one grabbing the woman and half-dragging, half-carrying her.

The FRANCE 24 Observers team was able to identify the exact location in the Wanindara 3 neighbourhood where the incident took place. A resident of the neighborhood sent us a photo and our journalists were able to match the tree and the houses in the photo with those in the video.

'The police had run out of tear gas so they decided to protect themselves by using this woman as a human shield'

Abdourahmane Bah, who lives in the neighbourhood, obtained the video and posted it on Facebook, where it received more than 350,000 views in less than 24 hours. He was nearby when the incident happened and after hearing yelling in the street, he came across the woman, who was extremely distressed. Bah ended up taking care of her while she got her bearings.

The lady in question works as a cleaner in the Enco 5 market, which is a few hundred metres away. She came to our neighbourhood because she had heard that morning that the child of one of her friends had sustained a foot injury during the protests. She was coming to visit the family but she didn’t know the neighbourhood well because she doesn’t live here.

She ran into the police officers, who told her to keep close because there were a group of rowdy young protesters nearby. But it was a trap because it quickly became clear that the officers actually wanted to use her as a shield from the young men, who were throwing rocks at them. The police had run out of tear gas and so they decided that they’d use this woman to keep themselves safe. They wanted to negotiate with the protesters, but they refused.


'The woman has a young baby'

After dragging the woman for several meters, the officers left her lying on the ground and headed off towards Avenue Le Prince [Editor’s note: the main street in the neighbourhood]. We brought the woman into our home. She was extremely distressed. Her clothes were covered with mud so my mom gave her some new clothes to wear.

Some people were saying online that she’s pregnant. That’s not true, but she does have a six-month-old baby and she was terrified that she’d be injured or killed in the clashes. She did get several cuts on her knee.

What happened is unacceptable. This is the first time that I’ve seen police behave like that with a woman. It shows that even women aren’t safe. Our neighbourhood has seen some of the fiercest repression since the start of the protests and there is a constant presence of security forces. We don’t feel safe.

The FRANCE 24 Observers team was able to confirm the identity of the woman, though we are not naming her. She gave an interview to several Guinean media outlets, including GuinéeMatin. She told journalists that she had been traumatised by the incident and had "pain in her right foot".

The woman used as a human shield by police was interviewed by several local media outlets. This screengrab is from a report by Guinéematin.com. Because she did not give the FRANCE 24 Observers team permission to disclose her identity, we’ve blurred her face.

Three officers suspended

Our team also spoke to the minister for public safety, Albert Damantang. He said that three officers had been suspended and that a fourth officer present during the incident was yet to be identified. Damantang said that the officers would be brought before a disciplinary council and sanctioned imminently.

He said one officer claimed that he had seen the woman "hand stones to the youth”, which is why he stopped her in the first place. Damantang says that, for the time being, this version of events can’t be corroborated. He also repeated his apologies to the victim, which he had done previously in a video posted on Facebook. He also said that she had spoken on the phone with Mariama Sylla, the minister for social action, women’s rights and children, and would meet with her in person soon.

François Patuel a researcher at rights group Amnesty International who specialises in Guinea, said this video is another example of abuse carried out by Guinean police:
This incident of a woman being used as a human shield flies in the face of several international agreements signed by Guinea. The voluntary exposure of people to suffering or injury is a serious violation of human rights. But there is a long history of impunity in regards to abuses carried out by security forces in Guinea. Since 2010, more than a hundred people have been killed during protests.

Despite the many complaints filed by families, only one officer has been sentenced for these crimes and his direct superiors were not investigated at all.

Instances of police abuse have multiplied in Guinea since late 2019 as protests continue against constitutional changes that would allow President Condé to serve a third term. People were already angered when, on January 14, a video emerged showing an elderly man being mistreated by police.

Article by Alexandre Capron (@alexcapron)


Outcry in Guinea over police 'human shield' video

AFP / CELLOU BINANI

Guinean police have been clashing with anti-government protesters

Police in the West African state of Guinea are facing a storm of criticism over a viral video that apparently showed them using a woman as a human shield against stone-throwing protestors.

The video, whose source cannot be independently verified but whose authenticity has not been contested, spread fast on social media late Wednesday.

The footage is dated as of Wednesday and gives the location as the district of Wanindara.

It shows four helmeted policemen facing young protestors throwing stones.

One of the police moves in front of the protestors, pushing a woman in front of him, apparently against her will.

