Reversing Trump, Pentagon to release new transgender policy


WASHINGTON — The Pentagon on Wednesday will sweep away Trump-era policies that largely banned transgender people from serving in the military, issuing new rules that offer them wider access to medical care and assistance with gender transition, defence officials told The Associated Press.

© Provided by The Canadian PressThe new department regulations allow transgender people who meet military standards to enlist and serve openly in their self-identified gender, and they will be able to get medically necessary transition-related care authorized by law, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal decisions not yet made public.

The changes come after a two-month Pentagon review aimed at developing guidelines for the new policy, which was announced by President Joe Biden just days after he took office in January.

Biden's executive order overturned the Trump policy and immediately prohibited any service member from being forced out of the military on the basis of gender identity. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin then gave the Pentagon two months to finalize the more detailed regulations that the military services will follow.

The new rules also prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. Their expected release Wednesday coincides with International Transgender Day of Visibility.

Austin has also called for a reexamination of the records of service members who were discharged or denied reenlistment because of gender identity issues under the previous policy. Results of that review have not been released.

Until a few years ago, service members could be discharged from the military for being transgender, but that changed during the Obama administration. In 2016, the Pentagon announced that transgender people already serving in the military would be allowed to serve openly, and that by July 2017, they would be allowed to enlist.

After Donald Trump took office, however, his administration delayed the enlistment date and called for additional study. A few weeks later, Trump caught military leaders by surprise, tweeting that the government wouldn’t accept or allow transgender people to serve “in any capacity” in the military.

After a lengthy and complicated legal battle and additional reviews, the Defence Department in April 2019 approved a policy that fell short of an all-out ban but barred transgender troops and recruits from transitioning to another sex and required most individuals to serve in what the administration called their “birth gender.”

Under that policy, currently serving transgender troops and anyone who had signed an enlistment contract before the effective date could continue with plans for hormone treatments and gender transition if they had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

But after that date, no one with gender dysphoria who was taking hormones or had transitioned to another gender was allowed to enlist. Troops that were already serving and were diagnosed with gender dysphoria were required to serve in the gender assigned at birth and were barred from taking hormones or getting transition surgery.

The new policies being released Wednesday are similar to those developed in 2016.

As of 2019, an estimated 14,700 troops on active duty and in the reserves identify as transgender, but not all seek treatment. There are more than 1.3 million active-duty troops and close to 800,000 in the National Guard and Reserves.

Since July 2016, more than 1,500 service members were diagnosed with gender dysphoria; as of Feb. 1, 2019, there were 1,071 currently serving. According to the Pentagon, the department spent about $8 million on transgender care from 2016 to 2019. The military’s annual health care budget tops $50 billion.

All four service chiefs told Congress in 2018 that they had seen no discipline, morale or unit readiness problems with transgender troops serving openly in the military. But they also acknowledged that some commanders were spending a lot of time with transgender people who were working through medical requirements and other transition issues.

Lolita C. Baldor, The Associated Press

WHEN WILL BIDEN #ABOLISHICE

Violations at ICE facility in 2020 threatened 

the health and safety of detainees, watchdog report says

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

CHEMICAL WEAPONS USED ON CIVILIANS 

© LPCC/Department of Homeland Security In this image from video surveillance footage, provided by La Palma Correctional Center staff and released in the DHS report, LPCC staff are seen firing pepper spray and chemical agents at detainees in an LPCC housing area on April 13, 2020.

Detainees at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Arizona filed hundreds of grievances about mistreatment, including use-of-force incidents, according to a watchdog report released Thursday, which concluded that violations threatened the health, safety and rights of those at the facility.

During its inspection last year, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general found "serious concerns regarding detainee care and treatment." For example, in one instance, a detainee who is a cancer patient ran out of leukemia medication after the medical staff did not order a refill on time.



Last April, detainees also held a peaceful protest, stemming from the center not providing sufficient personal protective equipment to avoid the spread of Covid-19, according to the report. The facility responded by deploying chemical agents from the ceiling and fired pepper spray from handheld devices, the watchdog report says.

Between August and November 2020, the DHS inspector general conducted an unannounced, remote inspection of La Palma Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona, as well as viewed surveillance video from areas within the facility, and interviewed ICE personnel, officials at the center, and detainees. At the start of the inspection, the center housed 1,156 ICE detainees.

Last summer, the center, owned and operated by CoreCivic, came under scrutiny when lawyers disseminated a letter from detainees detailing dangerous conditions in custody as coronavirus spread. "We're begging for your help because this is a life or death situation," stated the letter, which was purportedly signed by 70 detainees held at the La Palma Correctional Center.

"Fundamentally, it's time to start closing some of these facilities, starting with the ones with the most egregious track record," Jorge Loweree, policy director at the American Immigration Council, told CNN. "This report outlines the inability of people with chronic illnesses to obtain necessary medication to treat those illnesses. That's inexcusable."

Surveillance footage images included in the report show the pepper spray incident. In one image, detainees are sitting on the floor in an open area. Another image, from the same day, shows the center's staff, outfitted in helmets and all-black gear, firing pepper spray and chemical agents at detainees.

"A detainee told us he suffered injuries from pepper balls fired by facility staff, but felt too intimidated to file a report about the incident through proper channels," the report reads.

Six grievances were ultimately filed over the incidents. The facility denied or rejected them.

In 27 reported use-of-force incidents at the facility between February and August 24, 2020, 11 included facility staff using chemical agents "to gain detainee compliance," according to the report.

The report also details grievances filed by detainees, including an instance of an officer cursing at a detainee, calling him a racial slur, threatening him with pepper spray, then hanging up his telephone call with family. While the center required staff responsible for detainee mistreatment to complete training on professionalism, they returned to their prior assignments.

The inspector general also addressed concerns relating to Covid-19 precautions. While officials took some measures to prevent spread, like serving meals in detainee housing areas and restricting visitation and services, they did not ensure detainees wore masks and were socially distanced, according to the report.

Some detainees said they didn't receive any masks, others said they only received one. ICE guidance from September 2020, however, had said "cloth face coverings should be worn by detainees and staff to help slow the spread of COVID-19," the report said.

There have been 767 Covid-19 cases at the facility, according to ICE data.

The medical unit was also "critically understaffed," the inspector general found, which hindered the facility's ability to provide care to detainees. In a random selection of sick call requests from February to August 24, 2020, detainees waited an average of 3.35 days to receive care, with some requests taking longer than 3 days for a response or treatment, according to the report.

"Nonetheless, waiting days or weeks to provide medical care to detainees for acute sick call issues violates the standard for timely follow-up to detainee health needs. Delayed responses to complaints of symptoms of COVID-19 also risk the spread of the virus at the facility," the report says.

The inspector general's recommendations include action to address use of force incidents and allegations of detainee mistreatment by staff, that the center provide appropriate facial coverings and social distancing, and ensure detainees in segregation are provided required services.

The list also includes refilling and administering detainees' medication, addressing and logging grievances, and providing appropriate access to ICE deportation officers.

In its response to the report, ICE agreed with some, but not all of the recommendations. The agency said, for example, that the report didn't identify whether use-of-force incidents violated guidelines, adding that staff responsible for mistreatment received "remedial action," and said the center is in compliance with CDC guidelines relating to the coronavirus pandemic and increased inventory of personal protective equipment.

"ICE is also concerned that the OIG's draft report omits necessary context in several instances, without which a reader may assume that violations of the standards had occurred, when in fact, none occurred," the agency's response, which is included in the report, reads, citing the understaffed medical unit and noting that the facility wasn't at full capacity.

In a statement, Amanda Gilchrist, spokeswoman for CoreCivic, said: "We agree with feedback provided by ICE that the OIG report has it wrong about LPCC in more ways than it has it right. We operate every day in a challenging environment that was made all the more difficult by a pandemic with which the entire world has and continues to struggle with. We always appreciate the feedback and accountability that our partners provide, and we strive every day to do better in our service to them and the people in our care."

ICE agreed with recommendations relating to medical services.

This story has been updated with comment from CoreCivic.

Nuclear Power/IAEA Fast Facts
CNN Editorial Research

Here's a look at the International Atomic Energy Agency and nuclear power.

© Courtesy David de Rueda "This is inside the cooling tower of a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl that was never completed," explained De Rueda. "Cooling towers are impressive from the outside but even more so from the inside."

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspects nuclear and related facilities under safeguard agreements. Most agreements are with countries that have committed to not possessing nuclear weapons. The IAEA is the verification authority to enforce the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

Other Facts

The IAEA has 172 member states (as of September 17, 2020).

Rafael Grossi has been the director general of the IAEA since December 3, 2019.

There are 35 member countries on the IAEA Board of Governors, which meets five times a year.

The IAEA has about 2,500 employees.

IAEA safeguard programs monitor nuclear reactors to make sure nuclear material is not being diverted for making weapons.

The IAEA sends out inspectors to monitor reactors.

The IAEA helps countries prepare and respond to emergencies.


Current status of the nuclear industry

There are more than 440 nuclear power reactors in operation.

There are more than 50 nuclear power reactors under construction.

There are more than 90 operational nuclear reactors in the United States.

France has a 70.6% share of nuclear power to total electricity generation, the highest percentage of nuclear energy in the world.


Timeline

1939 - Nuclear fission is discovered.

1942 - The world's first nuclear chain reaction takes place in Chicago as part of the Manhattan Project, a US research program aimed at developing the first nuclear weapons.

July 16, 1945 - The United States conducts its first nuclear weapons test in New Mexico.

August 6, 1945 - An atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

August 9, 1945 - An atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.

August 29, 1949 - The Soviet Union conducts its first nuclear weapons test.

December 1951 - Electricity is first generated from a nuclear reactor at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho.

October 3, 1952 - The United Kingdom conducts its first nuclear weapons test.

December 8, 1953 - In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, President Dwight D. Eisenhower asks the world's major powers to work together in developing peacetime uses of the atom. This is known as the Atoms for Peace program, and 40 countries participate. Also during this speech, Eisenhower proposes the creation of an international agency to monitor the spread of nuclear technology.

June 26, 1954 - In the Soviet Union, the first nuclear power plant is connected to an electricity grid to provide power to residences and businesses in a town near Moscow.

 1954 GODZILLA ARISES FROM  NUCLEAR EXPERIMENT

Godzilla and the Changing Contract Between Science and Society

https://epublications.regis.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1540&... · PDF file

(1954). In the film, Godzilla is an allegorical figure warning the public about the dangers of nuclear technology. Godzilla himself was presented as a product of H-bomb tests, a direct consequence of nuclear technology, and the allegory is clear in the first film. In this context, the film was meant to be a …

• Author: Stefanie T. Maletich

• Publish Year: 2011

Gojira (1954) | Atomic Heritage Foundation

https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/gojira-1954

2018-11-14 · Gojira, or Godzilla, has been one of the most enduring and iconic kaiju (Japanese giant monsters) in popular culture. Undoubtedly, the the monster created from an H-bomb blast has captured the Gojira (1954) | Atomic Heritage Foundation

godzilla | Nuclear Horror History

https://nuclearhorrorhistory.wordpress.com/tag/godzilla

The ultimate political commentary of the film remains unknown, but the trailers show something lacking in the 1954 Godzilla, a nuclear component of the horror. The presence of nuclear horror in Godzilla (2014) shows that American film can discuss the nuclear weapons testing of the 1950s, and that film audiences of the United States are ready to consider their country’s involvement in creating real, nuclear …

How 'Godzilla' Dances Around That Whole Nuclear Issue | US ...