After an exchange of stones and anti-riot projectiles, the police suddenly fall back. The police officer grabs the woman under his arm and after a few yards appears to be dragging her along the ground.

The video has notched up several hundred thousand views and triggered a wave of online attacks on security forces.

General Ansoumane Baffoe Camara, director general of Guinea's national police force, told AFP that the main figure in the video had been arrested and "will answer for his actions".

The woman in the video, Fatoumata Bah, told local media that she was injured in the incident and went to hospital for treatment and then went home.

Bah, mother of five, says the police searched her, shoved her and threw her to the ground. Young protesters in the district recorded the incident, she said.

"Today, I'm in a lot of pain. My right foot is sprained and I have scratches on almost all of my legs," she said. "It was an insult to my dignity."

- Months of protests -

Police presented the alleged perpetrator, Brigadier Mamadou Lamarana Bah, who is unrelated to the victim, to reporters after his arrest. He claimed she had been supplying stones to the protesters, but that he had grabbed her to protect her.

"I swear before God, I never wanted to hurt her, it was just to save her."

Senior police officials said there was no doubt he had been sheltering behind the woman.

Guinea has been battered by months of political turmoil, triggered by suspicions that President Alpha Conde, 81, wants to change the constitution in order to stay in power.

At least 28 civilians and one gendarme have died, according to an AFP tally.

The National Front for the Defence for the Constitution (FNDC), which is organising the protests, led the criticism on social media Thursday.

The video, it said on Facebook, added to a litany of abuses by the security forces -- "firing on people in cemeteries, places of worship, even on ambulances."

"Now Alpha Conde's militia (is carrying out) hostage-taking," it charged.

The security ministry on Thursday said it was "completely unacceptable for innocent people to suffer from operations to maintain order."

It said investigations had been immediately launched into "recently recorded cases" and any policeman in the wrong would be "sought out and punished."

In November, Amnesty International said that 70 demonstrators or passers-by had been killed in rallies since 2015 and attacked what it called the "impunity" of the security forces.

31 JAN 2020 

Iraq's president names Allawi new prime minister, protesters divided

Within minutes of the announcement, many in Baghdad’s main protest camp of Tahrir Square began chanting “Allawi is rejected, Allawi is rejected!” Demonstrators hit the streets in the holy city of Najaf, pledging to escalate their movement further as Allawi was not the independent they had long demanded.

01/02/2020 

Newly named Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Allawi. 

© Reuters, Stringer Text by:NEWS WIRES

Iraq’s president named former communications minister Mohammad Allawi as the country’s new prime minister on Saturday after an 11th-hour consensus among political blocs, but the streets seemed divided on his nomination.

Baghdad and the mainly Shiite south have been gripped by four months of anti-government rallies demanding snap elections, a politically independent prime minister and accountability for corruption and protest-related violence.

Faced with pressure from the street and the Shiite religious leadership, Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi resigned in December and political life came to a standstill.

In a bid to end the paralysis, President Barham Saleh gave political blocs until Saturday to name a replacement to Abdel Mahdi or else he would appoint his own candidate.

On Saturday evening, Allawi posted a video to Twitter saying Saleh had nominated him as the new premier.

“After the president appointed me to form a new government a short while ago, I wanted to talk to you first,” he said, addressing the camera in colloquial Iraqi dialect.

“I will ask you to keep up the protests, because if you are not with me, I won’t be able to do anything,” Allawi said.

Breaking: Iraqi President Barham Salih appoints Muhammad Tawfiq Allawi to form new #Iraqi govt, Allawi announces his appoints in this video.
He was Minister of Communications in the former govt led by Nuri al-Maliki pic.twitter.com/59VcWjRNJj— Mustafa Habib (@Mustafa_Habib33) February 1, 2020

There was no announcement from Saleh but Abdel Mahdi congratulated his successor and powerful cleric Moqtada Sadr swiftly endorsed Allawi.

“This is a good step,” tweeted Sadr, who controls the largest bloc in parliament and key ministerial posts.

“I hope the president’s appointment of Mohammad Allawi is acceptable to the people and that they have patience,” he wrote.

Protesters split

But many protesters across Iraq were unconvinced.

Within minutes of the announcement, many in Baghdad’s main protest camp of Tahrir Square began chanting “Allawi is rejected, Allawi is rejected!”

Demonstrators hit the streets in the holy city of Najaf, pledging to escalate their movement further as Allawi was not the independent they had long demanded.