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/05/16/how-godzilla-dances...

2014-05-16 · After passing a law in 1954 that it would only nuclear energy for peace, Japan enthusiastically embraced a nuclear energy program and now has 50 …

1957 - The IAEA is established to facilitate the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

1950's - Brazil and Argentina begin research and development of nuclear reactors.

February 13, 1960 - France conducts its first nuclear weapons test.

October 16, 1964 - China conducts its first nuclear weapons test.

March 5, 1970 - The NPT goes into effect.

May 18, 1974 - India conducts its first nuclear weapons test.

March 28, 1979 - A partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant occurs in Middletown, Pennsylvania. It is determined that equipment malfunctions, design-related problems and human error led to the accident.

April 26, 1986 - Reactor number four explodes at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, releasing large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere.

September 24, 1996 - The United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and 66 other UN member countries sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, barring the testing of nuclear weapons.

December 1997 - Mohamed ElBaradei is appointed IAEA director-general.

May 1998 - India and Pakistan test nuclear devices amid tensions between the neighboring countries.

January 10, 2003 - North Korea announces its withdrawal from the NPT.

August 2003 - IAEA inspectors find traces of highly enriched uranium at an electrical plant in Iran.

December 19, 2003 - Libya announces that it will dismantle its WMD program, in cooperation with the IAEA as well as the United States and the United Kingdom.

October 7, 2005 - The IAEA and ElBaradei are named the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.

December 1, 2009 - Yukiya Amano replaces ElBaradei as director general of the IAEA.

March 11, 2011 - A 9.0 magnitude earthquake strikes near the coast of Honshu, Japan, creating a massive tsunami. The tsunami knocks out the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's cooling systems. The cores of three of six reactors are damaged by overheating. Resulting hydrogen explosions blow apart the buildings surrounding two reactors.

May 30, 2011 - Germany announces it will abandon the use of all nuclear power by the year 2022. This repeals a 2010 plan to extend the life of the country's nuclear reactors.

November 11, 2013 - Iran signs an agreement with the IAEA, granting inspectors access to nuclear sites.

July 14, 2015 - After 20 months of negotiations, Iran reaches a comprehensive agreement (The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)), with the United States and other countries that is aimed at reining in Iran's nuclear program. In exchange for limits on its nuclear activities, Iran will get relief from sanctions while being allowed to continue its atomic program for peaceful purposes.

August 11, 2015 - Japan restarts a nuclear reactor on the island of Kyushu. It's the country's first reactor to come back online since the 2011 tsunami.

January 16, 2016 - The IAEA confirms that Iran has taken all of the steps outlined in the nuclear deal, allowing for sanctions to be lifted, as per the agreement.

May 8, 2018 - US President Donald Trump announces that the United States will withdraw from JCPOA and will be imposing "the highest level of economic sanction" against Iran. In Tehran, Rouhani says Iran will take a few weeks to decide how to respond to the US withdrawal, but Rouhani says he had ordered the country's "atomic industry organization" to be prepared to "start our industrial enrichment without limitations."

May 8, 2019 - Rouhani announces a partial withdrawal from the JCPOA.

February 16, 2021 - The IAEA reports it received a February 15 letter from Iran stating that it will stop implementing provisions of the additional monitoring protocol as of February 23. This will effectively limit which facilities nuclear inspectors can scrutinize and when they can access them, making it harder for experts to determine if Tehran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons.

February 18, 2021 - The Joe Biden administration releases a statement indicating that the United States is willing to sit down for talks with Tehran and other signatories to the Iran nuclear deal, before either side has taken tangible action to salvage or return to compliance with the agreement.

February 21, 2021 - In a joint statement, the IAEA and Iran announce they have reached a deal in which Iran will give IAEA inspectors continued access to verify and monitor nuclear activity in the country for the next three months.

Staff shortage amid B.C.'s deadliest COVID-19 care home outbreak: report


VANCOUVER — An inspection of a long-term care home that was the site of British Columbia's deadliest COVID-19 outbreak found staffing levels were low and cleaning was inadequate as the virus spread throughout the facility

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Vancouver Coastal Health inspection report obtained by The Canadian Press through a freedom of information request says these two issues were rectified while the outbreak was underway in Little Mountain Place.

Bernadette Cheung, whose grandmother died of COVID-19 at the facility along with 40 other residents, wants more answers, including details on how the staffing shortage and poor infection control potentially worsened the outbreak.

She filed a complaint that prompted the inspection on behalf of several family members who lost loved ones at the Vancouver care home. Cheung said she feels equally in the dark after receiving the report as she did before.

"I feel like the investigation was very much done just to check off a box, as opposed to properly finding out where the failures were and really digging into finding solutions and ensuring that families have some sort of peace that this is taken seriously," she said.

Little Mountain Place referred questions to Vancouver Coastal Health, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a written statement released in January, the health authority said it worked closely with the care home to bring the outbreak under control, including by screening and testing staff and residents, promptly isolating cases and employing infection prevention and control practices.

The inspection report says a complaint was received on Jan. 6 and a site visit was conducted Jan. 11.

The inspector found when the COVID-19 outbreak was declared on Nov. 22, staffing coverage was sufficient. However, as more employees contracted COVID-19, staffing levels "fell below facility baseline," which temporarily affected daily operations and staff ability to respond to families' questions.

In response, Vancouver Coastal Health redeployed a significant number of staff to exceed the baseline requirements by 20 per cent, the report says, adding that most of the original staff returned to work and one-third of the redeployed health authority staff remained on site as of the inspection date.

The report does not say how many staff members the facility was missing, how long the understaffing persisted and how it affected the home's ability to limit the spread of the virus. B.C. Centre for Disease Control figures show that 72 staff members contracted the virus over the course of the months-long outbreak. None died.

Cheung questioned what the point was of the "vague summary" of understaffing.

"I would imagine that these processes are in place to learn and understand where problems can occur and find maybe where the breakage point is in terms of understaffing," she said.

The report also says that when the outbreak was declared, Vancouver Coastal Health monitored the facility closely for the rate of transmission and any areas of concern.

"Following this audit period, it was identified that the facility household team did not fully comprehend or implement the intended infection control/enhanced cleaning measures appropriately," it says.

On Dec. 13, three weeks after the start of the outbreak, Vancouver Coastal Health deployed a specialized infection control cleaning team to the facility. Education was provided to the staff and regular audits of enhanced cleaning measures continue to be conducted on a regular basis, the report says.

WERE THEY CONTRACTED OUT? OR UNIONIZED IN HOUSE? I DOUBT THE LATTER

Cheung said she's frustrated that the focus appears to be on the cleaning team not knowing what to do, as opposed to management's responsibility to train them.

She also took issue with the inspector's finding about the care home's communication. The inspector said families were sent letters regularly with updates on the status of the outbreak and weekly Zoom calls were held to answer their questions.

However, Cheung said two weeks passed before the first Zoom call, when families were shocked to hear there were already dozens of positive cases. During the calls, Cheung felt managers were evading questions.

"We felt like we were being kept in the dark," she said.

In its previous statement, Vancouver Coastal Health said it takes all concerns raised by residents and families seriously and any allegations of insufficient care are fully investigated. It also said it shared written communications regularly, in addition to the Zoom calls, and doctors and staff followed up with families directly.

Cheung is still calling for a broader investigation of what went wrong at the care home, where ultimately 99 out of 114 residents tested positive. Cheung also wants to see an oversight board for care homes that exists outside of health authorities.

"I don't feel like anyone has truly taken accountability for what has happened," she said. "I get it. It's a really challenging situation. But at the same time, as family members we would have appreciated forthcoming responses."

B.C.'s seniors advocate, Isobel Mackenzie, is working on a larger review of COVID-19 outbreaks in care homes, which she hopes to publish in July. She said of about 500 sites in B.C., 212 had outbreaks.

Of the sites that had outbreaks, most were contained to staff or a couple of residents. Therefore, her office plans to look at 25 or so of the worst outbreaks, including Little Mountain Place, to understand what went wrong.

The age and size of the buildings, whether residents had shared rooms or shared baths, staffing levels, sick-leave policies, infection control practices and the age and conditions of residents could all be factors, Mackenzie said.

Her office will also undertake a survey of care home staff in B.C. that will hopefully give insight into the training they received, she said.

Mackenzie said she expects the provincial government will face pressure from the public to implement her upcoming recommendations.

"One of the things that's been very heartening has been that the public is very much getting behind the issue of improvements to long-term care," she said.

"They now see what can happen, what does happen and they've said, 'We need to do better. We need to make improvements.' So, I think people will be listening and they will expect their governments to act."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 1, 2021.

Laura Dhillon Kane, The Canadian Press

PRECEDENT SETTING

BC Human Rights Code can't protect 

Anti-maskers making unproven claims: tribunal

"The Code does not protect people who refuse to wear a mask as a matter of personal preference, because they believe wearing a mask is 'pointless,' or because they disagree that wearing masks helps to protect the public during the pandemic," 

ANTI MASKING IS NOT A HUMAN RIGHT

VANCOUVER — A decision by the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal says anyone denied service for refusing to wear a mask must be ready to prove they have a disability if they intend to file a complaint. 

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The warning is contained in a screening decision published Wednesday as tribunal member Steven Adamson addresses what he describes as a large volume of complaints alleging discrimination related to mask requirements.

Screening decisions are among the first steps in a tribunal investigation and are rarely released, but Adamson says he's publishing his findings because there have been many similar complaints since last October.

In his decision, Adamson rejects that an unnamed customer's human rights were violated when a security guard asked her to leave an unnamed store for refusing to wear a mask.

The ruling says the woman claimed the mask order is "pointless" and masks make breathing difficult and cause anxiety, but she would not explain any physical disability that might prevent use of a mask.

In tossing out the complaint, Adamson says although the woman has reported an "adverse impact" regarding service in the store, she hasn't offered any facts about a physical or mental condition.

"The Code does not protect people who refuse to wear a mask as a matter of personal preference, because they believe wearing a mask is 'pointless,' or because they disagree that wearing masks helps to protect the public during the pandemic," Adamson writes.

He says the code only protects from discrimination based on certain personal characteristics, including disability, and any claim of discrimination must begin by establishing the disability interferes with mask use.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 1, 2021.