“Mohammad Allawi’s nomination came with the approval of the same corrupt political blocs we’ve been protesting against for over four months,” said lawyer Hassan Mayahi, marching in the southern hotspot of Diwaniyah.

Meanwhile, the United States issued a carefully worded statement, saying it hoped Allawi’s nomination would lead to “an independent and honest government committed to addressing the needs of the Iraqi people.”

Despite the prime minister-designate’s call for them to keep rallying, protesters were skeptical he would be able to implement their demands.

According to the constitution, he now has one month to form a cabinet which would need a vote of confidence from parliament.

In Iraq, the cabinet is typically formed by consensus among political rivals after intense horsetrading over influential posts.

“If the (political) blocs try to impose their candidates on me, I’ll come out and talk to you and leave this nomination,” Allawi said.

Sadrists in the streets
Allawi, a Shiite Muslim, was a member of the secular Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc which was headed by his cousin and former prime minister Iyad Allawi.

He served as communications minister twice under former PM Nuri al-Maliki but resigned both times, alleging corruption and interference in personnel appointments.

Maliki, who still holds sway in Iraq’s parliament, is said to have rejected Allawi’s candidacy but other political blocs came to a consensus amid pressure by the president.

Sadr, too, had renewed his push for an end to the political crisis after suspending his support for the rallies for one week.

He endorsed the protests in October then appeared to change his mind last month, saying he would no longer “interfere” in the movement.

His hard-core backers—the most well-organised of the demonstrators—promptly dismantled their tents in protest camps across the country.

But on Friday he seemed to flip again, calling for his supporters “to renew the peaceful, reformist revolution.”

They flooded in the streets on Saturday afternoon, setting up tents in Tahrir with portraits of Sadr and blaring music praising him just hours before Allawi’s nomination.

The move came after both the United Nations and Iraq’s top Shiite religious authority both called for an end to the political paralysis gripping Iraq.

The UN’s top official in Iraq Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert had tweeted Friday that solutions were “urgently needed” to “break the political deadlock”.

And the country’s top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani urged Iraq’s political parties to “accelerate the formation of a new government”.

“It is imperative to speed up holding early elections so that the people will have their say,” he said in his sermon, which also demanded an end to bloodshed.

More than 480 people have died in protest-related violence since October, the great majority of them demonstrators killed by live rounds or military-grade tear gas canisters.

(AFP)

Canberra heatwave breaks records amid wildfire threat
 

Temperatures in the Australian capital Canberra have set a new monthly record amid an advancing wildfire that has prompted a state of emergency declaration, weather service Meteo France said Sunday.

The city declared its first state of emergency in nearly two decades last week in anticipation of a heatwave and predictions that fires could hit the southern suburbs.

On Saturday, temperatures in Canberra hit 42.7 degrees Celsius (108.9 degrees Fahrenheit), an all-time high for February that broke a record of 42.2 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit) set in 1968, Meteo France weather forecaster Etienne Kapikian said on Twitter.

That temperature was also the third-highest recorded in the city in any month, Kapikian said.

The new record along with all-time highs in January and December make the 2019-2020 summer the hottest on record, he said.

Australia's Bureau of Meteorology did not immediately confirm the records.

The state of emergency declared on Thursday is the first in the Australian Capital Territory, which includes Canberra and some surrounding townships, since 2003, when fires destroyed almost 500 homes.

The main threat comes from the Orroral Valley fire, which has burned around 18,000 hectares (45,000 acres) of mostly remote bushland.

Authorities say the searing heat, accompanied by dry winds, could bring severe bushfire conditions to parts of New South Wales and Victoria. More than 80 fires are still burning across the two states.

Temperatures in the New South Wales town of Richmond climbed to 46.8 degrees Celsius (116.2 degrees Fahrenheit) on Saturday, Kapikian said.

Storms are forecast to follow the heatwave, bringing rain that could help dampen fires but also carry the potential for wild weather, including flash flooding.

Extreme weather has battered parts of Australia in recent weeks, bringing giant hail, floods and landslides.

At least 33 people have died and vast swaths of the country have been burned since September.

The months-long crisis has sparked renewed calls for Australia's conservative government to take immediate action on climate change, with street protests urging Prime Minister Scott Morrison to reduce the country's reliance on coal.

Scientists say the bushfire disaster was likely exacerbated by climate change, coming on the back of a crippling drought that turned forests into a tinderbox and allowed blazes to spread out of control quickly.

© 2020 AFP