The Canadian Press

A reply to Conrad Black: On Indigenous history we cannot ignore inconvenient truths

Black’s understanding of Indigenous history isn’t revisionist so much as it is retrograde.

© Provided by National Post A depiction of Jacques Cartier visiting the village of Hochelaga.

As evidenced by Conrad Black’s recent column , there is a gulf between recent scholarship and what the average Canadian thinks they know about Indigenous history. Rather than lambaste the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for deviating from antiquated nineteenth-century historical narratives, we should recognize the commission was an important effort by a Canadian government to ask, rather than tell, the Indigenous their story.

Black’s understanding of Indigenous history isn’t revisionist so much as it is retrograde.

First, he alleges the “best estimate” of the Indigenous population of Canada at the point of contact to be 200,000.

This is in fact the low estimate and it was made in 1928. A more recent estimate from 1987 runs as high as 2 million . Historians accept that estimates are about as good as it gets given the lack of census information from the early contact era. What is generally accepted, however, is that Indigenous populations in the Americas were devastated by Old World diseases carried by the earliest European explorers. More than a century separates the voyage of Giovanni Caboto in 1497 from the establishment of Quebec City in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain, and there were plenty of moments of contact in between. Whatever the Indigenous population was at the beginning of the colonial period, it was a fraction of what it had been at the point of contact . European explorers caused pandemics in the Americas that decimated Indigenous populations.

Second, Black claims the Indigenous had a Stone Age civilization.

It’s difficult to make much sense of this statement, as the Stone Age spans about 3.4 million years of human evolution and ended around the time of the Neolithic Revolution 10,000 years ago. Civilization is generally taken to mean that which comes after the Stone Age — i.e. complex societies, agriculture, division of labour etc.

Black asserts that the Indigenous were lacking in agriculture, textiles, complex tools and permanent structures, but this is contradicted by the ample archeological evidence held in Canadian museums . Moreover, the archeological evidence is consistent with and confirms written records by early explorers . Jacques Cartier described two Indigenous communities — Stadacona and Hochelaga — from his voyages of 1534 and 1535 that were fortified, featured permanent structures (longhouses) and were populated by sedentary farmers.

Both of these villages are consistent in size and description with Huron settlements dated to the same era. In a typically patronizing manner characteristic of the Jesuits, Paul Le Jeune described the Indigenous people he came into contact with in 1634 as more intelligent than ordinary European peasants. Archeological evidence of civilization, such as agriculture and silviculture (forest management to meet timber needs), dates back to at least 1,000 BCE in Southern Quebec. Native Copper artifacts — such as knives, spear points, arrowheads and bracelets — have been found in archeological sites around Lake Superior dating back as far as 6,000 BCE. The Iroquois had a constitution and confederacy long before the United States or Canada had either of their own.

I could go on.

These facts notwithstanding, the more important question is why Black brings it up in the first place. Are small populations less civilized than large ones? Are people who build sailing ships and stone castles more human than those who build birchbark canoes and pine longhouses?

And what does any of this have to do with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

In sum, Black is suggesting there was no civilization among pre-contact Indigenous peoples because it doesn’t fit his narrow definition of what constitutes civilization. And even there his assertions are contradicted by the historical record and archeological evidence.

Much of Black’s argument is based on the notion that European economics — specifically their rapacious appetite for beaver pelts — is what opened the country. Never mind the fact that the country was already populated with Indigenous nations who regularly traded with one another, it was only because of these well-established economic relationships that the fur trade was possible in the first place.

Indigenous nations at the point of contact had extensive trade networks developed over thousands of years. The Paleo-Indian Laurentian culture participated in trade net works that extended to the Gulf of Mexico thousands of years before the beginning of the common era. By the point of contact Indigenous society had aspects of a market economy, and developed complex political, economic and diplomatic relationships to go with them. Moreover, these civilizations were, as celebrated historian Bruce Trigger has amply demonstrated with regard to the Huron, in a state of evolution and flux for hundreds of years prior to European contact.

These are not the hallmarks of static, Stone Age people.

To put it another way, if Indigenous people were at the evolutionary level of the Stone Age at the point of contact, as Black alleges, they wouldn’t have gone out to meet Cartier with goods they wished to trade, nor would they have invited him back to tour the village or have dinner.

The Hochelagans were neither fearful nor aggressive. They were civilized.

Indigenous society and culture was different from European society and culture but it wasn’t any less evolved. They had complex societies and cosmographies, economic and political relationships, the ability to make tools and art. They spoke languages the Europeans could learn and understand.

Europeans no more brought civilization to the Americas than they discovered it.

The key issue here is that far too many Canadians have held on to the belief that some cultures and societies are better than others and therefore have a right to impose their will on anyone they deem subpar. These beliefs resulted in globe-spanning empires, the transatlantic slave trade, the wholesale devastation of Indigenous civilizations in the Americas, Africa and much of Asia, to say nothing of most of the bloodiest conflicts in human history.

Closer to home and the present, these pseudoscientific ideas are at the root of the Residential Schools and genocidal campaigns against Indigenous people since the colonial era.

This is not to say that the child is responsible for the sins of the parent. Canada has collectively made some very modest steps forward in addressing the long legacy of our original sin but our society is so lacking in self-confidence and courage a substantial number of us seem to believe any critical assessment of our history is tantamount to either a personal attack or blasphemy.

Something like a slow-motion genocide occurred here. It happened with the full support of governments from long ago, both foreign and domestic. It happened because of fundamentally flawed and inherently racist beliefs that unfortunately continue to this day.

As a nation and as a society, we’ll have a much easier time achieving a meaningful reconciliation if we abandon obsolete, demonstrably incorrect interpretations of the past, and instead open our eyes and minds. The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been accepted as a vitally important step forward by scholars from across the academic spectrum and across the country.

Rather than shirk our collective responsibilities and detach from reality to enjoy a fantasyland of historical innocence, we would do better as a nation to grow a spine and shine a light on the darkness from our past.

Taylor C. Noakes is an independent journalist and public historian

SPRING'S THE FOOL VERNAL EQUINOX

 

'Concrete Cowboy' shows Philadelphia's Black cowboy culture

NEW YORK — Historians estimate that 1 in 4 American cowboys were Black but you would be hard pressed to find a movie genre whiter than the Western. 

“Concrete Cowboy,” an urban Western about African American riders in Philadelphia starring Idris Elba, is about an often unseen — and persisting — Black cowboy culture.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

“Concrete Cowboy" is a father-son drama set around Fletcher Street Stables, one of the oldest and last-remaining of Philadelphia's hardscrabble inner-city stables. It dates back more than 100 years to when horse-drawn wagons were used to deliver produce, laundry and milk. But through tenacity and improvisation, Fletcher Street has remained a cherished refuge and an ardent pastime for both kids and adults on the streets of Philadelphia’s Strawberry Mansion.

“That’s a tough neighbourhood but if you’re on top of horse, people literally look up to you,” says Gregory Neri, author of the novel “Ghetto Cowboy,” the basis for the film directed by Ricky Staub.

Neri first heard about the stables in 2008 when a friend sent him a link to a Life magazine article about Fletcher Street.

“The first image I saw was this Black kid on the back of a horse in the middle of the inner city in North Philly,” says Neri. “I had the reaction most people have, which is: ‘What is this? What’s going on here?’”

“Concrete Cowboy,” which premiered last fall at the Toronto International Film Festival and debuts Friday on Netflix, shines perhaps the brightest light yet on an abiding community of Black cowboys now facing an uncertain future. It was shot in the vacant lots Fletcher Street cowboys ride in, and its co-stars -- alongside a cast of Elba, Caleb McLaughlin, Method Man and Jharrel Jerome -- include many of the stables’ actual riders.

In a genre that’s been perpetually drawn to American myth and open plains, “Concrete Cowboy” is urban, contemporary and authentic.

“My dad was a big Western fan. I grew up sort of watching them with a side eye,” says Elba, also a producer. “It didn’t occur to me until the Bob Marley song ‘Buffalo Soldier,’ which opened my interest about Black cowboys. And it occurred to me: I’ve been making films forever and I’ve never been offered a Western. You realize there’s a deep history that spans America and Africa over decades, centuries in fact, that you’ve never seen in film.”

As film historian Mia Mask, introducing a series on Black Westerns for the Criterion Channel, has noted: “Hollywood definitely whitewashed the image of the frontier.” The word “cowboy,” itself, was a racist term for a Black ranch worker. (A white one was a cowhand.) John Wayne’s character in John Ford’s “The Searchers” was based on a Black man.

For the actors, encountering and enmeshing with the community was an eye-opening experience. McLaughlin, the 19-year-old “Stranger Things” star, plays Cole, a wayward 15-year-old sent by his mother to live with his estranged father, Harp (Elba).

“It was all a new experience,” says McLaughlin. “Being in Philly, there are actually horses that live in people’s homes there. It’s not just two blocks of people with horses. It’s a whole community. There are people with cowboy boots walking around. There are babies riding ponies. I was like, ‘Wow, this is different.’”

Staub, making his directorial debut, had initially planned to shoot the entire movie with local non-professional actors.

“Obviously, when Idris Elba shows interest in being in your movie, you pivot,” he says, chuckling. “When I was talking with Idris, it was probably a little brazen, I said, ‘I don’t want this to feel like Halloween, like you’re playing dress up. To me, you need to do the most work to fit into this world and not vice versa.’”

Staub first learned about Fletcher Street while living in Philadelphia. One rider that he befriended, Eric Miller, introduced him around and they began to conceive, a little quixotically, of a movie. Miller, who had once been set to play Harp, was shot and killed just a week before prep began on the film. “Concrete Cowboys” is dedicated to him. Still, Miller’s vision helped guide the production.

“Eric echoed something to me that really had a lot of impact. When he was growing up, he loved cowboy films. These guys even played cowboy videogames on their phones. Everything was about that cowboy life,” says Staub. “But he didn’t have a film growing up where cowboys looked like him. What Eric wanted to leave was essentially a Western reimagined with the Black community.”

On set, Staub was flanked by riders looking over his shoulder on the monitor or shouting lines to Elba. “I recognized this was their story to tell,” Staub says.

For Elba, who's also to star in the upcoming revenge Western “The Harder They Fall,” it was more like making a documentary.

“I’m very open to telling stories that have a common truth but a unique perspective,” Elba says. “People in London, in Hackney where I grew up, will watch ‘Concrete Cowboy’ thinking it might be a Western and go, ‘Oh man.’”

The Fletcher Street Stables are also imperiled. The vacant lot its riders had long used -- and which they’re seen riding through frequently in the film -- is currently being developed. To survive, Fletcher Street needs a more permanent home. To facilitate that, the filmmakers have helped organize a non-profit, the Philadelphia Urban Riding Academy, and a GoFundMe. They’re trying to raise money for an equestrian centre and to convince Philadelphia government officials that the Fletcher Street heritage is worth preserving.

“We’ve been losing these stables one by one to gentrification. Fletcher Street is one of the first and last. It’s kind of like our history is being erased,” says Erin Brown, director of the Philadelphia Urban Riding Academy.

Brown, who served as a consultant, extra and stunt rider on the film, first started riding as a 6-year-old. She vividly remembers, as a kid, watching the cowboys riding down the street from her great-aunt’s porch. Since then, Fletcher Street has been her home.

“You come to the stables and you feel this love,” says Brown. “It builds you as a person.”

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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

Jake Coyle, The Associated Press

Myanmar junta deepens violence with new air attacks in east

MAE SAM LAEP, Thailand — The military launched more airstrikes Tuesday in eastern Myanmar after earlier attacks forced thousands of ethnic Karen to flee into Thailand and further escalating violence two months after the junta seized power.

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Thailand’s prime minister said the villagers who fled the weekend airstrikes returned home of their own accord, denying that his country’s security forces had forced them back.

But the situation in eastern Myanmar appeared to be getting more, not less, dangerous.

The Karen National Union, the main political body representing the Karen minority, said the airstrikes were the latest case of Myanmar's military breaking a cease-fire agreement and it would have to respond.

The attacks came as protests continued in Myanmar cities against the coup Feb. 1 that ousted an elected civilian government and reversed a decade of progress toward democracy in the Southeast Asian country. Hundreds of civilians have been killed by security forces trying to put down opposition to the coup.

The U.S. State Department on Tuesday ordered non-essential U.S. diplomats and their families to leave Myanmar, expecting the protests to continue. The U.S. earlier suspended a trade deal and imposed sanctions on junta leaders as well as restricted business with military holding companies.

Tuesday's air raids in eastern Myanmar killed six civilians and wounded 11, said Saw Taw Nee, head of the KNU's foreign affairs department.

Dave Eubank, a member of the Free Burma Rangers, which provides medical assistance in the region, provided the same information on casualties.

The KNU has been fighting for greater autonomy for the Karen people. It issued a statement from one of its armed units saying “military ground troops are advancing into our territories from all fronts” and vowing to respond.

“We have no other options left but to confront these serious threats posed by the illegitimate military junta’s army in order to defend our territory, our Karen peoples, and their self-determination rights,” said the statement, issued in the name of the KNU office for the district that was first attacked on Saturday.

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, speaking before the latest air attacks, said his country is ready to shelter anyone who is escaping fighting, as Thailand has done many times for decades. His comments came a day after humanitarian groups said Thailand has been sending back some of the thousands of people who fled.

“There is no influx of refugees yet. We asked those who crossed to Thailand if they have any problem in their area. When they say no problem, we just asked them to return to their land first. We asked, we did not use any force,” Prayuth told reporters.

“We won’t push them back,” he said. ’If they are having fighting, how can we do so? But if they don’t have any fighting at the moment, can they go back first?”

The governor of Thailand's Mae Hong Son province, where as many as 3,000 refugees had sought shelter, said later that those still on Thai soil were expected to return to their own country in a day or two.

Video: Myanmar forces kill dozens to clear protesters (The Canadian Press)

Protests against the junta continued in several Myanmar cities Tuesday despite its lethal crackdown that killed more than 100 people on Saturday alone.

Engineers, teachers and students from the technology university in the southern city of Dawei marched without incident.

The number of protesters killed in the city rose to eight with the announcement of the death of a teenager who was shot by soldiers on Saturday as he rode a motorbike with two friends. According to local media, a hospital certificate attributed his death to “serious injuries as he fell from a motorbike.”

Medical workers in Mandalay, the country’s second-biggest city, honoured three of their colleagues who have been killed by security forces. The two doctors and a nurse were remembered in a simple ceremony in front of a banner with their photographs and the words “Rest In Power.”

At a cemetery in the biggest city, Yangon, three families gave their last farewells to relatives killed Monday in a night of chaos in the South Dagon neighbourhood. Residents said police and soldiers moved through the streets firing randomly with live ammunition.

At least 510 protesters have been killed since the coup, according to Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which counts those it can document and says the actual toll is likely much higher. It says 2,574 people have been detained, a total that includes the deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party was reelected in the November elections by a landslide.

At Thailand’s Mae Sam Laep village along the Salween River, which forms the border with Myanmar, paramilitary Thai Rangers on Tuesday twice waved off a boat that had come from the other side carrying seven people, including one lying flat and another with a bandage on his head. But ambulances soon arrived on the Thai side and it landed anyway.

Thai villagers helped medical staff carry the injured people on stretchers to a small clinic at a nearby checkpoint. One man had large bruises on his back with open wounds, an injury one medical staffer said could have been caused by an explosion.

An elderly woman in the group had small cuts and scabs all over her face. Thai nurses in protective gear to guard against COVID-19 attended to her, testing her and others for the coronavirus.

Another villager from the boat, 48-year-old Aye Ja Bi, said he had been wounded by a bomb dropped by a plane. His legs were hit by shrapnel and his ears were ringing, he said, but he was unable to travel to get help until Tuesday.

The airstrikes appeared to be retaliation for an attack by guerrillas under the command of the KNU on a government military outpost in which they claimed to have killed 10 soldiers and captured eight. Tuesday's KNU statement charged that the strikes had been planned before that.

About 2,500-3,000 refugees crossed into Thailand on Sunday, according to several humanitarian aid agencies who have long worked with the Karen.

They said on Monday, however, that Thai soldiers had begun to force people to return to Myanmar.

“They told them it was safe to go back even though it is not safe. They were afraid to go back but they had no choice,” said a spokesperson for the Karen Peace Support Network, a group of Karen civil society organizations in Myanmar.

The army has restricted journalists’ access to the area where the villagers crossed the border.

Myanmar’s government has battled Karen guerrillas on and off for years — along with other ethnic minorities seeking more autonomy — but the airstrikes marked a major escalation of violence.

Political organizations representing the Karen and Kachin in northern Myanmar have warned in recent weeks that junta forces have been shooting protesters in their regions and threatening a response.

They were joined Tuesday by the Three Brothers Alliance, which represent the guerrilla armies of the Rakhine, Kokang and Ta-ang — also known as Palaung. The alliance said if the killing of protesters did not stop immediately, they would abandon a self-declared cease-fire and join with other groups to protect the people.

The statements from the various ethnic minority groups seemed to suggest their own militaries would respond within their home regions, not in the cities of central Myanmar where the protests and the junta's repression have been the strongest.

Supporters of the protest movement are hoping that the ethnic armed groups could help pressure the junta. Protest leaders in hiding say they have held talks, but there have been no commitments.

Tassanee Vejpongsa, The Associated Press

Blinken ends Trump rights plan promoting conservative agenda

WASHINGTON — In a sharp rebuke to Trump-era policies, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday formally scrapped a blueprint championed by his predecessor to limit U.S. promotion of human rights abroad to causes favoured by conservatives like religious freedom and property matters while dismissing reproductive and LGBTQ rights.

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Blinken said a report prepared for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that sought to pare down the number of freedoms prioritized in U.S. foreign policy was “unbalanced,” did not reflect Biden administration policies and would not guide them. The report from Pompeo’s Commission on Unalienable Rights had been harshly criticized by human rights groups.

“One of the core principles of human rights is that they are universal. All people are entitled to these rights, no matter where they’re born, what they believe, whom they love, or any other characteristic,” Blinken said. "Human rights are also co-equal; there is no hierarchy that makes some rights more important than others."

“Past unbalanced statements that suggest such a hierarchy, including those offered by a recently disbanded State Department advisory committee, do not represent a guiding document for this administration," he said. "At my confirmation hearing, I promised that the Biden-Harris Administration would repudiate those unbalanced views. We do so decisively today.”

Blinken also reversed a Trump administration decision to remove sections on reproductive rights from the State Department’s annual human rights reports on foreign countries. “Women’s rights — including sexual and reproductive rights — are human rights,” he said.

Blinken made the announcement repudiating the commission’s report as he rolled out the annual human rights reports. The reports, covering last year, highlighted a declining trend in human rights around the world and the impact that the coronavirus pandemic had on rights practices. It noted that some governments had “used the crisis as a pretext to restrict rights and consolidate authoritarian rule.”

Human rights advocates condemned the report from Pompeo’s Commission on Unalienable Rights when he unveiled it last year to great fanfare from religious and social conservatives. The report was part of a broader Trump administration effort to restore the primacy of what officials considered the values of America's Founding Fathers.

Pompeo had promoted the report at events from Pennsylvania to Indonesia and in numerous interviews with conservative media in the hope it would serve as a guide for future administrations.

Nearly all references to the commission’s report and Pompeo’s advocacy of it have been removed from the State Department’s website, although they remain available on archived pages.

The Biden administration has already repealed several Trump-era human rights decisions. Those have included reengaging with the U.N. Human Rights Council, abandoning the so-called Geneva Consensus and Mexico City rule that oppose abortion rights and restoring LGBTQ protections as a matter of administration policy.

Pompeo and many conservatives have long decried the expansion of the definition of “human rights” to include matters they believe are not God-given or made specifically sacrosanct in the U.S. Constitution.

The “international human rights project is in crisis,” Pompeo said when he unveiled the commission's report at an event in Philadelphia. He lamented that “too many human rights advocacy groups have traded proud principles for partisan politics" and that “even many well-intentioned people assert new and novels rights that often conflict.”

Human rights groups lashed out at the findings of the commission, which was chaired by a mentor of Pompeo's, conservative scholar and former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, Mary Ann Glendon, who has questioned the legitimacy of rights including same-sex marriage.

A two-week public comment period after the draft report was released in July 2020 was punctuated by angry denouncements of a pullback in the U.S. commitment to human rights, but the commission chose to make only minor revisions in response.

In presenting the annual human rights reports, which cover only 2020 and were largely prepared prior to President Joe Biden's inauguration under Trump administration guidelines, Blinken said he had instructed the State Department to restore sections on reproductive rights to future editions.

He ordered the department to prepare addendums to the 2020 reports that include information about maternal mortality, discrimination against women in accessing sexual and reproductive health care and government policies about access to contraception and skilled health care during pregnancy and childbirth.

The reports highlighted concerns about abuses in China, Iran, Russia, Myanmar, Belarus and other authoritarian nations.

AFTER FAILING TO CONFRONT SAUDI ARABIA AND MBS OVER ASSISSINATION OF AN SAUDI ARABIAN AMERICAN JOURNALIST

They called out China for committing what both the Trump and Biden administrations have characterized as “genocide" against Uighur Muslims and other minorities in China's western Xinjiang region. They identified continued atrocities committed against Syrians by President Bashar Assad's government and the devastating impact that the war in Yemen has had on human rights.

The reports also noted actions by the Russian government against political dissidents, like opposition figure Alexei Navalny, and peaceful protestors, continuing corruption by Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his top aides, and restrictions imposed on political speech by governments in Cuba, Nicaragua, Turkmenistan and Zimbabwe.

Matthew Lee, The Associated Press